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DEPOSITED BY THE

LINONIAN AND BROTHERS LIBRARY

A
HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY
OF THE
BRITISH DEPENDENCIES VOL. VII
INDIA
PART I. History to the End of the
East India Company
BY
P. E. ROBERTS
SOMETIME SCHOLAR OF WORCESTER COLLEGE, OXFORD

OXFORD
AT THE CLARENDON PRESS
M DCCCq XVI

Oxford University Press
London Edinburgh Glasgo<w Neiv Tork
Toronto Melbourne Bombay
Humphrey Milford M. A. Publisher to the University

ERRATA
P. IO, 1. 1,for 1062 read 1026
P. 185, 1. 3 from mi., for 1773 read ITJ^
?• i93> !• 3 fro™ end, for made rsa^? completed
P. 357, 11. 16-17, for Sladhia two months later read Sindhia, in
~spite of this, had been
P. 259, 1. Itfor Holkar read the Bhonsla
P. 317, 1. 5 from end, for 1858 read 1838
P. 370, 1. ei,for May 25 read May 27 Seft. 19 16
914 Roberts India

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE
I. Physical and Geographical Features . . i
II. Sketch of Political History to the Appear
ance OF the British in India . . 8
III. European Commerce with India ... 14
IV. The Birth of the London East India Com
pany  21
V. The English, Dutch, and Portuguese in the
East .  28
VI. Early Settlements in India. The Company
under the Stuarts, the Commonwealth,
THE Protectorate, the Restoration . . 35
VII. The new East India Company .... 47
VIII. Growth of the Settlements, i 708-1 746. The
Ostend Company .... .60
IX. The Life of the English in the East . . 75
X. The English and French i|^ India, to the
Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle . . . -91
XI. The English and French on the Coromandel
Coast, to the recall of Dupleix . . 105
XII. English and French in India, to the Peace
OF Paris. Reasons for the French Defeat . 120
XIII. The Revolution in Bengal. Plassey, and
Clive's first Governorship of Bengal . 129
XIV. Misgovernment in Bengal. Reforms and
Clive's second Governorship . . . -149
" XV. The Administration of Warren Hastings to
the end of the Rohilla War .... 1C7
XVI. Warren Hastings. The Regulating Act and
the Trial of Nandkumar . . -179
XVII. Warren Hastings. Wars in Western and
Southern India  191
-^ XVIII. Chait Singh and the Begams of Oudh. The
Impeachment of Warren Hastings . . 201
XIX. Internal Reforms. The great Land Settle
ment. Lord Cornwallis AND Sir John Shore 220

iv CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
XX. Expansion. Lord Wellesley. Subsidiary
Alliances and Annexations .... 243
XXI. Reaction from the Policy of Annexation.
Lord Cornwallis, Sir George Barlow, Lord
Minto  263
XXIL Final Defeat of the Maratha Confederacy.
Lord Hastings . .... 276
XXIIL The first Burmese War. Lord Amherst . . 292
XXIV. Lord William Bentinck and Internal Re
forms  . . 3°°
XXV. The first Afghan War. Lord Auckland and
Lord Ellenborough .... . 3'°
XXVI. The Annexation of Sind under Lord Ellen-
borough .  325
XXVII. The first and second Sikh Wars and the
Conquest of the Punjab. Lord Hardinge
and Lord Dalhousie ... . 333
XXVIII. The second Burmese War. Lord Dalhousie.
The Doctrine of Lapse ... . 347
XXIX. The Causes of the Mutiny. Lord Canning . 359
XXX. The Mutiny  368
XXXI The End of the East India Company . . 378
INDEX  . ... 387

LIST OF MAPS

India, showing physical features . . . . 4, c
India in 1605 . . . . .29
Sketch-map of the Camatic . . .... 93
Sketch-map of parts of Bengal, Bihar, and Oudh .
India in 1795 
Sketch-map to illustrate the Maratha Wars ....
Sketch-map to illustrate the Burmese Wars, 1826, 1852, 1885
Ranjit Singh's Dominions in 1839
India in 1857 (the Mutiny year) ... . .

131 221253293
335
371

HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF
INDIA
CHAPTER I
PHYSICAL AND GEOGRAPHICAL PBATTJKES
The geography of India will be treated fully in a separate
volume, and in this chapter only such broad aspects of the
subject will be indicated as are absolutely necessary for
a right understanding of the history.
The natural frontiers of India are mountains and sea, and
this fact has had a preponderating influence upon her annals.
From the mouth of the Indus on the west to the delta of
the Ganges on the east the waters of the Arabian Sea and
the Indian Ocean wash the shores of the great triangular
peninsula of central and southern India. A vast irregular
semicircle of mountains, with a few breaks in the line,
extends from a point westward of the Indus to the shores
of Arakan — the country on the eastern bend of the Bay of
Bengal. This colossal natural rampart, if we trace its course
from west to east, begins with the Kirtha range striking
northward from Karachi, the seaport of Sind. At Quetta
the mountains curve eastward for a time till the Sulaiman
range again trends in a northerly direction. Sweeping
round to the east are the Hindu Kush and the Karakoram
mountains with their tremendous summits, some attaining
an altitude of 28,000 feet. Thence the mighty double bar
rier of the Himalayas, including amongst its peaks Mount
Everest, the loftiest elevation on the surface of the globe,
stretches in a slightly concave south-eastern curve to the
914 B

2 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
northern frontier of Assam. At the base of the central
Himalayas runs a belt of malarial tiger-haunted jungle called
Tarai or Duars, and beneath the forest overgrowth lie the
buried remains of many ancient cities famous in Buddhist
history. At right angles to the eastern edge of the Hima
layas, hill ranges of lesser but still considerable elevation
run due south to the seaboard of Arakan. India is thus
magnificently fortified by nature, for the lowest passes over
the Himalayas to the barren highlands of Tibet are 17,000
feet up, and are therefore useless except for the purposes of
a primitive form of trade. To land armies she is vulnerable
only from the west and north-west region of the mountain
barrier, where the passes of the Khyber, Kurram, and Bolan
lead down frorti the eastern edge of the Iranian plateau into
the wide plains of the Punjab. Through their grim and
frowning valleys successive invading hosts of Aryans, Huns,
Afghans, Persians, and Mughals have marched to the con
quest or plunder of Hindustan.
The configuration of the territories within these bounda
ries of mountain and sea now demands our attention. India
falls naturally into two great divisions. First, Hindustan,
which consists of the Himalayan system, the great northern
alluvial plains, and the broken central plateau of Malwa and
Bundelkhand ; secondly, the Deccan, the triangular shaped
peninsula of the south.' The division is marked by a broad
belt of hills, forest, and the course of two rivers ; the
Satpura mountains run due east from the Gulf of Cambay,
and in a deep trench between them and the Vindhya range
the Narbada, 800 miles in length, flows westward into the

' Both names ' Hindustan ' and ' Deccan ' have unfortunately a wider
and narrower denotation. Hindustan in its wider sense means all India
lying north of the Vindhya Mountains ; in the narrower sense, the upper
basin of the Ganges. In like manner the Deccan sometimes means all
India south of the Narbada, sometimes only the territory lying between
that river and the Kistna. Further the term Hindustan is sometimes
loosely applied by modem writers to the whole of India.

I PHYSICAL AND GEOGRAPHICAL FEATURES 3
Arabian Sea ; in an opposite direction the Mahanadi,
with a more winding course, flows eastward into the Bay of
Bengal. The barrier between Hindustan and the Deccan
has always been well defined, and till the days of British
rule it prevented India from being brought successfully
under one imperial sway.
The great plains of India are in Hindustan. From the
southern bases of the Himalayas they stretch westward to
Kathiawar and eastward to the northern coast line of the
Bay of Bengal. They are almost entirely composed of allu
vial soil, the drainage of the mountains, brought down by
two great rivers, the Indus and the Ganges. The Indus,
1,800 miles long, rises north of the Himalayas, and after
flowing north-west for about 500 miles in a deep trough at
the back of the range, pierces the mountain wall and turns
southward. Then, after receiving as affluents the combined
waters of the other four great rivers of the Punjab, it makes
its way with greatly increased volume but slackened stream
through Sind and empties itself by a network of channels
into the Arabian Sea. The Ganges, swollen by its great
tributaries, the Jumna, the Gogra, and the Gandak, flows
for 1,500 miles across northern India almost parallel with
the line of the Himalayas and, after irrigating an immense
basin, finds its way through many mouths into the Bay of
Bengal. Just before it merges into the sea, it is joined at
Goalundo by the Brahmaputra, which under its Tibetan
name of Tsanpo rises north of the Himalayas a few miles
only from the source of the Indus, and flowing in a directly
opposite direction for more than a thousand miles turns the
eastern flank of the mountains by a wide detour winding
first east and then south through the valleys of Assam into
the plains of lower Bengal. So great is the volume of water
carried down by these two mighty rivers that their com
bined delta, interlaced with innumerable channels, covers
a space of 50,000 square miles. The great river systems of
B 2

RIVER BASINS

GEOHCE PHILIP A SON, LT.CU

6 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
the Indus and the Ganges are parted by the watershed of
the Aravalli range which runs in a north-easterly direction
across Rajputana. To the west of this chain, where the
irrigating waters fail, there is thrust, as it were, between the
river valleys the wedge of the Thar or Indian desert, once
the floor of a vast primaeval sea. A great part of this deso
late tract was formerly fertilized by the vanished river Hakra,
flowing almost parallel with the Indus, which is said to have
only finally disappeared in the eighteenth century.
While the climate of the Indus valley is on the whole hot
and dry, and along the lower reaches of the river itself culti
vation only extends a few miles from the banks, the plain of
the Ganges with its moisture-laden atmosphere, rich rice
fields, and luxuriant vegetation is one of the most fertile and
thickly populated districts in the world. On the banks of
the sacred river stand the fairest and most famous cities of
India. Here were the centres of early civilizations, the
capitals of the ancient kingdoms, the seats of imperial
dynasties. The Deccan, which in the older and wider acceptation of
the term includes all India south of the Vindhyas, is a high
terraced plateau with a decided slope from west to east. It
thus comes about that with the exception of the Narbada
and the Tapti on the northern Deccan frontier, all the
important rivers of southern India, the Mahanadi, Godavari,
the Kistna with its tributary the Tungabhadra, and the
Kaveri flow eastwards, though many of them rise within
fifty miles of the western coast. The steep wall of the
tableland on the coast of Malabar forms the mountain
range of the Western Ghats, the lower escarpment on the
Coromandel coast that of the Eastern Ghats. Between the
foot of the Ghats and the sea lie belts of fertile plain land,
and it was on these that Europeans coming by sea first
landed and built their primitive factories and stations. On
the Bombay side the level strip is very narrow, for the

I PHYSICAL AND GEOGRAPHICAL FEATURES 7
mountains scarcely ever recede more than forty miles from
the coast. On the Madras side it is much broader and the
valleys of the Deccan rivers run far back among the hills.
In the extreme south-east is the comparatively broad plain
of Madura and Tinnevelly, for the Eastern Ghats, about two
hundred miles from Cape Comorin, bend away to the west,
and are linked up with the Western Ghats by the transverse
range of the Nilgiris.
The coast line of India, which is about 3,000 miles in
length, is singularly devoid of indentations, and the deltas
of the rivers are difficult to navigate. On the western shore
— the natural point of approach from Europe — Bombay is
the only good unartificial harbour, and though it is one of
the finest in the world, the city and its hinterland is so shut
in by the Western Ghats, which extend from the Narbada
to Cape Comorin with one break at Palghat, that till
the development of railways it was a very poor centre for
distribution. The eastern shore of the Deccan is a shallow,
surf-beaten strand, and till the modern harbour of Madras
was constructed landing could only be effected in small
boats. Hence the unchallenged supremacy of Calcutta as
a port for so many years. A glance at the physical map of
India might suggest that the valley of the Indus was a more
likely point d'appui from Europe. But the control of that
waterway passed late into the hands of the British, and
Karachi has only been made a tolerable port by artificial
works. So, though the silt-laden channel of the Hughli
is only kept open with difficulty, and its navigation is
extremely dangerous, the delta of the Ganges has been till
modern times the gate of India from the sea.^
' Of the physical and geographical features of Burma something will
be said in chap. xiii.

CHAPTER II
SKETCH OP POLITICAL HISTOBY TO THE APPBAK-
ANCE OP THE BBITISH IN INDIA
In this work we are not concerned with the ancient or
mediaeval history of India. A few paragraphs must suffice
to sum up the centuries that elapsed before India came into
contact with European nations by sea. India has been
called an ' ethnological museum ' ; it is a land with an
infinite variety of races, religions, and languages. The
original inhabitants seem to have been of a short, dark, and
snub-nosed type, and their descendants now dwell mainly
in southern India. The prevailing type in northern India
is tall, fair-skinned, and long-nosed. They are almost cer
tainly a branch of the great Aryan race which from about
1500 B.C. came thronging into Hindustan through the
north-western passes in successive waves of immigration,
driving back the aborigines into the fastnesses and table
lands of the Deccan. The Indo-Aryan invaders evolved
their wonderful Vedic literature and the religion of Brah-
manical Hinduism in the Punjab ; and much later, about
500 B.C., in the upper Ganges valley, the religions of Bud
dhism and Jainism came into existence. Jainism never
extended beyond India and is even there a declining faith.
Buddhism has disappeared from the land of its birth, but
its votaries outnumber those of any other creed upon the
earth. There too was produced the unique caste system,
which now holds all Hindu India in its deadening grip,
segregating the population into thousands of non-associating
groups parted from each other by immaterial yet adaman
tine barriers which forbid common intercourse and inter
marriage.

SKETCH OF EARLY POLITICAL HISTORY 9
Other invaders, Sakas, Kushans, and White Huns, fol
lowed in their train, some near akin to the Aryan stock,
some (and these came probably through the north-eastern
passes) of the yellow Mongolian type. In many cases the
invading peoples intermarried with the aborigines, thus
producing further varieties of races and languages. But on
the whole the Aryan type prevailed in northern India and
the pre-Aryan in the Deccan The tribes of the south are
conveniently but not very scientifically known as Dravidians,
and the ancient tongues they speak, Tamil, Telugu, Kana-
rese, Malayalam, and Tulu, are classified as belonging to the
Dravidian family of languages.
Under the humanizing influence of Buddhism, Jainism,
and Hinduism, a comparatively high stage of civilization
was attained. Many Hindu empires and kingdoms rose
and flourished, an outline of whose history is now being
painfully wrested by scholars mainly from epigraphic and
numismatic sources. About 500 b. c. the Indus valley was
subdued by the generals of Darius, son of Hystaspes, King
of Persia, and became for a short time a province of the
Persian Empire. Indian archers fought in 479 B.C. on the
field of Plataea. In 326 b.c. Alexander the Great crossed
the Indus in his triumphant march across Asia and subdued
the north-western part of Hindustan. But on his death in
323 B.C. his empire rapidly dissolved. No lasting imperial
dominion in India was ever established by a Hindu people,
though on three occasions such an event appeared to come
within the bounds of probability. The short-lived empire
of Asoka (273 to 232 b. c?) is supposed by some authorities
to have extended from the Hindu Kush mountains tp,
approximately, the northern frontier of Mysore. Again,
Samudragupta of Pataliputra (the modern Patna) a. d. 400,
and Harsha of Kanauj about 200 years later, extended their
suzerainty over a great part of northern India, but neither
founded a lasting dynasty.

IO HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chaf.
India was next destined to experience the conquering
sword of Islam. In the beginning of the eighth century of
the Christian era the Arabians conquered Sind, and two
hundred and fifty years later Muhammadan Turks were
gathering threateningly round the northern mountain walls.
Ghazni in Afghanistan was occupied in a. d. 862, and the
Sultan of that city, Mahmud, between a. d. 997 and iq%/
made fifteen raids into northern India, though the province
of Lahore was the one permanent possession that remained
to his house. Muhammad of Ghor, having conquered
Ghazni, led six invasions of India between 11 75 and 1206,
and one of his generals founded a Turkish dynasty which
ruled at Delhi. The Muhammadans gradually acquired
Bihar and Bengal and penetrated far into the Deccan. Four
dynasties of Muhammadan kings succeeded each other on
the throne of Delhi between a.d. 1206 and 1526. Mean
while in central and southern India many ruling Muham
madan Houses established themselves, pre-eminent among
them being the five Deccan kingdoms of Ahmadnagar,
Bijapur, Golconda, Bidar, and Berar, which for about
150 years before -A., d. 1565 maintained a desultory warfare
with Vijayanagar, the chief Hindu state of southern India.
Finally, in the sixteenth century a new conqueror, Babar
the Mughal, overthrew the other Muhammadan powers of
northern India. Originally the chief of Farghana in modern
Turkestan, he had made himself master of Kabul, and
between a.d. 1505 and 1525 led four expeditions through
the north-western passes. In his fifth expedition he defeated
Sultan Ibrahim, the last of the Lodi kings of Delhi, on the
field of Panipat (1526) and founded the Mughal Empire.
But in 1530, before he could consolidate his power, he
died. His dominions extended over part of northern India,
roughly speaking from the Indus on the west to the frontier
of Bengal. His son Humayun, after some troubled years of
rule, was driven back to Afghanistan, but in 1555 partially

n SKETCH OF EARLY POLITICAL HISTORY II
recovered his father's conquests. He died in the moment
of his triumph and left to his son Akbar in 1556 a kingdom
consisting practically of the Punjab with the districts round
Delhi and Agra. Akbar (i 556-1605), almost exactly con
temporary with Queen Elizabeth of England, was the greatest
of the Mughal emperors. He subdued Rajputana, Gujarat,
Sind, Malwa, Khandesh, Bengal, and Kashmir; recovered
Kandahar, and Afghanistan, and, by making Ahmadnagar
a dependency of the empire, extended his frontier in the
Deccan roughly speaking to the line of the river Godavari.
But Akbar did more than enlarge the boundaries of his
dominions. He built up an administrative and financial
system which gave a definite form and cohesion to Mughal
sovereignty. The empire was divided into fifteen subahs
or provinces, each under a governor or viceroy known as
Subadar, Nawab, or Nazim, with a financial officer to assist
him known as the Diwan. Muhammadan political termino
logy is not very scientific. Properly speaking the title
Subadar would seem to be applied to the rulers of the
great provinces, and that of Nawab to his subordinates, the
governors of the lesser subdivisions. Thus the Subadar of
the Deccan was the overlord of the Nawab of the Carnatic.
Often, however, these titles seem to be interchangeable;
Bengal was politically perhaps the most important province
of all, but its ruler was more often styled Nawab than
Subadar. In India the bulk of the state revenue has always
been derived from the soil, and Akbar's great Hindu minister,
Todar Mall, carried through the first great land settlement,
i. e. he determined and placed on record the proportion of
the produce that must be paid to the treasury by the
cultivators, as Crown rent.
Up to this time the Mughal sway in Hindustan had been
little more than a military occupation, but Akbar left to his
son Jahangir (1605-27) — almost coeval with James I, to
whom in character he has been compared — an empire strong

T2 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
and well administered. It was in the latter's reign that the
English acquired their first factory on the Indian coast, and
at his court that Sir Thomas Roe resided for three years as
ambassador from the King of England. For about a hundred
years from the accession of Jahangir, the Mughal Empire
was governed by a line of able and powerful rulers, and the
general peace they maintained throughout northern and
central India was undoubtedly favourable to the growth
and development of the European settlements. In the reign
of Shah Jahan (1627-58) the southern Muhammadan king
doms of Bijapur and Golconda acknowledged the suzerainty
of Delhi, and though the control of the Mughals over the
Deccan was never very effective, the states in that region
were to some extent overawed and induced to maintain
comparative peace amongst themselves by their dread of
the great empire in the north. When after 17 12 the mighty
fabric fell into decay, the European settlers, though they
had many difficulties and dangers still to face, were left
strong enough to maintain their position in the era of
confusion and political anarchy that ensued.
In the reign of Aufangzeb (1658-1707), by far the greatest
event as regards the history of India, was the gradual rise of
the Marathas, a Hindu people whose original home was
Maharashtra, the hilly territory of the Western Ghats lying
east of Bombay and south of the Satpura mountains. This
despised race of Deccan peasants was destined to be the
most powerful solvent of the Mughal Empire and the most
determined rival of British supremacy in India. The people
themselves and their ruling house were of low caste origin,
though many of their later political leaders were high caste
Brahmans. They were physically a small, active, hardy tribe,
famous as light horsemen and contemned as mere plunderers
and brigands — the ' mountain rats of the Deccan ', as
Aurangzeb styled them. They were welded together as
a nation by Sivaji (1627-80), who successfully resisted

II SKETCH OF EARLY POLITICAL HISTORY 13
Mughal efforts to crush him and gradually extended his
sway over southern India wherever his neighbours were
weak and their territories defenceless. Ranging over the
Deccan he demanded chauth or blackmail, a tribute usually
of one-fourth of the revenue, from the states not strong
enough to withstand him, and if they refused to pay it he
harried their lands with fire and sword. The descendants
of Sivaji in the second generation reigned only as pageant
kings at Satara, and the real sovereignty passed to their
Brahman minister or Feshwa, BalajiVishvanath, who founded
a dynasty seated at Poona. But Maratha power still grew,
and by the middle of the eighteenth century threatened
every settled government from Cape Comorin to Bengal and
Rajputana. A terrible defeat on the field of Panipat in the
Punjab at the hands of the Afghan invader of India, Ahmad
Shah Durrani, in 1761, drove them back for a time in head
long rout to the Deccan, but the conqueror returned to his
own country and the Marathas soon recovered their position.
It seems certain that but for the British challenge the whole
inheritance of the Mughals would have passed into their
hands, and, as we shall see in the course of this history,
four hard-fought campaigns were necessary before the Maratha
confederacy was shattered, subdivided, and subdued.

CHAPTER III
EITEOPEAN COMMEBCE "WITH INDIA
After the invasions of Alexander the Great and his suc
cessor Seleucus Nikator about 300 b. c, India, except for
the travels of Marco Polo the Venetian in 1 294-5, remained
practically unvisited by Europeans till the end of the fifteenth
century. Even the genius of Imperial Rome had turned back from
the thought of Indian conquest. The distances were appalling,
the difficulties insuperable. Yet the products of Indian soil
and craftsmanship were from time immemorial well known
in western marts. They were brought by ancient trade
routes to the shores of the Black Sea, to the Levant, or to
Egypt. In classical times Tyre, Alexandria, and Constan
tinople became successively the chief emporia of eastern
commerce, to be replaced in the Middle Ages by "Venice
.and Genoa, whence merchants carried their wares to Antwerp,
or Bruges in the Netherlands, and the cities of the Hanseatic
league. The conquest by the Turks of south-western Asia and
south-eastern Europe did much to close the old channels of
commercial intercommunication, and dealt a serious blow
at the prosperity of the Italian republics and the marts in
northern and central Europe with which they were con
nected. The onslaught of the Ottoman power, however,
only hastened a movement that was in any case inevitable.
The discovery of the ocean route to India could not be
indefinitely postponed, though the barrier interposed across
the ancient land paths stimulated the cause of maritime
enterprise. The ancient fame of India and the desire for

EUROPEAN COMMERCE WITH INDIA 15
a share in her traditional wealth led indirectly to the dis
covery of a new world in the West, the tragedies of early
Arctic exploration, and the full recognition by mankind of
the spherical form of this planet.
In the opening up of new continents men of Latin race
led the way. Christopher Columbus the Genoese, seeking
to reach India by the western route, discovered the West
Indies and South America for Spain in 1492. In 1497
John Cabot, also a Genoese by birth but a naturalized
citizen of Venice, sailed from Bristol with an English crew
and landed in Newfoundland. To Portugal belongs the
glory of having realized the quest for India by sea after years
of stubborn endeavour and heroic perseverance. From 1418
to 1460 a succession of Portuguese sea captains, inspired
and trained by Prince Henry the Navigator, crept further
and further down the western shore of Africa. In i486
Bartholomew Diaz was carried by storm winds past the
Cape of Good Hope. In the following year Pedro de
Covilham, travelling overland, reached the coast of Malabar
and explored the Indian Ocean from an eastern base. The
south-eastern route to India was now definitely proved to be
feasible, and in May 1498 Vasco da Gama safely rounded
the Cape, crossed the Indian Ocean, and anchored off' the
coast of Calicut.
During the sixteenth century the Portuguese enjoyed
a monopoly of the trade to the East — a monopoly formally
granted to them by the fiat of the Papacy. By the Bull of
Pope Alexander VI in 1493, as interpreted by the Treaty of
Tordesillas in 1494, and ratified in further Bulls of Julius II
and Leo X in 1506 and 15 14, an imaginary line was drawn
370 leagues west and south of the Cape Verde Islands. All
undiscovered countries east of that line were assigned to
Portugal, and all lands on the west to Spain. The
pronouncement of the Pope was universally regarded
throughout Catholic Europe as the highest possible expres-

l6 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
sion of international law, while the Protestant nations for
nearly a hundred years did not feel themselves strong
enough to defy it. Not till many hopes had been dashed
and many lives lost in the attempt to force a route to India
by a north-west or north-east passage (upon which no
embargo was laid by the Bulls) did England and Holland
nerve themselves to strike out to the south-east and south
west. For a century, therefore, Portugal had a clear field. She
held 'the gorgeous East in fee', at least so far as the
Popes could enable her to do so. The sails of her swift
caravels were seen henceforward from Ormuz in the Persian
Gulf, as far eastward as Malacca and the Spice Islands.
Goa, on the western coast of the Deccan, the capital of
Portuguese India, was acquired in 1510 and fortified fac
tories were established at Quiloa, Mombassa, and Melinde
on the east coast of Africa, at Ormuz in the Persian Gulf,
at Diu, Daman, and Cochin on the coast of Malabar, and
at Malacca in Malaysia. The period of Portuguese supre
macy produced some great names, especially those of Vasco
da Gama, Almeida (1505-9), and Albuquerque (1509-15).
It brought riches and fame to the Portuguese kings, and
inspired the epic genius of the poet Camoens ; but Portugal
was not destined to win a permanent dominion in India.
By the discovery of Brazil a great part of her colonizing
energy was devoted to the West. Portugal, says Mr. White-
way, was the earliest intruder into the East, and the East
' has resented ' the intrusion ' by absorbing and degrading
the intruder'.' The trading methods of Portuguese sea
captains had more than a flavour of piracy about them.
Profits were derived quite as much from plundering raids
upon Arabian merchants as from legitimate commerce.
Portuguese treatment of the natives often showed a cruelty
lower than the standards of a cruel age. The eastern power
' T/ie Rise of Portuguese Power in India, R. S. Whiteway, p. 2.

Ill EUROPEAN COMMERCE WITH INDIA 17
of the Catholic pioneer nation was destined to yield before
the more vigorous methods and less romantic ideals of the
commercial Protestant states of the North, but even had the
field been left clear, it is very doubtful whether her power
would not have slipped from her hands, either when the
Mughal Empire conquered the southern Muhammadan
kingdoms, or at the recrudescence of Hindu power under
the Marathas.
Gradually, as the sixteenth century drew to an end, the
conviction was reached that there was no feasible route to
India by a north-west or north-east passage. The voyages
of the Englishmen, Hore, Willoughby, Frobisher, Davis, and
the Dutchman Barents, were not unfruitful either in the
field of commerce or that of geographical exploration.
Hore reached Newfoundland in 1536, Sir Hugh Willoughby
discovered Nova Zembla and explored the northern coast of
Russia. His voyage resulted in the foundation of the
Russia or Muscovy Company which opened to English
merchants an overland trade with Persia. Frobisher (1575-8)
and Davis (1585-7) traversed the fringe of the Arctic regions
to the north-west, while the Dutchman Barents (1594-6)
made desperate attempts to break through to the north-east,
in the course of which he visited Staten Island and Spitz-
bergen. In 15 19-21 a Spanish squadron accomplished the
dream of Columbus in reaching the East Indies by the
western route. It was commanded by Ferdinand Magellan,
who, having served under and quarrelled with Albuquerque,
offered his services to the Emperor Charles V. He coasted
down the shores of South America, passed through the
straits that have immortalized his name, and voyaged across
the vast expanse of the Pacific to the Philippines. There he
himself was killed, but the expedition reached the Moluccas
and one ship returned to the port of embarkation, having
thus completed the circumnavigation of the globe. This
was a wonderful feat in view of the small vessels and rude

1 8 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
nautical instruments of the time, and it clearly showed that
of the possible southern routes the one to the south-west
was so tedious and circuitous that it could never be com
mercially profitable.
Three causes, geographical, religious, and political, thus
converged to make England and Holland openly refuse to
obey any longer the Papal Bull. First, their despair of
discovering the northern passage. Secondly, their rebellion
from the Pope's spiritual authority. Thirdly, the forcible
annexation by Spain of the kingdom of Portugal in 1580,
which set a totally different aspect upon the question.
England ever since 1386 (the Treaty of Westminster) had
remained on friendly terms with Portugal, and the United
Netherlands had traded freely with Lisbon, the commodities
of eastern marts being shipped thence to Antwerp for dis
tribution amidst the ports of northern Europe. After 1580
the port of Lisbon, now under the territorial sovereignty of
Philip II, closed its gates to the rebels of the Low Countries,
and Elizabeth of England was gradually driven by her people,
by the merchants and the buccaneers, to make open war
with Spain. In 1579 Sir Francis Drake on his way round
the world visited the Moluccas, or Spice Islands, in the
East Indies by the south-western route and is said to have
entered into treaty relations with the chief of Ternate.
From this date it was inevitable that England and Holland
should openly challenge the supremacy of Portugal in the
Indian Ocean. Spain even ofifered in 1607 to renounce
her claim to sovereignty over the United Provinces if the
Dutch would abandon the navigation of the Indies. The
English and Dutch assault upon the Portuguese monopoly
was contemporaneous, and it was quite an open question in
the race for pre-eminence which nation would be the first to
reach its goal. It is impossible here within the space at our
disposal to describe in detail the fluctuations in fortune and
the progressive steps by which now England, now Holland

Ill EUROPEAN COMMERCE WITH INDIA 19
pushed forward her pioneering flag. Broadly, and in outline,
the course of events was as follows. The East India Com
panies of the two nations were founded within a few years
of each other. The English Company was the first to be
incorporated, but for many years it lagged behind the great
Company of the United Netherlands in power and prosperity.
For the first decades of the seventeenth century both nations
were forced to make their way in the teeth of Portuguese
resistance, but when that was surmounted, they turned
jealously upon one another. Both coveted the Far East, the
Malay Archipelago, rather than the mainland of India, as the
fairer and more profitable inheritance, and there ultimately
the Dutch secured their hold, driving out the English by
their superior physical force, and keeping them out by the
restrictive and monopolizing spirit that in the seventeenth
century dominated the colonial policy of Holland. The
English reluctantly and perforce were driven to develop
their settlements on the mainland, little realizing at the time
that India itself was destined to confer on its possessors the
sovereignty of the East, while the attractive Spice Islands
were in reality a seductive by-path leading those who fol
lowed it astray from the road to dominion. The Dutch had
thus early in their eastern history been led into a cardinal
error, but it was an error impossible for them or any other
nation to avoid in the light of contemporary knowledge.
Nor would it be fair to attribute wholly to this initial step
the fact that the Enghsh and not the Dutch were ultimately
to attain supremacy in the East. Dutch power in India
was largely jeopardized on European battlefields. The
eastern dominion of Holland, compact and profitable, is
even now no mean inheritance, and is perhaps as great in
extent and achievement as it ever could have been, in view
of the endless political difficulties from European complica
tions that beset the path of Dutch statesmen. It was on
the Dutch pattern that the English of the seventeenth
c 2

20 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA
century consciously modelled their administrative system in
India. ' Our design in the whole', wrote the Court in 1687,
' is to set up the Dutch government among the English in
India (than which a better cannot be invented) for the good
of posterity and to put us upon an equal foot of power with
them to defend or off'end or enlarge the English dominion,
and unite the strength of our nation under one entire and
absolute command subject to us as we are and ever shall
be most dutiful to our sovereign, with this distinction that
we will always observe our own old English terms, viz.
Attorney General instead of Fiscal. . . . President and Agent
instead of Commandore, Directore, or Commissaries."
Such is the barest outline of the course of events. The
history of Holland in the East can only be dealt with in
detail where it touches that of Great Britain, and even so
the narrative must necessarily be summarized.
' India Office Records, Letter Book No 8, Dispatch to Fort St. George,
Sept. 28, 1687.

CHAPTER IV
THE BIBTH OP THE LONDON EAST INDIA COMPANY
The visit of Sir Francis Drake to the Moluccas in 1579
has already been noticed. It was prophetic of what was to
come. The craving of adventurous Englishmen to sail
southwards and eastwards could no longer be kept back by
the calculating policy of the Queen, who, a slave now to the
purely negative and dilatory policy that had served her so
well at the opening of her reign, still blew hot and cold in
her reluctance to come to an open breach with Philip of
Spain. She braced herself in 1580 to declare to the Spanish
ambassador that 'the ocean was free to all, for as much
as neither nature nor regard of public use do permit the
exclusive possession thereof'.' In 1582 England made the
first direct attempt of any European power to break down
the Portuguese monopoly by a voyage round the Cape.
Edward Fenton sailed with four ships, but proved an unfor
tunate or incompetent captain, and the expedition ended
disastrously. The first Englishman known to have lived on the main
land of India was Thomas Stephens. He became in 1579
Rector of the Jesuit college in Goa. The letters he wrote
to his father are said to have spread in England a wider
desire for direct communication with the East. In 1583
two English merchants. Fitch and Newbery, accompanied
by Leedes, a jeweller, and Story, a painter, journeyed over
land to India. The Portuguese arrested them at Ormuz,
and took them prisoners to Goa. After their release, Story
' History of Elizabeth, William Camden, 1675, p. 255.

22 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
became a monk, Leedes entered the Mughal service, New
bery died on the way home, but Fitch, after adventurous
wanderings through Bengal, Burma, Malacca, and Ceylon,
returned safely home in 1591, to inspire in his countrymen
a keener desire for trade and exploration in the East.
The defeat of the Armada in 1588 impelled even the
Queen to show her hand more boldly. Permission was
granted to some merchants to attempt a voyage by the Cape
route. In 1 59 1 James Lancaster, in the Edward Bonaven-
tura, reached Cape Comorin and the Malay Peninsula,
though the commander of the expedition, George Raymond,
went down with his ship. On his return voyage Lancaster
was driven by storm winds to the coast of Brazil and the
West Indies. There part of his crew mutinied and carried
off the ship, and Lancaster sailed for England in a French
vessel, arriving in May 1594. In 1596 a squadron of three
vessels was dispatched by Sir Robert Dudley under the
command of Benjamin Wood, but was never heard of again.
In 1599 a London merchant adventurer, John Midnall or
Mildenhall, reached India by the overland route. He was
granted a passport by Elizabeth, and spent seven years in
the East, during which time he visited the court of the
Emperor Akbar at Agra, and procured from him certain
privileges of very dubious value. These he afterwards
attempted in vain to sell to the East India Company, which
had been incorporated during his absence.
The old Turkey Company, founded in 1581, had been
granted permission in 1593 to trade overland as far as the
East Indies, and was renamed the Levant Company, but
the difficulties of the trade route were such that little good
came of it. Accordingly two prominent members of the
Levant Company, moved no doubt by the fact that Cor
nelius Houtman, a Dutchman, had sailed to Sumatra and
Bantam by the Cape route in 1596, came forward with
a number of other merchants and raised a subscription for

IV THE LONDON EAST INDIA COMPANY 23
a voyage to India by way of the Cape. On September 24,
1599, they met together, subscribedasum of £30,133 3^. %d.,
and applied to Elizabeth for a charter. But in the realm of
high politics negotiations were pending for a truce to end
the long war with Spain, and the government were not
inclined to imperil all chances of a settlement by granting
the prayers of a few traders. The next year prospects were
more favourable, for the peace proposals had been ship
wrecked. Accordingly, a year later all but a day, Septem
ber 23, 1600, the adventurers met again, in Founders' Hall,
more than doubled the amount of their former subscription,
raising it to £68,373, and purchased ships. They asked
only for leave to trade in the East where Spaniards and
Portuguese 'have not any castle, fort, blockhouse, or com
mandant '. They thus ignored the right founded on a
Papal Bull, but recognized the doctrine of effective occupa
tion. On the last day of the year 1600 the East India
Company was incorporated by name of ' the Governor
and Company of Merchants of London trading into the
East Indies '.
The number of subscribers was 217. The first governor,
Thomas Smythe, and twenty-four 'committees' (i.e. com
mittee men) were nominated in the charter, and were after
wards to be annually elected. The exclusive trade with
India was granted for fifteen years. Thus the first great
step was taken on that path which was to lead Great
Britain to the goal of her wonderful eastern empire. It is
interesting to pause for a moment and attempt to estimate
the magnitude of the task that lay before the stout-hearted
body of merchant adventurers, to eliminate for a moment
the facts of later history as we know them, and face the
problem as they faced it. The preliminary step was one
requiring no mean courage on the part of those who took
it. They had no first-hand knowledge of the East ; the
reports of Fitch and Stephens and a translation of the

24 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
works of the Dutch traveller, Linschoten, who had lived at
Goa 1583-9, were almost all upon which they had to
rely. Peace with Spain was not concluded till 1604, and
they fully realized that they had to face the determined hos
tility of the Spaniards and Portuguese, the latter of whom
had enjoyed for a century the prescriptive right to the
Indian seas. The Dutch also were certain to prove formid
able rivals. Though the great United Dutch Company was
not founded till 1602, the numerous provincial companies
of the Netherlands dispatched between 1595 and 1601 no
less than fifteen expeditions to the East consisting of sixty-
five ships.
The task before the London East India Company was
therefore a hard one. It had to explore and map out the
Indian seas and coasts, it had painfully to work out a system
of commerce, to experiment with commodities and merchan
dise, to train and discipline a staff of servants. It had to
brave or conciliate the hostility of England's hereditary
Catholic enemy and her new Protestant rival. Further, it
had to establish a position even at home. The English
East India Company was the first organized attempt to
trade with India based upon individual effort. Portugal's
achievements in the East had been due mainly to the pro
tecting care of her royal house. The Dutch Company was
to be backed and defended by the states of the United
Netherlands, which through its agency transferred to the
Indian Ocean and there prosecuted with renewed vigour
their undying quarrel with the Spaniard. Just as Elizabeth
left the sporadic naval war with Spain, and even the defence
of England against the Armada, mainly to private enterprise
and patriotism, so there was no active state support given
to England's first essays in the East. The East India Com
pany was cradled in the chilly but invigorating atmosphere
of individualism. It had to cope with the lingering medi
aeval prejudice against the export of bullion and a fallacious

IV THE LONDON EAST INDIA COMPANY 25
theory of foreign trade. It had to depend altogether on
mercantile initiative, and merchants desire a profitable and
immediate return upon their outlay. Profitable the returns
of an Indian voyage often were, though the margin of pos
sible disaster was very wide ; immediate, never. A period of
two years was almost the least time that could elapse between
the departure and the return of a ship, even if it survived the
hazard of storm or the attack of an enemy. Under the early
system of separate voyages, in which each fleet was dis
patched to India by a particular group of subscribers, who
on the return of their vessels wound up the venture and
realized the profits, there vvas no averaging up the losses
and gains, for each venture stood by itself It was not till
after more than half a century of trial that the Company
was driven by various stages to adopt a permanent joint
stock after the fashion of modern times.
Fortune smiled upon the Company's first voyage. It
consisted of five vessels under the command of James Lan
caster, who set sail on February 13, 1601, visited Achin in
Sumatra, and delivered to the King a letter from Queen
Elizabeth. Having captured a richly laden Portuguese
carrack and left a factory at Bantam, Lancaster returned to
England in September 1603. Middleton, the commander
of the second voyage, visited Bantam and the Spice Islands,
Amboyna, Ternate, and Tidore (1604-6). He encoun
tered much opposition from the Dutch, who, since the
coalition and federation of the provincial companies into
the great United East India Company of the Netherlands,
with a capital eight times as great as that of its Enghsh
rival, were sedulously pushing forward their claim to mono
polize the spice trade of the Archipelago. The third voyage
was memorable from the fact that a landing was then first
made on the mainland of India, Captain Hawkins disem
barking at Surat in 1608 and visiting the court of Jahangir
at Agra. The Emperor received him favourably and

26 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chaf.
granted the English permission to settle in Surat, but the
Portuguese were still strong enough in India to procure the
revocation of the decree. Hawkins waited in vain for two
and a half years at Agra, marrying an Armenian wife at
Jahangir's suggestion, and hoping against hope, as he wrote
to the Company, 'I should feather my nest and do you
service '. Finally he made his way down to the coast, and
embarked in an English ship in January 1612.
The year 161 2 forms a convenient terminal date for the
first chapter of the Company's history. It is the year of
the ninth and last separate voyage,' and of Captain Best's
naval victory over the Portuguese off Swally, which was not
only the East India Company's first definite armed success
over a European rival, but resulted, through the foresight
and policy of Thomas Aldworth, in permission to build
a factory at Surat. In the first twelve years of its existence
the East India Company could claim only a moderate mea
sure of success. Till 161 2 the English had obtained no
permanent establishment on the mainland of India, while
their position in the eastern islands was weak as compared
with that of the Dutch, and in the Red Sea they had
seriously damaged their commercial reputation by the
' romaging ' — that is, pillaging — of Indian vessels. On the
other hand their profits, though irregular, had been large,
and the approval of the Crown and the nation had been
shown in the grant of the second charter, dated 1609,
which re-endowed the Company, now reinforced by many
members of the nobility, with the trade in perpetuity, unless
it should prove unprofitable to the realm, when it could be
revoked on three years' notice being given.
But the Company was about to enter another zone of
troubles and hardships. It had still battles to fight with
' Between 1612, the date ofthe last separate voyage, and 1657, when
the permanent joint stock was raised, there was an intermediate stage of
transitory joint stocks and ' Particular ' or ' General ' voyages.

IV THE LONDON EAST INDIA COMPANY 27
the Portuguese before it could secure a foot-hold on the
mainland, and even fiercer combats to wage with the Dutch
for what was universally regarded as the El Dorado of the
East, the Spice Islands of the Malay Archipelago. Troubles
from interlopers — that is, traders who infringed the mono
poly — civil war, popular hatred, and the favours of fickle
and embarrassed sovereigns were to beset it at home, and
during the next hundred years the Company had many a
struggle to maintain its corporate existence and the continuity
of its trade.

CHAPTER V
THE ENGLISH, DUTCH, AND POBTTTGUBSE IN THE
EAST
Before dealing in detail with the early settlements of the
Company, something may profitably be said of the inter
national relations of the three European nations competing
for the Indian trade, during the first half of the seventeenth
century. Such a summary will inevitably pass beyond the
period with which we are at present concerned, but it is
convenient to group certain facts under defimte headings
and to dispose of them before resuming the main thread of
the narrative.
The conflict was a threefold one. There was the
struggle between the Portuguese and the Dutch, between the
Portuguese and the English, and between the Dutch and
the English. The first aspect of the conflict hardly con
cerns us here. It is enough to say that the Dutch captured
Amboyna from the Portuguese in 1605 and gradually sup
planted them in the Spice Islands. They blockaded Goa
in 1639, seized Malacca in 1641, and took the last Portu
guese stronghold in Ceylon in 1658. By 1664 they had
ousted their rivals from all their early settlements on the
Malabar coast.
Peace between England and Spain was made in 1604,
but it hardly extended to the Indies, though by the treaty
and their charter the English were henceforward debarred
from resorting to Portuguese possessions, since the Spanish
and Portuguese Crowns were united from 1580 to 1640.
In 16 1 1 a Portuguese fleet prevented Sir Henry Middleton
from entering the mouth of the Tapti river. But in

GEOnGE PHILIP A. SON, LTD.

30 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
November and December of the following year Captain
Thomas Best with two ships defeated them in several
engagements. In December 1614 and January 16 15
Captain Nicholas Downton, with a larger squadron of four
vessels, won a still more decisive victory over the Portuguese
viceroy in person. These defeats irretrievably damaged the
credit of the Portuguese on the western shore of India, and
in the eyes of the native powers the English were the natu
ral successors' to the prestige they had enjoyed. In 1622
the English allied themselves with the Shah of Persia and
captured Ormuz in the Persian Gulf from the Portuguese,
being rewarded by permission to settle in Gombroon and to
receive half the customs dues. Henceforward Portugal
ceased to be a dangerous rival to England. In 1630 the
Treaty of Madrid declared that the two countries should
abstain from hostilities in the East. But a convention
signed by Methwold, the English President of Surat, and
the Viceroy of Goa in 1634 was of much more practical
importance, and actually guaranteed commercial inter-rela
tions between the English and Portuguese in India. The
recovery by Portugal of her independence from the yoke of
Spain in 1640 further mitigated the hostility ofthe English,
and recalled the old tradition of alliance and friendship
with the Portuguese nation. In 1642 Charles I of England
and John IV of Portugal concluded a treaty for freedom of
trade between the two countries, and definitely accepted
the Surat-Goa convention. Finally Cromwell, in his Treaty
of July 1654, extorted from Portugal a full recognition of
England's right to trade to the East Indies. The Treaty
which brought Bombay to Charles II in 1661 as part ofthe
dower of Catherine of Braganza, bound him to maintain
the Portuguese possessions in India against the Dutch.
But the enmity between England and her hereditary foe
the Catholic and Latin Spanish-Portuguese Empire was as
nothing to that which existed in the eastern seas between

v ENGLISH, DUTCH, AND PORTUGUESE 31
herself and the Dutch, the northern Protestant power with
whom, in Europe at any rate, she seemed to have so much
in common. This was no doubt mainly due to the fact
that at a comparatively early stage the Englishman realized
that 'the Hollander' and not 'the Portugal' was the real
enemy. The Dutch, on the other hand, were aggrieved by
the mere appearance of the English in the East. Their
assault on Portuguese possessions was a continuation of the
struggle for freedom against the despotic power of Spain.
' Holland', says Sir William Hunter, ' turned her despairing
land-revolt into a triumphant oceanic war ' ; ' she extended
that war to the Far East and she wanted no third competitor
for the prize of victory. In 1609 her proud enemy Spain,
after vainly endeavouring in 1607 to purchase a Dutch with
drawal from India by conceding independence in Europe,
was forced to agree to a twelve years truce. The Dutch
were now free to display their enmity to the English and to
develop their plan of campaign for acquiring a monopoly of
the trade in the Moluccas, which they claimed by right of
conquest from the Portuguese. On the high seas and in
many an Indian port, collisions took place between hot
headed sea captains or jealous commercial rivals ; a famous
incident in this unofficial war was Nathaniel Courthope's
defence of Pulo Run, one of the Banda Islands, with a tiny
garrison for four years (1616-20) against frequent assaults
from the Dutch. The representatives of both nations
endeavoured to undersell one another and to form binding
ties with the native powers. The Dutch asserted that they
had linked to themselves by treaty almost all the petty
rulers of the Moluccas ; the English put forward a claim to
priority of occupation dating from the famous voyage round
the world of Sir Francis Drake, charging the Dutch with
oppression and intimidation of the natives, while they
zealously and with good reason combated the idea that a
' A History of British India, vol. i, p. 237.

32 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
few isolated and widely separated 'forts' amounted to genuine
and effective occupation of the whole island group. Dutch
power there was consolidated and regularized by the appoint
ment of Pieter Both' (1609-14) as first Governor-General.
The English Company in 161 1, in a petition to the Earl of
Salisbury (Lord High Treasurer), declared that they were
' enforced at last to break silence and complain their griefs \^
Continuous conferences in London and at the Hague (161 1
and 161 3-1 5) ended in failure to bring about a settlement,
for though proposals for a union of the two companies were
freely made, and it was even suggested that a joint subscrip
tion should be raised, the English looked with suspicion
and dislike upon the heavy military expenditure of their
rivals and, when called upon to share it, showed the strongest
disinclination to do so. Meanwhile, open reprisals never
ceased in eastern waters until, in July 1619, the English
Company unwillingly came to terms with the Dutch, and
entered into a union giving up their claims to compensation
for past injuries. They engaged to share in the expenses
of Dutch fortifications and to provide half of a fleet of
defence of twenty ships which was to remain in the East
for the purpose of patrolling the seas. In return for their
acceptance of these onerous conditions, the English were
grudgingly granted a certain proportion of the trade. The
Company's assent to the treaty was largely due to the
pressure put upon them by James I, who then, as always,
was exceedingly ambitious of the renown of the peacemaker.
The treaty was to be executed by a joint Council of Defence
in the East, consisting of four members from each Company,
with an appeal to the States-General of Holland and the
King of England.
' This is the Dutchman who gave his name to the well-known rock in
Mauritius. He was lost off 'that isliind in 1616. See vol. i of this
series, ¦2nd edition, p. 146.
^ First Letter Book ofthe East India Company, Sir G. Birdwood nnd
W. Foster, p. 429.

V ENGLISH, DUTCH, AND PORTUGUESE 33
The treaty was ill received by the Dutch in the East,
who, under their able Governor-General Coen (the founder
of Batavia in 161 9), believed they had the English almost
at their mercy. ' The English ought to be very thankful to
you', wrote Coen, 'for they had worked themselves very
nicely out of the Indies, and you have placed them again
in the midst.' ' Within two years the union had utterly
broken down. The English were violently expelled from
Lantor and Pulo Run (1621-2), and negotiations were
resumed in London in 1621; but before the Dutch and
English commissioners could come to any agreement, news
arrived of the massacre of Amboyna in 1623, a bloody and
brutal piece of work committed by a subordinate Dutch
official, which put an end to all compromise and stirred up
in England a deep and just resentment.
Van Speult, the Dutch Governor of Amboyna, arrested
Towerson the English agent and eighteen other Englishmen
besides several Japanese soldiers on a trumped-up charge
of having conspired to seize the Dutch fort. There was no
evidence against the prisoners at the time, except confessions
drawn from them by fiendish torments and revoked imme
diately they were carried from the torture chamber. On
the other hand there exists abundant proof in both the
Dutch and English archives that the supposed plot was
a mere figment of the imagination, if it were not a deliberate
device to exterminate the English factory. Towerson and
nine other Englishmen with nine Japanese were put to
death; their papers and protestations of innocence were
destroyed, but a few pathetic and broken sentences written
on the leaves of Prayer Book or Bible or in the pages of
a ledger escaped unnoticed, and served afterwards to inflame
popular feeling in England to fury.
The action of Van Speult was not only a crime but a
blunder, and the Prince of Orange openly declared that he
• A History of British India, Sir W, W. Hunter, vol. i, p. 384.
914 B

34 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA
wished that 'when Speult began to spell this tragedy, he
had been hung upon a gibbet, with his council about him '.'
But in spite of intense popular excitement no real reparation
was extorted from the Dutch till after the lapse of thirty-
one years. James I, angered at the refusal of the Spanish
court to. favour his matrimonial plans for his son Charles,
was inclining at this time for alliance with the Netherlands.
Once again state policy was at variance with the aspirations
of the Company, though at this time these aspirations were
backed by the voice of the whole English people. Both
James and his successor Charles I used brave words, but
failed to follow them up with courageous action. The East
India Company found a more worthy protector in Oliver
Cromwell, who by the Treaty of Westminster in 1654
referred the question of claims and counter-claims to four
commissioners, to be named on both sides, meeting in
London, with an appeal on disagreement to the Swiss
Cantons. The commissioners restored Pulo Run to the
English, and awarded them a sum of £85,000 as indemnity
for the Company, with £3,615 for the heirs ofthe suff'erers
at Amboyna.
In the East, Dutch sovereignty in the Spice Islands
remained secure. Though the English continually reasserted
down to 1667 a claim to Pulo Run, re-established a factory
at Bantam in 1628 (which supported a troubled existence
till 1682), and maintained a Presidency at Bencoolen in
Sumatra till 1824, they never seriously challenged the
position of the Dutch in the Malay Archipelago until Lord
Minto's conquest of Java in 1811. Dominion in that region
was denied them, but the door was opened thereby to a
wider and more imperial destiny.
' Calendar of State Papers, East Indies (1622-4), ed. by W. N.
gainsbury, p. 331.

CHAPTER VI
EAELY SETTLEMENTS IN INDIA. THE COMPANY
UNDEB THE STTJAETS, THE COMMONWEALTH,
THE PEOTECTOBATE, AND EESTOBATION
In the Spice Archipelago, as we have seen, the star of the
English had waned before that of the Dutch. In the mean
time the factors and agents of the East India Company in
the face of many difficulties and discouragements were open
ing up trade with the ports of the mainland of India and
endeavouring to obtain permission for the factories which
their system of commerce rendered necessary. The failure
of Captain Hawkins in 1608, through Portuguese opposition,
to settle in Surat has been already mentioned. A different
complexion was put upon matters by Best's victory in the
sea fight ofif the mouth of the Tapti in 161 2, and an Eng
lish factory was permanently established there on a grant
obtained from Jahangir by Thomas Aldworth, who pro
nounced it to be ' the only key to open all the rich and best
trade of the Indies '.' A foothold once effected, commercial
ties were gradually formed with the country inland, and
subordinate agencies were established at Ahmadabad,
Burhanpur, and, in the heart of the Mughal's dominions, at
Ajmer and Agra.
The East India Company wisely determining to press
home by all possible means the advantages they had gained,
decided to send an ambassador 'of extraordinary countenance
and respect ' to reside at the court of the Emperor. Their
' Letters received by the East India Company from its servants in the
East., vol. i, ed. by F. C. Danvers, p. 238.
D 2

36 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
choice fell upon Sir Thomas Roe as being ' of a pregnant under
standing, well spoken, learned, industrious, and of a comelie
personage '.' The sanction of James I for the appointment
was then obtained — the more readily perhaps because the
Company paid the ambassador's salary and allowances.
Roe sailed in February 1615. On his arrival at Surat in
September he discovered that Downton's victory over the
Portuguese early in the year had only served to endanger
the English cause in the eyes of the Mughal government.
There was a strong party at the court of Jahangir, headed
by Prince Khurram (afterwards the Emperor Shah Jahan),
which favoured the Portuguese, and was now endeavouring
to procure the expulsion of the English from Surat. Roe
won the favour of Jahangir and lived at his court as
accredited ambassador from the King of England for three
years, at Ajmer, Mandu, or Ahmadabad. He failed to pro
cure, as he had hoped to do, a formal and definite treaty,
but he obtained permission for the establishment of factories
at certain towns in the Mughal dominions, and did much, by
his statesmanship and tact, to instil into the Mughal mind
a respect for the English as a nation. Above all, he formu
lated a policy for the Company which they followed for
seventy years, a policy which was to be unaggressive and
wholly mercantile. Roe disliked the military-commercial
policies of the Portuguese and Dutch, which he believed to
consume all their profit. ' It is the beggaring of the Portugal,
notwithstanding his many rich residences and territories,
that he keeps soldiers that spend it, yet his garrisons are
mean. He never profited by the Indies, since he defended
them. Observe this well. It hath been also the error ofthe
Dutch, who seek plantation here by the sword. They turn
a wonderful stock, they prowl in all places, they possess
some of the best ; yet their dead payes consume all their
1 The Embassy of Sir Thomas Roe, ed. by W. Foster [Hakluyt
Society], vol. i, Introd., p. iv.

VI EARLY SETTLEMENTS IN INDIA 37
gain. Let this be received as a rule that if you will profit,
seek it at sea, and in quiet trade ; for without controversy, it
is an error to affect garrisons and land wars in India.' ' Roe
served the Company well, claiming with truth ' my sincerity
toward you in all actions is without spot ; my neglect of
private gain is without example, and my frugality beyond
your expectation'.^ He left India in February 161 9.
The English factory at Surat henceforward became the
chief English settlement in the East, even Bantam being
made for a time subordinate to it in 1630. It was seriously
affected by the depredations of Courten's association,* 1636-
49, and by their rival factory at Rajapur, but recovered its
position in 1657, remaining the headquarters ofthe Company
in the East till its place was taken by Bombay in 1687.
On the eastern coast Captain Hippon in 1 6 11 landed at
Pettapoli in the Kistna delta, and proceeding northwards
founded a factory at Masulipatam, a seaport of the Muham
madan kingdom of Golconda. For some years the factory
flourished, but after 1624 declined before the opposition and
' foul injuries ' of the Dutch. The English factors even
abandoned the place in 1628, and, though they returned
two years later, they cast about for another station where
they might be unimpeded by European rivals. In 1640
Francis Day, a member of the Masulipatam council, procured
from a petty Hindu raja a narrow strip of land about 230
miles south of Masulipatam with permission to build a forti
fied factory which he named Fort St. George. Round the
guns of this protected factory grew up within a few years the
town of Madras, divided into the White Town, or European
settlement, and the Black Town, where the Indian mer
chants and weavers congregated. The Court of Committees
at first looked askance at the expense involved in the new
' The Embassy of Sir Thomas Roe, ed. by W. Foster [Hakluyt
Society], vol. ii, p. 344.
2 Ibid., p. 343. ' See infra, p. 36.

38 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
setdement and entered the name of its founder in the Black
Book which recorded the deeds of those servants who had
incurred their displeasure. But Fort St. George soon justi
fied its existence, and in 1642 it displaced Masulipatam as
the chief settlement on the coast of Coromandel, though it
remained subordinate to Bantam till 1653, when it was raised
to the position of an independent agency.
In the meantime the English, striking northwards, had
made their first settlements in Orissa and Bengal. In 1633,
Ralph Cartwright, sailing from Masulipatam, established
stations at Hariharpur in the Mahanadi delta and at Bala-
sore on the boundary between Bengal proper and Orissa.
For many years the English only maintained their hold
upon these places with the greatest difficulty, being fiercely
assailed by the Portuguese and Dutch and decimated by the
deadly exhalations of the malarial swamps. Indeed, it was
only the foresight of Francis Day, the founder of Madras,
which prevented the total abandonment of the Bengal fac
tories in 1642. English prospects were much improved by
the efforts of Gabriel Boughton, surgeon of the Company's
ship Hopewell, who since 1645 had lived as court physician
with the Mughal Subadar, or viceroy, of Bengal. In 1650
he obtained from his patron a licence for the Company to
trade in the province, and in the following year an English
factory was established at Hughli, where the Portuguese
and Dutch were already settled. But misfortunes still
dogged the Bengal stations. They were too far from Madras
to be effectively controlled. The factors sent there fell into
irregular and dishonest courses. In 1656 the Madras
Council had determined to withdraw from Bengal altogether,
but the arrival of new supplies and men in 1658, after
Cromwell's charter, made them alter their decision. In the
same year all the settlements in Bengal and on the Coro
mandel coast were made subordinate to Fort St. George.
Meanwhile, at home the Company's fortunes were under

VI EARLY SETTLEMENTS IN tNDlA 39
a cloud. As a monopoly their claims aroused much oppo
sition from the growing popular party in England. Their
practice of exporting bullion was regarded as ruinous to the
country, for the political economy of that day, says Sir
William Hunter, ' was a compound of mediaeval tradition
and national prejudice '.' Based as the Company was upon
a royal charter, it might be expected that their reliance
would be mainly upon the throne, but a Stuart king was only
a broken reed. In fact, as Charles and the Parliament were
rapidly drifting into a life-and-death struggle, the East India
Company was likely to fare ill in the capacity of third party.
There is noticeable a distinct attempt, and complete failure on
theirpart, to prevail upon theCommons to include their griev
ances amongst those preferred by the popular party against
the throne, and at other times to coerce the King by the
threat to appeal to Parliament. In 1628 they laid a formal
Petition and Remonstrance before the Commons which was
disregarded. The rebuff" from Parliament was followed by
a still severer blow from Charles. In 1635, on the ground
that the Company ' had merely intended and pursued their
own present profit and advantage without providing any
safety or settledness for establishing of traffic in the said
Indies for the good of posterity '," the King granted a licence
for trade in the East Indies to a courtier, Endymion Porter,
who was financed by Sir William Courten or Courteen, a
great London merchant, son of a Protestant Flemish refugee.
The monopoly of the Company was for a time at an end.
Courten's association did their utmost to secure an imme
diate profit without a too scrupulous regard for the rights
either of their fellow countrymen or of the Hindu and
Mughal traders with whom they had dealings. The Com
pany petitioned Parliament again in January, 1641, but
Charles persuaded them to recall their petition, admitting
' A History of British India, vol. ii, p. 10,
2 Grant to Sir W. Courten, Dec. 12, 1635.

40 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
that ' Mr. Porter had nothing to do in the business, his
name only being used, and that what was done was His
Majesty's act '.' Courten's association established a settle
ment at Assada in Madagascar, whence the name of
' Assada Merchants ' by which they soon became known.
Meanwhile a renewed petition of the East India Company
to the Long Parliament in June 1641 had been unnoticed,
and the only action of that famous assembly in relation to
the Company was to force the officers of their ships to take
the Solemn League and Covenant. The ruinous competi
tion between the two bodies was brought to an end in 1649
by a ' union ' to which both sides reluctantly consented. In
1654 the original members of the East India Company
desired to raise another joint stock while the Assada Mer
chants were in favour of converting the Company into a
' Regulated ' one, i. e. of allowing members to trade indi
vidually with their own capital and ships. Both sides
appealed to the Council of State, but for three years nothing
was done. Cromwell indeed was credibly said in 1657 to
have contemplated declaring the trade to India open, and
the Company in despair threatened to withdraw from India
altogether." Their threat seems at last to have turned
Cromwell's attention to the grievances they had pressed
upon him so long. He granted them a charter in 1657.
Under its provisions they raised the first permanent joint
stock and ' the Company passed from its mediaeval to its
modern basis '.' Ninety-one new factors and merchants
were dispatched to the East, and the settlements there
entered upon a new lease of life.
Based as it was upon the constitutional exercise of the
royal prerogative, the Company had always been ill at ease
under the Commonwealth and Protectorate. It had indeed,
' India Office Records, Court Book No. 17, p. 385.
2 Ibid., No. 23, pp. 546, 556.
8 A History of British India, Sir W. W. Hunter, vol. ii, p. 103

Vl EARLY SETTLEMENTS IN INDIA 41
when ordered to do so, effaced the royal arms upon its ships,
and even, as we have seen, attempted to identify its cause
with the cause of the Parliamentary Party, but that was only
when all other expedients had failed.
With the Restoration came a welcome change in its
fortunes. The twenty years 1660-80 may be regarded as
the golden age of the Company while still a non-political,
non-territorial trading body. Its stock steadily rose in price.
It stood at 130 in 1669, 245 in 1677, 280 in 1681, and 360
in 1683. Dividends between the years 1659 and 1691
averaged 25 per cent, per annum. The Company at home
enjoyed royal patronage and support, for if Charles II, like
his father, borrowed money of the Court of Committees, he
was, unlike his father, punctual in paying it back. The
charters granted between the years 1661 and 1683 strength
ened the position of the Company in many ways, giving it
the right to coin money, erect fortifications, exercise juris
diction over English subjects residing in the East, make
peace or war, and form alliances with non-Christian peoples.
The Company acquired the town destined to be the seat of
its western Presidency through the marriage of the King
with a Portuguese princess, Catherine of Braganza. She
brought Bombay with the best harbour in India to Charles II
as part of her dowry in 1661, to the despair of the viceroy
of Goa, who wrote, ' India will be lost on the same day on
which the English nation is settled in Bombay '.' Charles
found the place an exceedingly unprofitable possession, and
was glad in 1668 to hand it over to the East India Company
at a rent of ten pounds a year, to be held, in quaint legal
phraseology, 'as of the manor of East Greenwich in the
county of Kent in free and common soccage '. Bombay
gradually grew in fame and prosperity and succeeded Surat
as the chief settlement on the west coast in 1687.
The Company's success during the first twenty years of
' The Rise of Bombay, S. M. Edwardes, p. 91.

42 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
the Restoration period was largely due to the fact that they
were practically unmolested by European rivals. Charles II
did indeed wage two wars with Holland in 1665-7 and
1672-4, but there was hardly any collision of the hostile
forces in the East that was worthy of notice. By the
Treaty of Breda, 1667, Pulo Run and some other places were
finally relinquished to the Dutch in return for the far more
valuable colonial possession (though its worth was not
recognized at the time) of New Amsterdam, renamed New
York. In India proper the Dutch mainly directed their
operations against France, and so, without intending it, con
ferred a service upon England by checking at a very critical
time the growth of the French Company.
After 1685 the East India Company once more entered
upon a period of stress and difficulty. The early essays of
the English nation in India had fortunately coincided with
the reigns of the Mughal emperors who for about a hundred
and fifty years gave political cohesion at least to northern
India. During the latter part of the reign of Aurangzeb,
the last of those able sovereigns, the empire was politically
amidst the breakers. The provincial viceroys were getting
out of the control of the central government ; Sivaji the great
Maratha leader, up to his death in 1680, had raided and
plundered in open defiance of the supreme power. The wide
extent of country over which he ranged may be gauged from
the fact that in 1664 and 1670 he was driven with difficulty
from the walls of the English factory at Surat after he had
pillaged the town, while in 1677 he passed close to Madras
on his way to the capture of Jinji. The result was a break
down of that internal order and good government which
was absolutely essential to a profitable trade. The English
in Bengal were oppressed by the Nawab Shaista Khan
(1664-77 and 1679-89). 'The whole kingdom', said Job
Charnock in 1678, 'is lying in a very miserable feeble
condition, the great ones plundering and robbing the

vr EARLY SETTLEMENTS IN INDIA 43
feebler '.' The change that had passed over the Indian scene
is graphically described by Gerald Aungier in a striking
dispatch, ' the state of India ... is much altered of what it
was ; that justice and respect, wherewith strangers in general
and especially those of our nation were wont to be treated
with, is quite laid aside ; the name of the honourable Com
pany and the English nation through our long patient suffer
ings of wrong, is become slighted ; our complaints, remon
strances, paper protests, and threatenings are laughed at, ... .
in violent distempers violent cures are only successful . . .
the times now require you to manage your general com
merce with your sword in your hands '.' To this general
cause were added others more directly affecting the Com
pany. A curious rebellion of Keigwin, the royalist com
mander ofthe garrison at Bombay, in 1683-4, and a rising
in St. Helena, the ' Sea Inn ' of East Indiamen (first occu
pied by the English in 1652 and finally taken from the
Dutch in 1673), embarrassed the Company and brought
their administration into evil odour at home as tyrannical.
To meet these new conditions the Company, though with
reluctance, determined to employ new methods. The
advice of Gerald Aungier therefore fell on willing ears, and
the Court of Committees groping in the dark and neither
understanding the real weakness of the Mughal Empire nor
the immense difficulties which as yet made their attempt
hopelessly premature, resolved to declare war on Aurangzeb.
Having definitely decided to break with the old traditions
which had been laid down by Sir Thomas Roe and had
served them since his time, their conversion was whole
hearted. They expressed a new-born admiration for the
' wise ' Dutch who were concerned less with trade than
' their government, their civil and military policy, warfare
' Diary of Williain Hedges, ed. by Sir Henry Yule [Hakluyt Society],
vol. ii, p. 46.
^ India Office Records, O. C. 4258.

44 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
and the increase of their revenue '.' They realized that the
inevitable question would be put, ' Why cannot the Company
now subsist with as small duties as they levied formerly ? '
and their answer was : ' They may subsist as they did,
having their factories generally atthe mercy ofthe Heathens
among whom they lived.' ^ But the East India Company
since the charter granted them by James II was in ' the
condition of a sovereign state in India',' and no longer
chose to live from hand to mouth. It was at this time
(1687) that one of their dispatches contained the famous
sentence so often quoted as a prophecy — truer than they
could ever have guessed — of British destiny in the East ;
they urged their President and Council to ' establish such a
Politie of civil and military power and create and secure
such a large Revenue ... as may be the foundation of a
large, well grounded sure English Dominion in India for all
time to come '.*
Tradition has largely associated this new departure with
the names of two famous brothers. Sir Josia and Sir John
Child. The former certainly wielded for -many years an
almost autocratic influence in the counsels of the Company
at home, being four times governor between 1681 and 1687.
Some letters of his still preserved in the Bodleian Library
at Oxford ' show clearly how all-powerful was his position in
the Court of Committees, even at a later date than this
(1692-4). His younger brother Sir John was President of
Surat and Governor of Bombay, that is, really chief of the
Company in India from 1682-90.
The policy thus valiantly and grandiloquently formulated
ended in bitter disappointment. Captain Nicholson was
' India Office Records, Letter Book No. 9, Dispatch to Bombay,
Sept. II, 1689.
2 Ibid,, No. 8, Dispatch to Fort St. Georsre, Tan. 14, 1686.
3 Ibid., Sept. 28, 1687.
< Ibid., Dec. 12, 1687.
^ Bodleian Library, Rawlinson MSS. A. 303.

VI EARLY SETTLEMENTS IN INDIA 45
sent from England with a fleet of ten armed vessels and a
force of 600 men, to be reinforced by 400 taken on board
at Madras. He was ordered to capture and fortify Chitta
gong on the north-eastern shore of the Bay of Bengal
(though the Court of Committees believed it to be some
where ' up the great Ganges '), as the future seat of the
Company in those regions, to go to war with the King of
Siam, and to capture Salsette from the Portuguese. Not
one of these ambitious aims was realized. When the expedi
tion arrived at Hughli in October 1686, hostilities broke
out prematurely, and after the town had been bombarded
the English retired twenty-seven miles down the river to
a village called Sutanati, the site of the modern Calcutta.
The Emperor now gave orders for a general attack on the
English settlements. The factories at Patna, Cossimbazar,
Masulipatam, and Vizagapatam were seized, and Bombay
was besieged. Captain Heath was sent out from England
with reinforcements, and in 1688 took on board all the
English in Bengal with the Company's goods, bombarded
and burnt Balasore and sailed to effect the conquest of
Chittagong. But he found the place strongly defended and
after a month of futile negotiations, made his way to Madras.
There he arrived in March 1689. And so the consequence
of the Company's spirited war policy was the evacuation of
Bengal and the loss of the results of half a century's painful
toil and effort.
The position of the English in India was only saved by
their sea power. Sir John Child on the western coast
seized all the Mughal shipping he could lay his hands on,
and sent his captains to the Red Sea and Persian Gulf to
arrest the pilgrimage traffic to Mecca. This bold stroke
induced Aurangzeb at last to listen to overtures for peace,
though the terms he conceded were harsh and contemptuous.
In February 1690 he granted the English pardon and a new
licence for trade, provided they paid a fine of £17,000,

46 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA
engaged 'to behave themselves for the future no more in
such a shameful manner ', and that ' Mr. Child who did the
disgrace, be turned out and expelled '. The English were
spared this last humiliation, for Sir John Child, worn out
with his exertions, had died earlier in the month, having, in
the words of his employers, despite his final failure, ' done
more for the Company and the honour of his country than
ever any Englishman did in India '. The tale of disaster
was relieved by one episode, the importance of which could
not be realized at the time. Job Charnock, the English
agent at Hughli, had twice since 1686 endeavoured to
establish a settlement on the site of Calcutta, and had twice
been forced to abandon it, when the open breach occurred
with the viceroy of Bengal. At the conclusion of the peace
the English were contemptuously granted permission to
resume their settlements in the delta of the Ganges. And
so after fifteen months' sojourn at Madras he made his way
back almost unnoticed to his ruined settlement. The same
year, therefore, which witnessed the abasement of the Com
pany before Aurangzeb, also witnessed the humble founda
tion of a future capital of British India, the first step in the
realization of the half unconscious prophecy of 1687.

CHAPTER VII
THE NEW EAST INDIA COMPANY
The opponents of the Company in England inveighed
against ' the unjust and wicked war with the Great Mogul ','
and the news of the humiliating peace concluded in India
gave them a welcome handle against the Court of Com
mittees. Opposition to the East India monopoly had been
growing for many years and took many forms. There was
a considerable section which objected to the trade altogether
for economic reasons that are not unknown at the present
time. They disliked it because of the export of bullion
which was its necessary concomitant, and because it im
ported manufactured goods and commodities which they
supposed to be positively harmful, for instance coffee, which
as a contemporary writer quaintly remarked was ' most use
less since it serves neither for nourishment nor debauchery'."
Such opponents laid down the principle that no foreign trade
was advantageous to the kingdom which did not export
produce and manufactured goods and import raw materials.
It is interesting to note that, if these specious arguments —
which are often enunciated to-day^had prevailed, the incal
culable advantage of the Indian trade would have been lost
to England.
The Company's apologists in their attempts to answer
these objections groped their way to a sounder economic
theory which often anticipated the conclusions of Adam Smith
and the Free Trade school. They declared stoutly that 'no
' Some Remarks upon the present state ofthe East India Company's
Affairs, 1690.
" Britannia Languens, or a Discourse of Trade, 1680.

48 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
nation ever was or will be considerable in trade, that pro
hibits the exportation of bullion '.' It was a fallacy to regard
bullion or specie as diff"erent from any other form of wealth,
' gold and silver and . . . money are nothing but the weights
and measures by which traffic is more conveniently carried
on than could be done without them '." These writers
objected to the whole principle of state interference in
commercial matters, ' Laws to hamper trade whether foreign
or domestic relating to money or other merchandizes are
not ingredients to make a people rich. . . . No people ever
yet grew rich by policies.' " ' Few laws relating to trade ',
wrote Davenant, ' are the mark of a nation that thrives by
traffic." But they based the main defence of the India
trade on yet wider grounds : ' Since the discovery of the East
Indies, the dominion of the sea depends much upon the
wane or increase of that trade, and consequently the security
of the liberty, property, and protestant reHgion of this
kingdom.' '
A second party were opposed simply to the Joint Stock
theory and clamoured for a company on a regulated basis,
i. e. one in which merchants traded on their individual
capital as members of a guild.
Thirdly, a large and increasing number objected to the
existing Company as resting on a too narrow and exclusive
basis. When these men urged the dissolution of the Company,
they only meant the winding up of the particular group of
subscribers who had monopolized the trade since 1657, and
there was little doubt that the Company might well have
increased its capital and admitted a greater number to share
its high profits. This section inveighed fiercely against the
autocratic power which Sir Josia Child wielded in the
Courts of the Company. In 1681 a prominent member of
' A Treatise wherein is demonstrated, that the East India Trade is
the most national of all foreign trades, by ii\6rrarpis, 1681.
' Discourses upon Trade, Sir Dudley North, London, 1691.
' An Essay on the East India Trade, 1696 [by Charles Davenant].

VII THE NEW EAST INDIA COMPANY 49
the Court, Thomas Papillon, foreseeing the tendency of
affairs, suggested that the Company itself should take the
initiative by admitting more outsiders to a share in its
privileges. ' But Sir Josia Child refused to accept the pro
posal and hounded Papillon and his associates out of the
Company. 'The great Ministers and chief men at court
fell in with Sir Josia ', and he and his supporters ' do tumble
the members in and out of the Committee according as they
serve their own terms '.'
For many years individual 'interlopers' in India had
defied the Company's servants, or acted in collusion with
them ; one of the most famous of the interlopers was
Thomas Pitt, grandfather of the Earl of Chatham, who
made a large fortune by unlawful, or, at least, unauthorized
trading, and purchased a large landed estate together with
the pocket borough of Old Sarum. These men had in vain
attempted to get a pronouncement that the monopoly of
the Company was illegal, in the famous trial of Thomas
Sandys in 1683, when Judge Jeffreys decided for the
Company. The only result seems to have been the charter
of 1686, which strengthened the Company's power against
both native chiefs in India and contumacious Englishmen,
' forming us ', as Sir Josia Child triumphantly wrote, ' into
the condition of a sovereign state in India '."
The fall of the Stuart dynasty was a serious blow to
Child. ' The Revolution', says Sir William Hunter, 'brought
the Company face to face with Parliament.' " The London
Company's numerous enemies associated themselves with
the Whig Party, and as early as 1690 succeeded in inducing
a parliamentary committee to pass a resolution in favour
of a new Company. About this time they banded them-
' Some Remarks upon the present state ofthe East India Company's
Affairs, 1690.
" India Office Records, Letter Book No. 8, Dispatch to Fort St. George,
Sept. 28, 1687.
' A History of British India, vol. ii, p. 275.

50 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
selves together in an informal kind of association meeting
in the Hall of the Skinners' Company in Dowgate Street.
Parliament and the King in vain endeavoured to persuade
the old Company to admit new members, and finally the
Commons petitioned the Crown to dissolve the defiant
corporation. So far from being intimidated Sir Josia Child
expended over £80,000 in bribery among ministers and
actually thus procured a new charter for the old Company
in 1693. The result was, as might be expected, an out
burst of great anger in the country and in the Commons.
An interloper, Gilbert Heathcote, whose ship was seized
in the Thames, voiced the national feeling when he declared,
before a committee of the House of Commons, that ' he did
not think it any sin to trade to the East Indies, and would
trade thither till there was an Act of Parliament to the
contrary'.' Parliament itself subscribed to this view and
resolved, in 1694, 'that all the subjects of England have
equal right to trade to the East Indies, unless prohibited by
Act of Parliament '." This resolution, which was promptly
acted upon by many daring spirits, seriously invalidated the
Company's position. In 1695 an inquiry was held into the
Company's corruption. It was found that £107,000 had
been expended between 1688 and 1694. These revelations
caused a great sensation and brought about the political
ruin of a minister, the Duke of Leeds.
At the very time that the Company was incurring disgrace
from these damaging disclosures, an attack on their privi
leged position was made from an unexpected quarter, in the
attempt of Scotland, still legally a separate and independent
kingdom, though united under one crown, to win a share
in the Indian trade. Nearly ninety years before, in 1617,
James I had granted letters patent to Sir James Cunningham,
one of his northern subjects, to trade to the East Indies,
' Journals ofthe House of Commons , Jan. 8, 1694.
'' Ibid., Jan. 16, 1694.

vu THE NEW EAST INDIA COMPANY 51
but the London Company warded off" the danger by buying
him out. In 1693 the Scottish Parliament legalized the
formation of associations for over-sea trade, and followed
this up in 1695 by establishing the Company of Scotland,
trading to Africa and the Indies. One of the leaders of
the movement was William Paterson, the founder of the
Bank of England. The names of the subscribers to the
capital of £400,000, and the representative classes from
which they were drawn, prove that the undertaking was
essentially a national one. A Scottish pamphleteer of the
day declared that Scotland had ' been most unmercifully
cramped and fettered in its national liberties . . . till the late
providential and happy revolution ', and prayed that the
harmonious working together of the English and Scottish
Companies might be an inducement to all men to 'lay
aside misplaced passion, . . . obliterate and bury in oblivion
the distinguishing names of Scotch and English, and then
voluntarily list themselves under the united banner of
undivided Britain'.' But this generous dream was soon
dispelled, and the episode of the Scottish Company was
destined rather to embitter for many years the feeling
between the two countries. However divided the English
people might be as to the domestic question between their
own Old and New Companies, they were at one in their
opposition to possible rivals from the north. William III,
as sovereign of both nations, was in an unenviable position,
being bound either to disappoint the legitimate aspirations
of one kingdom or to fall foul of the strong prejudices
of the other. Both the English Houses of Parliament
presented to him an address against the Scottish Company,
and he rather weakly temporized by replying, ' I have been
ill-served in Scotland, but I hope some remedies may be
found to prevent the inconveniences which may arise from
' A letter from a member of the Parliament of Scotland to his friend
at London. E 2

52 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
this Act '.' The English Parliament next passed a violent
resolution that the Directors were guilty of a high crime
and misdemeanour, and should be impeached. But, in the
end, it was their own ill-advised action that ruined the
Scottish Company and freed the King from an embarrassing
predicament. They were debarred from settling on territory
belonging to a friendly power, but in spite of this they
established a settlement on the Isthmus of Darien, which
was claimed by Spain. The Spaniards protested, and the
English government left the settlers to their fate, warning
the English colonists at New York, Barbados, and Jamaica
not to render them any aid. Disease and famine, combined
with Spanish hostility, completed the ruin of the colony and
brought about the fall of the Company.
In 1698 the members of the Dowgate Association, on
raising a loan of £2,000,000 at 8 per cent, for Montagu,
the Chancellor of the Exchequer, were incorporated under
the name of the General Society. To this Society was
granted the exclusive trade to India, saving the rights of
the Old Company, which would expire after three years'
notice, and saving also the private rights of those traders
who had embarked for India on the strength of the Resolu
tion of the House of Commons in 1694. The Old or
London Company, to safeguard some of their privileges in
the East India trade, subscribed £315,000 in the name of
their treasurer, John Du Bois. The General Society was, in
deference to the critics ofthe Old Company, estabHshed upon
a regulated basis, which meant that the subscribers might
trade individually to India, but the King was empowered
to incorporate as many of such members as desired it into
a joint-stock company, and undoubtedly such a develop
ment was contemplated from the very first. By far the
greater number at once took advantage of this provision,
' A Comprehensive History of India, Henry Beveridge, vol. i, p. 369.

VII THE NEW EAST INDIA COMPANY 53
and were incorporated on September 5, 1698, as 'The
English Company trading to the East Indies ', controlled by a
court of twenty-four ' Directors '. It must clearly be under
stood that, for the next few years, there were four classes of
traders who possessed a legal right to trade to the East Indies.
(i) The New English Company. (2) The Old Company,
trading on their full capital until 1701 and after that on
their limited subscription of £315,000 to the General
Society. (3) Subscribers to the General Society who had
refused to incorporate themselves in the joint stock of
the New Company, and it must be remembered that
after 1701 the Old Company ranked under this category.
The capital of the separate traders, apart from the
Old Company, did not amount to more than £22,000.
(4) A few private adventurers, who had embarked in
the trade to India after the Commons' Resolution in
1694 and before the incorporation of the General Society
in 1698.
The private traders under the last two heads had Httle
importance, and the real struggle for supremacy lay between
the English and the London Company. It may be asked,
why did not the state give the Old Company the statutory
notice, enjoin them to wind up their affairs, and then allow the
New Company to begin trading with India ? To permit both
associations to co-exist for three years, and wage internecine
warfare with one another, seems at first sight a most im
politic course. But the truth is that it was, from a practical
point of view, most undesirable that there should be any
breach in the continuity of the trade. If left to themselves,
the Old Company might have wound up their affairs so
effectually as to sever the British connexion with India
altogether. With all its disadvantages, the method adopted
ensured a certain dove-tailing of one Company into the other.
As early as October 1698 the Old Company write that their
rivals' ' principal reliance is upon a new-fashioned word now

54 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
in vogue in all public places ; they call it coalition, by which
we think they mean that our stock should be joined to
theirs, and we are so much for the public good of our
country that probably it may come to that in due time,
when their stock and ours meets about the same price'.'
But in the meantime both parties manixuvred for position,
and the struggle was fought out bitterly both at home and
abroad before the stern logic of events drove them to
amalgamate. The Old Company at first staggered under the blow dealt
them, but as ' veteran soldiers in this warfare ' ^ they braced
themselves bravely for the struggle. On taking stock of the
position, they found it less desperate than they had supposed.
They still had their forts and factories in the East, of which
no Act of Parliament could deprive them, and the right for
three years to carry on their business under the old conditions.
After that date they could still, so they hoped, as members
of the General Society, trade on the limited capital of
£315,000 subscribed by them in the name of their treasurer.
The only doubt was whether they could legally transfer
to themselves as an association this sum, which still
stood in the books of the General Society as contributed
by John du Bois. To strengthen their position, they
at once began to petition for an Act continuing them
a corporation even after their existence as the ' London
Company of Merchants trading to the East Indies ' should
be terminated.
On the other hand, the New Company, having begun by
lending its capital to government, found considerable diffi
culty in raising new funds for commerce, and they were
confronted with the arduous task of establishing themselves
in the East in the presence of jealous rivals already in
1 India Office Records, Letter Book No. 10, Dispatch to Madras,
Oct. 28, 1698.
* Ibid., Dispatch to Bengal, Aug. 26, 1698.

VII THE NEW EAST INDIA COMPANY 55
possession. They decided to make their head-quarters in
India at, or near, the chief seats of the Old Company,
doubtless with the expectation of stepping into possession
of their factories and buildings at the end of the three
years' period. As their representatives, they sent out Sir
Nicholas Waite to Bombay, Sir Edward Littleton to Bengal,
and John Pitt to Madras, but they were unfortunate in
their choice. All these men were dismissed servants of
the Old Company, and they proved incompetent and faith
less in their new service. The New Company, in opposition
to the trade policy of fortified settlements, had deliberately
adopted the plan of attempting to establish diplomatic
relations with the Indian powers. They therefore not only
selected Sir William Norris, member of Parliament for
Liverpool, to go as ambassador to the Mughal Emperor,
to win for them the same privileges from Aurangzeb that
Sir Thomas Roe had procured from Jahangir for their
predecessors, but they procured from the Crown commis
sions as King's Consuls for their Presidents. These
commissions only helped to embroil the holders of them
with the servants of the Old Company, who sturdily refused
to recognize their validity, at any rate till the period of
three years' grace had elapsed. The New Company's servants
claimed that their credentials should be acknowledged from
the outset, ' threatening imprisonment in irons and strange
bugbear powers ' ' over those who refused to listen to them.
'All Englishmen whatsoever', wrote Norris, 'are under
my care and protection ',^ a claim which his rivals treated
with quiet contempt. They had no intention, they declared,
' of running under their consuls' wings for shelter and
protection. We think our forts under the auspices of our
sovereign, represented by His Majesty's flag flying upon
' India Office Records, Letter Book No. 10, Dispatch to Persia,
Aug. 21, 1700.
* Ibid., Factory Records, Miscellaneous, No. XIX.

56 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
them, are much better securities than any pompous
character of Consul, Deputy Consul, Vice-admiral, or the
like titles.' '
On the whole, then, in India the Old Company, with
its better equipped factories, longer experience, and more
competent servants, proved superior in the struggle, though
in Bombay disaster overtook them. There, Sir Nicholas
Waite, a headstrong and meddlesome man, only succeeded
in ruining his rivals' business without furthering his own.
He embroiled Sir John Gayer, the Old Company's President,
with the Mughal government, with the result that the
factory at Surat was seized, all trade stopped, and Gayer
himself imprisoned. In the other two Presidencies every
thing went in favour of the Old Company. In Bengal,
which had been constituted a separate Presidency in 1699,
Sir Edward Littleton, a dishonest and incapable person,
was successfully kept at bay by John Beard, while in
Madras, Thomas Pitt, the ex-interloper, but since 1697
President of Fort St. George, a man of original character
and great ability, completely out-manoeuvred his passionate
and conceited cousin, John Pitt. Most calamitous of all
was the complete failure of the embassy from which so
much had been expected. Sir William Norris was far the
most estimable of the men sent out by the New Company ; he
was honest, industrious, and conscientious, but he had none
of the patient diplomatic ability necessary for success in
the very delicate and difficult task on which he had
embarked. He succeeded, after ruinous expense and much
delay, in gaining an audience of the Emperor Aurangzeb,
who was conducting a campaign against the Marathas, at
Panalla, a fortress near Bijapur, but he found it impossible
to obtain a commercial treaty, owing to the mischievous
interference of Sir Nicholas Waite. The latter had, without
' India Office Records, Letter Book No. 10, Dispatch to Fort
St. George, June 1 8, 1 700.

VII THE NEW EAST INDIA COMPANY 57
any authority to do so, promised the Emperor that the
New Company would take upon themselves the burden of
defending from the pirates the waters of the Arabian Sea
and Persian Gulf along the route followed by the Mughal
ships carrying Muhammadan pilgrims to the sacred shrine
of Mecca. This duty had hitherto been shared by the
English, French, and Dutch together, and it was impossible
for the ambassador to place the whole burden on the
shoulders of the New Company. The Emperor made the
acceptance of the duty of patrolling the seas a necessary
condition of the grant of any privileges, and Sir William
Norris returned to the coast baffled and deeply chagrined,
to die on his passage home, worn out by his physical
exertions and mental anxieties. The ruin of the embassy
was due to the injudicious interference of Sir Nicholas
Waite, the intrigues of the Old Company's native agents,
the unfamiliarity of Norris with the dilatory and tortuous
methods of Oriental diplomacy, the disturbed condition
of the Mughal Empire at the time, and the natural failure
of Aurangzeb to comprehend the opposing claims of the
two Companies.
Meanwhile, at home, events had been tending towards an
amalgamation. The New Company had long given up all
hope of beating down their adversaries by force, and a union
on favourable terms was the most for which they now
looked. This solution of the deadlock was, however, post
poned for a time by the fact that early in 1700 the Old
Company succeeded in obtaining the coveted Act of Parlia
ment enacting that they should be continued as a corpora
tion after 1701, to trade to India on their subscription of
£315,000 to the General Society. They exultingly claimed
that this, with their Indian possessions, gave them all they
desired ; ' as it will give new vigour to our people, so it will
clip the wings of that assumed authority the new gentlemen
pretend to, and wherewith being grown giddy they know

58 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
not how to behave themselves '.' But the union was only
postponed. The Directors of the New Company wrote
in 1702, 'the loss we sustain by the India trade at present,
and particularly from the coast (of Coromandel), has induced
us not to decline entering into a treaty with the Old
Company';'' while their rivals, in spite of their Pyrrhic
victory in the East, were driven to recognize that 'two
sellers in India depreciate our Europe commodities, and
two buyers there enhance India goods'.' Other causes
contributed to the same end. War with France was im
pending — an obviously cogent reason for healing intestine
strife in the East. The question of the Indian trade
transcended for the time (especially during the elections
of 1701) all other matters. Both sides intrigued, and spent
money freely, scandalizing observers by the corruption they
practised among the electors. The King and Parliament
were anxious for a ' settlement, and put pressure on both
Companies. Accordingly a preliminary 'Instrument of Union' was
signed in April 1702. The Old Company was ordered
to purchase £673,000 additional stock in the General
Society, to make its share equal to that of its rival. The
houses, factories, and forts of the Old Company in India
were valued at £330,000, those of the New at £70,000, and
the New were called upon to pay £130,000 to the Old.
The old twenty-four committees were superseded by twenty-
four managers, twelve to be elected by each Company, who
were to direct the trade from 1702. The factors of the
two Companies in the East were directed henceforward to
work together in unity, and in some cases presided over the
settlements in rotation. A letter of the Old Company to
their servants breathes the new spirit of hope and consolida-
' India Office Records, Letter Book No. 10, Dispatch to Persia,
Aug. 21, 1700.
'¦" Ibid., Letter Book No. 11, Dispatch to John Pitt, Jan. 8, 1702.
^ Ibid., Letter Book No. 10, Dispatch to Madras, March 6, 1702.

VII THE NEW EAST INDIA COMPANY 59
tion : ' The present union having put a full stop to all
your late competitions and struggles, and the trade to India
being settled on the firm basis of an Act of Parliament and
a large stock, we have a hopeful prospect that the same will
in due time become more flourishing than ever, to the
honour of our nation and the profit of the adventurers, and
that we shall mutually concur to the retrieving the English
reputation in India, which has severely sufifered by the
villainies of the pirates, the ill offices of our own country
men, and the perfidiousness of the Moors (i. e. Muham
madans), who took advantage from both to oppress and
lessen us.' ' Naturally, however, there was still a good
deal of friction among the English in India, and it was
some time before the exhortations of the home authorities
'to bury all that is past in silence and forgetfulness ' ^
were really carried out. Even at home the union was not
finally completed till 1708, when all disputed points were
finally settled by the award of Earl Godolphin. Hence
forward there was but one Company, under the title of the
' United Company of Merchants of England trading to the
East Indies '. This body received at intervals new charters
prolonging the period of its monopoly, and though in time
its sovereign powers were much curtailed, it continued its
corporate existence till the cataclysm of the Mutiny brought
about the abolition of its remaining privileges and the
transference of its dominions and revenues to the Crown.
' India Office Records, Letter Book No. 10, Dispatch to Bombay,
July 26, 1702.
''¦ Ibid., Dispatch to Madras, March 5, 1702.

CHAPTER VIII
GEOWTH OP THE SETTLEMENTS, 1708-1746
THE OSTEND COMPANY
After 1708 the position of the East India Company at
home was secured for many years, and in India there
ensued a period of peaceful commercial development. That
period is almost ignored by historians, who are naturally
eager to press on to 1746, when the Company is drawn into
the vortex of a European war, embroiled in conflicts with
native dynasties, and itself becomes a territorial power.
But from the colonial aspect these years require a some
what closer attention. The English had established them
selves in India when the Mughal Empire, at the height of
its greatness, imposed order and peace over Hindustan,
and claimed suzerainty even over the Deccan. Aurangzeb,
the last great Emperor, died in 1707, the year before Ear-1
Godolphin's award united the warring Companies in Eng
land. His reign had been a long one, and he had reduced
the Deccan nominally to dependence — thus realizing the
aim of all previous sovereigns, but in the process he had
fatally weakened his own dominions. When he died, the
Rajputs (whom he had alienated by his Muhammadan
bigotry) were in arms, the Sikhs were causing trouble at
Multan, anarchy was rampant in southern India, for he had
destroyed the kingdoms of Bijapur and Golconda without
being able to put anything in their place, and the Marathas,
vanquished in tactics but conquerors in strategy, were roam
ing throughout western and central India, on the eve of that
great development which was, within the course of the next

GROWTH OF THE SETTLEMENTS 1708-1746 61
fifty years, to make them the most formidable military and
political force in India, and to carry their arms to the banks
of the Indus. Aurangzeb was succeeded on the throne of
Delhi by a succession of rulers whose reigns were short and
troubled. Henceforward, as the Frenchman Bussy, a keen
observer, declared, the Mughal government was 'feeble
with numerous forces badly led, and poverty-stricken with
great wealth badly administered '.' The Viceroys or
Subadars of the Empire for the most part left the capital to
itself, and, when they were able to repel the Maratha onset,
founded independent kingdoms for themselves out of the
provinces they governed.
Though these political changes foreshadowed difficulties
and dangers for the East India Company's settleraents in the
future, at this particular date they afforded conditions which
were not altogether unfavourable. The English factories were
already strong enough to maintain themselves against the
local Muhammadan governors or coast rajas with whom they
came in contact, and whereas they might have been exposed
to the envy of a powerful emperor, the rulers of the newer
semi-independent kingdoms set up in Bengal and southern
India were less inclined to dread western influence, and
often welcomed the resources they drew from their con
nexion with the traders from over the sea.
The English even took advantage of the now frequent
revolutions at Delhi to legalize their status in India. In
1707, on the news of Aurangzeb's death, they hastened to
strengthen Fort William in Bengal ' whilst there is an
interregnum, and no one likely to take notice of what we are
doing'.'' In 17 15 an embassy, under John Surman and
Edward Stephenson, went from Calcutta to Delhi through
country that was everywhere disturbed. There, after long
' Memoire pour le sieur de Bussy, 17.S0, p. 17.
2 C. R. Wilson's Early Annals of the English in Bengal, vol. i,
¦0. 282.

62 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
delay and the exhibition of indomitable patience, they pro
cured Farmans or signed privileges, which Orme afterwards
described as the Magna Charta of the Company. Their
success was largely due to the Emperor's gratitude to
William Hamilton, surgeon to the embassy, who cured him
of a dangerous illness. Certain villages near Calcutta and
Madras were made over to the Company, and a formal
recognition was given to the residence of its servants in
India. The value of the concession was weakened by the
fact that the Mughal authority itself was henceforward of
little weight, except in northern India, but, as Burke after
wards declared, the East India Company in a legal sense
now became an integral part of the empire of the Mughals.
The embassy, at any rate, opened the eyes of the English
to the hideous rottenness of the empire. The very present
which they carried to the Emperor Farrukhsiyar had been
prepared originally for Bahadur Shah, and was then destined
for his successor, Jahandar Shah, but civil disorders had
prevented any possibihty of its being delivered to either.
The envoys witnessed the revolt of a Mughal army in the
streets of Delhi, they saw that the Emperor himself, whom
they had addressed as ' absolute monarch and prop of the
universe', to whom the Governor of Fort William was, in
his own words, but as ' the smallest particle of sand . . .
(with his forehead, at command, rubbed on the ground) ','
was but a feeble roi faineant, a mere tool in the hand of
unscrupulous ministers.
The subject that bulks largest in the India Office records
during the first thirty years of the eighteenth century is the
struggle with the Ostend Company. After the revolt of the
seven United Provinces of the Netherlands, the ten remain
ing ones had a very chequered history. They were alter
nately bandied to and fro between the power of Austria and
1 Early Annals of the English in Bengal, C. R. Wilson, vol. ii,
part I, p. iii.

VIII GROWTH OF THE SETTLEMENTS 1708-I746 63
that of Spain. At various crises in their fortunes they made
attempts to procure a share of the trade to India. These
attempts proved abortive, though one, in 1698, only seemed
to fail of success through the death of Charles II of Spain
and the outbreak of the war of the Spanish succession. For
the next twelve years the Lowlands were converted into one
vast battlefield, ever resounding with the tramp of European
armies. The Peace of Utrecht in 17 13 brought about a
revival of commerce, and the subjection of the country to
the house of Austria. In their new sovereign, Charles VI,
the inhabitants of the Low Countries found a patron who
was quite prepared, for reasons of his own, to support them
in their efforts to obtain a share of the Eastern trade. The
Emperor dreamt of establishing an Imperial mercantile
marine on the profits of Indian commerce, which should
form a counterpoise to the naval supremacy of the English
and the Dutch.
The Ostend Company was not formally chartered, as we
shall see, till 1722, but commissions for single vessels seem
to have been granted as early as 17 14, and in 17 16 a pro
clamation was issued by the Prince of Wales, then acting
as Regent in his father's absence, against the King's subjects
trading to the East Indies under a foreign flag. Between
1718 and 1721, fifteen vessels sailed from Ostend to the
East. Many renegade Dutch and English sea captains and
factors, especially Jacobite exiles, took service with the
Ostenders. For some time the trade continued under a
kind of temporary association of merchants. Ships were
fitted out at Lisbon and Leghorn as well as at Ostend, and,
according to one authority, even cleared from British ports.
The Emperor contemplated establishing stations for the
Indian fleet also on the shores of the Adriatic at Fiume and
Trieste, but this part of the scheme, at any rate, was not
developed at this time.
Before long the Ostend merchants began to agitate for a

64 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
formal charter of incorporation. De Merveille, formerly a
sea captain in the English service, is said to have been the
first to present a scheme at the Imperial court. But
the Emperor, on the advice of his ministers, and especi
ally of Prince Eugene, Governor of the Netherlands from
1716-24, for a long time refused to entertain such a proposal,
dreading the enmity of the maritime powers. England and
Holland had indeed shown, in no uncertain manner, with
what distrust they regarded the appearance of ' so ominous
an invader ' ' as the new Company, in the Eastern world.
It was found that Indian goods were being smuggled from
Flanders into Great Britain. This contraband trade was
carried on in large boats with ten or twelve oars, which
rowed 'from Ostend to the river (Thames), and often at
high water have run through bridge before the face of the
custom-house officers'." To prevent this, special Acts of
Parliament were passed in 17 19 and 1721, forbidding British
subjects to trade to the Indies under commissions of a
foreign state, and prohibiting any boat from rowing on the
Thames, either above or below London Bridge, with more
than four oars. This measure was followed by other Acts
and proclamations threatening severe penalties against
British subjects concerned in the Ostend ventures, and the
letters of the Company for many years breathe stern denun
ciations against all who should be suspected of having any
relations with the intruders.
But in 1722 the Emperor, against the advice of Prince
Eugene and his ministers, decided to brave all opposition
and grant a charter. An English merchant, Colebrook by
name, is said to have been very prominent in procuring
this important concession. The letters patent were issued
December 22, 1722, though they were not published openly
till the summer of the following year. The capital of the
' Mr. Forman! s letter to the Rt. Hon. Wm. Pulteney . . . , 1725, p. 34.
2 The Importance ofthe Ostend Company considered, 1726, p. 33.

VIII GROWTH OF THE SETTLEMENTS I708-1746 65
Company was fixed at 6,000,000 florins. To attract foreign
support, one clause in the charter provided that the shares
of foreigners should not be liable to confiscation in the
event of a war between Austria and their native country.
Subscription books were opened at Antwerp on August 11,
and by noon next day the capital was all subscribed, and at
the end of the month the shares were up to twelve or fifteen
per cent, premium.
So far the new Company had made a promising start, but
the granting of the charter redoubled the opposition in
Holland and England. The question of the Ostend Com
pany became, for the next nine years, one of the thorniest
of diplomatic problems. The charter was not publicly
announced till August 1723, but the news had probably
leaked out ; in April, M. Bruyninx, the Dutch Minister at
Brussels, presented a memorial of remonstrance to the
Marquis de Prid, the Austrian Governor of the Netherlands.
The protest of the Dutch was based upon the articles of
the treaty of Munster (1648), by which Philip II, King of
Spain, and at that time sovereign of the Netherlands, had
practically renounced all part or lot in the Indian trade by
the Cape route. The Dutch declared that the Austrian
Netherlands continued under this prohibition by the terms
of the Barrier treaty concluded at Antwerp in 17 15. They
had assisted Charles VI to claim the sovereignty over the
southern Netherlands only on the footing of his right to the
Spanish monarchy, and, therefore, he could hold these pro
vinces no otherwise than the Kings of Spain had held them.
It is clear that a somewhat subtle point of diplomacy was
here raised ; the clause of the treaty was in truth rather
ambiguous, and, as a contemporary writer observes, ' it
seems this treaty has two handles, and each (party) lays
hold of that which is most for his purpose'.' The East
India Company in England eagerly supported the Dutch;
' Boyer's Political State of Great Britain, vol. xixi, p. 351.
«n F

66 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
they had the memorial translated and copies presented to
the members at the door of the House of Commons.
Pamphleteers of the day strove vigorously to raise the cry,
even then losing much of its force, that Protestantism was
in danger. If the Ostend Company succeeded, ' the com
merce and riches of one of the bulwarks of the Protestant
interest would be thereby transferred to augment the
strength of a Roman Catholic state '.^ Feeling in Holland
had been so bitter that the States-General threatened the
penalty of death against any Dutchman concerned in the
Ostend trade. The prevalent opinion of the time certainly
was that the question as between the Emperor and the
Dutch could not be terminated without recourse to
arms. But though the subject reappears in almost every
European treaty for several years, and becomes a stock
question of diplomacy, that pass was never reached. In
1725 the House of Commons resolved that the Treaty of
Vienna, by which Spain, supporting Austria, opened her
American ports to Ostend ships, was ' calculated for the entire
destruction of the British trade ', and a year later France
and Holland joined England in a treaty denouncing the
Company. The Emperor found the European opposition
too strong, and the States of the Empire had little interest in
the commerce of the Netherlands. Bavaria announced in
1726 that she would not regard as ' Imperial ' any war waged
for the Ostend Company. In the end, Charles sacrificed
the Company and his own policy to his dynastic aims. To
win the consent of the maritime powers to the Pragmatic
Sanction conferring his hereditary possessions on his
daughter, Maria Theresa, he agreed in 1727 to suspend the
Company's privileges for seven years, and by another treaty
with Great Britain, March 16, 1731, he bound himself to
suppress the Company altogether, and promised never to
' Mr. Forman s Letter, p. 39.

VIII GROWTH OF THE SETTLEMENTS 1708-1746 67
permit vessels to sail to India from any country that had
been subject to Spain in the reign of Charles II of England.
Attempts were made by the Company to re-establish
itself on the Adriatic, at Trieste and Fiume, ports within
the Empire which did not come under the prohibitory
clauses of the treaty, but the scheme fell through. Failing
this, recourse was had to other European powers. In 1728
Frederick IV of Denmark granted a special charter enabling
many members of the suppressed Company to join his sub
jects in the Indian trade, and setting up an India House at
Altona, a town belonging to the Danish Crown, but close to
Hamburg, a free city of the Empire. Other members
enrolled themselves under a new Swedish Company, char
tered in 1 73 1. The latter was left more or less undisturbed,
because the commerce of the Swedes was rather with the
further East, China and Japan, than with India. But in
Denmark the British and the Dutch ambassadors were
ordered to protest against the new association as being
practically a revival of the Ostend Company, and, though
Frederick denied their contention, the India House at
Altona, after some delay, was closed.
The Ostend Company had always bulked more largely on
the horizon of European politics than in the East itself; still,
in spite of Carlyle's famous description of ' Karl VI's third
shadow hunt, the mere paper Company which never sent
ships, only produced diplomacies and had the honour to
be ', the Ostenders had not only traded in the Indian seas,
but had founded two settlements, at ' Bankibazaar ' [i.e.
Bankipore] on the Hughli and Covelong or Coblon near
Madras. The number of vessels sent out had been steadily
increasing up to the suspension of the Company, and good
dividends had been paid.
But in India the Company had to deal with implacable
rivals. The English merchants in Bengal, spurred on by
promises of indemnification at home, endeavoured, even
F 2

68 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
before 1727, to seize and imprison Hume, the renegade
Englishman who had been appointed Chief of Bankipore,
and, as they afterwards admitted, ' had gone some lengths
that are not so proper to be committed to Black and White '.'
From the beginning the Dutch had not scrupled to capture
Ostend ships, and after the Company was abandoned by the
Emperor, its settlements soon came to ruin. The English
seized a vessel in the Ganges in 1 730, and a squadron com
manded by Captain Gosfright blocked up two more ' so that
they can never come away'." Finally, in 1733, the Bengal
government stirred up a Muhammadan official to attack
Bankipore, the isolated station, which was still garrisoned
by fourteen persons. They made a despairing resistance,
but were obliged to surrender, and were conveyed back to
Europe. The Covelong factory existed some years longer.
The Company was not legally defunct till 1793.
So ended the ill-fated Ostend Company. To contem
poraries it seemed as though a formidable hydra had been
slain. ' If one considers seriously ', says an observer in
1 73 1, ' the course of the many and various transactions
of Europe for these eight or ten years past, it will appear a
little strange, and yet very certain, that the charter granted
by his Imperial Majesty to the Ostend Company has been
the original cause of all the jumble that has ensued among
the Princes of Europe, and the difficulties that have occurred
in reconciling again their several jarring interests. After
that obstacle was once removed, we see how soon the
Public tranquillity has been restored.'' The crippling of
the Company marked the triumph of the narrow policy of
restriction and monopoly typical of the century, fortified, in
this instance, by national jealousy. Within a few years, en
lightened statesmen had begun to see that England's action
' Letter of Henry Frankland, Governor of Bengal, 1727.
' Boyer's Political State of Great Britain, vol. xl, p. 305.
' Ibid., vol. xiii, p. 143.

VIII GROWTH OF THE SETTLEMENTS 1708-1746 69
in the matter was not only selfish, but of doubtful expediency.
'The abolition ofthe Ostend Company', said Pitt in 1742,
' was a demand we had no right to make, nor was it essen
tially our interest to insist upon it, because that Company
would have been more hostile to the interests both of the
French and Dutch East India Companies than to our own."
The further history of the three Presidencies must be
very briefly summarized until the outbreak of the war of
the Austrian succession, when the French attack on Madras
inaugurated a new era in the Company's history. The
period was one of growth and consolidation. The Com
pany drove a steady and prosperous trade, subject to normal
fluctuations. The war of the Spanish, unlike that of the Austrian,
succession left the Indies almost untouched. Operations
were confined wholly to the sea, and apart from uneasiness
as to the fate of outgoing and incoming ships, nothing was
feared from the French. In the whole course of the war,
1702-13, the Company do not seem to have lost more than
seven ships. In March 171 2, runners were posted on the
road between Madras and Calcutta, and were kept in con
stant pay, that quick and speedy advices might reach Bengal
of any French ships sailing up the coast. But how little
the war affected the settlements themselves may be seen
from the fact that in 1712 the English at Fort St. David,
being at war with the Raja of Jinji, requested the mediation
of M. Hebert, the P'rench Governor of Pondieherry. The
. latter hesitated at first, the two nations being still at war, but
finally he consented to act, and brought about a settlement.
In Bengal, the European settlers felt less than in either
Bombay or Madras the effects of the failure of Mughal
power. The Emperor exercised some sort of control over the
Subadars or Nawabs of Bengal for a longer period than over
his viceroys elsewhere, though at the end of the period they
' Earl of Chatham's Speeches, 1853.

70 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
too were practically independent. The Nawabs themselves
were men of some ability, and under Murshid Kuli Khan
1713-25, ShujaKhan 172 5-39, and Ali Vardi Khan 1741-56,
the province enjoyed, according to native standards, good
government and internal peace. The English in Calcutta,
though they complained bitterly from time to time of the
exactions levied on their trade by the Mughal officers, lived
on good terms with the Nawabs. The building of Fort
William, which was begun in 1696, was completed about
1 7 15. After the end of the rotation government' in 17 10,
the trade of the settlement steadily grew. The commerce
of Bengal, consisting of silks, muslins, saltpetre, sugar, opium,
rice, jute, and oil, was the most valuable in India. Round
the English factory, warehouses, godowns, and fort, there
grew up a prosperous native town, with a population that
was estimated at 100,000 by 1735, while the broad pool,
almost deserted when Charnock first anchored there, was
thronged with shipping.
On the western coast of India, Bombay felt more acutely
the effects of the breakdown of Mughal rule. The Marathas
were now steadily extending their power northwards from
Maharashtra, the home of their origin, and occupying the
hinterland of the Portuguese and English settlements. The
descendants of Sivaji still ruled nominally at Satara, but
their palace was practically a royal prison, for all real power
had passed to their ministers, the Peshwas, who made their
office hereditary and established their dynasty at Poona.
The English and Portuguese on the western coast forgot
their old enmity, and drew together in face of the common
peril. In 1 73 1 Bombay sent a reinforcement of 300 sepoys
to Goa, but they found themselves unable to offer further
help, since Portuguese affairs in India were 'in a very
declining if not desperate and irretrievable condition '." In
' See supra, p. 58.
2 Bombay Gazetteer, vol. xxvi, part I, p. 194.

VIII GROWTH OF THE SETTLEMENTS 1708-1746 7I
1738 the Marathas captured Bassein, twenty-eight miles
north of Bombay. On the sea, the famous corsair chief,
Kanhoji Angria, preyed on all the shipping of the coast
from Bombay to Goa, darting forth from the creeks and
harbours where he had established his strongholds, with his
swift sailing ships and oared galleys, called grabs and galli-
vats. He had originally been the commander of the Maratha
fleet, but, as generally happened with Maratha leaders, he
soon made himself independent. At first he only attacked
Mughal shipping, but later he ventured, sometimes in
alliance with Taylor, England, and Plantain, the notorious
pirates of Madagascar, to assail the largest East Indiamen.
Attacks were made in vain on his chief stations in 17 17,
1 7 18, 1720, and 1737, but his capital at Gheria defied not
only the Company's fleet, but (in 1720) a royal squadron,
till it was finally captured by Clive and Watson in 1756.
Angria himself died in 1728 or 1730 (the date is uncertain),
but his sons continued his lawless sway, one at Kolaba and
the other at Sevendrug. Bombay, thus fiercely assailed,
remained weak for the first eighteen years of the eighteenth
century, and her trade greatly suffered, but from that date
a steady improvement set in. In 1744 her population was
estimated at 70,000. Though unable to afford much help
to the Portuguese, she developed, in the invigorating atmo
sphere of opposition, a strength to meet the attacks of her
enemies, and by 1746 she was the strongest ofthe Presidency
towns from a military point of view. ' It sadly concerns us ',
wrote the Court of Directors, ' to find you have such occa
sion for warlike forces by sea and land on your side of
India." But Bombay, in spite of protests from home,
developed her Indian navy, and in 1737 her land forces
amounted to over 2,600 men, including 750 Europeans,
a much larger garrison than was maintained at this time at
' India Office Records, Letter Book No. 16, Dispatch to Bombay,
Feb. 27, 1719.

72 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA CHAP.
either Calcutta or Madras. Inch by inch the Company's
servants resisted the danger; successively they had allied
themselves with the Sidi, the Mughal admiral, against Angria,
with one of Angria's sons against the other, and with the
Portuguese against the Marathas ; finally, in 1739, they con
cluded the first British treaty with the Marathas themselves,
by which the Peshwa conceded free trade to the Company
throughout his dominions.
Madras had been profoundly affected by the results of
Aurangzeb's campaign in the Deccan, 1683-7. The last
spasmodic efforts of the old Emperor brought to ruin the
southern kingdoms of Golconda and Bijapur, but left nothing
in their place. ' The governments which had in some degree
kept up order in the Deccan being annihilated, the frame of
society which depended upon them was dissolved, and the
scattered materials remained as elements of discord.' ' The
disbanded armies of the two conquered kingdoms either
joined the Maratha Sambhaji or wandered plundering in
scattered bands. It is true that Sambhaji fell, and that from
1700-4 the Emperor gradually reduced the Maratha forts,
but by that time his efforts were exhausted ; with complete
disorder in his finances, and his soldiers ' croaking like crows
in an invaded rookery ' " for pay, he made no further advance,
and when he died, in 1707, the Deccan was stiU in a state of
complete disorder. Thomas Pitt seized the opportunity in
September 1 708 to obtain from the Nawab of the Carnatic
a grant of ' five towns ' in the neighbourhood of Madras.
But for some years the Company were unable to occupy
them permanently, for the Nawab afterwards revoked his
grant. The surrender of these five towns or villages was
one of the results achieved by Surman's embassy, but even
when the farman arrived at Madras in 1717, the English
found it necessary to fight their way into one of them at the
' M. Elphinstone's History of India, 1866, p. 654.
' Ibid., p. 669.

vm GROWTH OF THE SETTLEMENTS 1708-I746 73
point of the bayonet. This high-handed manner of carrying
out the Emperor's grant contrasts strangely with the stately
reception accorded to the a.ct\ia.\ farmans, the salute of 151
guns from the fort and the broadsides of every vessel lying
in the roads.
All control over southern India soon passed out of the
Mughal's hands. In 1713 Asaf Jah (afterwards known as
Nizam-ul-Mulk) was appointed Subadar of the Deccan.
Though recalled for a time, he re-established himself in
1723, and became independent of Delhi in all but name.
There now ensued a long duel for power in the Deccan,
between the Marathas and Nizam-ul-Mulk. The policy
followed by the English during this troublous time was to
keep on good terms with the Nizam, and slowly strengthen
their fortifications. Various presents and complimentary
letters were sent to Hyderabad during the struggle with the
Marathas, as the issue swayed backwards and forwards.
No doubt the even nature of the long conflict was a great
gain to the English at Madras. Neither side had leisure
to notice the quiet, imperceptible strengthening of the
Company's settlement. On the Coromandel coast, a strong
native dynasty estabHshed itself in the Carnatic, the narrow
strip of territory between the mountains and the sea, bounded
by the Kistna on the north and Tanjore on the south. These
rulers owed a submission that was little more than nominal
to Nizam-ul-Mulk, himself in theory the representative of
the Mughal in the Deccan, who reigned over what was prac
tically an independent kingdom at Hyderabad. Sheltered,
as it were, behind this double rampart of stable government,
the English at Madras plied a peaceful commerce, remaining
on excellent terms with both the ruler of the Carnatic and
his overlord, the Subadar of the Deccan. But towards the
end of the period, the political equilibrium of southern India
was upset by the Marathas, who pressed hard against the
Nizam, and in 1740 burst into the Carnatic, slaying the

74 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA
reigning Nawab, Dost Ali, in a pitched battle. The English
at Fort St. George began to tremble for their safety, but
could look with satisfaction on a stronghold which now
mounted 193 guns. In 1741, while the main army was
besieging Trichinopoly, straggling bands of Maratha horse
men plundered up to the very borders of Fort St. David.
The success of the invaders was but temporary, and in 1743
the Nizam recovered control of the Carnatic. Four years
before, Bombay had concluded a treaty with the Peshwa,
and in 1742-3 the inhabitants of Calcutta hastily threw up
the famous ' Ditch ', on the news that the Marathas had
defeated Ali Vardi Khan, the Subadar of Bengal, and plun
dered the outskirts of Murshidabad. The great Hindu
confederacy of marauders was therefore, about the same
time, approaching all the Presidency towns of the Company
on the western, south-eastern, and north-eastern shores of
India, a premonitory sign that the era of peaceful commerce
was drawing to a close.
In the whole of this period, there were few men of striking
personality among the English. During thirty-six years
(1708-44) there were seven presidents of Bengal, seven
governors of Bombay, and twelve presidents of Fort
St. George ; yet out of this number only two men, both
presidents of Madras, Thomas Pitt and the Scotsman,
James Macrae (1725-30), have found a place in the
Dictionary of National Biography. But if few were distin
guished, few perhaps were incapable. Surman's success at
Delhi was the due reward of a dogged perseverance which
refused to be discouraged by any check. The political
situation which the Company's servants had to face was
a terribly difficult one : an empire sinking into decrepitude,
great nobles carving for themselves kingdoms out of the
remnants, and, most formidable of all, the rise of the turbu
lent military state of the Marathas, with all its resources
devoted to predatory war.

CHAPTER IX
THE LIPE OP THE ENGLISH IN THE EAST
Before passing on to the political history proper of the
East India Company, it is desirable, in a narrative which
regards the eastern empire in its colonial aspect, to say
something of the daily life lived by our countrymen in
India. The Company's servants after 1676 passed through a
regular gradation of rank as apprentices, writers, factors,
merchants, and senior merchants. The factory was a com
pact little nest of buildings, consisting of the lodgings of the
Chief or President and his subordinates, warehouses, godowns,
and offices, the whole surrounded by the ramparts of the
'fort'. Originally no provision was made for family life.
Even the chiefs were rarely accompanied by their wives,
and the others were not expected to marry. I'his procedure
directly contrasts with that of the French Company, which
definitely from the first proposed to establish colonies. The
factory was the commercial counterpart of a University
college. Meals were taken in common till about 1720;
there were daily prayers, and the gates were closed at stated
hours. The President was given disciplinary control over
the younger members, and fines were imposed for breaches
of rules or misconduct, such as drunkenness, dicing, brawling,
or insubordination. From the first, considerable state was
kept up. The governors of the settlements only moved
abroad with flags, trumpets, and the firing of salutes.
The common custom of speaking of the Company's settle
ments prior to 1746 as mere factories is erroneous. The

76 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
English had not yet acquired provinces, but they ruled
over towns with heterogeneous populations, consisting of
Muhammadans, Hindus, and Europeans trading under the
Company's licence. As early as 167 1 Bombay was defi
nitely styled a ' colony ' in a dispatch from India, and it
was in regard to that settlement that the Company first
consciously aimed at estabHshing something more than the
factory with which they had been formerly content. Soon
after its acquisition they sent out twenty single women of
' sober and civil lives ', engaging to keep them for a year
and provide them with one ' suit of wearing apparel '.'
Unfortunately, we hear later that some of these women ' are
grown scandalous to our nation, religion, and government '.
The authorities at Bombay were bidden to ' give them all
fair warning that they do apply themselves to a more sober
and Christian conversation, otherwise the sentence is this,
that they shall be confined totally of their liberty to go
abroad, and fed with bread and water till they are embarked
on board ship for England'." From this time the Court
began to allow and even to encourage Englishmen not of
the Company's service to ' trade up and down in India ', and
they declared (in 1687) that their policy was to make 'our
towns replete with people and marts for all nations '.^ A
contemporary tract' (1681) speaks of many hundreds of
families (though here there is probably some exaggeration)
enjoying free liberty of trade to and from all ports and
places in India.' This development brought with it dangers
of its own, and the new heterogeneous populations were not
so easily controlled as the old Factory house. Sir Edward
Winter, a governor of Fort St. George, being reduced to
' India Office Records, Court Book No. 26, p. 183.
2 Letter of Surat Council to Bombay, Dec, 1675.
' India Office Records, Letter Book No. 8, Dispatch to Fort St. George,
Sept. 28, 1687.
* A Treatise wherein is demonstrated that the East India trade is the
most national of all foreign trades . . . , by •iiKo-no.rfii, 16S1.

IX LIFE OF THE ENGLISH IN THE EAST 77
Second in Council bythe Court in 1665, and having refused
to vacate his office, seized and imprisoned Foxcroft, his
successor designate, on the plea that he had betrayed Round
head and Republican sympathies. He only submitted, and
made a compromise with the Company, when they despatched
five armed ships to blockade their own settlement in 1668.
The Court of Committees also began to perceive that the
scope of their servants' energies in the East was widening.
In 1687 they appointed a candidate, one of many aspirants,
as member of Council, at Fort St. George, because he was
' a man of learning and competently well read in ancient
histories of the Greeks and Latins, which with a good stock
of natural parts only can render a man fit for government
and political science, martial prudence and other requisites
to rule over a great city '. ' For ', as they added, ' . . .its not
being bred a boy in India, or staying long there and speaking
the language or understanding critically the trade of the
place, that is sufficient to fit a man for such a command as
the Second of Fort St. George is, or may be, in time, though
all these qualifications are very good in their kind '.'
The development of the Company's positions in Indisi
from the status of factories to that of quasi-colonies may be
said to have gone on pretty continuously all this time, under
the leadership of Sir George Oxenden (1662-9), Gerald
Aungier (1669-77), and Sir John Child (1682-90), the
representatives of the East India Company in western India,
holding the two offices of the presidency of Surat and the
governorship of Bombay ; of Sir Streynsham Master (1677-
81), and Elihu Yale (1687-92), Presidents of Madras ; and
of William Hedges (1681-84), Governor of the factories in
Bengal, which from the date of his appointment were made
independent of Madras. Aungier especially did much to
enlarge the precincts of the old factory by the foundation of
' India Office Records, Letter Book No. 8, Dispatch to Fort St. George,
Sept. 28, 1687.

78 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
a hospital, a church, a gaol, and courts of justice at Bombay.
In 1688 the Directors ordered the establishment there of
a Post Office. In the same year a municipal government
consisting of a mayor and ten aldermen, three to be
Company's servants, three Portuguese, and seven natives,
was established at Madras. This policy was carried further
in 1726, when a royal charter provided for the establish
ment of a mayor's court at each of the Presidency towns for
the trial of civil actions.
Colonel Yule, in his Diary of William Hedges, has thrown
a flood of light upon the social Hfe of the first century of
the Company's history. A few later extracts from the
records may here be given to show the condition of the
settlements from 1700 to 1750. In 1711, rumours had
reached Leadenhall Street that there had been much in
subordination among the junior factors at Fort St. George,
and that recourse had been had to the most drastic measures
for maintaining order. ' We are sorry to hear that of late
there has not been a sufficient decorum kept up among our
people, and particularly among the young writers and factors,
that there has {sic) been files of musketeers sent for to keep
the peace at dinner time.' The theory of the factory always
presupposed that the Head of it should exercise a kind of
paternal control over the younger members, and the Direc
tors went on to suggest a system of discipline : ' We direct
that you the President and Council, do at certain stated
seasons set apart a time to enquire into the behaviour of all
our factors and writers, . . . and calling them severally before
you, let them know the account you have of them, and as
they deserve either admonish or commend them ... It lies
very much in your power to form their minds to virtue.' '
At a time (1714) when in England any gentleman might
be called on to defend his life against every swaggering
' India Office Records, Letter Book No. 14, Dispatch to Fort St. George,
Jan., 1711.

IX LIFE OF THE ENGLISH IN THE EAST 79
bravo who chose to insult him, the Court were stringent in
their prohibition of the practice of duelling. 'You have
done exceeding well', runs a letter to Bencoolen, 'in
discountenancing that intolerable practice of Inferiors
challenging their Superiors, or others their Equals; how
soever that practice is winked at in the camp, it must never
be cherished or connived at in the factory or Counting
House, and on the other hand to prevent the temptation,
if any person abuses or affronts another let it be made a
standing rule, and Public notice given that it is so, that you
will do the complainant justice '.'
Intemperance in the East brings a swift and terrible
retribution with it. The Directors are never tired of dwelling
on its evil effects. The settlement at Bencoolen in Java
seems to have been notorious for drunkenness. We find
the following counsel given in 1717 : —
' Could we once hear Sobriety was become as fashionable
on the West Coast as hard drinking hath been, we should
entertain strong hopes that your new settlement at Marl
borough . . . would give a better reputation to the West
Coast than it hath hitherto had on account of health ... it
is positively affirmed you have good water, if you will be at
the pains of fetching what is so; it is further said that
a little tea boiled in the water doth admirably correct it,
and that water kept till cold and so drank as water would
contribute to the health of those who used it '.'
But apparently this excellent suggestion to substitute cold
tea for more generous potations had not the effect desired,
for the next year the Directors, in commenting on the
accounts of the steward of the factory, indite the following
scathing passage : —
' It is a wonder to us that any of you live six months to
' India Office Records, Letter Book No. 15, Dispatch to Bencoolen,
Oct. 27, 1714.
2 Ibid., Letter Book No. 16, Dispatch to Bencoolen, Feb. 6, 17 17.

8o HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
an end, or that there are not more quarrellings and duellings
among you, if half the liquors he charges were really guzzled
down.' Reference is then made to that ' monstrous expense
of July ... we find the amount to be seventy-four dozen
and a half of wine, of which 8 dozen and 5 were double
bottles, and 50 dozen and 5 single bottles of French claret,
24i dozen of Burton Ale and Pale Beer, two pipes and
42 gallons of Madeira wine, six flasks of Shyrash (Shiraz),
274 bottles of Toddy, three leagers (i.e. casks) and | of
Batavia Arrack, and 164 gallons of Goa'. They go on to
state that this amount was consumed among nineteen persons,
of whom some had diet money besides ; ' you tell us . . . that all
are now diligent, no drunkenness or revelling are permitted,
all the candles are out and all gone to rest before ten at
night, good order and economy kept up, and as few dis
orders as can be expected, and no other contentions among
you but who shall excel — we suppose you mean in serving
us best — and . . . you say none of the covenant servants are
out of order, which is owing to the regular living and good
table you keep. Doth the above expense and these fine
characters agree ? Be yourselves, when sober, the judges.' '
Another grievance of the authorities at home was the
amount of powder sometimes wasted in salutes. It is said
that a Portuguese ship once emptied her magazine in com
plimentary salvoes, and when war broke out and she met
an enemy on the open seas, her guns were of necessity
silent. Among the French Company's servants the prac
tice of saluting was carried to an almost grotesque extent,
and every movement of the governor was accompanied by
the roar of artillery. In like manner, we find the settlers of
St. Helena not proof against this weakness ; they expended
their masters' powder not only on every public occasion,
but on festivals of a purely private and domestic nature.
' India Office Records, Letter Book No. 16, Dispatch to Bencoolen,
March 14, 1718.

IX LIFE OF THE ENGLISH IN THE EAST 8l
' We directed for every ship of ours that comes in or
departs, generally seven or nine guns, and (yet) when the
fleet went away in July 1712, there is 385 pounds weight
of powder charged as expended, and 134 guns fired, of
which six and twenty of your greatest guns on the place.
These, we think, too much, and for the future expect better
husbandry. . . . We allow the number of guns fired on the
days of public solemnity, such as the Queen's birthday,
coronation day, etc., but can't do so for others, such as
twenty guns for Mrs. Mashborne's, the same at Mr. Hoskin-
son's funeral, one and twenty guns at Mr. Mashborne's wed
ding, and the same at the governor's landing, these are too
many, a smaller number ought to serve." In addition to
drunkenness and wastefulness, gambling was a besetting sin
of the English in India, both men and women. In 1721
a letter to Madras ran as follows : —
' It is with great concern we hear the Itch of gaming
hath spread itself over Madras, that even the gentle-women
play for great sums, and that Capt. Seaton makes a trade
of it to the stripping several of the young men there.
We earnestly recommend to you to check as far as you
can that mischievous evil. Let Capt. Seaton know if
he continues that vicious practice he shall not stay but
be removed, and do you take care he be sent ofif the
shore, . . . and civilly acquaint the gentle-women that we
desire they will put a stop to all high gaming, because
first or last it will be prejudicial and ruinous to them
or theirs.' "
Thirty years later we find the Court still complaining
that ' the pernicious vice of gambling has spread like a
contagion among all ranks and degrees of our servants ', '
' India Office Records, Letter Book No. 15, Dispatch to Sl. Helena,
March 5, 1714.
' Ibid., No. 17, Dispatch to Fort St. George, April 26, 1721.
' Ibid., No. 27, Dispatch to Fort St. David, Jan. 12, 1750.

82 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
and dismissing two men in high office (one, Governed of
Fort St. David) for their indulgence in the practice.
From the beginning of the Company's history the Direc
tors had to exercise vigilance against the private trading of
their servants in India, and they were especially severe on
the Presidency of Bengal, always the richest, and therefore
the most suspected, settlement. They refer to 'the old
Bengal doctrine to amuse us with good words',' and again,
to 'the Bay Proverb, "Self and then Company"'." But
the ingenuity of some men, especially those in high places,
found means to keep within the letter of the law and yet
defraud the Company. A governor of St. Helena took the
Company's slaves from their work on the plantations, to
mend the paths over the rocks to his house, and carry him
self and his friends up and down in sedan chairs. Further,
he ' has built a shed of 400 feet long, for no other use than
that he may ride therein • on his asses, and be covered from
the weather . . . and he has wasted a great deal of our tim
ber therein '. Again, ' the charge of the new path hath and
will cost us £1,000 ... a banqueting house is to be made,
half-way up, and a place for nine-pins ' ; he had also em
ployed labour for months to build a ' tomb of ten foot high
and seven foot broad of cut stone ... for his wife '. The
Directors had perhaps a right to feel annoyed, for the gover
nor had charged this to the Company as fortifications.*
The East India Company, during the first half of the
eighteenth century, employed slave labour on a large scale.
For instance, in 1735, at St. Helena, it possessed 180
slaves, and the free planters, 458. In 1735, orders were
given to provide 250 for Bombay, while in 1751 the Direc-
' India Office Records, Letter Book No. 19, Dispatch to Beneal
Jan. 29, 1742. ^ '
" Ibid., No. 15, Dispatch to Bengal, Jan. 12, 1715.
s Ibid., No. 15 and No. 16, Dispatches to St. Helena, March ¦;, 1 714
and Feb. 22, 1717. 31 1 t.

IX LIFE OF THE ENGLISH IN THE EAST 83
toVs wished to buy 600 for Fort St. George. At the small
settlement of Bencoolen, in 1 712-13, there were 189 slaves.
Most of them came from Madagascar. There was a regu
lar tariff for luckless humanity in that island, perhaps the
scene of greater continuous misery than any other spot on
the surface of the globe. The price of a man was ' one
Buckaneer (a kind of primitive cannon), one trading gun,
one large bamboo of powder of between four and five
pounds weight, fifty shot and fifty flints '. A woman was
worth ' two trading guns, two small bamboos of powder,
thirty shot and thirty flints'.'
Regulations were drawn up for the transport and care of
the slaves. On arrival from Madagascar at Fort St. George,
the President of that place was to pay the Company's
agents twenty shillings a head, and the surgeon five shillings
a head for every slave delivered alive. A committee was to
be appointed to consider ' of the properest measures for
rendering them (the slaves) most useful to us, as likewise to
regulate their habitation, diet and clothing, in such a man
ner as may best contribute to their health, and make their
servitude easy to them. What occurs to us as necessary on
this occasion are, that they be lodged together in a con
venient place, under the particular inspection of some trusty
person or persons ; . . . that the soldiery and others be not
permitted to have any intercourse with them ; . . . that their
diet and clothing be ascertained which is to be reasonable
and fully sufficient for them ; that the slaves be acquainted
with the particulars of their said diet and clothing ; that if
they are not duly supplied therewith, they may on com
plaining to you have justice done them ; that they be
attended when sick, by our surgeons, with as much care as
the soldiers.' "
A proclamation was issued at St. Helena that the gover-
1 India Offipe Records, Letter Book No. 23, p. 20.
" Ibid., No. 28, Dispatch to St. Helena, Nov. 14, 1751.
G 2

84 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
nor and council would ' let out any of our black children to
such as would keep them for their labour till they were ten
years old '. The Directors at home gave this scheme their
approval, and added a suggestion, ' You should enter in
consultation, what children were so put out, to whom, and
for how long time ; by this means there would be a register
and remembrance when to call for them again." When
grown up they were to be taught a trade : ' Remember that
Mr. Pyke's Blacks were so well bred up to work and skilful,
that you paid him for one £80, for three each £60, and all
the rest of the one and forty from £30 to £40 a head,
except three at £25.' "
In the instructions of the Directors there is often evident
a collision of ideas, inevitable when a people otherwise
civilized bring themselves to tolerate the essentially bar
barous institution of slavery. Slaves were human beings,
and yet they were chattels. The Court was occasionally
shocked at the callousness of its servants. ' We cannot
approve', they wrote to St. Helena in 1749, ' of putting any
of the slaves to death.'* When they indulge in the luxury
of humanitarian feelings, we have passages like the fol
lowing : —
' Remember they are men and women, though slaves,
and therefore are to be used humanely, according to their
circumstances, and not treated as bad or worse than brutes.' ¦*
Again (171 7), 'Touching the slaves ... we need not repeat the
directions given you. The short of all which you must take
continued care of, is to treat them humanely, ... to apply
them to such works of ours as they are or can be severally
made fittest for, to breed them up, especially the younger.

' India Office Records, Letter Book No. 15, Dispatch to St. Helena,
March 20, 1713.
2 Ibid., No. 17, Dispatch to St. Helena, May 31, 1721.
^ Ibid., No. 27, Dispatch to St. Helena, Feb. 15, 1749.
' Ibid., No. 15, Dispatch to Bencoolen, March 20, 1713.

IX LIFE OF THE ENGLISH IN THE EAST 85
to all sorts of handicraft trades, ... to keep them to con
stant hours of labour, allowing them leisure on all Sundays,
except in cases of present real necessity, and on some par
ticular festivals. To suffer none to insult them, or even to
strike them, but their own immediate officers, the guardians,
and not to suffer them to tyrannize over them. This will
make them love and fear you, for they are endued with
reason as well as you, and their own minds can discern the
difference between right and wrong, and if only punished
when they deserve it, they will stand self-condemned in
their own consciences, and that is the first step to reforma
tion.' '
As is well known, books were occasionally sent out to
the factories, and the nucleus of a public library was thus
formed. In early days a Puritan Court of Committees dis
patched the works of that ' worthy servant of Christ, Mr.
William Perkins ' ; in 1686 Purchas's Pilgrims was sent,
' a book ', ran the Company's letter, ' very necessary for you
thoroughly to peruse at all leisure times, and for all men
that would arrive at any maturity of understanding in the
affairs of India, and of the Dutch wiles, and former abuses
of our nation'." In 17 15 the Directors ordered the chap
lains of Fort St. George to sort the volumes there into their
proper classes, and draw up a catalogue.' A copy of the
latter had to be sent to Leadenhall Street, but was not
approved of, for we find this stimulating piece of criticism
on the performance of the reverend gentlemen : —
' A great part of the titles of the books are false spelt or
wrong copied or named ; if the books are arranged in the
order taken in the catalogue, they are so confused there is no
likelihood of finding any of them out but by looking them
' India Office Records, Letter Book No. 16, Dispatch to Bencoolen,
March 14, 1718.
^ Ibid., No. 8, Dispatch to Bengal, Jan. 14, 1686.
* Ibid., No. 15, Dispatch to Fort St. George, Jan. 12, 1715.

86 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
all over till they come to what they want. We wonder they
(i. e. the Company's ministers) should expose themselves to
sign such a list, surely they never made use of any part of
that library for their own studies, if they did, they would put
them in better order.' '
The common theory that the Directors cared nothing
except for their profits, gives only one side of their policy.
They were certainly, first of all, traders : ' Our business is not
to increase our settlements or territories, but to be content
with the peaceable enjoyment of what we have, unless a
lucky hit be afforded to obtain an addition at little charge.' "
But a keen desire for gain was tempered with the sense that
the Company represented a national force. The United
Company began the first of its dispatches with a dignified
exordium : ' Now we are established by a Parliamentary
authority, we esteem it a duty incumbent upon us, to Eng
land and our posterity, to propagate the future interest of our
nation in India.' ' Reprisals were indeed ' like extreme
unction, never to be used unless in the last extremity ',* but
a certain limit must not be passed. In 17 19 the Directors,
driven out of all patience by the depredations of Angria and
other marauders on the Bombay coast, write, ' We say you
must do all you can to frustrate their attempts, and make
them feel your power. ... Choose the fittest opportunity to
chastise these Pickeroons. We should think it best . . .
that when you do strike, you strike home.' ° On the whole,
a study of the records reveals the fact that the Directors
always kept to some extent before them their famous resolu
tion to establish a ' well-grounded sure English dominion in
India for all time to come ' (see infra, p. 44). They aimed
' India Office Records, Letter Book No. 16, Dispatch to Fort St. George,
Jan. 25, 1717.
" Ibid., No. 15, Dispatch to Fort St. George, Jan. 13, 1714.
* Ibid., No. 12, Dispatch to Bengal, March 2, 1703.
* Ibid., No. 16, Dispatch to Bengal, Jan. 8, 1718.
" Ibid., No. 16, Dispatch to Bombay, Feb. 27, 1719.

IX LIFE OF THE ENGLISH IN THE EAST 87
at increasing the population of their towns, not indeed by
conquest, but by allowing freedom of trade and administer
ing a just government, and their advance was not quite the
unconscious lapse into dominion that it is sometimes repre
sented to be.
Especially excellent are their instructions as to our first
attempts in the task of governing eastern peoples. In 17 14
they write, ' We have always recommended to you to see
justice administered impartially to all and speedily, to govern
mildly and yet preserve authority. We have reason to add it
here again for your remembrance, and earnestly to desire you
will take care none under you be suffered to insult the natives,
and that no voice of oppression be heard in your streets,
this is the best method to enlarge our towns and increase
our revenues.' ' It would be difficult to draw up better
general maxims for guidance in the administration of justice
than the following : ' Never do an act of arbitrary power to
hurt anybody. Let your determinations be always just, not
rigorous but inclining to the merciful side. Always try the
cause, never the Party. Don't let passion overcloud your
reason. This will make the people respect you whereas one
violent sentence or action will sully the reputation of ten
good ones.' " ' Remember and always religiously perform
that maxim in Magna Charta, Nulli Vendemus, Nulli
Deferemus, Nulli Negabimus justiciam." In 17 19, alluding
to complaints they have received from natives as to some
alleged extortion, the Directors order a strict inquiry to
be made, and conclude with a passage through which
breathes an altogether admirable spirit of dignity and power.
' Remember whoever is specially authorised thereunto and
doth not act uprighriy and heartily in relieving the oppressed,
1 India Office Records, Letter Book No. 15, Dispatch to Bengal,
Jan. 13, 1714.
2 Ibid., No. 16, Dispatch to St. Helena, Feb. 22, 1717.
* Ibid., Dispatch to Bombay, Feb. 27, 1719.

88 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
brings upon himself the guilt of that oppression which will
prove a load too heavy to bear perhaps in this life when his
conscience is awake, but to be sure in that day when the
secrets of all hearts shall be laid open and all the actions of
men's lives accounted for at an unerring and just tribunal.' '
In 1 72 1, in a letter to Bengal, they thus sum up their doc
trine of free commerce and equity in India : ' We have
always built upon ' this ' as a fundamental maxim that
security of Protection and freedom in liberty and property
with a due administration of justice must of necessity
people your territories, considering the country all about
you is under a despotic government' "
If the problem before the English in India was one
requiring greater qualities than those of merchants only, that
which confronted the Court of Directors was perhaps even
more formidable. For their knowledge of the East they had
mainly to rely upon information from men whose interests did
not always lie in telling them the truth. For some reason
difficult to understand, the practice of electing to the director
ate those who had served the Company in India was not
popular. It had worked well in the case of William
Methwold, but his case never became a precedent. For
forty years after 1700, the lists of directors reveal, as far
as I can find, the names of only two men. Captain Matthew
Martin and Alexander Hume, who had lived in India, and
the latter of these two men had been in the service of the
Ostend Company.
The powers of the Governor and Council, and their rela
tions to each other, are thus clearly set forth in a dispatch to
St. Helena : ' We will . . . tell you the authority we invest
you and the Council with, as that each may know how far
he ought to go. The Governor is entrusted by us, in the
first place, to see all our orders are obeyed ; we appoint a
1 India Office Records, Letter Book No. 17, Dispatch to Fort St.
George, Dec. 19, 1719. " Ibid., Dispatch to Bengal, April 26, 1721.

IX LIFE OF THE ENGLISH IN THE EAST 89
Council to join with him therein, and to give their opinion
each of them in all matters that come before them ; the
Majority of votes are to determine every question. If any
one or more of the Council think the determination wrong,
they must enter their dissent in consultation with their
reasons, or else we take it for granted they agreed thereto,
and shall censure them as we think they deserve. The
whole Council when assembled are to judge of the manage
ment of each member, the Governor as well as the rest, for
he is but one though chief, and if they find anything done
or intended against our interests or orders, they are to
remedy or prevent it, or else must bear the blame. In the
absence of Councils, the Governor is to have the general
care of all things, but as Councils must frequently meet and
all the members are to be present when health will permit,
we direct positively that the Council do meet once a week,
and oftener, if occasion. We will never allow the Governor
to prevent anyone of the Council's entering in the consulta
tions the proposal they make, which they think for our ser
vice though rejected, if they shall desire such entry. If he
doth, let them give us notice, and then they clear themselves
of imputation on that account.' '
The Council was thus to be a real check upon the
Governor ; in another dispatch, to Fort St. George, this
feature is emphasized. ' We appoint them (the Council) to
their stations not to sit as Cyphers, but to have each his
Negative whenever they believe they have a just reason.' ^
Again, in a similar letter to Bombay, ' No person of the
Council shall be brow-beaten or intimidated on account of
making exceptions.'
This system of check and counter-check has been much
criticized, and in after years, when wider opportunities and
' India Office Records, Letter Book No. 16, Dispatch to St. Helena,
March 21, 1718.
2 Ibid., Dispatch to Fort St. George, Oct. 17, 1718.

go HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA
deeper responsibilities crowded upon the Company's ser
vants, it proved a source of great danger. But it must in
fairness be remembered, that if a President in the East
chose to defy his masters, it was extremely difficult to bring
him to account. We have seen how Keigwin and Winter
rebelled with impunity, and a curious instance occurred at
Fort St. David in 1 7 1 3, where Robert Raworth, the Deputy
Governor, who had gallantly defended the town against the
raja of Jinji the year before, revolted from Edward Harrison,
the Governor of Madras. After holding out for some time,
and firing on the envoys from Fort St. George sent to bring
him to terms, he finally surrendered to the President in
December, and retired to Pondieherry. Thence he set sail
for France, and died in Paris, just as the Directors of the
Company were preparing to prosecute him in England. A
very vivid dread of such outbreaks impelled the Directors
to crush with a heavy hand all symptoms of disloyalty, and
explains the promptness with which (to take an instance) they
dismissed the Governor and some members of Council at
Fort St. George in 1721, for neglecting to obey their orders.
The vigour of their language is typical of their fears : ' had
this been only the hair-brained (sic) notions of a giddy-
headed youngster we could have slighted and pitied it, but
when we find the Council in the General letter patronizing
it and referring us thereto to justify their proceedings, it is
time for us to look about us, and crush this cockatrice of
rebellion in the egg. We have often found fault with some
instances of mismanagement, and generally in an expostula-
tory mild manner, hoping thereby to bring our affairs into
a faithful, frugal and regular method of administration, as
being unwilling to proceed to rougher methods of cure. But
since Lenitives will not do, and the infectious gangrene
spreads so fast, we must though with regret apply the last
remedy.' '
' India Office Records, Letter Book No. 1 7, Dispatch to Fort St.George,
April 26, 1 72 1.

CHAPTER X
THE ENGLISH AND PBENCH IN INDIA TO THE
PEACE OP AIX-LA-CHAPELLE
In the middle of the eighteenth century a change came
over the destinies of the European settlements in India.
The English and French Companies began to be embroiled
in the international conflicts of their respective countries.
The war of the Spanish succession, as we have seen, had
run its course without any open conflicts between the belli
gerent nations in the East ; the war of the Austrian suc
cession was destined to have a different issue. Hence
forward, European conflicts were to have their echoes in
distant climes, and, in the words of Voltaire, ' the first
cannon shot fired in our lands was to set the match to all
the batteries in America and in Asia '.'
A few preliminary words must be said about the position
of the French. The history of eastern exploration records
some very early French attempts to reach India by the
Cape route ; for instance, that of Jean Parmentier, poet and
scholar, who, with his brother Raoul, visited Madagascar
and the Moluccas in 1529, and died in Sumatra. Henry IV
chartered two companies for the Indian trade, but they
failed for want of money and popular support. In 1642
Richelieu founded the ' Socidt^ de I'Orient ', which dis
sipated its energies in the colonization of Madagascar, under
the leadership of Pronis and Flacourt.
The first French East India Company that succeeded in
establishing permanent trade relations with India was that
' Fragments sur TInde, 1773, p. 5.

92 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA
of 1664, which owed its inception and most of its early
success to the fostering care of the great French minister,
Colbert, and Louis XIV himself. The first expeditions of
the Company were wasted in attempts to revive the Mada
gascar colonies. A factory was founded at Surat in 1668
by Caron, a Dutchman in the French service, and another
was estabHshed at Masulipatam in 1669. In 1674 Fran9ois
Martin founded Pondieherry, the future capital of French
India, on a small piece of territory ceded by a native ruler,
eighty-five miles south of Madras. In Bengal, 1690-2, a fac
tory was built at Chandarnagar ' on the Hughli, sixteen
miles above Calcutta, on a site given to the French by the
Nawab in 1674. In the seventeenth century the European
wars of Louis XIV reacted adversely upon the East India
Company. France was at war with Holland, except for
short intervals, from 1672 to 171 3, and though for the first
two years of that period she was allied with England, even
then the fighting in the East fell mainly to her share. In
1672 the French occupied St. Thom^ on the coast of
Coromandel, but in the following year de la Haye, their
admiral, was driven from Trincomali in Ceylon, and in 1674
the Dutch captured St. Thome. In 1693, after a short
siege, the Dutch inflicted a decisive blow by the capture
of Pondieherry itself. For six years the town remained in
their hands, and they constructed there fortifications which
long ranked as the finest in India. It was restored to the
French with defences intact by the Peace of Ryswick in
1697, but was not actually handed over till 1699. Under
the care of Martin, its founder, though he received hardly
any help from home, Pondieherry grew into a flourishing
town of 40,000 inhabitants. But elsewhere French in
fluence in India decayed. The factories at Surat, Bantam,
and Masulipatam were abandoned. The Company in
' La Compognie des Indes Orientates, P. Kaeppelin, 1908, p. 301.

i£ SON, LTD.

94 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
France was practically moribund, and, from 1708 to its
reorganization in 1720, sublet its privileges of trading to
India to some merchants of St. Malo.
When the Scotsman, John Law of Lauriston, began his
amazing career as controller of the French finances, the
East India Company was soon involved in his famous
' system '. It was incorporated with the Canada Company,
the Mississippi Company, or Company of the West, the
Senegal Company, the China Company, and the Companies
of Domingo and Guinea, and this mammoth association,
known as the ' Company of the Indies ', was also granted
the right of issuing the coinage, the monopoly of tobacco,
and the control of the public debt. When the crash came
in 1720, the East India Company was reconstituted as the
' Perpetual Company of the Indies ', and the monopoly of
tobacco was the only one of the special privileges granted
by Law that was left to it. From this date the fortunes of
the French East India Company greatly improved. In
1721 its servants finally took possession of Mauritius (Isle
of France), whither they had first gone in 17 15. In the
Isle of Bourbon they had probably settled as early as
1657, seven years before the founding of Colbert's com
pany.' In 1725 they acquired Mah6 in Malabar, and in
1739 Karikal on the coast of Coromandel.
The relative positions of the English and French in 1 744
were as follows : — The English Company was by far the
wealthier body, and drove the more vigorous trade. Its
fleets of merchantmen were larger, and more regular in their
voyages to and fro. It had a longer, more continuous and
less chequered history in the East. The Presidency of
Bombay was far superior in strength to any French settle
ment on the west coast, Calcutta quite dwarfed Chandarna-
gar in the Gangetic delta, and Madras was at least equal
' For the dates of the settlements in these islands, see vol. i of this
series, 2nd edition, p. 134.

X THE ENGLISH AND FRENCH IN INDIA 95
to Pondieherry in size and strength, and, on the testimony
of the Frenchmen Dupleix and Labourdonnais, greatly
excelled the French settlement in the extent and variety of
its commerce.' Finally, and this is perhaps the most im
portant point of all, the English Company was a great
private corporation, founded and maintained by individual
enterprise, supported by the profits drawn from the trade
with India, not dependent in any way on the state, but
rather having the state itself considerably in its debt ; un
connected officially with the government by any legal tie,
but able, by the presence of many of its Directors in Parlia
ment and by its wealth and interest, to exercise no slight
influence upon national policy.
As for the French Company, their settlements on the
western shore and in Bengal could not claim, as we have
seen, to rival those of the EngHsh, though in Pondieherry
(their chief station) they possessed a fine and well-fortified
town. In the Isles of France and Bourbon they had a
point d'appui to India, on the value of which contemporary
critics were not agreed, some holding these possessions to
be of great value as a refuge for French fleets when driven
by the autumn monsoons or a European enemy from the
exposed sea-board of Coromandel, others considering that
as a base of operations they were too far from the main
land of India, and therefore a source of weakness.
Viewed from the home aspect, the French Company
differed strikingly from its rival. It had always been more
the offspring of state patronage than the outcome of spon
taneous mercantile activity," and by 1 744 it had sunk to the
position of a subordinate department of state. From the
very beginning the Company had never been in a position
to dispense with royal subsidies and royal interference.
' Mimoire pour le sieur de la Bourdonnais, Pieces Justificatives, 1750,
pp. 83, 98 seq.
' Compare vol. v, part I, of this series, pp. 79-80, 94, &c.

96 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
The King had often intervened drastically in its administra
tion, as, for instance, in 1684, when he appointed Seignelay
Perpetual Chief, President and Director. Its shareholders
were a body of rentiers, with no lively personal interest in
the Indian trade. Its revenue was largely drawn from the
monopoly of tobacco, the one special privilege conferred
upon it by Law which it had been able to retain. The
Directors and Inspectors, who managed the most important
affairs of the Company, were nominated by the Crown, and
all real control passed into the hands of the King's Com
missaries. The Crown was again and again obliged to
come to the aid of the Company. From 1725 to 1765 no
meeting of shareholders was ever caUed, and after 1733 the
state even guaranteed dividends at a fixed rate. The most
prosperous period of the French Company financially was
probably from 1731 to 1738, and on the eve of the war of
the Austrian succession their fortunes had already begun
to wane.' As a consequence of the state's bureaucratic
control a certain lethargy crept into all the Company's
business, and was reflected in their Indian settlements.
Trade flagged, or at least remained stationary. There was
little enterprise or growth. Pondieherry had been de
veloped by the energy of its founder, Frangois Martin, who
died in 1706, and later by Lenoir and Dumas. But Chan-
darnagar in Bengal, which province was commercially and
politically the key of India, made little progress till it came
under the control of Joseph Frangois Dupleix, 1 731-41.
Captain Alexander Hamilton says contemptuously, ' for
want of money they are not in a capacity to trade. They
have a few private families dwelling near the factory, and a
pretty little church to hear Mass in, which is the chief
business of the French in Bengal'." The perusal of the
' Minioire sur la situation actuelle de la Compagnie des Indes,
M. I'Abb^ Morellet, Paris, 1769, pp. 43 seq.
'' A New Account of the East Indies, Capt. Alexander Hamilton, 1744.

X THE ENGLISH AND FRENCH IN INDIA 97
records in the India Office gives the same impression. It
is extraordinary how few references there are to the French
in the Company's Letter Books down, at any rate, to 1720.
As late as 17 18 the Dutch are still considered the strongest
European nation in India : ' Their strength ', wrote the
Court, ' is greatly superior to ours and all other Europeans
joined together, and nothing but the Powers in Europe
makes them afraid to prove it against any or all of their
competitors in the trade of India '.' Just as the EngHsh
failed to realize how near the influence of Holland in
India proper was to decay, so they failed at first to foresee
how soon the French were to exhibit a brilliant revival. It
was the news of the union of the Company of the West and
the Company of the Indies that first made the Court of
Directors in London uneasy. In 1719 they communicated
to their servants in the East the details of Law's great
scheme, and referred to a rumour that ten or twelve ships
were building in England for the French Company. They
added, ' what the issue of this mighty project will prove,
which at present appears like a blazing comet, time only
can ascertain. Our eye is upon that part of it which re
lates to the East Indies'."
The more clearly it is understood that the revival of the
French power only dates from about 1728, the greater is
the testimony to the ability of men like Dumas and Dupleix,
who in the short space of twenty years could lift the fortunes
of their country to something like an apparent equality with
that of their longer estabHshed rivals. But at the same time
the reflection is suggested that the roots of the English
Company must have struck far deeper into the Indian soil.
No French ships at all sailed from France in 1721 and
1722. In October 1727 and January 1728 the imports
' India Office Records, Letter Book No. 16, Dispatch to Bombay,
Feb. 21, 1718.
2 Ibid., No. 17, Dispatch to Fort St. George, Dec. 19, 1719.
914 H

98 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
were only valued at 2,234,385 francs; in September 1729
and January 1730 at 5,404,290 francs. In 1734 the sales
of the Company realized 18,000,000 francs, and in 1740
22,000,000. But even these totals are easily surpassed by
the value of the English imports, which in the two later
years were respectively £1,372,215 and £1,795,584.1 The
era of prosperity enjoyed by the French Company in great
measure coincided with the accession to power of Cardinal
Fleury (1726), and the peaceful policy which he inau
gurated. M. Orry, Minister of Finance, appointed his
brother to direct the Company's affairs, and under his able
guidance the Indian trade for a time flourished.
At the outbreak of the war, therefore, though to a super
ficial view the English and French seemed about equally
matched in strength and extent of possessions, it cannot be
doubted that in financial power, in commercial wealth, and
in material resources the advantage lay considerably on the
side of the English. For all that, the French, partly through
the genius of their governors and commanders, partly
through the blunders of their opponents, were able to
launch a formidable and brilliant attack upon the English
Company. Whether they ever came within a measurable
distance of ultimate success is exceedingly doubtful. Their
triumph was in reality short-lived ; it lasted but from 1 746
to 1754, and seven years after that date their defeat was
complete. For some years before 1744 hostilities between England
and France were seen to be in prospect. Both nations had
taken part in the war of the Austrian succession which began
in 1740, and had met face to face on European battlefields,
but only as auxiliaries to the main combatants. In 1742
the French government, foreseeing the inevitable issue, made
overtures to the EngHsh East India Company with a view to
' Reports of the House of Commons, vol. iv, p. 75. Third Report
from the Committee of Secrecy, Feb. 9, 1773.

X THE ENGLISH AND FRENCH IN INDIA 99
neutralizing the Indian settlements of both nations, but failed
to come to a definite agreement.
Meanwhile, plans of a very dififerent nature were maturing
in the ingenious mind of Mah^ de la Bourdonnais, an
adventurous sea captain who, after many years under the
French East India Company, broken by two years' service
with the Portuguese, had been appointed Governor of the
Isles of France and Bourbon in 1734, and in the course of
five years, by his energetic administration, had done wonders
for the prosperity of those colonies.' Returning to France
in 1740 and anticipating a speedy declaration of war, he
determined to fit out a privateering fleet to attack English
shipping in India. The French government gave their
assent to his schemes when laid before them, and coerced
the East India Company into providing part of the fleet.
La Bourdonnais sailed from home in 1741, boasting that he
would carry out the greatest coup ever achieved upon the
sea." His plan was to await in Mauritius the declaration of
war. But events moved much slower than he had expected.
No declaration of war came, and so in 1742 the Company,
who had never approved of his plan and still hoped for
neutrality in the eastern seas, ordered him to send his
ships back to France. La Bourdonnais, though bitterly
disappointed, obeyed, and shortly afterwards was exasperated
at receiving a second dispatch which cancelled the order
and expressed the hope that he would have taken upon
himself the responsibility of disregarding it. Shortly after
wards war was declared, and La Bourdonnais had the intense
mortification of seeing the opportunity, for which he had
waited so long, present itself when he had momentarily lost
all chance of profiting by it. Not only that, but the English,
having received intimations of "his designs, had put forth
great efforts, and a royal fleet under Commodore Barnet
1 See vol. i of this series, 2nd edition, p. 135.
" Memoire pour le sieur de la Bourdonnais, 1750, p. 22.
H 2

IGO HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
appeared on the Coromandel coast (1745) and threatened
Pondieherry. The French Governor-General, Dupleix, who
assumed office in January 1742, promptly appealed to the
Nawab of the Carnatic, and the latter forbade the English
to violate the neutrality of the Mughal Empire. Having
thus secured himself from attack, Dupleix carried the war
into the enemy's country. He planned with La Bourdonnais,
who had equipped a new fleet in the Isles and also received
reinforcements from France, to sail to the Indian coast and
attempt the siege of Madras. La Bourdonnais reached
Pondieherry at the beginning of July 1746, after fighting
a drawn battle with Peyton, a very incompetent officer,
Barnet's successor in the command of the EngHsh fleet.
But La Bourdonnais and Dupleix were not destined to
act in unity. La Bourdonnais's original intention had appa
rently been to prey on British shipping, and as soon as he
arrived at Pondieherry he seems to have shrunk from the
attempt on Madras. He had at first some reason for hesita
tion, for he certainly could not have anticipated that Peyton
would so pusillanimously have left the town to its fate. For
six weeks he refused to set sail, unless he received from
Dupleix and the Pondieherry Council a signed order to
assault the town and a definite promise on their part to
take all responsibility, for he feared the English fleet would
attack him in the rear when engaged in the blockade.
Dupleix in reply insisted that La Bourdonnais should either
assault Madras or fight the English on the high seas, but he
refused to relieve La Bourdonnais of the responsibility of
deciding between these two courses.
In September La Bourdonnais was finally prevailed upon
to commence operations. Madras, under its governor,
Nicholas Morse, made a 'very feeble resistance, and sur
rendered on September 21, after a bombardment of a few
days, during which not a man was touched on either side
by the shot of the other, the only loss of life being caused

X THE ENGLISH AND FRENCH IN INDIA lOI
by the accidental explosion of a shell in the English ranks.
Among the prisoners of war surrendered was Robert Clive,
then a young writer in the Company's service, a youth of
twenty-one with a melancholic temperament, high ambitions,
and great, though as yet unsuspected, powers.
When Dupleix received La Bourdonnais's first dispatch
announcing that Madras was in his hands and that he had
the English at discretion, his satisfaction was complete, and
he prepared to press his advantage to the full. To his
intense disgust he received letters from La Bourdonnais
proposing that the English Company should be allowed to
ransom their settlement. Dupleix flatly refused to be a party
to any such proceeding, claimed the right as Governor-
General to adjudicate on the fate of the town, and implored
La Bourdonnais not to lose the advantage of so unexpected
a success. But La Bourdonnais, declaring that his word was
already pledged to the English in Madras, hastily concluded
the negotiations, and, influenced — in all probability — by a
handsome bribe or douceur promised him by Morse,' signed
a Convention engaging to restore Madras for £400,000. The
conduct of La Bourdonnais was obviously disingenuous, for
in his first dispatch he declared that the English had surren
dered at discretion, and he had, since the capitulation
discussed with Dupleix, as though the matter were still open,
the various possibilities of ransoming the settlement, demolish
ing it, or retaining it as a French possession. Dupleix, putting
a strong curb upon his natural feelings of resentment, had
exhausted every means, reason, persuasion, and even en
treaty, to prevent La Bourdonnais from taking the final
step ; but all in vain. ' The anger and vexation of the
Governor,' says a native observer, 'when he heard the con
vention was signed, cannot be adequately described.' " His
' For the evidence of this see History ofthe French in India, by G. B.
Malleson, Appendix A. Also Dupleix, by Prosper Cnltru, pp. 217-19.
" The Private Diary of Ananda Ranga Pillai, ed. by Sir J. F. Price,
K.C.S.I., vol. ii, p. 345.

102 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
bitter chagrin was natural enough, for he had from the first,
since 1741, taken the chief part in preparing for the attack
upon Madras, and it was mainly at his expense that the
expedition was fitted out. An unedifying personal quarrel
was soon raging between the two men ; the writer quoted
above noted in his diary that ' the ways of Europeans, who
used always to act in union, have apparently now become
like those of natives and Muhammadans '.'
La Bourdonnais refused to communicate with the officials
whom Dupleix sent to take over possession of the town, and
Dupleix called upon the officers of the army and the fleet to
disregard the orders of La Bourdonnais as a rebel. There
can be little doubt that in the main dispute Dupleix was
in the right and La Bourdonnais in the wrong. The French
in Pondieherry for the most part supported the Governor-
General, and regarded his adversary as the victim of an
incomprehensible infatuation. The legal point at issue was
somewhat technical. In the ordinary course of events the
final arbitrament as to the disposal of Madras would rest
with Dupleix as Governor-General of the French possessions
in the East. La Bourdonnais, however, constantly main
tained that he had been given independent powers by the
Minister of Marine, and had received orders not to retain
any place he should capture. But this commission dated
back to 1 741, when only a privateering cruise against British
shipping was in contemplation. The minister, in laying an
injunction upon him not to retain any conquests, had not
foreseen that he would co-operate with Dupleix in an attack
upon an English Presidency town, and, as the Pondieherry
Council pointed out, the alleged ' independent powers ' were
no more than those granted to any admiral of a squadron over
his subordinate captains." In truth, when La Bourdonnais
' The Private Diary of Ananda Ranga Pillai, ed. by Sir J. F. Price,
K.C.S.I., vol. ii, p. 395.
^ Mimoires historigues de B. F. Mahl de la Bourdonnais, Paris,
1828, pp. 288-9.

X THE ENGLISH AND FRENCH IN INDIA 103
demanded an Order in Council before he would move to the
siege of Madras, he virtually acknowledged the authority of
the Governor-General, and condemned by anticipation the
attitude he adopted after the surrender of Madras.
The course of events played into the hands of Dupleix.
The break-up of the. monsoons in October 1746, which
began with a gale of unusual severity, drove La Bourdonnais
back to the Isles with shattered ships. As soon as he had
departed, Dupleix seized Madras, repudiated the Convention
on the ground that the action of La Bourdonnais in con
cluding it had been ultra vires, and marched the English
into Pondieherry as his prisoners of war. There, however,
his success ended. The attack on Fort St. David, where
the refugees from Madras had congregated, was repelled by
Stringer Lawrence, a brave officer and sound tactician, who
was destined to play a long and honourable part in the
Anglo-French conflict in India. A formidable English fleet
with thirteen ships of the line now appeared ofif the Coro
mandel coast and subjected Pondieherry to a severe siege.
The French defence was ably directed, though the enemy's
conduct of the operations is said to have been very in
capable, and Dupleix had the satisfaction of seeing the
English abandon their trenches, after losing one thousand
men, a week before the Peace was proclaimed in India.
During the war the English and French had been fighting
in the far West as well as in the East, and diplomatists in
Europe made success in one hemisphere balance defeat
in the other. The Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1 748 restored
Madras to the English and Louisbourg in North America to
the French.
Thus ended the first roimd of the Anglo-French conflict.
It has often been said that the quarrel between the two
French commanders saved the English in India from ruin.
But there is no real ground for such a statement, which
magnifies the incident out of all proportion to its real

104 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA
import. As the French historian Cultru points out, the
most the French could have achieved at this time was to
take Madras, and they took it ; had there been no quarrel,
they would merely have kept the town till the Peace, and
they kept it, in spite of the quarrel. They retained, and
could have retained it, no longer, simply because the matter
was settled over their heads by statesmen in Europe. It
may be added that the fall of Madras was a serious enough
disaster for the English and a sufficiently great achievement
of the French, without its being exaggerated to imply that
the total ruin of the English settlements was threatened.
The war on the Coromandel coast affected a single English
Presidency town, and that one probably the weakest of the
three. Calcutta and Bombay, the latter at this time the
strongest European settlement in India, still remained. It
may be argued that, had Dupleix and La Bourdonnais been
united, they might have followed up their success against
Madras by an attack on Bengal. But though Dupleix with
characteristic daring suggested this course, it was scouted by
La Bourdonnais on the ground that to violate the neutrality
of the Mughal Emperor in Hindustan would have meant
the expulsion of the French from his dominions. Dupleix
failed even to reduce Fort St. David, a few miles south of
Pondieherry. Calcutta was hardly likely to have surrendered
as weakly as Madras, and Peyton's squadron was still cruising
in the Bay of Bengal. In 1747 Boscawen was already on his
way from England with the most powerful armament that
had yet appeared in the East. Had the French been engaged
before Calcutta when he arrived, they would have been easily
blocked up in the Hughli, and Pondieherry itself would
have been in imminent danger.

CHAPTER XI
THE ENGLISH AND PKENCH ON THE COBOMANDBL
COAST, TO THE EECALL OP DUPLEIX
After the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, to all outward
appearances the status quo on the coast of Coromandel
was restored, though the French were left with a sense of
being unfairly robbed of victory and the English of having
fortunately avoided defeat. Besides this, the servants of the
two Companies had openly confronted each other sword in
hand, and the old peaceful relations could never be com
pletely re-estabHshed. The war had changed their whole
point of view : it had taught them, says a contemporary
writer, for the first time 'the geography of the country
a hundred miles round their settlements '.' It had also
taught them incidentally their own strength in relation to
the native powers. In 1746 an gpen collision had taken
place between the French and An-waru-din, the Nawab of
the Carnatic, under whose protection the English and
French had long dwelt secure. Dupleix had only won his
countenance to the French attack on Madras by promising
to surrender the place to him after its capture from the
English, a promise he had no intention of fulfilling. When
the Nawab attempted to enforce his claims, a mere handful
of French troops had defeated An-waru-din's army in a battle
rather absurdly said by Voltaire to exceed in fame the feat
of the Spartans at Thermopylae." The victory, however, was
extremely significant, and the lesson it conveyed was not
' An Account of the War in India, R. O. Cambridge, 1761, p. vi.
'^ Pricis du sihle de Louis XV, p. 599.

Io6 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
lost upon Dupleix, who henceforward assumed, and rightly
assumed, that the unwieldy, ill-disciplined, and badly led
armies of the Muhammadan powers in southern India could
not stand for a moment against trained European troops.
After 1748 Dupleix was strongly disinclined to resume the
role of the peaceful trader. He was, indeed, little fitted to
be the chief of a trading-company's settlement in time of
peace. He disliked the drudgery, and despised the monotony
of a commercial life, and it was his firm conviction that in
trade, at any rate, his nation could never hope to rival the
English settlements. His bent lay rather in the direction of
diplomacy and intrigue. Like all able men, he loved power,
and both from policy and inclination was not adverse to
a certain theatrical pomp and display. He had studied
sedulously the complicated native politics of southern India,
and soon found in them a promising field for the exercise of
his peculiar talents. But it is an error to suppose that he
began with such a comprehensive scheme as has often been
attributed to him for the acquisition of dominion in India.
He was, Hke most successful politicians (and this is said in
no disparaging sense), an adventurer and an opportunist.
His ideas widened and developed as he advanced from
success to success. He hardly realized himself till the end
of his Indian career whither his course was leading him,
and, as we shall see, he afforded little opportunity to the
authorities of the French East India Company or the French
ministry to appreciate his position. Further, his fall was
largely due to two other causes — the recklessness of his
financial methods and his lack of restraint.
The English themselves had afforded Dupleix a precedent
for his excursions into native politics. In return for the
cession of a port at the mouth of the Coleroon river, they
had supported the pretensions of a claimant to the throne of
Tanjore. The Frenchman gave the policy a wider extension
and a more daring appHcation. In 1 748 the aged ruler of

XI SITUATION ON THE COROMANDEL COAST 107
southern India, Asaf Jah, the famous Nizam-ul-Mulk, died,
and his sons and grandsons immediately commenced to fight
with one another for the succession. Dupleix had already
begun to favour the claims of a native prince known as
Chanda Sahib, whom all contemporary writers describe as a
man of exceptional ability, against An-waru-din, the ruling
Nawab of the Carnatic, and as this man united his forces
with those of Mozaffar Jang, one of the claimants to the
inheritance of Nizam-ul-Mulk, he had good hopes that
in the future both the ruler of the Carnatic and his overlord
the Subadar of the Deccan would owe their thrones to
French arms. It is fairly obvious that if the design had
succeeded, the resulting advantages to the French would
have been very great. Dupleix played for a high stake and
came within a measurable distance of success.
Mozafifar Jang and Chanda Sahib, supported by French
troops, defeated and killed An-waru-din at Ambur in 1749.
Muhammad Ali, the illegitimate son of the late ruler, fled to
Trichinopoly, but the rest of the Carnatic passed under the
dominion of Chanda Sahib, who liberally rewarded his
benefactors, the French, by grants of land consisting of
eighty villages round Pondieherry. Dupleix was eager to
follow up the great initial success thus secured by a concen
trated attack on Trichinopoly, and an advance in force
against Nasir Jang, the de facto Subadar of the Deccan, but
he could not prevail on his native allies to act as vigorously
as he wished. Chanda Sahib wasted time in a fruitless
attack on Tanjore, and in the meantime Nasir Jang marched
into the province with a huge and unwieldy army, it being
recorded that the circuit of his camp was twenty miles in
circumference. He was joined by a British contingent of
600 under Major Lawrence, for the English, much against
their will, had been driven to the conclusion that they must
take up arms to prevent the native powers falling completely
under the influence of the French. They had therefore

Io8 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
reluctantly sent a small reinforcement to the fugitive Muham
mad Ali at Trichinopoly, though they foolishly declined
Boscawen's offer to remain with his fleet on the Coro
mandel coast. Owing to the desertion of thirteen French
ofificers, Mozaffar Jang surrendered himself to Nasir Jang,
and Chanda Sahib was obliged to fall back upon Pondi
eherry. But the check to the French was only momentary,
for Dupleix met the crisis with great coolness and resource.
He intrigued first with Nasir Jang, then with disaffected
individuals in his camp. His officers captured Masulipatam
and Trivadi, and Bussy took Jinji, a position which had
hitherto been considered invincible. Nasir Jang was soon
afterwards assassinated, in December 1750, and Mozaffar
Jang was released and installed as Subadar of the Deccan at
Pondieherry. There he made over to the French the towns
of Divi and Masulipatam, and added large pecuniary grants.
A sum of £50,000 was given to the Company and a like
amount to the troops, while Dupleix it is said received
£200,000 and a ya^z>- consisting of the village Valdavur with
£ro,ooo a year. The new Subadar hailed Dupleix as suze
rain of southern India from the Kistna to Cape Comorin.
This ' vague and magnificent ' ' title, as it has been described,
by no means meant, as Macaulay and many other writers have
supposed, that Dupleix henceforward 'ruled thirty millions of
people with almost absolute power ' It gave him no direct
right of administration over the region indicated, which
embraced the territories of Tanjore, Madura, and Mysore.
These kingdoms had never even acknowledged the suze
rainty of the Subadar of the Deccan, and that ruler had no
power to delegate sovereignty over them. Even in the Car
natic, as we know, Chanda Sahib was Nawab till his death.
When that event took place, Dupleix seems to have con
templated assuming the title himself, but was dissuaded
from doing so by Bussy, who saw that it would exasperate
' Dupleix, Prosper Cultru, pp. 257-8.

XI SITUATION ON THE COROMANDEL COAST 109
the English irreconcilably, and Chanda Sahib's son was
allowed to succeed. The title conferred merely an ' hono
rary suzerainty ', but it no doubt added greatly to the
prestige of the recipient in the eyes ofthe native powers, and
enabled him to assume the state and even the dress of an
Indian prince.
After Mozaffar Jang's enthronement at Pondieherry, the
new Subadar set out in January 1751, accompanied by
Bussy, the ablest of the French commanders, for Aurung-
abad. The original intention was that Bussy should return
as soon as he had escorted the new ruler to his capital, but
Mozaffar Jang was killed in a chance skirmish a few days
after the march had begun. For a moment it seemed as
though the wonderful success of the French was in jeopardy,
but Bussy proved equal to the occasion. He boldly set
aside Mozaffar Jang's infant sons, on the plea that it was
impossible for a minor to succeed to so troubled an inheri
tance, elevated to the throne Salabat Jang, the third son of
the late Nizam-ul-Mulk, who happened to be a prisoner in
the camp, and conducted him safely to Hyderabad. Bussy
stayed on to buoy up the power of his protege', and for seven
years he maintained his position with wonderful skill and
address, guiding the policy of Salabat Jang, protecting him
against his numerous enemies at home and defeating the
foreign powers that invaded his territory.
Meanwhile in the Carnatic Dupleix reached the apogee
of his fortunes in 1 75 1. From that year his influence began
to wane. Hitherto the English, reluctant to enter into the
dynastic wars, had given but feeble assistance to those
candidates for the thrones of the Deccan and the Carnatic
who were supposed to favour their cause, and at one time
had withdrawn all support from Muhammad Ali. But
realizing at last that they could not afiford to see him cap
tured in Trichinopoly, they determined to help him effectu
ally with money and men. Above all it was essential that

no HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
the important strategic position of Trichinopoly should not
fall into the hands of the French. English trade would be
ruined if all the hinterland of the seaports were to pass into
the power of their European rivals. Hence followed the
confused struggle known as the war in the Carnatic. The
whole position was anomalous in the extreme. England and
France were at peace in Europe, and therefore the repre
sentatives of the two Companies could not attack each other
directly, nor, of course, assail each other's settlements.
They waged war nominally as the allies of belligerent native
powers, and at first some attempt was made, though it was
soon abandoned, to maintain the legal fiction of Anglo-
French peace, by a mutual understanding that the European
forces should not fire upon each other. The whole of the
Carnatic became the theatre of the war, and sufifered terribly.
The Rajas of Tanjore and Mysore were drawn into the
conflict, and the Marathas were always at hand, ready and
eager to fish in the troubled waters.
In the spring of 1751 it looked as though Trichinopoly
must inevitably fall, but the genius of Clive evolved a scheme
for its relief. By a daring expedition, in August 1751, he
seized upon the fort at Arcot, the political capital of the
Carnatic, and thus, as he intended, obliged Chanda Sahib
to send half his army from Trichinopoly to attempt its
recapture. Clive sustained the famous siege of fifty days
immortalized and somewhat exaggerated in the glowing
periods of Macaulay, and in the end beat ofif his assailants ;
he followed up this success by victories at Arni and
Coveripak. Trichinopoly was relieved and reprovisioned
by Lawrence and Clive ; Jacques Francois Law, the French
commander, nephew of the famous financier, John Law of
Lauriston, was forced to capitulate with his army, and
Chanda Sahib driven to surrender to the general of the Raja
of Tanjore, who was then alHed with Muhammad AH. He
was treacherously put to death, somewhat to the discredit of

XI SITUATION ON THE COROMANDEL COAST III
the English, who might have exerted themselves to save him,
and henceforward Muhammad Ali was de facto Nawab of
the Carnatic. Dupleix always showed his greatest side in
adversity, and he met these disasters with his usual intrepid
resourcefulness, summoning to his aid the forces of the
Marathas and intriguing incessantly with the native allies of
the English. But Lawrence completely defeated de Kerjean
at Bahour, and though there was still much hard fighting
in the neighbourhood of Trichinopoly and many isolated
French successes, the opponents of Dupleix slowly and
steadily gained ground. Even Bussy began to urge the
Governor-General to make the best peace he could. His
own influence at the court of the Subadar of the Deccan
had been eclipsed for a time, though he soon re-established
his position, and in the autumn of 1753 obtained the
cession of ' the Northern Circars ', that is, the valuable dis
tricts in southern Orissa and the northern part of the Car
natic extending for about six hundred miles along the coast.
This was, however, no unconditional grant of territory, as is
sometimes supposed, but the allocation of the land revenue
of the provinces for the support of his troops as long as they
were in the service of the Subadar. As a matter of fact,
southern India had been so desolated by the long war that
for some years but little revenue from them was forthcoming.
' Mr. Dupleix ', wrote the English at Madras in 1753, ' has
by repeated strokes been reduced very low.' ' At the end
of that year he was driven to make overtures for peace. His
generals had been defeated, his allies were discontented,
and he was in sore need of money. His representatives
met the English authorities in conference at Sadras, a
Dutch settlement between Madras and Pondieherry. He
there produced patents from Salabat Jang and the Mughal
Emperor himself, appointing him Nawab of the Carnatic.
^ India Office Records, French in India, vol. ii. p. 103, Letter from
Fort St. George, Oct. 29, 1753.

1X2 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
The English pronounced the invalidity of the document
purporting to come from the Emperor to be ' as clear as the
sun at noon ', and themselves produced other patents in
favour of Muhammad AH. The conference proved abortive,
Dupleix refusing to moderate any of his demands, and the
English indignantly declaring that they were not ' begging a
peace '.'
In the meantime the Directors of the Companies in both
London and Paris were growing dissatisfied with the too
vigorous part played by their servants in these dynastic wars.
Duvelaer, a Director of the French Company, finding it
necessary to go to London on private business at the end of
1753) was authorized to discuss matters informally with the
representatives of the English Company. Several con
ferences were held by him and the Due de Mirepoix, the
French ambassador, with the Duke of Newcastle and the
Earl of Holdernesse, but though negotiations were spun out
till 1755 no agreement was reached. A study of original
documents " has revealed the fact that there is no truth in
the traditional story that the English demanded the recall of
Dupleix in return for that of Saunders, the President of Fort
St. George, and then, in spite of their proposal being
accepted, unfairly retained the latter in office. There was
no such reciprocal agreement. As a matter of fact, in the
negotiations of 1753 the name of Dupleix does not seem to
have been mentioned. His recall had been determined
upon before the conference began. Silhouette, the King's
Commissary, had always been opposed to his policy. The
news of Law's surrender at Trichinopoly had caused great
uneasiness in France, and seemed fatally to corroborate the
charges contained in the memoirs of La Bourdonnais which
were published in 1750.
' An Account of the War in India, R. O. Cambridge, 1761,
Appendix. ^ By Prosper Cultru, in his Dupleix, pp. 359 seqq.

XI SITUATION ON THE COROMANDEL COAST II3
Godeheu, a Director of the Company, was sent out at the
beginning of 1754 with plenary powers to supersede Dupleix
and hold a searching inquiry into the state of affairs in
India. He was also given sealed orders, which were quite
unnecessary and might well have been dispensed with, to
arrest the ex-Governor-General if he proved contumacious.
The loyalty and patriotism of Dupleix were never in question ;
so far as he had erred, it was only in the means by which he
had sought to promote the glory and honour of his country.
Godeheu landed at Pondieherry in August 1754. In
October he brought about a suspension of arms for three
months, and followed this up in January 1755 by a provi
sional treaty which was not to be valid unless it were accepted
by the two Companies at home. By its terms, both nations
agreed to interfere no further in the quarrels of native
princes, and to renounce all Muhammadan offices and
dignities. The right of either party to various possessions
was guaranteed, the only territorial concession contemplated
being that the English should receive either Masulipatam or
Divi in the Northern Circars, of part of which region they
were already in effective occupation.
Dupleix afterwards protested that Godeheu had ' signed
the ruin of the country and the dishonour of the nation '.
His contention was that when his successor arrived in
India, French affairs had already taken a turn for the better,
and with the reinforcements which he brought with him
Godeheu might have captured Trichinopoly and defeated
the EngHsh. This judgement has passed into a verdict of
history. Even Cultru — the brilliant French historian who,
from an exhaustive study of the records, has taught us so
much of the life and policy of Dupleix and exploded so
many fallacies — seems to lapse back to the old view that
Godeheu, out of pure 'baseness of soul', laboured to
undo the work of his predecessor just as the tide was turning
and success had come within the range of practical

114 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
politics.' Apart from the fact that this judgement seems to
run counter to the conclusions of three-quarters of Cultru's
book, I do not believe that there is a particle of evidence
for it except in the biassed statements of Dupleix and his
supporters. There appears no reason to postulate malevo
lence on Godeheu's part to explain why he acted as he did.
He declares that he went out with an open mind, or even
with predispositions in favour of the man he was to succeed;
that he found the greatest confusion, the army clamouring
for pay, and the treasury empty. To continue the war
would have been the height of foHy. He states that the
troops he brought with him were almost worthless for fight
ing purposes. All this is absolutely corroborated by the
Pondieherry Council, who wrote to the Directors that nothing
more fortunate than the Peace could have happened to the
Company, and that they had always doubted that the
English would have been willing to accede to it in view of the
advantageous position they occupied." The Council added
that the English had 2,500 men, including 1,150 soldiers
of a King's regiment, many allies and plenty of money,
while the French possessed but 1,150 troops — 'God knows
what sort of troops' — and were almost without allies and
in sore straits for gold. The English in India unanimously
took the same view. They held that the Peace was unduly
favourable to the enemy. They had at the time 900 French
prisoners of war in their hands as against 200 held by their
opponents. Edward Ives, who arrived in India with Watson's
fleet in 1754, says 'the Peace was by all deemed to have
been a masterly stroke of French politics : on the contrary,
the advantages resulting from this treaty to the English
East India Company were beyond every one's comprehen
sion, for it was by everybody known that at this time,
exclusive of our naval force, our troops on the coast exceeded
' Prosper Cultru, Dupleix, p. 355.
^ Mimoire i consulter pour le sieur Godeheu, 1760, pp. 85-6.

XI SITUATION ON THE COROMANDEL COAST 1 15
those of the French in number one thousand '.' Admirals
Watson and Pocock loudly lamented that the Peace had
tied their hands and robbed them of an assured success.
With these views, the historian Orme, at that time resident
in Madras — a man who never underrates the power of the
French — thoroughly agrees. The truth is that the over-
sanguine temperament of Dupleix, which carried him so far
on the road to victory when fortune was kind, rendered him
constitutionally unable to recognize the fact of failure. His
own officers were well aware of this trait. ' He has always
persisted ', said Law, ' in refusing to believe anything as to
the superiority of the army of the enemy over ours'; '' ' I see
with sorrow', wrote Bussy, ' that events alone can convince
you, and that you will only recognize the value of my advice
when it is too late to profit by it.' ^
It is to be noted, too, that Godeheu at first held out for
higher terms, and it was only the arrival of Watson's fleet with
a strong force on board, which threatened, in alliance with
the Marathas, to launch a formidable attack from Bombay
on Bussy in the Deccan under the leadership of Clive,
that forced him to moderate his demands. It is indeed
a mistake to represent the Peace as in any sense humiHating
to the French. The territories guaranteed to them were
assessed at an armual revenue of £800,000, those guaranteed
to the English at £100,000. Godeheu fully appreciated the
work of Bussy, who himself had no illusions as to the
critical position of affairs, and in spite of the clause against
interference in native politics the latter was left undisturbed
at Hyderabad. Finally, the Peace was only provisional and
required ratification by both Companies at home. Till then
everything was to remain on the footing of uti possidetis.
That ratification never came, for the outbreak of the Seven
' A Voyage from Englarui to India . , . , Edw. Ives, 1773, p. 46.
' Plainte du Chevalier Lam, p. 28.
' Memoire pour le sieur de Bussy, Paris, 1764, p. 38.

Il6 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
Years' War - occurred before the decision of the home
authorities was known. Therefore even the sHght territorial
changes suggested in the draft treaty were never made,
and, as two recent French historians, Cultru and Weber,
admit, it was the outbreak of hostilities in 1756 and not
Godeheu's treaty which ruined the French settlements in
India. The plain truth is that the schemes of Dupleix,
bold, ingenious, and far-reaching as they were, had broken
down. It was Godeheu's task to save what he could
from the wreck. He succeeded to a greater extent than
might have been expected, and afforded his countrymen
an opportunity to recuperate — an opportunity of which
they were unable to avail themselves to the full because
a European war occurred before they had consolidated their
strength. When Godeheu arrived, the financial position was des
perate. Dupleix had exhausted the treasury and anticipated
his revenues in subsidies to his native allies and in the
heavy expenses of the war. Had his plans succeeded, he
would no doubt have been able to recover his loans and
realize a surplus for the Company, but success had not
come to him. Not only was the treasury empty, but Dupleix
claimed that the Company owed him an immense sum
advanced to them from his private purse. Godeheu has
been freely blamed because he refused to admit this debt or
give Dupleix assignments on future revenue. Such censure
is unjust and beside the mark. Many of the ex-Governor-
General's statements cannot be accepted without reservation.
He declared in his Memoirs that he acquired an immense
private fortune at Chandarnagar, and the implication is that
it was this money he used in the Company's service. But
his own letters, recently brought to light, prove conclusively
that he had lost almost all the wealth he had amassed
before he went to Pondieherry; his savings in 1741, on his
own admission, were not large enough to enable him to

XI SITUATION ON THE COROMANDEL COAST 117
retire in comfort to France. The sums he had spent had
been derived from the gifts a,ndjagirs made over to him by
native princes, which he was actually forbidden by a royal
ordinance to accept. The Company's answer therefore, with
some reason, was that he had squandered what was not his
to spend, that he had used his position to acquire revenues
without their permission, and had spent them in furthering
a policy on which they had not been consulted. Godeheu's
action seems to have been unimpeachable ; he made him
a generous grant for the expenses of his journey home,
allowed him to retain the revenues from Valdavur, which
produced about £10,000 a year, and referred the whole
matter for final settlement to the Company. The Company
and not Godeheu were responsible if any injury was done
to Dupleix. The whole question is involved in considerable
diflSculty. However obtained, Dupleix had certainly spent
his wealth from generous and patriotic motives in the public
service, and the Company should at least have seen to it
that their briUiant servant had a respectable pension,
and this, if the traditional account is to be trusted, they
do not seem to have done. But Dupleix did not die till
1763, and it seems only to have been in his latter days
that he fell into poverty. With the loss of the French
dominions his revenues from Valdavur came to an end,
and the Company itself was then naturally in the greatest
difficulties. Dupleix seems constitutionally to have had
little sense of the value of money, and Godeheu says that
he practised the most profuse expenditure on his return
to France.
Many facts have recently come to light which explain, if
indeed they do not altogether justify, the apparent failure of
the Company and the home government to support Dupleix.
He had treated them in a very cavalier fashion, informing
them of his victories but concealing his defeats. His
dispatches never even mentioned Clive's capture of Arcot.

Ii8 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
The news of these disasters ultimately reached the Directors
through Dutch or English news-sheets or private letters,
and naturally aroused in them the greatest distrust. When
Godeheu sailed from France, the Company, partly in this
case through the delay of a ship, had received no news for
a year, that is since the tidings of the surrender of Law at
Trichinopoly. Dupleix had gradually, as we have seen,
formulated a definite policy of building up French influence
and dominion by a calculated interference in native politics,
but he had failed to keep the authorities informed of his
proceedings and the reasons for them. The Company only
received a full and detailed account six months after he was
recalled, and when they received it they cancelled his super-
cession, but, as it happened, too late, for he had already
sailed for home.
We can accept no longer the character of Dupleix as
depicted by Colonel Malleson, which was based too exclu
sively on the former's own memoirs, and did less than
justice to his subordinates and colleagues. There is some
thing rhetorical and artificial about the 'memoirs' of all
the great Frenchmen in India at this time. Voltaire, with
a characteristic sneer, declared they were large enough to
chronicle the conquests of an Alexander. They were indeed
not memoirs in the ordinary sense of the word, but mani
festoes and protests, panegyrics of the writer's own career,
and invectives against his rivals. They were usually drawn
up or edited by advocates, and the same lawyer was respon
sible for the final form of the memoirs of La Bourdonnais
and Dupleix. Thus the violent animosities engendered in
the East were transferred to French soil, and there burned
themselves out with fierce splutterings and fitful explosions,
till they were finally quenched by the death of the dispu
tants. But in spite of his final failure, Dupleix is a striking
and brilliant figure in Indian history. For even if we give
up the old uncritical estimate, we need not deny his real

XI SITUATION ON THE COROMANDEL COAST 1 19
claims to greatness. His political conceptions were daring
and imaginative. He raised the prestige of France in the
East for some years to an amazing height, he won a reputa
tion among Indian princes and leaders that has never been
surpassed, and he aroused a dread in his English contem
poraries which is at once a tribute to his personal power
and a testimony to their sagacity.

CHAPTER XII
ENGLISH AND PBENCH IN INDIA, TO THE PEACE
OP PARIS. EEASONS POK THE PBENCH DEPEAT
After the departure of Dupleix, the English and the
French in the Carnatic enjoyed a four years' breathing space —
the neutrality of mutual exhaustion. In that interval Siraj-
ud-daula captured Calcutta, and Clive with the best troops on
the Coromandel coast sailed away to restore British authority
in Bengal. When the Seven Years' War broke out, the time
seemed peculiarly opportune to the French government for
an attack on the EngHsh settlements in southern India.
Count de Lally, son of an Irish refugee, who had fought at
Fontenoy, and at Falkirk in the Jacobite rising of 1745-6,
was sent out to achieve this object. He landed in April 1758,
after an unusually protracted voyage, by which time the
English had recaptured Calcutta. Fort St. David was bom
barded and taken by the French, much to the anger of Clive,
who characterized the surrender as ' infamous '. There, how
ever, Lally's success stopped. He had many virtues, for he
was brave, conscientious, incorruptible — a somewhat rare
virtue in India and at that time — and no mean tactician ;
but he was hot-headed and intolerant of advice, even from
those better acquainted than himself with the conditions of
Indian warfare.
The Governor of Pondieherry would not, and probably
could not, furnish the money necessary for the pay of the
troops ; and LaHy was driven to march against the Raja
of Tanjore to exact payment of a bond of fifty-six lakhs of
rupees that had come into the hands of the French. This
expedition, which was declared by Bussy to be 'equally

ENGLISH AND FRENCH IN INDIA 121
unjustified in its motive and its execution ',' was a lamentable
failure and seriously damaged the already waning prestige
of the French. D'Ach^, the French admiral, who had fought
two drawn battles with the British fleet in April and August,
now sailed for the Isles of France and Bourbon in spite of
Lally's protests.
Though it was an almost hopeless project to besiege an
open port when his naval coadjutor had thus left the com
mand of the sea to the British fleet, Lally now marshalled his
forces for the attack on Madras. He summoned Bussy, who
had all this time, in spite of great difficulties and some vicis
situdes of fortune, kept his position at the court of Hyderabad,
to come to his aid. Bussy obeyed, but with extreme reluct
ance, knowing all too well that he could never recover his
influence there. His forebodings were soon justified. Clive,
in spite of his critical position in Bengal, was watching
events in southern India with a general's eye, and ' thought
it was his duty to contribute his mite towards the destruction
of the French'." Accordingly, in October 1758, contrary to
the inclinations of his whole council, he sent Forde, an officer
of great ability, to intervene in the Northern Circars. Forde
defeated Bussy's successor at Condore in December 1758,
and stormed Masulipatam in the following April. French
influence at the Court of Hyderabad was gone for ever.
Salabat Jang ceded Masulipatam with territory of eighty
miles long and twenty wide to the British, and engaged to
have no more dealings with the French.
In the meantime Bussy's presence had been of little
support to Lally. The two men differed fundamentally in
policy. Bussy believed in a French dominion dependent
upon a system of treaties and alliances, with himself, the
keystone of the arch, residing at the court of Hyderabad
^ Lettres de messieurs de Bussy, de Lally et autres. Mimoire pour le
sieur de Bussy, p. 16.
* Reports ofthe House of Commons, vol. iii, p. 156.-

122 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
and commanding an army of picked men ; Lally's object
was to expend all his energies and concentrate all his forces
in attacks on the English settlements one by one. ' The
King and the Company ', he said, ' have sent me to India
to chase the (English) Company out of it. . . . It doesn't
concern me that such and such rajas dispute for such and
such a nawabship.' '
The siege of Madras began in December 1758, but was
abandoned in February, when the town was relieved from
the sea. Henceforward the English were the aggressors, and
Lally stood on the defensive. His troops were in a constant
state of mutiny. He had absolutely no money, and his rela
tions with the Governor of Pondieherry and his own officers
were deplorable. D'Achd returned to the Coromandel coast
in September 1759, and fought a third indecisive battle with
Pocock. But, though his fleet was considerably the more
powerful, he yielded the fruits of victory to the English, and
retreated to the Isles in October, abandoning Pondieherry to
its fate. For all that, Lally held out desperately for two years.
In January 1760, however, he was severely defeated by Sir
Eyre Coote at Wandiwash, where Bussy was taken prisoner. He
was driven into Pondieherry, and there forced to surrender in
January 1761. To such an extent had he made himself
hated that, had it not been for a British escort, he would
probably have been torn to pieces by the infuriated mob
when he was leaving the city. He was conveyed to England
as a prisoner of war, but obtained release on parole and
returned to France in order to face the charges there pre
ferred against him. After a two years' trial he was most
iniquitously condemned to death and executed, though only
errors of judgement could be proved against him.
The fall of Pondieherry sounded the knell of French
dominion in India, for though the town was restored to
' Lettres de messieurs de Bussy, de Lally et autres. Mimoire de
Bussy, p. 3, Letter of Lally to Bussy, June 13, 1758.

XII ENGLISH AND FRENCH IN INDIA 123
France by the Peace of Paris in February 1763, the fortifica
tions had been demolished, and the treaty, in accordance
with Clive's suggestion to the Marquis of Bute, limited the
number of armed men which the French might maintain on
the Coromandel coast, and excluded them altogether from
Bengal except in a purely commercial capacity. Muhammad
Ali, the English candidate, was recognized as Nawab of the
Carnatic ; and, though Salabat Jang's title to the Subadar-
ship of the Deccan was acknowledged, French influence at his
court was now a thing of the past. Moreover, the recogni
tion was valueless, for Salabat Jang had been deposed by
his brother Nizam Ali in 1761, and was murdered by him
six months after the signature of the treaty. The Northern
Circars had passed under the sway of the English, and
in 1765 Clive procured an imperial decree ratifying and
regularizing the English title.
Henceforward Pondieherry was always occupied by Eng
lish troops on the outbreak of war with France. France did
indeed make one formidable attempt to re-establish her
power in 178 1-3, an attempt which will be described in its
proper place ; but her attack on that occasion was directed
from the sea, and the want of a regular base on land caused
it to fail. The privileges of the French Company were
suspended by a royal decree in 1769, Morellet, one of the
ablest of the Physiocrats (the famous school of French
economists who advocated a single tax on agricultural rents),
having passed a severe condemnation on its past financial
history.' In April 1785, the French Company was re-estab
lished, but only as ' a simple commercial house fortified by
a monopoly, and no longer the sovereign mistress of a mighty
empire '."
Many causes contributed to the final victory of the English
' Mimoire sur la situation actuelle de la Compagnie des Indes,
M. I'abb^ Morellet, Paris, 1769.
^ La Compagnie fran^aise des Indes, Henry Weber, p. 635.

124 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
Company, and not the least of them were its commercial
superiority and better financial position. Morellet gives the
value ofthe sale of Indian goods in France from 1736 to
1756 as, in round numbers, £11,450,000,' but the total of
the sales of the English Company during the same period
was more than three and a half times greater, amounting to
£41,200,000." After all, a flourishing business is essential
to the prosperity of a trading company, whatever its adminis
trative or military success. As Bussy — himself the most
brilliant representative of the Political Resident — declared,
'laurels and conquests are for a commercial company a matter
of simple calculation, always bad when the expense exceeds
the receipts, or even when the produce is not at least on
an equality with the outgoings '. ' This principle certainly
governed the destiny of the nation that proved the successful
rival of the French. The English did, on the whole, make
their conquests pay. They observed the law which Dupleix
endeavoured to override. All through the war, the English
busily transacted their ordinary commercial affairs and in
creased the value of their exports, as the records of their
trade and shipping prove. The French figures, on the other
hand, show a serious falling-ofif for some years after 1746.
Later on, the territorial acquisitions in Bengal filled the
English coffers. The English never forgot that they were
primarily a trading body. Dupleix, on the other hand,
deliberately came to the conclusion that for France, at any
rate, the Indian trade was a failure, and that a career of
military conquest opened up a more attractive prospect. But,
under the circumstances that determined the fates of Euro
peans in the East, this was a cardinal error. India was too
far distant from Europe, and France was too much involved
in western continental politics to conquer an eastern empire
' These figures are derived from Morellet, pp. 86, 87.
'^ Reports of the House of Commons, vol. iv.
* Mimoire pour le sieur de Bussy, p. 23.

XII ENGLISH AND FRENCH IN INDIA 125
by the sword alone. The policy of Dupleix, wrote the Eng
lish at Madras in 1753, 'seems to require National, and not
a Company's support.' ' No power could attempt to hold
India from a distant base over sea unless its occupancy was
based on sound commercial and financial lines. When
Dupleix consciously inaugurated a different policy, he had
already taken the first step in the decline of French power
in India.
The English Company was still a vigorous, self-reliant,
commercial body, managed by a private corporation, so far
from being dependent upon state support that it had long
been a creditor of the government for large sums. Its
constitution enabled it to wield no inconsiderable influence
in matters of public policy, while at the same time it escaped
the deadening effects of detailed state interference.
The French Company had in reality long ceased to be
anything but a subordinate department of government. All
power was in the hands of the royal commissary. The
Proprietors of the Company took no interest in its fortunes
provided they could draw the interest on their capital, and
this interest had since 1733 been guaranteed them by the
state. The ministers of Louis XV were no doubt lethargic
and unenterprising, but it must in fairness be remembered
that European complications necessarily limited the amount
of attention they could devote to eastern affairs ; also, it is
quite clear from the early history of the French Company
that individual initiative in France was sadly lacking in
matters of foreign trade. The state, under Louis XIV and
Colbert, had galvanized the French Company into life, and
when the vigorous hands of its patrons were withdrawn its
energy evaporated. The state could not continue to subsi
dise the Company indefinitely. Morellet, in the course of
his inquiry into the history of the Company's finances, lays
' India Office Records, French in India, vol. ii. p. 103, Letter from
Madras, Oct. 29, 1753.

126 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
down two canons, the truth of which no economist will be
inclined to deny. First, that there are infinitely more legiti
mate and more important uses to which the public revenue
can be put than in maintaining a company which is bank
rupt when left to itself ; secondly, a commercial enterprise
which is not self-supporting ought to be abandoned.' There
is much truth in the judgement of an English observer in
1 744, who commented even thus early upon ' the lament
able condition of the French East India Company's affairs '.
Their attempts, he argues, have miscarried ' notwithstanding
all the pains and assistance the government has bestowed
upon them. In all other countries, but particularly [in]
Great Britain and Holland, undertakings of this sort have
been the work of private men in the beginning and have
never claimed the aid or even the protection of the state till
they were in some degree of forwardness, and then only from
the apprehension of this difficulty, that the desire of gain
might engage such nurflbers of adventurers in the same
branch of commerce as might prove prejudicial to the
public and to themselves. But in France it has been quite
otherwise ; private people never did anything till excited
and encouraged by the government, and then were able to
do little more than ruin themselves by launching out into
enterprises beyond their abilities.' ^
In the grim hand-to-hand fighting in southern India that
went on almost uninterruptedly from 1746 to 1753, the
English remained on the whole victorious, largely owing to
the indomitable efforts and talent for leadership of Lawrence
and Clive. Success on the mainland was seconded by suc
cess at sea. During all this period England was gradually
building up her ascendancy on the waterways of the world,
' Mimoire sur la situation actuelle de la Compagnie des Indes,
M. I'abb^ Morellet, 1769, p. 2f;3.
* An Account ofthe French East India Company, 1744, printed at
end of vol. 1 of J. Harris's Navigantium atque Itinerantium Bibliotheca,
London, 1744.

XII ENGLISH AND FRENCH IN INDIA I27
and after the beginning of the Seven Years' War, when
France became more and more involved in central
European entanglements, her predominant position became
relatively greater. Indeed, British naval superiority would
probably in any case have rendered the ultimate success
of Dupleix impossible. Clive's capture of Chandarnagar
robbed France of her chief settlement in the province that
was in more respects than one the key of India. Even
through the war of the Austrian succession, 1744-8, the
English had succeeded in increasing their trade and so
supporting the charges of war. After 1757, they could draw
upon a new source of wealth — the revenues and resources of
Bengal, which they administered for the Nawab.
None of these causes should rightly be emphasized to
the exclusion of the others. Too close an attention directed
to the long, tedious, and uninteresting military operations
in India itself produces the frame of mind which seems to
hold that the mutual squabbles of two commanders and the
success or failure of a few subordinate officers determined
the future of a great empire. But India was not won by
the English and lost by the French because in one battle
a commander marched up a hill when he should have
marched down, or marched down when he should have
marched up. The causes of great historical events are
wrought deeper into the woof of things. A later and truer
view relegates the land campaigns (though here there is
some exaggeration in the contrary direction) to the domain
of ' obscure operations ' and believes that the control of the
sea was all-important. Captain Mah an, the chief exponent
of this theory, has made a very weighty contribution to
naval history, but as the history of Europeans in India was
not his main subject he has been inclined to underrate
other factors contributing to this particular question.'
' Captain Mahan, in The Influence of Sea Power upon History,
p. 254, says : ' The movement toward colonial extension by France is

128 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA
A wide and impartial survey will give to each and all of
them their proper place, and will attribute a full share of
credit to the masterful genius displayed alike in peace and
war by Robert Clive.
wholly popular, though illustrated by a few great names ; the attitude
of the rulers is cold and mistrustful.' This is certainly not true of French
history in India. The Company was almost wholly the creature of the
Crown and the ministers ; state patronage and assistance in this case
may have been a mistake but they were necessary, if there was to be any
French trade with India, for want of popular enterprise and enthusiasm.

CHAPTER XIII
THE EEVOLUTION IN BENGAL. PLASSEY, AND
CLIVP'S PIBST GOVEBNOBSHIP OP BENGAL
In southern India, as we have seen, the Anglo-French
conflict was fought out in about twenty years. The main
motif thtxe. was the rivalry of the two European powers and
the native states were dragged almost against their will into
the arena of the strife. In Bengal, on the other hand, three
European nations, the English, the French, and the Dutch,
had long been accustomed to live together peaceably ; the
outbreak of hostilities came as a mere incident in the open
war that broke out between the English East India Com
pany and the native powers. The chief stations of all these
nations were built upon the Hughli, the English at Cal
cutta, the French at Chandarnagar, and the Dutch at
Chinsura; and a glance at the map will show that the
English, as nearest the mouth of that river, held the key of
Bengal, for in order to reach the wharves of their respective
ports it was necessary for French and Dutch ships to sail
past the batteries of Fort William. But unlike the settle
ments in southern India, Calcutta and Chandarnagar had
observed a strict neutrality during the war of the Austrian
succession, under the protection of Ali Vardi Khan, the
Subadar or Nawab of Bengal, who ruled from 1741 to 1756.
He was a man of considerable ability and great natural
shrewdness. He seems to have clearly foreseen that with
an incapable ruler of Bengal the country would soon pass
under the sway of the western nations, and he compared
Calcutta to a hive of bees that was a source of profit to its
911 K

130 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA
owner when undisturbed, but a cause of danger and embar
rassment if rashly interfered with. AH Vardi Khan was
succeeded by his grandson and grandnephew, Mirza Mu
hammad, generally known by his title Siraj-ud-daula, a
youth of barely twenty years of age, with all the weaknesses
and vices so often met with in the harem-reared princes of
the East. During the reign of AH Vardi Khan the Euro
peans in Bengal had been forbidden to fortify their settle
ments except as a defensive precaution against Maratha
raids. But just before his death, both English and French,
foreseeing that war in Europe was inevitable, and possibly
reckoning on the fact that the change in the succession
would weaken the native power, began to erect fortifica
tions. Siraj-ud-daula ordered them to desist. The French
made their peace with him, but the English were less fortu
nate. They failed to convince him that they intended to
observe his command, and offended him by refusing to yield
up a fugitive from his tyranny who had taken refuge in
Calcutta. They had also undoubtedly given Siraj-ud-daula
some ground for complaint by abusing the trade privileges
granted them by the. farman of 171 7.
These questions were, however, but the occasion and
pretexts for the outbreak of the war. The general causes
lay deeper and were closely connected with the political
and economic condition of Bengal. The revolution of
1756-7 was not primarily or solely the conquest of an
Indian province by a European trading settlement. It was
rather the overthrow of a foreign (Muhammadan) govern
ment by the trading and financial classes, native (Hindu)
and British ; both the latter gained commercially, though
the British took the predominant part in the actual events,
and alone succeeded to the political sovereignty. The fall
of the Muhammadan power was precipitated by its internal
dissensions. The great province which included Bengal proper, Bihar,

CiEOSGE PMILIP i SON, LTD

132 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA CHAP.
and Orissa was governed, as we have seen, by Nawabs
owning nominally the suzerainty of the Emperor of Delhi.
But for many years now they had been practically inde
pendent and strove to make their office hereditary. They
were men of Mughal, Persian, or Afghan race ruling over a
Hindu people. Most of the wealth of the country was in
the hands of the latter, and a certain community of interest
existed between them and the western settlers with whom
they drove so prosperous a trade. It was noticed about
1750 that the Hindus were less tolerant than they had once
been of the rule of the Muhammadan minority, and were
casting about for some opportunity for freeing themselves
from the yoke. Even before the death of Ali Vardi Khan,
it was clear to keen observers that a collision could not
long be avoided. The Nawab was strict and repressive
rather than unjust, but the English were becoming restive
under the many vexatious restrictions on their trade.
"Twould be a good deed', wrote Orme to Clive in 1752,
' to swinge the old dog. I don't speak at random when
I say that the Company must think seriously of it, or 'twill
not be worth their while to trade in Bengal." As long
as Ali Vardi Khan lived, discontent only smouldered,
but when he was succeeded by a headstrong, weak, and
vicious youth, who pressed equally hard upon the European
traders and his Hindu subjects, and insulted the great
native financial house of the Seths, events hastened to the
catastrophe. Siraj-ud-daula determined to drive the Eng
lish from his dominions, and in directing his attack upon
them rather than upon the French or the Dutch he was
guided, from his own point of view, by a right instinct.
Their settlement was the largest and the richest, their trade
under Surman's farman was the greatest, and they were
most closely connected with the Hindu merchant class.
' The Indian Records Series. Bengal in iys^-7, S. C. Hill, 1895,
vol. i. Introduction, p. xxxiii.

XIII THE REVOLUTION IN BENGAL 133
If the English were expelled, the Nawab could deal at his
leisure with the other European settlements. Accordingly,
having seized the factory of Cossimbazar and ill-treated
his prisoners, he marched upon Calcutta with an army
of 50,000. The regular European garrison was under 300
men, and at that particular time it was much reduced
beneath its ordinary strength, owing to the wars in southern
India, but including volunteers and native troops a force
of 515 was finally mustered, about 230 of whom were
Europeans. The fort was in disrepair, the guns old, the
powder deficient. The Company's servants in Calcutta
seem to have been taken absolutely by surprise, and made
frantic appeals for aid to the French and the Dutch, who,
however, were in a still weaker position than themselves.
The Nawab advanced to the attack on June 16, and two
days later the women and children were put on board the
ships in the river; at the last moment the Governor
(Drake) and the commander of the garrison (Minchin), two
most incompetent men, joined them. The fleet dropped
down the river a short distance below the town and shame-
. fully left the rest of the garrison to its fate, though Orme
believed that a single sloop with fifteen brave men on
board might have rescued the whole party. The fugitives
landed at Fulta, twenty miles lower down the river. After
the flight of the Governor and Commandant, the besieged
garrison elected to the command HolweU, an ex-surgeon,
under whom they held out for two days longer. They sur
rendered on June 20, being then reduced to 170 men.
There followed the horrors of the ' Black Hole of Calcutta '
— an oft-told tale. A hundred and forty-six English
prisoners, one of them a woman, were forced to spend the
night of an Indian summer in the military punishment cell
of the fortress, a room of about eighteen feet square.
One hundred and twenty-three perished in the inferno so
vividly portrayed by HolweU, himself one of the survivors.

134 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
The Nawab does not appear to have been personally re
sponsible for this ghastly deed, which was due partly to the
stupidity, partly to the savagery, of subordinates, but he
never attempted to punish the perpetrators, and treated the
survivors with callous severity. Terrible, indeed, was the
disaster that had fallen upon the flourishing English settle
ment. Within a few days the up-country factories and
agencies had fallen into the hands of Siraj-ud-daula, Calcutta
itself was in his grip, and a fevjr fugitives huddled together
in misery and privation at Fulta — where the refugees from
the fleet were joined by the survivors of the Black Hole —
now represented the British occupation of Bengal. There
for the time they were contemptuously left unmolested by
their cruel enemy.
When the news of this appalling disaster reached Madras,
anxious consultations took place. War with France was
known to be imminent, and at first it was seriously doubted
whether the English could afford to denude the Coromandel
coast of troops. But in the end it was decided to make
the recovery of Calcutta the first care. Orme, the historian,
who was then one of the council at Fort St. George, eagerly
advocated this course, and it was he who suggested that
Clive, lately returned from England to be Governor of
Fort St. David, should command the main relief expedi
tion, rather than Pigot, the Governor of Madras, or Colonel
Aldercron, an officer in the King's service. A small
advance-guard reinforcement was at once dispatched under
Major Kilpatrick, which arrived at Fulta at the end of July.
The selection of Clive in preference to officers of senior
standing was a master-stroke of policy. The enterprise
appeared to his colleagues difficult and dangerous, but he
had no doubts and no tremors. He turned with delight
from the work ' of improving and increasing the investment
at Fort St. David' to his warlike and more congenial
mission. 'The capture of Calcutta', he wrote, 'appears

XIII THE REVOLUTION IN BENGAL 135
no very difficult task.' He was buoyed up with the con
viction that a great opportunity had come to him, and
wrote to his father in an exultant strain : ' It is by far the
grandest of my undertakings, I go with great forces and
great authority." His supreme self-confidence was fully
justified. He commanded a force of about 900 Europeans
and 1,500 natives, while the fleet, consisting of five men-of-
war and five transports, was under the command of Admiral
Watson. The expedition, starting October 16, reached the
mouth of the Hughli after an unfavourable voyage, and
relieved the fugitives at Fulta in December. On January 2,
1757, Calcutta fefl, and within a few days Hughli also sur
rendered to the British. Siraj-ud-daula once more led his
army against Calcutta, and a sharp engagement was fought,
which appears to have disheartened the enemy though it
was by no means decisive. On February 9 an offensive
and defensive alliance was concluded between the English
and the Nawab. The Company's fort and all their former
privileges and rights were restored to them, compensation
was to be paid for losses, and permission was given to coin
money and fortify Calcutta.
Within a few weeks of their appearance in Bengal, Clive
and Watson had thus restored the English to their old
position and wrested from Siraj-ud-daula the concession,
the withholding of which had been the main cause of the
outbreak. But it may appear strange that any alHance at
all should have been entered into with the author of the
Black Hole atrocity, and that the treaty should have
contained no provision for the punishment of the guilty.
The truth is, that Clive found himself in a very dangerous
and critical condition, and he was forced to take many
things into consideration besides the English quarrel with
Siraj-ud-daula ; his main reason, stated by himself, was that
1 The Indian Records Series. Bengal in i'js6-t, S. C. Hill, 1895,
vol. i, p. 227.

136 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
' the delay of a day or two might have ruined the Company's
affairs by the junction of the French with the Nawab '.
His relations with the commander of the fleet were often
strained. Clive was not only a soldier but a servant of the
Company. Watson, as a King's officer, openly showed his
contempt for all civil and commercial affairs, and in one
moment of anger, according to CHve, he went so far as to
threaten to open fire upon him with the guns of the fleet.
Besides this, the Calcutta council claimed authority over
Clive himself, and strongly objected to the special powers
given to him by the authorities at Madras. Clive had,
therefore, to steer his way with the greatest caution; the
commercial interests of the Company required peace ; and
so he compounded with the Nawab when he could, realiz
ing, in all probability, that he was but postponing an
inevitable conflict. He took upon himself the responsi
bility of refusing a summons from Madras to return thither.
He held that to leave Bengal at that time was to imperil
the whole of his work there, and he judged — and judged
rightly — that Madras with its own resources was capable of
warding off any attack from the French. There was, how
ever, a very real fear of effective French intervention in
.Bengal now that war was openly declared. Bussy was in
the Northern Circars within 200 miles of Calcutta. Siraj-
ud-daula, smarting from his humiliation at British hands,
was strongly suspected of leanings towards a French alliance,
and accordingly Clive and Watson turned their attention
to Chandarnagar. There had already been some futile
negotiations to maintain the neutrality that had hitherto
been characteristic of European settlements in Bengal, and
neither side had played a very ingenuous part therein.
The British now felt themselves strong enough to assail
Chandarnagar, and dispatches were received from England
enjoining hostilities with the French. Admiral Watson
sailed up the river and bombarded the enemy's forts on

XIII THE REVOLUTION IN BENGAL 137
March 23, ' as daring and meritorious an attempt ', in Clive's
words, ' as ever was made in His Majesty's sea service ','
while Clive himself on the land side drove in the pickets
and attacked the garrison at all points. The French fought
gallantly, and inflicted severe loss upon the fleet, but, after
having nearly 200 of their small force put out of action,
surrendered. Part of the garrison made their escape to
Cossimbazar, where Jean Law, brother of Jacques-Frangois
Law, was in command of the French forces.'' Clive had
extracted from the Nawab some reluctant and ambiguous
words which he construed into permission to attack the
French, but it required great tact to keep Siraj-ud-daula
from intervening. About this time, we are told, Clive
received from him as many as ten letters in one day, and
answered every one ' with all the calmness and complaisance
imaginable '. The Nawab's hesitation, so fortunate for the
British, was partly due to the fact that a terrible blow
had just fallen upon the Mughal Emperor, whose vassal
he nominally was. In January 1757 Ahmad Shah Durrani
had sacked Delhi. For the moment, the Nawab, uncertain
what enemies might assail him from northern India, was
anxious to maintain his alliance with the British, and was
therefore disinclined to save the French.
The danger from the French removed, Clive had won
a breathing-space and could reconsider his attitude to the
native powers. It must have been clear to all that a re
crudescence of hostilities with the Nawab was only a question
of time. Subsequent events were to show that the huge
army of Siraj-ud-daula was no match for the British forces,
and if Clive had declared open war upon him success
' Reports ofthe House of Commons, vol. iii, p. 146.
''¦ After Plassey, Law was chased by Coote over the Oudh frontier.
Within the next two years Law pursued the career of a military adven
turer, marching to Lncknow and Delhi, and twice assisting the rebel
son of the Mughal Emperor to invade Bengal. He finally surrendered
to the English with the honours of war in 1761.

138 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
would probably have been his. Unfortunately, this was not,
and perhaps could not have been, understood at the time,
and the English chose to fight the Nawab with the weapon
of political intrigue. A revolution was in progress at the
court of Siraj-ud-daula, and a conspiracy to dethrone him
had been formed by disaffected nobles in favour of Mir
Jafar, brother-in-law of Ali Vardi Khan. These men made
overtures to the British, and Clive, feeling that ' there can
be neither peace nor security while such a monster reigns ',
took the questionable course of supporting the plot against
the ruler who was legally the ally of the Company. This
first false step led almost inevitably to others. The negotia
tions were conducted by Aminchand (Omichand), a wealthy
Sikh financier, who demanded a large commission on the
money that might be found in the Nawab's treasury, and
threatened unless this was guaranteed to him to divulge
the whole plot to the Nawab. The threat of the black
mailer placed the Bengal council in a most unenviable
position. They were at the mercy of Aminchand, and
probably the least objectionable course would have been,
as Orme declared, to pay him his commission, excessive
as it was, and leave him to enjoy it ' in oblivion and
contempt '. Clive thought otherwise. He afterwards de
clared that 'art and policy were warrantable in defeating
the purpose of such a villain', and he won the consent
of the Secret Committee of the council, who were entrusted
with the negotiations, to a scheme to outwit Aminchand.
Two drafts of the treaty with Mir Jafar were prepared;
one authorized the commission demanded by Aminchand
and was shown to him ; the other, the real document, did
not. The fictitious treaty was signed by Clive and the
Secret Committee. Watson refused to meddle in the trans
action, and Clive ordered his signature to be counterfeited
and appended to the sham treaty.
Clive always consistently defended this episode, and

XIII THE REVOLUTION IN BENGAL 139
modern casuists have sometimes composed a laboured
apology. But it was really indefensible. The critical
position of affairs at the time affords a paUiative but not an
adequate justification. Clive's- action no doubt suggested
Horace Walpole's reflection that 'our governors there [in
India], I think, have learned more of their treachery and
injustice, than they have taught them of our discipline '.'
In the treaty, Mir Jafar promised, when he became Nawab,
to confirm all privileges allowed by Siraj-ud-daula, to make
an offensive and defensive alliance with the British, exclude
the French from Bengal, guarantee the Company a million
sterling as compensation for the loss of Calcutta, and pay
half that amount besides to the European inhabitants. By
a private arrangement, not divulged to the Company at
home, large gratuities were promised to the army and navy
and members of the council.
These preliminaries settled, Clive now showed his hand
to Siraj-ud-daula. He sent a letter taxing him with having
evaded the provisions of the treaty of February 9 and cor
responded with the French. He further proposed to refer
the dispute to the Nawab's own council. Receiving no
reply, he marched northwards from Chandarnagar, at the
head of about 3,200 troops, for the famous grove of Plassey,
twenty-three miles south of Murshidabad, where the Nawab
was already stationed with an army of about 50,000 men.
At Katwa, on the bank of the river within fifteen miles of
Plassey, he halted for four days. It was still uncertain
which side Mir Jafar would choose in the end to betray,
and Clive's anxiety was great. The eve of his great victory
was, curiously enough, almost the only occasion on which
he seems to have shown any sign of indecision. He called
a council of war and gave his own vote against advancing ;
twelve officers supported him in the majority, but seven
led by Eyre Coote voted in opposition. Clive, after the
' Letters of Horace Walpole, P. Toynbee, vol. vi, p. 28.

I40 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
council had broken up, meditated for an hour in solitude,
and then announced that he would, in spite of its decision,
continue to advance. He crossed the river on the 22nd,
and reached Plassey shortly after midnight.
The battle was fought on June 23, 1757. There was
a large disparity of numbers against the British, but a great
part of the Nawab's forces were commanded by the traitor
Mir Jafar, and never properly came into action. At the
same time Mir Jafar himself, possibly moved by a last
piteous appeal of the deluded Nawab to his honour, did
not take that prominent part against his fellow-countrymen
that the English had expected, and his conduct caused
Clive the greatest uneasiness. Indeed, he only moved
forward to join Clive when the issue was already determined.
A long cannonade in the morning was followed by a
British attack in the afternoon. The only resistance worthy
the name came from a handful of Frenchmen in the
Nawab's service. It was a mere rout rather than a battle.
Clive had twenty-three men killed and forty-nine wounded,
and the enemy not more than five hundred killed and the
same number wounded out of his large army.
After the battle, Mir Jafar, conscious of the sorry part
he had played, advanced with obvious diffidence and
mistrust, but he was saluted by Clive as Nawab of the
province and enthroned at the capital, Murshidabad. When
the treasury there was entered it was found to contain
not more than one and a half millions sterHng, instead
of the forty millions which popular rumour supposed, or
the twenty-four millions estimated by the Company's
agent at Cossimbazar. The total sum to be paid over to
the English amounted to nearly two and three-quarter
millions; it was therefore arranged that the debt should
be discharged in instalments. The deluded Aminchand
was informed that he was to get nothing; the wretched
fugitive Siraj-ud-daula, abandoned by all his servants, fell

XIII CLIVE'S FIRST GOVERNORSHIP OF BENGAL 141
into the hands of Mir Jafar's troops a few days later, as he
fled up the Ganges, and was put to death by order of the
son of his supplanter.
Mir Jafar might be the nominal head of the government
but the real power behind the throne was Clive, and such
success as the new regime at first met with was almost
entirely due to his inexhaustible energy. After he had
been appointed Governor of Bengal he quelled several
insurrections against Mir Jafar's authority and defended
him against his external foes — the eldest son of the Emperor
who was in rebellion against his father, and the ruler of
Oudh. Besides protecting the roi famiant that he had set
up, Clive used his position to strike down Great Britain's
remaining European rival in Bengal. The Dutch at
Chinsura looked with undisguised dislike on the sudden
aggrandizement of Calcutta, and were enraged by the grant
to their rivals of liberty to search all vessels in the Hughli.
Accordingly they entered into communications with the
Nawab, who was already growing restive under Clive's
domination. A fleet of seven ships appeared in the Ganges
from Batavia, and assumed a threatening demeanour. The
two nations were at peace in Europe, but Clive with calcu
lated audacity took the law into his own hands. The
Dutch gave him a handle by laying hands on some British
shipping. He launched all his available force against them,
captured their fleet, and defeated them on land through the
agency of Forde, in November 1759. The Dutch made
a complete submission, disavowed the acts of their naval
commanders, acknowledged themselves to be the aggressors,
and paid damages. From this date, though they preserved
their commercial status, they abandoned all attempts to
rival the British in the wider field of Indian politics.
In February 1760 Clive sailed for England, at the zenith
of his fame while only thirty-five. In the position of the
British in India he had wrought a truly marvellous trans-

142 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
formation. Writing to the historian Orme in 1757 he said :
' I am possessed of volumes of materials for the continuance
of your history, in which will appear fighting, tricks,
chicanery, intrigues, politics, and the Lord knows what.'
The boast was true, and with characteristic frankness Clive
did not disguise the large part played by stratagem and
finesse in his policy.
A comparison of the position in 1756 with that in 1760
reveals beyond all possibility of cavil the magnitude of his
achievement. In 1756 the British in Bengal, though the
most prosperous European community in that province of
the empire, were regarded merely as a body of merchants
with one rich settlement, a few territorial rights in the
viHages round Calcutta, and some up-country agencies or
factories at Cossimbazar, Dacca, Balasore, Jagdea, and
Patna. Though shrewd observers, such as Bernier the
French physician at the end of the seventeenth century,
and Colonel Mill about ten years before Plassey, had seen
and recorded their opinions that Indian armies would be
helpless before trained European troops, the British had
never yet dreamt of challenging the power of the Nawab of
Bengal. They had submitted with occasional protests to
Ali Vardi Khan's strict and irksome control. It was necessary
to keep on good terms with him, for the up-country factories
were quite unfortified, and it was the practice of the Nawabs
in any serious dispute to blockade them and stop all trade
till submission was made. By 1760 the position was en
tirely altered. The British were supreme in Bengal. The
French and Dutch were impoverished and reduced ; their
military and political power was gone. The titular Nawab
of the province was little more than the creature and prot^g^
of the Company. British influence extended outwards
from Calcutta through Bengal and Bihar to the southern
boundary of Oudh. The possession of this rich country
also completely altered the English position in Madras.

XIII CLIVE'S FIRST GOVERNORSHIP OF BENGAL 143
This tremendous change was almost entirely the work of
Clive. He was throughout the moving spirit. The more
closely the contemporary records are examined, the more
clearly his immense energy, masterful wiU, and dominating
influence over his colleagues stand out.
But when every tribute has been paid to the intellectual
quality of Clive's achievement, certain moral limitations
must be noted, for they reacted on the permanence and value
of his results. Recent writers on Indian history do not err
on the side of hostile criticism of eighteenth-century empire-
builders, but if James Mill and his school were over-harsh
in their judgements, the pendulum has now perhaps swung
too far in the other direction. By certain of his actions
Clive had marred both the glory and the usefulness of his
work. Like the great Duke of Marlborough, he was over-
fond of money, and he had unequalled opportunities of
amassing it. Like Marlborough too, he did not make it
dishonestly, nor was anything he did, perhaps, at variance
with the deplorably low standard of his age ; but it is
difficult to combat the verdict of Macaulay that he cannot
be acquitted ' of having done what, if not in itself evil, was
yet of evil example '. The facts are not in dispute. By a
private arrangement made with Mir Jafar before Plassey it
was stipulated that £400,000 should be given to the army
and navy and £120,000 (afterwards apparently increased
to £150,000) to the Select Committee of six persons. Ad
ditional presents were afterwards received. Clive's share in
all amounted to £234,000, and other members of the
Council received from £50,000 to £80,000. A sinister fact
was that Mir Jafar, as subsequently appeared, imagined that
in paying these additional sums he was purchasing immunity
from his obligations to the Company. Clive's defence was
that at this time there was no regulation of the Company
forbidding the receipt of presents ; and when presents were
not exacted by compulsion, when they were given by

144 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
a prince in a state of independence, they were not dis
honourable.' The defence was legally sound, but in the
first place Clive must have known that Mir Jafar was hardly
a free agent. These sums, says Sir Edward Colebrooke,
were not really presents in any sense of the word; 'they
were moneys bargained for the sale of a province under
a transaction stained with falsehood and treachery through
out ' ^ — a judgement which, though perhaps over-severe, is
hardly untrue. Secondly, Clive, as a practical poUtician,
should have recognized that he was creating a very dangerous
precedent, and, as we know, after his departure the
Bengal Council, within the space of five years, engineered
three more revolutions without any of the strong reasons
which palliated, if they did not excuse, CHve's action, and
on each occasion dipped their hands deep into the treasury
of the Nawab.
Burgoyne's doctrine, afterwards laid down in the House
of Commons, is unimpeachable : ' that it was impossible that
any civil or military servant in treating with a foreign prince
or state could, while doing so, lawfully bargain for or acquire
property for himself. That Clive had an uneasy sense of
the truth of this is proved by the fact that in a long dis
patch to the Secret Committee of the Court of Directors,
written four weeks after he entered Murshidabad, he gave
full details as to the compensation to the Company and
inhabitants of Calcutta that Mir Jafar had stipulated to pay
in the public treaty, and described the deficit in the treasury,
but he made no allusion to the private agreement, the large
sums paid to the services and the Committee, or to the
huge amount afterwards received as presents. He did in
deed, later on, allude to the fact that the generosity of th&
Nawab had made his fortune easy, but the Directors, when
' Reports of the House of Commons, vol. iii, p. 148.
2 Rise of ihe British Power in the East, M. Elphinstone, ed. by Sir
E. Colebrooke, p. 315.

XIII CLIVERS FIRST GOVERNORSHIP OF BENGAL 145
they wrote, ' we do not intend to break in upon any sums of
money which have been given by the Nabob [Nawab] to
particular persons by way of free gift',' could hardly have
realized what large amounts were in question. An excuse
is often found for Clive in the parsimonious conduct of the
Directors, who still insisted on paying low official salaries
to their servants in India. But though the salaries were
nominally meagre enough, there were recognized ways of
increasing them by the right of private trade. Clive himself,
on his first retum to England in 1753, at the age of twenty-
eight, after but nine years' service, brought back a fair fortune,
which enabled him to pay off his father's debts, make con
siderable display as a man of fashion, and win a Parliamentary
election after a lavish expenditure of money.
Finally, by the acceptance of these presents, Clive, though
perhaps unconsciously, imperilled the permanence of his
settlement of Bengal, and so infringed his own canon that
presents must not be received to the disadvantage of the
Company. Before Plassey, the British seem really to have
believed that the treasury at Murshidabad contained as
much as forty millions sterling, and, in the light of this
belief, the sums accepted as presents may have appeared
comparatively small. The real value, as has been said, was
discovered to be £1,500,000, while the British claims under
the public and private treaty amounted to over two and three-
quarter millions. The obviously right course was to surrender
the sums promised by the Nawab as gratuities, but it was not
taken. The new government of Mir Jafar was saddled with
the obligation of discharging the debt, and so started on its
difficult and dangerous path already heavily handicapped.
Clive's famous exclamation is well known, that, when he
remembered the gold, silver, and jewels in the treasury of
Murshidabad, he was astonished at his own moderation.
But when he made this statement in 1773 he must have
' Reports of the House of Commojts, vol. iii, p. 149.
914 I-

146 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
forgotten, or ignored, the fact that at the time he was obliged
to make arrangements with the Nawab to have the sums
due to the British paid by instalments, for the reason that
the deposits in the treasury were insufficient to discharge
the debt.
But Clive was to receive still more. Mir Jafar had
procured for him from the Emperor the title of Omrah, or
noble. It was customary, when this rank was conferred on
native subjects, for z.fagir, or revenue derived from land, to
be given them to support their rank. In Clive's case, of
course, the title was merely honorary, but thinking apparently
that a quarter of a million was not a sufficient reward for
his services to Mir Jafar, he wrote, on his own admission,'
to the financial minister of the Nawab, informing him that
he had been made an Omrah without & jagir. The hint
was taken, and a little later Mir Jafar, partly out of gratitude
for the driving away from Bengal of the Emperor's rebellious
son, partly, as was suggested at the time, for fear that his
intrigues with the Dutch would be punished, granted to
CHve the huge sum of £30,000 a year, being the quit rent
paid to himself by the Company for lands south of Calcutta.
There was nothing technically illegal here, but the want of
delicacy shown by Clive was surely amazing. We have to
remember that he had already received £234,000 from the
man to whom he made this further application — an applica
tion that, in the relations in which they stood to one
another, was almost a demand. The acceptance of the
fagir made him, the servant of the Company, also its land
lord — a position which, as the Court of Directors afterwards
maintained, was, even if legal, highly improper. It has
been well said that 'however great Clive's services may
have been, they were really the services of those who
employed him, and therefore, if the Nawab was in a position
to renounce the quit rent, the renunciation ought to have
^ Reports of the House of Commons, vol. iii, p. 154.

XIII CLIVE'S FIRST GOVERNORSHIP OF BENGAL 147
been made in the Company's favour'.' But there was at
any rate here no concealment, and the Company deserve
little sympathy, for instead of objecting at once, as they
should have done, to the position ' of being tributary to their
own servants ', they allowed the payments to be made for
some years, and then withheld them on purely personal
grounds, ' all cordiality with Lord Clive being at an end '.
The Company, therefore, must share the responsibility,
though it must be admitted that Clive was in a position to
know, and they were not, how straitened at this time were the
means of the Nawab. He was asked at the Parliamentary
inquiry of 1772 whether, at the time the.jagir was granted,
he knew that the troops of the Nawab were mutinous and
clamouring for pay, and he answered that he did, adding,
as a kind of justification, that it was the custom of the
country never to pay the army a fourth part of what was
promised them. He was then asked whether he was aware
that before the grant was offered to him the Nawab's
jewels, goods, and furniture were publicly sold to pay the
Company the sums stipulated in the treaty, and again he
was forced to answer ' Yes '.'^
Clive, therefore, by crippling the resources of Mir Jafar at
the beginning of his administration, cannot be exonerated
from some share of the blame for the notorious misgovern
ment in Bengal that followed. Full allowances must be
made on the score of the lower public morality current at
the time in all matters of finance. It was the rule and not
the exception for statesmen in the eighteenth century to
make large personal profits out of their official positions.
The whole doctrine of prize money governed not only
miHtary but civil life as well. At the capture of Gheria from
the pirate chief Angria in 1756 the Engli.sh troops divided
£120,000 amongst themselves, reserving not one penny for
' A Comprehensive History of India, by H. Beveridge, vol. i, p. 659.
- Reports of the House of Commons, vol. iii, p. 155.

148 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA
the East India Company. Lecky has recorded the fact
that the Duke of Marlborough received from the state no
less a sum than £64,000 per annum. The truth is that
everywhere at this time, and especially in India, as Sir
John Malcolm, Clive's biographer, admits, a ' spirit of
plunder' and a 'passion for the rapid accumulation of
wealth' actuated all ranks. The whole atmosphere was
corrupt from a modern point of view. The older school of
historians were apt to judge men like Clive and Warren
Hastings too severely by the standards of a later age, but
it is not less absurd to assume that all their financial trans
actions were worthy of praise. To do so is unjust to men
who were capable of rising to greater heights. The
Governors-General appointed from the ranks of English
statesmen after 1785 excelled even the best of the
Company's servants in their attitude to such questions.
The historian Thornton with justice remarks that the views
and actions of Indian officials at this time present a very
discreditable contrast to the conduct of Lord Wellesley in
refusing the sum of £100,000 tendered to him without
solicitation by the ministers of the Crown from the spoils
of Seringapatam.

CHAPTER XIV
MISGOVEENMENT IN BENGAL. BEPOEMS AND
OLIVE'S SECOND GOVEBNOBSHIP
On Clive's departure for Europe there ensued, in the
words of Sir Alfred Lyall, ' the only period of Anglo-Indian
history which throws grave and unpardonable discredit on
the English name'. The fact was more lamentable than
surprising. A little body of Englishmen engaged in com
mercial pursuits had, within a few years, been raised ft-om
the control of a single town and some up-country stations to
a real, though as yet unacknowledged, authority throughout
a wide province. Theirs was the power of the sword that
upheld the native ruler whose sway was acknowledged
throughout Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa. This man, their tool
and nominee, was himself in theory the deputy of a roi
fainiant, the Mughal Emperor. The divorce of the de facto
power from the de jure sovereignty was at this time the
political fashion throughout India, and it appeared in the
greatest Hindu state as well as in the Mughal Empire, for
the actual authority in the Maratha confederacy had already
passed from the successor of Sivaji, seated on his prison
throne at Satara, to the Peshwa, or Mayor of the Palace, and
was soon to be transferred from the Peshwa to the Peshwa! s
Brahman minister, and from the minister to the hereditary
generals of the confederate armies. These political shams
inevitably had a demoralizing effect upon the trend of British
policy, for which great allowance must therefore be made.
For the British in Bengal to have accepted the native
political claims at their face value would have meant that

150 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
the burden of the administration and of warlike operations
would have fallen on their shoulders, while the profits of
power would have been paid into the exchequer of worth
less and helpless native rulers. The practice generally
adopted by the British was to concede the native political
claims as far as possible, at the same time taking care that
their own services should not go unrewarded. When this
course led them to an impasse, as it ultimately did through
the anarchical condition of native jurisdictions, they were
apt themselves to solve the difficulty by some rather trans
parent political fiction, when it would have perhaps been
better openly to acknowledge that their own interest and the
cause of humane government required the drastic sweeping
away of the cobwebs- of outworn political systems.
On Clive's departure, Vansittart, the new Governor, and
the Council were confronted with some special difficulties.
The Company's treasury was exhausted. The Nawab was
in arrears with the subsidy for their troops, and, worst of all,
no remittances were sent from home, the Directors believ
ing that vast wealth had been acquired in Bengal, and
expecting that Presidency to supply money for Bombay and
Madras. ' It is a most amazing thing to consider,' wrote
the Directors in 1758, 'that a settlement so abounding with
industrious inhabitants, and flourishing in its trade . . .
should produce so little profit to the Company. This cannot
be easily accounted for other ways than from the luxurious,
expensive, and idle manner of life . . . among all ranks of
our servants."
Foreign difficulties were added to internal complications.
The new Mughal Emperor, Shah Alam, nominal suzerain of
Mir Jafar — the theoretical overlord of the Company — invaded
Bengal. He was defeated by a British force, but entered
into friendly relations with his conquerors. At the same
time the Bengal Council, at the instigation of HolweU, find-
' Letter to Calcutta, March 3, 1758.

XIV MISGOVERNMENT IN BENGAL 15 1
ing that Mir Jafar was hopelessly weak, deposed him in
favour of his son-in-law, Mir Kasim. It is only fair to state
that many members of the Council protested strongly
against the decision ' to dethrone a man we were bound to
support by the most solemn ties, divine and human ', and
stigmatized it as ' an indelible stain upon our national
character'.' Vansittart and HolweU hoped to regularize
this second revolution by using the power they had so
suddenly gained over the Emperor. Nothing could have
shed a clearer light upon the whole situation. Mir Kasim,
the nominee of the East India Company's servants, sitting
on a throne erected within the English factory at Patna,
was endowed with the viceroyalty of Bengal, Bihar, and
Orissa, by a sovereign who had just been defeated and taken
prisoner by British troops. The British had far more real
power than Mir Kasim, and Mir Kasim than the Emperor,
who was in fact a homeless fugitive ; and yet in theory these
positions were exactly reversed.
The British obtained from Mir Kasim, as the price of
their support, the cession of the districts of Burdwan, Mid-
napur, and Chittagong, which gave them valuable territory
to the west, north-west, and east of Calcutta, and the
Council followed Clive's unfortunate precedent by receiving
for themselves gratuities to the amount of £200,000. A
sidelight is thrown upon the rapacity of the Company's
servants at this time by the simple fact that Vansittart, the
Governor, whose character stood higher than that of the
average civil servant at this time, received more than
£50,000, though he had an allowance from the Company of
£18,000 a year, and carried on trade on his own account
besides. Mir Kasim was a ruler of considerable administrative
ability, and in many ways improved the position of his pro
vince, but he soon came into collision with the British in
' Reports ofthe House of Commons, vol. iii, pp. 252, 254.

152 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
Calcutta. Ever since 1717 the Company had been allowed
to conduct its export trade from Bengal free of duty.
After 1756 its servants began illegally to claim exemption
on their private trade, which they carried on in the province
and in which they competed with the Nawab's subjects.
It therefore happened that, while the Company was demand
ing heavy subsidies from that unfortunate ruler for the
support of the troops that defended his dominions, its
servants, by claiming an illegal monopoly, were lessening his
revenues and impoverishing his people. The evidence of
the wrong thus done to the natives of the province is indis
putable. Verelst, afterwards Governor of Bengal, admitted
that ' a trade was carried on without payment of duties, in
the prosecution of which infinite oppressions were com
mitted ' ; and the young Warren Hastings warned his fellow-
countrymen that they were ' erecting themselves into lords
and oppressors of the country '- It is quite impossible, in a
short history, to enter into the details of the struggle. It
must be enough to say that Mir Kasim was gradually
driven to the conviction that he could get neither justice
nor a fair hearing from the Bengal Council, who, in their
attitude towards their oriental suzerain, displayed, as
Macaulay says, ' the strength of civilization without its
mercy '. Finally, all the hidden ferocity and brutality of
the Nawab's nature flared out ; he seized the servants of the
Company, was defeated in two fiercely-contested engagements,
and massacred two hundred of his prisoners. Throughout
this discreditable episode, only two EngHshmen played an
honourable part, Vansittart and Hastings, who resisted their
fellows at the Council board, and supported the Nawab
until his acts of violence and treachery made it impossible
for them to do so any longer. The conduct of Hastings
was especially commendable, for he did not stand high in
order of seniority ; he seems to have successfully resisted
the many strong temptations of wrongly acquiring wealth

XIV MISGOVERNMENT IN BENGAL 153
that beset him, and he was perhaps the only Englishman in
Bengal who emerged from the business with clean hands
and unsullied honour.
Mir Kasim was deposed, July 1763, and Mir Jafar once
more placed upon the throne. He was forced to grant the
English the privilege of internal trade, and indemnify the
Company for their losses at the hands of Mir Kasim, who
by British aid had usurped his throne. Mir Kasim fled
across the frontiers of Oudh. The rulers of that country
enjoyed the title of Nawab Wazir, i. e. First Minister of the
Mughal Empire, though they had long been practically
independent, and were often at variance with their suzerain.
The then holder of the title, Shuja-ud-daula, was however
for the moment supporting the Emperor, Shah Alam, and
it was over their combined forces that Major Munro, who
had just quelled the first sepoy mutiny in the Company's
army by stern measures, won a great victory at the Battle of
Baxar in 1764.
Baxar, as Sir James Stephen says, deserves far more
than Plassey to be considered as the origin of the British
power in India. It was a fiercely-contested battle, and the
troops of Mir Kasim offered a determined resistance. The
English lost 847 killed and wounded, while the enemy left
behind them 2,000 dead. It was not merely the Nawab of
Bengal, as at Plassey, but the Emperor of all India and his
titular Prime Minister who were defeated. The Emperor at
once made his submission, but the Nawab Wazir refused to
come to terms till British forces had marched into Luck
now and Allahabad, and all Oudh was at their mercy.
Meanwhile Mir Jafar, the puppet Nawab of Bengal, had
died in February 1765, and the Bengal Council raised to
his throne the second son in preference to a grandson.
They seized the opportunity to strengthen their own control
over the country, for the real administration was to be
henceforward in the hands of a deputy Nawab (Muhammad

154 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
Raza Khan), to be appointed on their advice and not to be
dismissed without their sanction. The Court of Directors
had again and again condemned the private trading rights
claimed by their servants, and had sent the strictest orders
against the taking of presents. In face of this the Bengal
Council forced the new ruler to leave their trading rights
untouched, and compelled him to make handsome presents
to the Governor and his colleagues of £139,357. Corrup
tion had done its work, and the moral fibre of the whole
settlement was rotten. ' There was ', says Verelst, ' a general
contempt of superiors ... a total contempt of public orders
whenever obedience was found incompatible with private
interest.' Such was the state of affairs when Clive arrived to
take up his second governorship, after a five years' residence
in England. He had been given an Irish peerage, a reward
deemed by himself inadequate. He entered Parliament,
purchased a great English estate and several rotten boroughs,
so that he was soon at the head of a little coterie of
followers in the Commons. He also plunged into the
politics of the India House, where he encountered consider
able opposition, probably due to his famous letter to Pitt,
written from India in January 1759 and advocating that the
Crown should take over the East India Company's terri
torial acquisitions. The party hostile to Clive (led by
the Director Sulivan — once his friend but now a bitter
opponent), having gained the ascendancy in the Court of
Directors, ordered the authorities in Calcutta to cease pay
ing to him the revenues of ihejagir, whereupon Clive insti
tuted against them a suit in chancery.
In February 1 764 news arrived of the deplorable position
of affairs in Bengal, and these disastrous tidings enabled
Clive to win a complete victory over his enemies in the
Directorate. The Court of Proprietors insisted that he
should be sent out to restore the fortunes of the Company
and overrode all objections. He was appointed Governor

XIV CLIVE'S SECOND GOVERNORSHIP OF BENGAL 155
of Bengal and Commander-in-Chief. The enjoyment of
the fagir, on his own proposal, was guaranteed to him
for ten years, or till his death, if he died before that
period had elapsed. His chief partisan, Rous, was elected
Chairman of the Court of Directors. On arriving in India
he was to work with the existing Bengal Council, if possible ;
if not, he was empowered to form a Select Committee of
four, presided over by himself, to whom all the functions of
government were to pass. Two of the Committee, Colonel
Camac and Verelst, were already in Bengal. The others,
Sumner and Sykes, sailed with him. Clive arrived in May
1765, to find the external position completely retrieved, the
Company's arms everywhere victorious, and the highest
political authority of all India a suppliant for British
charity. In internal affairs the Calcutta government had
openly defied all the regulations for reform put forth by the
Directors, had thrice set their own candidate upon the
masnad (or throne) of Bengal, and had turned each occa
sion shamelessly to their own profit. Finally, owing to their
policy towards Mir Kasim, they had plunged into a war on
a question that did not concern their employers' interest in
the least, for the East India Company was only concerned
with the oversea trade.
Clive acted with his usual decisive promptitude. His
work may be classified under three heads ; first, his reform
of the Company's civil and military services ; secondly, the
acquisition of the Diwani (or revenue administration) of
Bengal ; and thirdly, his external policy. It will be con
venient to summarize as clearly as possible his acts under
these separate designations, and then to add a few words of
comment on his achievements as a whole.
Clive soon made up his mind that to sfem the tide of
corruption with the existing Council would be a hopeless
task. He therefore nominated his Select Committee two
days after his landing. The Company's servants were

156 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
forced to subscribe the covenants against the receipt of
presents, and the system by which they had been enabled
to escape the regular internal imposts on their private trade
was aboHshed. Clive himself was in favour of the total
abolition of licensed private trading, and advocated a large
increase in official salaries ; but he could not win the Court
of Directors to his views. As an alternative, he attempted
to regularize and limit the existing practice by granting a
monopoly of the trade in salt to the superior servants of
the Company in graduated shares, so that the Governor
received £17,500 per annum; a Colonel in the army or
a member of Council, £7,000; and lower ranks, lesser
amounts in a descending scale. Clive was afterwards
severely censured for this arrangement, which was said to
run counter to the orders of the Directors against allowing
their servants to trade in certain commodities, of which salt
was one. This was no doubt technically true, but every one
at the time considered it essential to augment the official
salaries in some way, and since, as we shall see, a fixed
allowance was henceforward to be made to the Nawab by
the Company and his income was no longer to be derived
from internal dues, many of the former objections against
private trade in salt were removed. Two years later
the Directors abolished his system and substituted for it
commissions on the revenues of the province, which gave to
the Governor about £18,500 a year in addition to his salary
of £4,800, and to other ranks emoluments in proportion.^
Naturally these drastic reforms were not carried through
without the most determined resistance from the original
Council, of whom Spencer, the Governor, and several other
leading officials were expeUed or forced to resign. When
Clive thundered against ' the rapacity and oppression '
1 Reports ofthe House of Comnuins, vol. iv, p. 460. It was some
times even more. The amount paid to the Governor Verelst for the
year ending Aug. 31, 1768, was;^27,093, ibid., p. 162.

XIV CLIVE'S SECOND GOVERNORSHIP OF BENGAL 157
universally prevalent and declared that 'every spark of
sentiment and public spirit was lost and extinguished in the
inordinate lust of unmerited wealth', the men who were
trounced in this heated language naturally recalled the huge
sums amassed by their censor in his first period of office.
To them it appeared that Clive, having then secured a
colossal fortune, was apprehensive that, if similar methods
were not checked in Bengal, Parliament would direct its
attention to the matter and his own conduct in the past
would not escape investigation. To this feeling they attri
buted the fury of his onslaught. Plausible as all this must
have sounded at the time, it was almost certainly untrue.
That Clive's action in the past was injudicious and that it
involved a most unfortunate precedent we have shown.
But, too apt as he was to shelter himself behind techni-
caHties and the letter of the law, he was honestly convinced
of his integrity and the purity of his motives. He would have
answered that in 1757 there was no order of the Court of
Directors against the receipt of presents, and that the change
of succession brought about in that year was a genuine revo
lution. The very strength and violence of his language in
describing the corruption in Bengal, though it was perhaps
partly due to natural irritation at the attacks of which he was
made the object, shows that he really considered his own
conduct in the past to have been on quite a different level
from that of Spencer and his colleagues. It is true,
therefore, to say that during his second governorship he
cleansed the Augean stables of the Bengal establishment,
that he acted throughout with a single-eyed aim for the good
of the Company, that he took, as he frequently boasted, no
profit to himself and received no emolument from the
Court of Directors. On the other hand, it is equally true
that, when Clive arrived in India and heard at Madras that
the Company's affairs were far more prosperous than had
been supposed, he wrote post haste in cipher to his agents

158 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
in London to invest all his available funds in the purchase
of East India stock — a not very reputable use of knowledge
gained in his official capacity. Though he did not take for
himself the huge profits (£ 1 7,500) allocated to the Governor
from the salt monopoly, he yet distributed his share among
his relatives and dependents, and though he repeated with
unnecessary iteration that he would receive no profit of any
kind from his second governorship, yet he was afterwards
granted by the Company on his return another ten years'
enjoyment of the jagir, and had he lived this would have
amounted to £300,000 — not an insufficient emolument for
a period of office of two years.
By his reforms Clive alienated the whole of the civil
service in Bengal, and by abolishing, as he had been
required to do, the custom of extra pay or ' double batta ' in
the army, which, properly only granted on active service, had
been continued by Mir Jafar since Plassey in time of peace,
he incurred the relentless enmity of the officers. A dan
gerous mutiny was organized, and Clive at one time stood
almost alone in Bengal, against a combination of very
sinister forces. His commanding genius was never more in
evidence. He determined ' to put all to the risk rather
than suffer the authority of the Council to be insulted '.
By promptitude and daring he crushed the mutinous spirit
and completely cowed the rebellious factions.
The famous acquisition of the Diwani of Bengal was the
first great step by the Company towards territorial dominion.
Before he reached Bengal, Clive had come to the conclusion
that some such responsibility must be incurred. He wrote
from Madras, 'we must become Nabobs in fact if not in
name, perhaps totally so, without disguise '. The Diwani
conferred upon its holder the right to collect and administer
all the revenues of the province, and Clive prevailed upon
the Emperor Shah Alam to confer this momentous power
upon the East India Company. Henceforward its servants

XIV CLIVE'S SECOND GOVERNORSHIP OF BENGAL 159
were to collect the revenues and defray the charges of
government, to pay to the Nawab a fixed sum of 53 lakhs
of rupees (reduced to 41 lakhs in 1766 and to 32 in 1769),
and to the Emperor 26 lakhs.
The constitutional relations between the Nawab of Bengal
and the East India Company are very compHcated and
difficult to understand. Perhaps the clearest explanation
that can be given of them is as follows. The Nawab or
Subadar of Bengal, as Viceroy of the Mughal Emperor,
exercised two functions : (i) the Diwani, i. e. revenue and
civil justice, (2) the Nizamat, i. e. military power and
criminal justice. Now, as Sir James Stephen points out, in
February 1765 the Nawab practically had granted the
Nizamat to the Company, and in August 1765 the
Emperor ceded to them the Diwani; ' the Company thus
held the Diwani from the Emperor and the Nizamat from
the Subadar '. So far the position, though highly technical
and intricate, is not difficult to grasp. It was further com
plicated by the fact that the servants of the East India
Company as yet did not undertake their duties as Diwan or
Nazim in their own persons. The nominal head of the
administration was a Deputy Naib or Nawab (the words
are practically identical), whom the Nawab bound himself
to appoint with their sanction. A similar Deputy was
appointed for Bihar. The whole administration was for
many years conducted almost entirely through native agency,
though in 1769 English supervisors (afterwards called
collectors) were appointed to control the native revenue
officers. But according to the testimony of Kaye, they
only ' made confusion more confounded and corruption
more corrupt '. Such was Clive's famous ' dual system '.
It was easy even at that date to point out its defects. The
unfortunate divorce of power from responsibility soon caused
a recrudescence of the old abuses. The policy indeed can
only merit approval in so far as it led up to the more open

]6o HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
assumption of responsibility by the Company under Warren
Hastings and Lord Cornwallis. But Clive could not afford
to indulge in counsels of perfection; he had to deal with
actualities. He admitted that the Nawab had only 'the
name and shadow of authority ', yet ' this name . . . this
shadow it is indispensably necessary that we should venerate '.
As Verelst — an acute observer — noted, it was almost im
possible at first to have taken over the full management,
because of the limited number of the Company's servants
and their ignorance of the task of administration. There
was finally the consideration that openly to have assumed
the govemment of Bengal would have caused a breach with
other European powers, and Clive was supported in this by
the almost universal opinion of the statesmen of his day.
So much for the internal administration. Clive had next
to deal with the foreign relations. It was expected, when
he left England, that he would be called upon to conclude
the war raging between the Company and Mir Kasim. But
he found the work of conquest completed by the victories of
Adams and Munro, and it is probable enough, as was hinted
at the time, that he felt a little natural disappointment when
he discovered nothing to do in the field. There was, how
ever, abundance to satisfy the most insatiable diplomatist.
The whole political system of northern India was in the
melting-pot. The Mughal Emperor and his chief minister
were in the Company's power and suppliants for their
bounty. Oudh lay defenceless before British armies. Clive
determined to confine the territorial influence of the Com
pany to Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa ; to restore his forfeited
dominions to the ruler of Oudh ; to recognize the title and,
as far as possible, support the power of Shah Alam. Shuja-
ud-daula was called upon to pay fifty lakhs of rupees as a war
indemnity, and was reinstated in his possessions with the
exception of the districts of Kora and Allahabad. A defen
sive alliance was concluded whereby the Company engaged

XIV CLIVE'S SECOND GOVERNORSHIP OF BENGAL l6l
to provide him with troops for the defence of his frontiers
if he needed them and consented to furnish the cost of
maintenance. The settlement with Oudh was destined to
be the most lasting of Clive's political acts, and it remained
in the condition of a ' buffer ' state till its annexation by
Lord Dalhousie on the eve of the Mutiny.
It was necessary next to deal with the fugitive Emperor,
Shah Alam, who with his high claims and feeble resources
presented a political problem of a peculiarly delicate and
embarrassing nature. Clive made over to him the districts
of Kora and Allahabad which had been withheld from the
Nawab of Oudh, for the support of his imperial dignity,
together with an annual subsidy of twenty-six lakhs. He
also obtained from the Emperor the reversion of his fagir
to the Company, when his own ten years' enjoyment of its
revenues should be terminated.
The settlement with the Emperor was an adroit com
promise and easily laid itself open to attack from political
theorists. Clive was at once accused of being quixotically
generous to a political fugitive and of having treated cava
lierly a monarch in distress. Men were found (of whom
Eyre Coote was one) to advocate a British march to Delhi
and the conquest of all India in the name of Shah Alam.
But Clive, though he recognized that ' It is scarcely hyper
bole to say that to-morrow the whole Mughal Empire is in
our power ', was not to be dazzled by these brilliant pros
pects. It was a great step in advance to extend British
sway over the three provinces of Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa,
and even so he begged the Court ' not to be staggered at the
Magnitude of their possessions '. He knew as well as any
one that, from a purely military point of view, there was
nothing to stop British troops from advancing on Delhi ;
but he was a statesman as well as a soldier, and deliberately
recorded his opinion that ' to go further ... is a scheme so
extravagantly ambitious and absurd that no governor and

l62 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
council in their senses can even adopt it unless the whole
scheme of the Company's interest be first entirely new
modelled '. How right was Clive's judgement was proved
by the fact that during the next twenty years the frontier of
British dominions was only defended with difficulty from
external enemies. The Maratha onset was repeUed, but
had the British lines been thrown further forward, it is
possible that in the troublous times ahead they could not
have been held.
Clive left India January 1767, shattered in health and
spirits. He had carried considerable reforms, though the
partiality of biographers has sometimes exaggerated them.
The Company's civil service was not thoroughly purified
till the time of Cornwallis, but Clive had done more
than any one man at the time could have hoped to accom
plish. He had made many enemies, who returned to
England vowing vengeance against him. They effected an
alliance with a party whose motives were far more worthy
of respect — men genuinely desirous that a stricter control
should be established in financial matters over the Com
pany's servants. A feeling of alarm was springing up at
home at the temptations of the East and the fatal facility
with which great fortunes were acquired. ' Those men ',
says a contemporary writer in 1772, 'must have more than
a moderate share of virtue, who, considering the universal
veneration in this country paid to men of wealth, will
return with a moderate fortune after being several years
entrusted with the government of India',' and two years
before. Lord Chatham from his place in Parliament
declared, ' For some years past there has been an influx of
wealth into this country, which has been attended with
many fatal consequences, because it has not been the regu
lar natural produce of labour and industry. The riches of
' Considerations on a pamphlet entitled Thoughts on our Acquisitions
in the East Indies, 1772.

XIV CLIVE'S SECOND GOVERNORSHIP OF BENGAL 163
Asia have been poured in upon us, and have brought with
them not only Asiatic luxury but, I fear, Asiatic principles
of government. Without connexions, without any natural
interest in the soil, the importers of foreign gold have forced
their way into Parliament by such a torrent of corruption as
no private hereditary fortune could resist'.' In 1772 it
became apparent that Clive's measures had not availed to
ward off a serious economic crisis, and Parliament found
that the Company was in danger of insolvency, unless the
Treasury or the Bank came to its aid. This was the one
unpardonable sin. ' If . . . sovereignty and law are not
separated from trade ', said Burgoyne, the leader of the
Company's critics, ' India and Great Britain will be sunk and
overwhelmed, never to rise again'.' In that year a Select
Committee of thirty-one members and a Secret Com
mittee of thirteen inquired into Indian affairs. The
first Reports of the former dealt with the revolutions in
Bengal, 1757-60, the presents granted to the Company's
servants, and Clive's fagir. It is usually said by Clive's
biographers that these Committees were inspired solely by
animus against him, and Clive himself indignantly declared
that they questioned him as though he were a sheep-stealer ;
but there is little evidence of any unnecessary bias in the
Reports themselves, and they are a valuable storehouse of
facts for the history of the East India Company. It was
inevitable that Clive should be the chief person examined,
for he had played the predominant part during those years
on the Indian stage ; and it was inevitable also, though most
unfortunate, that his earlier acts in Bengal, the deception of
Aminchand and the taking of presents, should be severely
criticized. In the meantime, it is true, Clive had per
formed great services, and stemmed the tide of corruption
in Bengal ; but this was almost forgotten for the moment
' Chatham's speech, Jan. 22, 1770, Hansard.
2 The Parliamentary History of England, vol. xvii, p. 458.

164 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
in the excitement caused by the revelations of the two
Committees. On May 10, 1773, Colonel Burgoyne moved three resolu
tions of importance : ' (i) That aU acquisitions made under
the influence of a military force or by treaty with foreign
princes do of right belong to the state. (2) That to appro
priate acquisitions so made to the private emolument of
persons intrusted with any civil or miHtary power is illegal.
(3) That very great sums of money and other valuable
property have been acquired in Bengal from princes and
others of that country, by persons intrusted with the civil
and military powers of the state; which sums of money
and valuable property have been appropriated to the private
use of such persons.' These resolutions were carried, as
they were almost bound to be, for they merely stated
incontrovertible facts. On May 17, Colonel Burgoyne aban
doned general and abstract resolutions for a specific attack
on Clive. He moved that Clive 'through the influence
of the powers with which he was intrusted as a member
of the Select Committee and commander-in-chief of the
British forces did obtain and possess himself of the sum
of £234,000; and that in so doing the said Robert CHve
abused the power with which he was intrusted to the evil
example of the servants of the public and to the dishonour
and detriment of the state'. This resolution as drafted
would have blasted Clive's reputation. Brought face to
face with his enemies, Clive defended himself passionately
and with striking ability. His speech ended with the
famous words, ' Before I sit down I have one request to the
House, and it is that when they come to decide upon my
honour they wiU not forget their own.'
In the House itself there was a great revulsion of feeling.
It was strongly felt that Clive had nobly atoned by his
subsequent career for the errors of taste and judgement in
1757. The original motion was discarded. The mere

XIV CLIVE'S SECOND GOVERNORSHIP OF BENGAL 165
Statement that £234,000 had been received was carried,
but the words of reflection on Clive's honour were negatived
without a division. Finally, after a whole night's debate,
at five o'clock in the morning, the famous resolution was
carried unanimously, 'That Robert Lord Clive at the
same time rendered great and meritorious services to his
country.' But Clive's wounded feelings were only partly salved by
this honourable acquittal. He had always been rather
melancholic in temperament, and brooding thoughts over
the attacks upon his name, together with the agonies of
a painful disease, drove him to take his own life on
November 2, 1774, in his fiftieth year. Thus in physical
misery and with somewhat tarnished fame perished the
real founder of British dominion in India. Clive's qualities
peculiarly fitted him for the role on the Indian stage that
he was destined to fill. He had a certain rough-hewn,
almost elemental force and a tireless energy which made
him a true pioneer of empire. ' He settled great founda
tions ', said Burke; and again in another passage, 'When
Lord Clive forded a deep water with an unknown bottom,
he left a bridge for his successors over which the lame
might hobble and the blind might grope their way." The
note of his character was decision and an iron will. He
diagnosed a situation quickly, knew exactly what he wished
to attain, and directed his course thither relentlessly. As
a soldier he was a great leader of men, but Pitt's famous
description of him as a heaven-born general is hardly
appropriate. ' There is little trace ', says Sir Charles Wilson
truly, ' of skilful combination in his plans, and on some
occasions he appears to have neglected the most obvious
military precautions. To seek the enemy and, on finding
him, to attack with headlong valour seems to have been
' Speeches in the Trial of Warren Hastings, ed. by E. A. Bond,
vol. iv, pp. 329, 348.

l66 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA
his guiding principle, and his successes were due rather
to his personal intrepidity, and to his power of inspiring
large masses of men with confidence, than to studied plans
or dexterous manoeuvres.'^ All his contemporaries in
India, even when they hated and feared him, seem to have
acknowledged his personal force. Early in his career he was
led into courses that a strict morality or the standard of
a later age would condemn, but Clive, like his great suc
cessor, Warren Hastings, was convinced of his own integrity.
He never ceased to defend and even claim merit for the
actions that were impugned. This aspect of his character
is portrayed by Horace Walpole with a characteristic jibe,
when he writes of Clive's great speech in his own defence :
' Though Lord Clive was so frank and high-spirited as to
confess a whole folio of his Machiavellism, they were so
ungenerous as to have a mind to punish him for assassina
tion, forgery, treachery, and plunder, and it makes him
very indignant. "* In spite of some faults, there is the stamp
of grandeur on all Clive's words and actions. His last sad
act showed that, though he valued overmuch the material
things of this world, they counted as nothing with him in
comparison with what he reckoned to be the loss of his
honour. His headlong valour on the battlefield, his
splendid daring and audacity in a political crisis, his moral
courage in facing disaffected and mutinous siibordinates,
his force and fire in debate, all justify the lofty verdict
of Lord Macaulay that our island 'has scarcely ever
produced a man more truly great, either in arms or in
council '.
1 Lord Clive (English Men of Action Series), p. 57.
^ Letters of Horace Walpole, P. Toynbee, vol. xiii, p. 277.

CHAPTER XV
THE ADMINISTEATION OP WABEEN HASTINGS TO
THE END OP THE BOHILLA VTAB
A PERIOD of five years elapsed between the final departure
of Clive from India and the appointment to the governor
ship of Bengal of Warren Hastings. Two men of mediocre
ability, Verelst (1767-9) and Cartier (1770-2), bridged over
the interval. Their periods of office were signally uneventful,
and only revealed the administrative failure of Clive's scheme
for a double government. The puppet Nawab and his
officers proved quite unable to repress the private trading
and extortion of the Company's servants ; many of the
abuses which had been temporarily checked by the reform
ing hand of Clive once more made their appearance. In
1769-70 a terrible famine visited Bengal. It has been
estimated that one-third of the population, that is, about
ten million souls, perished of starvation and disease, and
one-third of the cultivated land became waste. ' The scene
of misery that intervened ', wrote one of the Company's
servants in 1 7 70, ' and still continues, shocks humanity
too much to bear description. Certain it is, that in several
parts the living have fed on the dead." Many of
the Company's servants were accused, with too much
reason, of making large profits by buying up rice and
retailing it at high prices. The revenue, as Warren Hastings
admitted, was collected with cruel severity ; less than five
per cent, of the land tax was remitted at the time of greatest
distress, and ten per cent, was actually added to it in the
' The Annals of Rural Bengal, Sir W. W. Hunter, p. 410.

l68 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
following year. This terrible calamity, 'whose ravages
two generations failed to repair',' had far-reaching social
and economic effects. Many of the farmers of the revenue
and the old aristocratic families were ruined. Bengal
scarcely began to recover its former prosperity till after
the Permanent Settlement of 1793. While the Company's
servants made large private fortunes, the profits of the
Company itself from this time steadily decreased tiU, as
we shall see, its credit became so impaired that the state
was forced to step in and regulate its affairs.
In southern India an era of troubles began. The rela
tions of the Presidency of Madras with Muhammad AH,
the Nawab of the Carnatic, were necessarily very difficult.
Indeed, the double government of Madras, though it has
attracted less attention, produced perhaps even more dis
credit and corruption than that of Bengal. Outside the
frontiers of the Carnatic, three native powers — Mysore under
Haidar Ali, an extremely able and ruthless usurper who
had dispossessed the old royal house ; the Maratha con
federacy ; and the Nizam of Hyderabad — were striving for
supremacy, and they alternately courted the British power
or combined together to threaten its existence. Cool heads
and a consistent policy were necessary, if the Presidency
were to escape the pitfalls on every side. Unfortunately
the Madras Council embarked on a course of war and
diplomacy which ended in discredit and disaster. Their
position was much weaker than that of Bengal in regard
to the native powers. Their nominal ally, the Nizam, only
acquiesced in the surrender of the Northern Circars (for
which Clive had procured an imperial grant) on promise
of a yearly tribute. In 1765 the Council made an alliance
with the Nizam, which involved their supporting him against
Haidar AH and the Marathas. The Nizam was, from the
' The Annals of Rural Bengal, Sir W. W. Hunter, p. 19.

XV ADMINISTRATION OF WARREN HASTINGS 169
first, intriguing with the enemy, though with extraordinary
obstinacy the Madras Council refused to recognize a fact
that was plain enough to their officers in the field. The
British troops, however, even after the Nizam had openly
thrown in his lot with Mysore and the Marathas, proved
strong enough, under the leadership of Colonel Smith, to
defeat the combined forces at the Pass of Changama and
Trinomali in 1767. In spite of these victories, the Presi
dency, by the treaty of Masulipatam in 1768, concluded
a humiliating and ill-advised peace with the Nizam, involving
terms that needlessly invited the hostility of Haidar Ali.
' You have brought us into such a labyrinth of difficulties ',
wrote the Court of Directors, ' that we do not see how
we shaU be extricated from them." The Court had just
previously stated their considered policy as to their Indian
dominions in these words : ' The Diwani of Bengal, Bihar, .
and Orissa, with the possessions we hold in those provinces,
are the utmost limits of our views on that side of India :
on the Coast, the protection of the Carnatic and the posses
sion of the Circars, free from all engagements to support
the Subah of the Deccan, or even with the Circars, pre
serving only influence enough over any country power who
may hold them, to keep the French from settHng in them ;
and on the Bombay side the dependencies thereon, the
possessions of Salsette, Bassein, and the castle of Surat. . . .
Much has been wrote from you and our servants in Bengal
on the necessity of checking the Marathas, which may in
some degree be proper ; but it is not for the Company to
take the part of umpires of Hindustan ... we wish to see
the present Indian powers remain as a check one upon
another without our interfering.' '^
Though the Nizam took no further part in the war,
' Rise and Progress of the British Power in India, P. Auber, vol. i,
P- 233-
^ A Comprehensive History of India, H. Beveridge, vol. ii, p. 261.

170 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
hostilities continued with Haidar Ali ; and after a lamentable
series of blunders on the part of the English, the ruler of
Mysore practically dictated peace on his own terms almost
under the waUs of Madras in 1769. All conquests made by
either side were restored, and the British, with criminal folly,
undertook to aid the ruler of Mysore if he were attacked by
another power. This calamitous clause only plunged them
into fresh difficulties. In 1771 a Maratha army invaded
Mysore, and Haidar Ali applied for British help : that help
was not forthcoming; the Madras Presidency earned at
once the bitter animosity of a relentless foe, and incurred
the discredit of repudiating their treaty obligations.
The administration of Warren Hastings falls into two
unequal divisions — the first from April 13, 1772, to
October 19, 1774, when he was Governor of Fort WUliam
in Bengal; and the second from October 20, 1774, to
February 8, 1785, when he became 'Governor-General of
the Presidency of Fort William in Bengal ', under the consti
tution set up by the Regulating Act. The title was a
cumbrous one, and the wording of it emphasizes the fact
that he was by no means supreme over Madras and Bombay.
There was as yet no ' Governor-General of India '.
The career of Warren Hastings has always been, and
probably always will be, a subject of controversy. His
enemies in his lifetime were fierce, unscrupulous, and relent
less. They transcended all reason and decorum in their
attacks upon his name and fame. Many of his actions were
grotesquely misrepresented, and unworthy motives were freely
imputed. Where criticism was permissible, and temperate
disapproval would not have been out of place, the wildest
invective was indulged in. Hence came a natural reaction.
Of late years, the apologists of Hastings have held the field.
It may be admitted at once that in most cases the charges
of his adversaries have been completely disproved. In
some, alleged crimes and misdemeanours have been shown

XV ADMINISTRATION OF WARREN HASTINGS 171
conclusi\ely to be mere errors of judgement, venal and
excusable in the difficult position in which Hastings found
himself. But the zeal of Hastings's supporters has some
times outrun their discretion. There remain some few
incidents which it is only possible to justify entirely by
a rather desperate casuistry. It is the fashion sometimes
to speak as though the only censures on Warren Hastings
came from Burke, M"acaulay, and James Mill ; but almost all
the older school of Indian historians, Thornton, Marshman,
and H. Beveridge, condemn in temperate language some
parts of his policy, and in the case of Thornton and
Marshman there was assuredly no natural bias against the
great Governor-General. Their sympathies were always
naturally mth the men on the spot, the representatives of the
Company in India, rather than with the home government.
In the present work it would be impossible to enter into
details of these great controversies. The writer's conclusions
have been based on a careful review of the evidence, and
when he dissents from the judgement of modern biographers
of Hastings it must be understood that he has given their
arguments the most careful consideration.
Immediately on his succession Warren Hastings intro
duced important administrative reforms. The subject is
severely technical, and only the barest outlines can be given
here. Clive's dual system was now thoroughly discredited,
and the Court of Directors decided to ' stand. forth as Diwan',
i. e. collect the revenues of the provinces of Bengal, Bihar,
and Orissa through the agency of their own servants.
Hastings, at their orders, removed from office the Deputy
Nawabs of Bengal and Bihar. These men were prosecuted
for peculations, but were honourably acquitted. Their offices
were abolished, a Board of Revenue was established, and
the treasury was transferred from Murshidabad to Calcutta.
Great gains were at once apparent; for though Hastings,
taking advantage of a fresh succession, cut down the Nawab's

172 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
allowance from 32 to 16 lakhs of rupees, he was able, through
economies in details and the abolition of sinecure offices, to
hand over to the Company's pensioner a larger net sum. In
1772, in the face of many difficulties, he carried out a quin
quennial settlement of the land revenues, and appointed
EngHsh officials, now first called ' coUectors ', aided by native
assistants, to superintend the districts. It may be admitted
that this settlement was only a qualified success, but that
was solely due to the inherent difficulties of the problem,
and the criticisms passed on Hastings were factious and
ungenerous. At the end of five years (1777) armual settle
ments were substituted, and continued tUl the Permanent
Settlement of Cornwallis. The coUectors dispensed civil
law, but natives still presided over the criminal courts of the
districts. Hastings set up two Courts of Appeal in Calcutta —
the Sadr Diwani Adalat (supreme civil court), presided over
by the Governor-General and two members of Council ; and
the Sadr Nizamat Adalat (supreme criminal court), the
president of which was a native judge. All these reforms
were logical steps to those of a more fundamental nature
introduced by Cornwallis ; and Hastings, had he been
given free scope, would have gone further than the home
authorities, and placed the administration of criminal affairs
also in British hands. The changes were carried through
with conspicuous ability, and Warren Hastings well and
firmly laid (in the words of Sir William Hunter) ' the founda
tions of the system of civil administration ' on vvhich ' the
superstructure was raised by Cornwallis '.'
Hastings had next to turn his attention to foreign policy.
Clive's scheme for protecting the Bengal frontiers, after work
ing well for five years, was in danger of collapsing. The
Marathas, recovering from their terrible defeat in 1761 at
Panipat, had crossed the Narbada again in 1769, raided
through Rajputana and Rohilkhand, and were now threaten-
' The Imperial Gazetteer of India, vol. ii, p. 486.

XV ADMINISTRATION OF WARREN HASTINGS 173
ing danger to British territories. They began to intrigue
with the puppet Emperor, that 'wretched king of shreds
and patches ', as Hastings called him, who had been sub
sisting at Allahabad on the revenues paid to him by the
East India Company. The Marathas offered to place the
Emperor on the throne of Delhi, and, in spite of the earnest
expostulations of the British that he should not entrust
himself to the hands of the hereditary rebels against the
Mughal throne, he accepted their proposal. Sindhia, in
December, 1771, escorted him into his capital. He at once
found, as the British had predicted, that he was a mere state
prisoner in the hands of his nominal protectors, and he was
forced to hand over to the Marathas the districts of Kora
and Allahabad, which had been given to him as an act of
grace by Clive. It was impossible to imagine a more
awkward and critical position for the Governor-General.
To permit Maratha hordes to occupy the districts was to
surrender the outworks of Bengal to the enemy; to con
tinue paying the Emperor's subsidy was really to replenish
their treasury. Both courses were impossible to a practical
politician, and yet probably no other was free from legal
and technical objections. Hastings adopted a bold policy.
He decided to discontinue the tribute to Shah Alam, which
as a matter of fact had not been paid since the Bengal
famine of 1769-70; by the Treaty of Benares he restored
Kora and Allahabad to the ruler of Oudh for fifty lakhs of
rupees in addition to a subsidy for the maintenance of a
garrison of the Company's troops. For this drastic solution
of the difficulty Hastings has been roundly attacked, but he
seems to have been abundantly justified. He held that
Clive surrendered these districts to the Emperor as living
under British protection. The Emperor had forfeited them
morally, if not legally, when he parted with them to the
Company's potential enemies. There are political situations
where ordinary formulae and rules seem hopelessly to break

174 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
down, and this was one of them. All temperate and respon
sible opinion has supported Hastings's conduct in a most
difficult crisis.
The sale of Kora and Allahabad to the Nawab of Oudh
was ratified by the Treaty of Benares, September 1773, and
Hastings, in personal interviews with Shuja-ud-daula, was
led into the policy which ended in the Rohilla war. The
facts are briefly as follows. Rohilkhand was a fertile belt
of country with an area of 12,000 square miles and a popula
tion of about 6,000,000, skirting the base of the Himalayas
to the north-west of Oudh. The bulk of the population were
Hindus, but the ruling race were RohUlas and Pathans —
Muhammadans coming originally from Afghanistan. The
government was a loose and ill-defined confederacy of chiefs,
presided over by Hafiz Rahmat Khan, the ablest and
strongest of their number. From about the year 1770 the
Marathas hung threateningly on the frontiers of Rohilkhand
and Oudh. A tortuous scene of intrigue and negotiation
foUowed. The Nawab of Oudh and Hafiz Rahmat Khan
at one time meditated a coalition for mutual defence against
the Marathas; at another time each ruler contemplated
joining the Marathas against the other. The three parties
were, as Sir John Strachey says, ' all utterly unscrupulous,
and each knew that no trust could be placed in either of
the others'.' Finally, however, in June 1772, a treaty was
concluded between the RohiUas and Oudh, by which it was
agreed that, if the Marathas invaded Rohilkhand, the Nawab
Wazir should come to the rescue of the invaded country ;
and if he were successful in obliging the Marathas to retire
by peace or war, he should receive a sum of 40 lakhs from
the RohiUas. The treaty was signed in the presence of
Sir Robert Barker, who witnessed the signatures of the con
tracting parties. In 1 7 73 the Marathas invaded Rohilkhand ;
a demonstration was made against them by the Nawab of
' Hastings atui the Rohilla War, Sir John Strachey, p. 49.

xv ADMINISTRATION OF WARREN HASTINGS 175
Oudh supported by a British contingent, and they retired.
Shuja-ud-daula promptly demanded the stipulated sum of
40 lakhs, and Hafiz evaded payment.
At Benares Shuja-ud -daula proposed that the English, in
return for a large subsidy, should lend him a brigade to
conquer the RohiUas, as a penalty for their breach of the
treaty. Hastings was attracted to the proposal, partly from
the strategical advantage that would be gained ' by extending
the boundary of Oudh to the natural barrier formed by the
chain of hUls and the Ganges and their junction ', partly from
the opportunity of replenishing the coffers of the Company in
a time of need. But he recognized at this time, at any rate,
that there were other objections to the scheme, and he gave
a rather reluctant assent, apparently hoping that the need
for sending British troops would never arise. However, in
January 1774, the Nawab of Oudh demanded the promised
aid. A British brigade under Colonel Champion joined
him, and their united forces invaded Rohilkhand on April 1 7.
The decisive battle was fought at Miranpur Katra six days
later, and Hafiz Rahmat Khan, who had shown considerable
strategic skill, was killed fighting bravely. About 20,000
RohUlas were banished from the country, which was in
corporated with the dominions of Shuja-ud-daula of Oudh.
Endless controversy has raged round the policy of the
RohUla war. It formed one of the main counts for the
attacks on Hastings in Parliament, and it has been severely
condemned, not only by Macaulay and Mill, but by most
of the older school of Anglo-Indian historians. The case
against Hastings was grotesquely exaggerated by the venom
of Francis, the eloquence of Burke, the prejudice of MUl,
and the over-charged metaphors and simUes of Macaulay.
Hastings was depicted as an unscrupulous schemer, who had
sold the lives and liberties of a free people for filthy lucre,
and stood caUously by while nameless atrocities were per
petrated. The RohiUas were described as a simple pastoral

176 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
people, patterns of antique virtue, and their adversary,
Shuja-ud-daula, as a monster of depravity and cruelty.
Modern criticism dispenses altogether with this kind of
invective. The question of the origin of the RohiUa race is
really quite irrelevant to the point at issue. Burke and his
followers were mistaken in supposing that they had any long
prescriptive right to the territories they ruled. They were
a plundering tribe, who had only established their power
over the Hindu population of RohUkhand for about twenty-
five years. On the other hand, their claim was quite as
good as that of most of the Indian states of the day, who
had risen on the ruins of Mughal power. If the war were
wicked, it was not less so because the RohiUas had not long
established their sovereignty in the country.
But it can certainly be established that the Nawab had
a legal and technical case against his enemies for infringing
a treaty, which will pass muster. Military operations were
probably not attended with any worse excesses than were
common in India at this period, though it is perhaps going
a Httle too far to say that the campaign ' had been carried
on with an absence of violence and bloodshed and generally
with a degree of humanity altogether unusual in Indian
warfare '.' Though Champion's criticisms of his native
allies were coloured by dissatisfaction at his position in
regard to them, and jealousy of the booty they acquired,
yet he undoubtedly committed himself to the assertions
that he had been obliged to shut his eyes ' against a wanton
display of violence and oppression, of inhumanity and cruelty ',
and that ' the whole army were witnesses of scenes that
cannot be described '. These positive assertions made at the
time must have contained some basis of fact, and we can
hardly regard them as completely discredited by the halting
statements of Champion himself, made twelve years later at
the Parliamentary inquiry, or the evidence of other officers
1 Hastings and the Rohilla War, Sir John Strachey, p. 233.

XV ADMINISTRATION OF WARREN HASTINGS 177
on the same occasion, who may have had reasons for mini
mizing the facts. But they were undoubtedly exaggerated,
and Macaulay and MiU were, to some extent naturally,
misled by them. The question matters the less because it
is quite certain that Hastings did his best, by strong and
dignified protests, to check any brutaHties the moment his
attention was called to them, and there is no truth at all in
the insinuation that he connived at them.
From all the graver charges, then, Hastings may be fully
acquitted; but it does not really follow, as many of his
modern defenders seem to suppose, that his policy was
above reasonable criticism any more than that of other
statesmen, however supremely able they might be. And
first of all, exception may, perhaps, be taken to it even from
the point of view of expediency. We have seen that the
Governor-General himself, at the time of the Treaty of
Benares, seriously doubted the wisdom of acceding to
the Nawab Wazir's request for aid. He felt the time was
unfavourable, since ' the Company at home was exposed to
popular clamour, all its measures liable to be canvassed
in Parliament, their charter drawing to a close, and His
Majesty's Ministers unquestionably ready to take advantage
of every unfavourable circumstance in the negotiations for
its renewal'.' The reasons for letting the whole business
alone could hardly have been better stated. The best course
probably would have been to tell the Nawab Wazir that he
must settle his differences with the RohiUas as he best could.
Hastings afterwards declared that the Company were bound
to intervene as having guaranteed the treaty ; but this was
an afterthought, and Sir Robert Barker had merely witnessed
the signatures of both sides. To suggest that his doing so
committed the Company to seeing that the treaty was
fulfilled was disingenuous. Hastings showed throughout
the early stages of the business a vacillation that was
' Hastings and the Rohilla War, Sir John Strachey, p. 121.
914 N

178 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA
unusual with him, and he failed to handle the situation
with his usual firmness. To give a reluctant assent in a
matter of such importance, with the lame half hope, half
belief, that the occasion contemplated would never arise, is
not impressive as statesmanship. There were other objec
tions to the policy. It obviously broke the rule of the
Directors against engaging in Indian warfare, and it is
difficult to dissent from the judgement of Sir Alfred Lyall
that an unfortunate precedent was created when British
troops were lent to be employed against a people with
whom the Company had no quarrel. Though the Hindus
were not driven out of the country with the RohiUas, they
can hardly have gained by the change of masters. The rule
of Hafiz Rahmat had been mild and popular; we have
Sir John Strachey's high authority for the statement that,
under his strong personal control, the Hindu population
was treated with greater consideration and received better
protection than in any of the neighbouring provinces, with
one exception.' The regime of Shuja-ud-daula proved weak
and bad, and we know that under his successor Rohilkhand
was shamefully misgoverned. The utmost, however, that
can fairly be said against Hastings from the moral aspect,
and it is not a very serious charge, is that his view of the
business was, as Sir John Strachey admits, ' somewhat
cynical ', and that in his dispatches and minutes the financial
advantages of the agreement with the Nawab appear unduly
prominent.' ' Hastings and the Rohilla War, Sir John Strachey, p. 30.
2 Ibid., pp. 113, 263.

CHAPTER XVI
"WABEEN HASTINGS. THE BEGTTLATING ACT AND
THE TEIAL OF NANDKtTMAB
The Rohilla war was the last important event of Hastings's
first period of administration. His powers were consider
ably modified by the Regulating Act of Lord North, and it
is necessary for a moment to retrace our steps, and examine
the causes responsible for that measure.
Through the latter half of the eighteenth century we may
trace the gradual growth of a feeling that the nation itself,
through Parliament, rather than through a private trading
company, however powerful and wealthy, must ultimately
be responsible for British rule in India. Clive had himself,
in 1759, suggested in a letter to Pitt that 'so large a sove
reignty ' as the diwani of Bengal, and the power that went
with it, ' may possibly be an object too extensive for a mer
cantile company : and it is to be feared that they are not
of themselves able, without the nation's assistance, to main
tain so wide a dominion '. He went on to suggest that if
the state were to take over Bengal, Indian revenues might
go towards easing the burden of English taxpayers at home.
But Pitt was not prepared at the moment to raise so serious
a question, and gave an evasive reply, declaring that the
affair was ' of a very nice nature '. During the fifteen years
that followed the battle of Plassey, immense wealth was
brought back from India by retired servants of the East
India Company, who bought estates and rotten boroughs,
and expected to be received on terms of social equality with
the old landed aristocracy. The ' Nabobs ', with their

l8o HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
orientalized ways and ostentatious expenditure, figure largely
in the caricature and satire of the age.
Two important events sprang from their incursion : politi
cians conceived the idea of converting to the Exchequer
some portion of this wealth, and the Proprietors of East
India stock clamoured that a greater share of the profits of
the trade should come to them, and less be intercepted by
their servants in the East. After the news reached England
of the acquisition of the Diwani, the Proprietors could no
longer be restrained, and in spite of the opposition of the
Court of Directors, who knew their real position was not as
prosperous as it appeared, they raised the dividends on their
stock in 1766 from six to ten per cent., and the next year
to twelve and a half From 1766 Parliament began to take
— from the point of view of the Directors — an embarrassing
interest in Indian affairs ; and an active little band of mem
bers, prominent amongst whom were Beckford, Barr^, and
Nugent, constantly urged that the Company's Indian pos
sessions belonged of right to the Crown, though, as was
contended at the time, the Company had legally no such
' possessions ', being technically a mere Zamindar for Shah
Alam, the Mughal Emperor. The ministry, however, clearly
shrank from any heroic solution of this problem, and avoided
raising it in its full sense. They were quite ready to make
so much use of the agitation as that a part of the Company's
alleged wealth might be diverted to the depleted coffers of
the state. But some form of compromise was the course
that most commended itself to them. Accordingly Parlia
ment, in 1767, declined to pass any sweeping measure,
though it interfered openly and drastically in the affairs of
the Company. It modified their internal constitution,
limited the rate of dividend to be declared, and obliged
them to pay to the Exchequer an annual sum of £400,000,
in return for which they were allowed to retain their terri
torial acquisitions and revenues. This originally held good

XVI ADMINISTRATION OF WARREN HASTINGS l8l
for only two years, but subsequent Acts extended the period
indefinitely. One measure for the relief of the Company
is interesting, not for its intrinsic importance, but for the
momentous and unforeseen consequences that followed it.
The Company's teas exported to Ireland and the North
American colonies were entitled to draw back the whole
duty. It was a consignment of this tea that the Boston
'rebels', in 1773, threw into the sea. Thus curiously for
a moment were the destinies of England's oversea dominions
in two hemispheres linked together.
Neither the Court of Directors nor Parliament was yet
satisfied, andin 1769 the former sent out three of their old
servants, Vansittart, Colonel Forde, and Scrafton, as ' super
visors ', with instructions to investigate every branch of the
administration in India, and full powers to suspend, if
necessary, even the Presidents and Councils. But this
commission, which might have revolutionized the Company's
government in the East, met with a tragic fate. The ship
in which they saUed was never heard of again after leaving
the Cape of Good Hope. Meanwhile, the hostile interest
of the nation in the affairs of the Company had not dimin
ished. A great outcry was raised when, after loans from
the Bank had failed to buoy up their sinking credit, the
Directors were forced to inform Lord North in 1772 that,
unless they could obtain a loan of one million pounds from
the state, they could not carry on their business. In that
year, both a Select and a Secret Parliamentary Committee, of
thirty-one]and thirteen members respectively, were appointed,
and began to publish those exhaustive reports which led
incidentally to the attacks on Lord Clive already described.
These reports showed that within nine years, that is, from
1757 to 1766, £2,169,665 had been distributed by natives
of Bengal as presents to the Company's servants ; and this
sum did not include CWv&'s fagir, which capitalized would
have represented a further sum of £600,000. Besides this,

l82 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
^3)770)833 had been paid in compensation for losses in
curred.' The reports of the two committees drove home
the conviction that the independence of the Company must
yield to the supremacy of Parliament.
Two Acts were passed in 1773, one of which granted
a state loan to the Company, limited their dividends, and
obliged them to submit their accounts to the Treasury ; the
second and more important, known as the Regulating Act,
gave the Company a new constitution. The Directors
were henceforth to be elected for four years, and one-
fourth of their number were to retire every year, remain
ing at least one year out of office. There was to be
a Governor-General of Bengal, assisted and controlled
by four Councillors (for the voice of the majority was
to bind the whole), the Governor-General being merely
allowed a casting vote when there was an equal division of
opinion. The Governor-General and Council were to have
power to superintend and check the subordinate presiden
cies in their relations with native powers. The Directors
were to lay before the Treasury all correspondence from
India dealing with the revenues ; and before a Secretary of
State everything dealing with civU or miHtary affairs and
government. The first Governor-General and CounciUors,
Warren Hastings, Lieutenant-General Clavering, Monson,
Barwell, and Philip Francis, were named in the Act. They
were to hold office for five years, and future appointments
were to be made by the Company. A Supreme Court of
Judicature was set up at Calcutta, consisting of a Chief
Justice (Sir Elijah Impey) and three puisne judges. Liberal
salaries were granted, £25,000 to the Governor-General,
£10,000 to each Councillor, and £8,000 to the Chief Justice.
The Regulating Act was a half-measure, and disastrously
vague in many points. The titular authority of the Nawab
of Bengal was left by implication intact, and no assertion
' Reports ofthe House of Commons, vol. iii, pp. 311-12.

XVI ADMINISTRATION OF WARREN HASTINGS 183
was made of the sovereignty of the Crown or Company in
India. The Council had the power to bring about a dead
lock in the executive by overruling the Governor-General.
The control of the supreme government at Calcutta over
the other presidencies only applied to their powers of
making war on, or concluding peace with, native states, and
was qualified by the provision that, in the event of having
received special orders from home or in the case of urgent
necessity (of which they themselves could be the only
judges) the subordinate governments could act without
leave being first obtained from Bengal. Finally, and
this was destined to have calamitous consequences,
neither the field of jurisdiction of the Supreme Court
nor the law it had to administer, nor its relations to
the Council, were defined with sufficient accuracy. Some
of the particular appointments made by Parliament were
very unfortunate. Francis (identified by general consent
with the author of the letters of Junius), Clavering, and
Monson had no Indian experience, and they seem to
have saUed for India with the idea deeply rooted in their
minds that the govemment was corrupt and tyrannous.
Francis, moreover, believed himself to be 'on the road to
the governorship of Bengal ', which he described as ' the
first situation in the world attainable by a subject '.
The new Councillors (with the exception of Barwell, who
was resident in India) arrived on October 19, 1774. The
judges had landed two days before, and the new regime was
formaUy inaugurated on the 20th, There ensued a six
years' struggle which is probably unique in the history of
administration. The CouncUlors began badly by quarrel
ling with the Governor-General on some petty point of
ceremonial in his reception of them, and they proceeded to
make an acrimonious attack on his whole policy and method
of government. Any other man but Hastings would have
been hounded from office. In the course of the next few

184 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
years he was often out-voted, and, though nominally at the
head of the administration, had frequently to carry out
a policy of which he disapproved. It was no ordinary
opposition that he had to meet, for Francis was no ordinary
man. Facing his chief across the councU table, he criti
cized with a plausible, subtle, and vindictive ingenuity
almost everything the latter suggested. Hastings could not
rely upon support at home ; he was ultimately censured by
the Directors, and his recall more than once demanded by
Resolutions of Parliament. There is something almost
superhuman in the way he faced his enemies. From 1774
to 1776 he was generally overruled. Monson died in Sep
tember 1776, and by the use of his casting vote Hastings
regained control in the Council. In 1777, however, his
rather ambiguous and ill-advised instructions to an agent in
London resulted in the latter tendering the Governor-
General's resignation. But Hastings, declaring his agent
had exceeded his powers, refused to make way for Clavering ;
the Supreme Court upheld his decision, though they imme
diately afterwards rightly prevented a very ill-judged and
high-handed attempt on his part to declare that Clavering
had, by his action in the matter, forfeited his offices of
Councillor and Commander-in-Chief. In 1777 Clavering
also died, and in 1780 Hastings disabled Francis in a duel.
His . great enemy left India later in the same year. ' My
antagonists', he wrote triumphantly, 'sickened, died, and
fled', and from that time onward his position was estab
lished. He had charge of the government of India at the
most critical and perilous period of British Indian history,
but the struggle with his Council alone would have ex
hausted the powers of any but a very strong man. He was
enveloped, as he said himself, in an atmosphere of ' dark
allusions, mysterious insinuations, bitter invective, and
ironical reflections '.
The first action of the new Councillors was to condemn

XVI ADMINISTRATION OF WARREN HASTINGS 185
the RohUla war. They recalled Middleton, the British
Resident at Lucknow, and made a most unreasonable
demand that the whole of his correspondence with the
Governor-Geineral, part of which was confidential, should
be submitted to their inspection. They ordered Colonel
Champion to make a peremptory demand on the Nawab of
Oudh for the forty lakhs he had promised to the Company
for the expulsion of the Marathas. They ' denounced ', it
has been said with truth, ' the RohiUa war as an abomina
tion, and yet their great anxiety now was to pocket the
wages of it '.' In reply to aU this, Hastings with excellent
reason contended that, whatever the rights of the case, the
Rohilla affair belonged to the past administration and was
on the point of being concluded, and therefore that the new
government might have been satisfied with recording their
disapproval of the enterprise. The real value of the new
Councillors' sympathy with the native powers was seen by
their treatment of Oudh. The Nawab Wazir died in
January 1775, and they seized the occasion to force upon
his successor a new treaty, increasing the subsidies to be
paid by him for the use of British troops, and obliging him
to surrender to the Company the sovereignty of the district
of Benares. Hastings eloquently exposed the injustice and
impolicy of this proceeding, in vain pointing out that if was
a complete reversal of the Company's traditional friendship
with Oudh.
The whole position of Hastings was undermined in the
public eye by the procedure of the Council, and many of his
enemies in Calcutta thought they saw an opportunity to
bring about his ruin. Several charges of defalcations were
produced against him by native informers, and in March
1773 Raja Nandkumar (Nuncomar), a Brahman of high
rank, laid a letter before the CouncU charging him with
having received, amongst other bribes, one of three and a
' A Comprehensive History of India, H. Beveridge, vol. ii, p. 365.

l86 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
half lakhs of rupees from the widow of the old Nawab,
Mir Jafar. The accusation was welcomed with indecent
haste by Francis, Monson, and Clavering, who, without
waiting for proof, recorded their opinion that 'there is no
species of peculation from which the Govemor-General has
thought it reasonable to abstain'. Hastings absolutely
declined to be arraigned at the Council board by 'so
notoriously infamous ' a man as Nandkumar. When the
majority persisted in summoning the accuser, the Governor-
General refused to meet him, declared the Council dissolved,
and left the room. It has been pointed out that Hastings's
case would have stood better had he courted inquiry and
openly denied the truth of the accusation against him,
which he never seems to have done. But he had good
cause to object to the high-handed and insulting attitude of
his colleagues on the Council, and he may have thought it
would be difficult to prove his innocence before so openly
prejudiced a court. There was further the fact that Hastings
actuaUy had received 150,000 rupees from the princess as
entertainment money, when he visited Murshidabad, ' a
transaction ', as his strenuous defender Sir James Stephen '
admits, ' which, if not positively illegal, was at least question
able ', and which certainly ran counter to all the Company's
instructions as to the acceptance of presents.
On the withdrawal of Hastings, the majority ofthe Council
resolved that the sums in question had been received by
the Governor-General, and required him to repay the
amount into the Company's treasury. Hastings treated
this resolution with disdain, and a few days later lodged
a charge of conspiracy against Nandkumar and his accom
plices. While this matter was still pending, Nandkumar
himself was suddenly arrested, at the instance of a Calcutta
merchant, on a charge of forgery unconnected with either
• Tlie Story of Nuncomar and the Impeachment of Sir Elijah Impey,
Sir J. F. Stephen, vol. i, p. 72.

XVI ADMINISTRATION OF WARREN HASTINGS 187
his insinuations against Hastings or the latter's action for
conspiracy. He was put on his trial before the Supreme
Court, condemned to death, and executed. The charges
against Hastings were dropped, and never proceeded with.
Men will probably never agree as to the meaning of this
somewhat mysterious sequence of events, for the key to
them lies in the ambiguous and doubtful region of secret
motives and desires. The incident created an extraordinary
impression, and it was naturally believed for a long time
that Nandkumar had paid the penalty of death, nominally
for forgery, but really for having dared to accuse the
Governor-General. The matter, however, is one rather of
biographical than of historical interest, and can only be very
briefly dealt with here. Modern research regards the
suggestion that Hastings and Impey deliberately schemed
together to remove Nandkumar by a judicial murder as
baseless.' There is certainly, as Pitt saw, not a vestige of
solid proof for it. There are indeed many reasons against
it. Hastings and Impey by no means always saw eye to eye
with one another, as their quarrel in regard to the respective
jurisdictions of the Supreme Court and the Council proved.
At the trial Impey was only one of four judges, and there
fore, unless the other three were either in the conspiracy
or so hopelessly incompetent that they followed the Chief
Justice blindly, the insinuation falls to the ground. The
charge of forgery had originated in a natural way from long
standing litigation months before Nandkumar accused the
Governor-General, and in the words of an authority, by no
means excessively favourable to Hastings, 'That charge
would, in the natural course of law, have been made at the
1 Sir James Stephen's Story of Nuncomar and Impey, though a very
able defence, is not quite the last word on the controversy that it is
sometimes represented to be, as Sir Alfred Lyall — himself very favour
able to Hastings — recognized. Those who wish to pursue the matter
further should also read The Trial of Maharaja Nanda Kumar, by
Mr. H. Beveridge.

1 88 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
very time when it was made, though Nandkumar had never
become a willing tool in the hands of Messrs. Clavering,
Monson, and Francis.' ' Sir James Stephen claims to show
that Impey tried the case fairly and patiently ; that in his
summing up he gave full weight to anything that could tell
in favour of the prisoner; and that, though the evidence
was not overwhelming, the verdict cannot be said to have
gone against it. On the other hand, it was certainly
unfortunate that the judges themselves cross-examined, and
that somewhat severely, the prisoner's witnesses, on the
alleged ground that counsel for the prosecution was incom
petent, and that Sir Elijah Impey in his summing up laid it
down that, if Nandkumar's defence was not believed, it must
prove fatal to him. Impey no doubt spoke in good faith,
but more Indian experience would have taught him that in
the East, as Sir James Stephen admits, a good case is often
bolstered up by perjury.
But even if we hold it established that there was no judicial
murder, there was certainly something equivalent to a mis
carriage of justice. For that, however, the Supreme Court in
the first instance, and Hastings's opponents on the Council
subsequently, were mainly responsible. However guilty
Nandkumar may have been, the punishment of death was
far too severe, and fine or imprisonment, as Sir James Stephen
allows, would have been the appropriate penalty. It is very
doubtful whether the Supreme Court had any jurisdiction
over natives, and there is practically no doubt at all
(though the point has been contested) that the English law
making forgery a capital crime was not operative in India
till many years after Nandkumar's alleged forgery had been
committed.'' Apart from all this, the Supreme Court had
' A Comprehensive History of India, H. Beveridge, vol. ii, p. 378.
'•^ The judges no doubt acted in good faith, but Sir James Stephen
admits that their view was ' opposed to au opinion which is so firmly
established in India, and has been so often acted upon by the courts and
the legislature that it can hardly be disputed '. See his The Story of
Nuncomar, vol. ii, pp. 27-34. Also H. Beveridge, The Trial of
Maharaja Nanda Kumar, pp. 210-12.

XVI ADMINISTRATION OF WARREN HASTINGS 189
authority 'to reprieve and suspend the execution of any
capital sentence, whenever there shall appear in their judge
ment a proper occasion for mercy'. Since the natives
universally regarded forgery as a mere misdemeanour, this
was just the occasion for the exercise of such discretionary
power. But though the judges made an error of judgement
and callously upheld the extreme letter of the law, it is
unnecessary to impute to them corrupt motives. They
appear to have been exceedingly jealous of their rights and
privileges. They had not been long enough in India
to adapt their legal theories to eastern ideas, and their
attitude in this case is only consonant with their conduct
throughout, which was one ill-judged attempt to apply
the methods of English courts to the whole native popula
tion of Bengal. Impey especially seems to have held that
a severe example was necessary to check the frequent
occurrence of crimes of forgery in Bengal : in view of
Nandkumar's widespread influence and great wealth he
considered that any remission of his sentence would have
suggested to the native mind that the Supreme Court had
been corrupted. ' I had ', he said, ' the dignity, integrity,
independence, and utility of that court to maintain.'
One of the most difficult things to understand about this
sinister business is why the majority of the Council, at any
rate, did not petition the Supreme Court in Nandkumar's
favour. Hastings perhaps could hardly have been expected
to intercede for his adversary, though his admirers could
wish he had shown such a noble magnanimity.' But Francis,
Clavering, and Monson had every apparent reason, as
Sir James Stephen shows, to petition for a reprieve on the
ground that Nandkumar's execution would prevent the
charges against Hastings from being properly investigated,
1 It should be noted that Mr. H. Beveridge, in The Trial of Maharaja
Nanda Kumar, claims to have shown (and gives some evidence for his
contention) that a private secretary and dependent of Hastings exerted
himself to prevent a respite being granted to the condemned man.

I90 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA
and that the execution of an accuser of the Governor-General
might well be misconstrued by the natives. They refused
to have anything to do with such a petition, and Nandkumar
went to his doom without a protest from them. Almost the
only theory that will explain their conduct is that they had
ceased themselves to believe in his charges, and were
relieved to see him put out of the way. Francis may even
have thought that Nandkumar dead would be a riiore potent
weapon against the Govemor-General than Nandkumar living,
and may have foreseen the use that might afterwards be
made of his execution. At the time he himself described
as ' wholly unsupported and libellous ' the suggestion made
in a final petition of Nandkumar that there was a conspiracy
between the judges and the Governor-General, though a few
weeks afterwards we find him adopting the suggestion and
giving it his approval.

CHAPTER XVII
¦WABEEN HASTINGS. WABS IN •WESTEEN AND
SOUTHEEN INDIA
We must now turn from Bengal to western and southern
India. Over Bombay and Madras the Regulating Act,
as we have seen, had given the Bengal government a con
trol that was none too definite. The subordinate Presi
dencies at this time, especially Madras, were administered by
very incapable men, and their history is complicated and
confused. Broadly speaking, it may be said that they suc
ceeded in embroiling themselves in wars with almost all
the native powers of southern and central India, till in 1780
the foundations of British rule were shaken to their base.
The control of Hastings over the policy of Bombay and
Madras at the beginning was almost non-existent, for either
he could not impose his will upon them, or he was out
voted in his own Council ; and thus it was often the
opinions of the recalcitrant triumvirate, Francis, Monson,
and Clavering, rather than those of the Governor-General,
that were ultimately forced upon the provincial governments.
Hastings was frequently left the dismal choice between
wresting what success he could from a plan of action of which
he had disapproved, or disowning and cashiering his subor
dinates. He cannot fairly, except perhaps in one instance,
be blamed for the welter of ' unjust and rather disreputable
wars ', bad diplomacy, and general mismanagement which
made up the history of the Deccan under his governor-
generalship. As briefly as possible the course of events
must now be summarized. In March 1775 the Bombay

192 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
authorities, ignoring the claim of the Regulating Act in
regard to the inter-relations of the supreme and subordinate
governments, pledged themselves by the Treaty of Surat
to support a pretender to the Peshwaship in return for the
cession to themselves of Bassein and the island of Salsette,
which they had already, by a high-handed action, occupied.
They announced the fait accompli to their superiors at
Bengal. The Governor-General concurred with his Council
in stigmatizing their proceedings as 'impolitic, dangerous,
unauthorized, and unjust ', but there his agreement with the
majority at his Council board ended. Since the Bombay
administration had already commenced hostiUties and won
some success, though at a heavy cost, he argued that they
must be supported in continuing the war till peace could be
made on advantageous terms. But he was overruled, and
Colonel Upton was sent direct from Calcutta to Poona to
conclude the Treaty of Purandhar in March 1776, by which
the English abandoned the cause of Raghunath Rao the
Pretender, usually known as Raghoba, on condition of
being aUowed to retain Salsette. The Court of Directors
unexpectedly and rather inconsistently — in view of their
decided opinion against entanglements with native powers —
disapproved of this treaty, and in 1778 Hastings with their
full consent renewed the alliance with Raghoba. On this
occasion Francis seems decidedly to have been for once
on the right, and Hastings and the Court on the wrong,
side. The able minutes and protests of the former repay
the most careful study. But Hastings by the exercise of
his casting vote committed himself and the Company to a
long and costly war against the Maratha confederacy, with
whom in time, as we shall see, all the powerful native states
of southern India became allied. It would be difficult to
exaggerate the sinister effect of this unhappy decision upon
the career of Hastings. Owing to this war and its comple
ment, the war with Haidar Ali, added to it by the folly of

XVII WARS IN WESTERN AND SOUTHERN INDIA 193
the Madras government, his resources were exhausted and
he was driven to those questionable expedients for raising
money which brought about his impeachment. The most
cogent argument put forward by Hastings for a renewal of
hostilities was the arrival at Poona in 1777 of a French
agent, and the consequent fear of ' a repetition of the scene
of wars and intrigues formerly acted on the coast of Coro
mandel '. This man, however, proved to be an impostor
unauthorized by the French government. It was during
the debates on the Maratha war that news arrive"d in India
of the great disaster to British arms in North America —
Burgoyne's surrender to General Gates at Saratoga (1777).
Francis made the news an argument against ' hazarding
offensive operations '. Hastings with his usual indomitable
spirit replied : ' I hope that our affairs in America are not
in the desperate situation in which they are described
to be ; but . . . if it be really true that the British arms
and influence have suffered so severe a check in the
western world, it is the more incumbent upon those
who are charged with the interest of Great Britain in the
East to exert themselves for the retrieval of the national
loss." We may here conclude the tale of events as they con
cerned western India. An expedition from Bombay,
wretchedly led, concluded the disastrous convention of
Wargaon in January 1779 (afterwards disowned by the civil
authorities), by which aU territorial possessions obtained by
Bombay since 1773 were given up. Such successes as
were gained by British arms were due to what his enemies
styled 'the frantic miHtary exploits' of the Governor-
General. In 1780 Goddard made a brilHant march across
India from the Jumna, took Ahmadabad, and, having crossed
the Narbada, captured Bassein; whUe in the same year
1 Selections from the Letters, Despatches and other State Papers in the
Foreign Department of the Government of India, lyja-ijS;, G. W.
Forrest, vol. ii, p. 402.
on O

194 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
Popham caused a thrill throughout India by his escalade of
Gwalior, a fortress universally deemed impregnable. But
subsequent operations were less successful ; Goddard made
the one mistake of his career in April 1781 in a premature
advance on Poona, and Hastings concluded a separate
peace with Sindhia by skilful diplomacy, detached the Raja
of Berar from the Maratha confederacy, and was glad to
conclude the Treaty of Salbai in May 1782, by which all
territory west of the Jumna was restored to Sindhia, Raghoba
pensioned off by the Peshwa, and the status quo before the
war re-established at Bombay. Since the British only re
tained Salsette — the exact position at the Treaty of Purand
har — the material gains of a costly and harassing four years'
war were not, it must be confessed, very impressive. But
the treaty at least secured peace with the Maratha powers
for twenty years.
The Presidency of Madras during the decade 1770-80
was passing through a dismal epoch in its history. Its
relation to Muhammad Ali, the titular Nawab of the
Carnatic, in some way resembled that of Calcutta to the
Subadar of Bengal. Muhammad depended just as much
on British bayonets as his northern counterpart, but since
Madras did not possess anything equivalent to the Diwani
giving them executive and financial control over the
Carnatic, a perilous amount of responsibility was left in
the hands of their nominal suzerain. In 1770 and 177 1
the British government tried the experiment of main
taining at his court, as plenipotentiaries independent of
the Company, Sir John Lindsay and Sir Robert Harland,
but the result was not successful and hopelessly com
promised the Company with the Nawab. In 1773, just
before Hastings conquered Rohilkhand for the Nawab of
Oudh, the Madras authorities subdued and deposed the
Raja of Tanjore, with whom they had no quarrel, in order
to oblige Muhammad Ali. The latter demoralized and

XVII WARS IN WESTERN AND SOUTHERN INDIA 1 95
corrupted the whole administration of the Presidency by
his coUusive financial dealings with the notorious Paul
Benfield and other junior servants of the Company. From
Muhammad All's transactions with these men sprang the
huge scandal known as the Nawab of Arcot's debts. The
historian Thornton hardly speaks too strongly when he
says, ' the moral atmosphere of Madras appears at this
time to have been pestilential '.' Within seven years two
governors were dismissed from office by the Court of
Directors and a third suspended by the Governor-General ;
while Lord Pigot, who had been sent out to restore the
Raja of Tanjore, was actually deposed and imprisoned by
his subordinates for the necessary though rather tactless
opposition he had made to their dishonest dealings. The
unhappy man died in prison in 1777, Hastings showing a
strange lack of sympathy in his case, though, as Sir Alfred
Lyall notes, he might have been expected to exhibit some
fellow-feeling towards a governor in difficulties with his
council. These open scandals and constant changes in
the government naturaUy resulted in an inconsistent and
chaotic poHcy which soon entangled the Presidency in the
war already raging on the western side of India. The
Nizam had long looked with growing disfavour on our
alliance with Raghoba, but he made no movement till the
Madras government tactlessly offended him. He then built
up a terrible confederacy of practically all the native states
whose power was worth anything. Mysore, Hyderabad,
and Poona, supported by all the Maratha chieftains except
the Gaikwar of Baroda, joined together for one desperate
attack upon British rule in India. In July 1780 Haidar
AH poured his swarms of horsemen through the pass of
Changama down upon the plains of the Carnatic, till the
citizens of Madras could see from their walls the smoke of
burning villages rolling skywards.
' History of the British Empire in India, vol. ii, p. 347.
O 2

196 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
The government of Madras had shown an absolute want
of forethought and preparation in meeting this terrible
invasion, thus described by Burke in a famous passage :
' He (Haidar Ali) became at length so confident of his
force, so collected in his might, that he made no secret
whatsoever of his dreadful resolution. . . . He drew from
every quarter whatsoever a savage ferocity could add to
his new rudiments in the art of destruction; and com
pounding all the materials of fury, havoc, and desolation
into one black cloud, he hung for a while on the declivities
ofthe mountains. WhUst the authors of all these evUs were
idly and stupidly gazing on this menacing meteor, which
blackened all their horizon, it suddenly burst, and poured
down the whole of its contents upon the plains of the
Carnatic. Then ensued a scene of woe, the like of which
no eye had seen, no heart conceived, and which no tongue
can adequately tell. All the horrors of war before known
or heard of were mercy to that new havoc. A storm of
universal fire blasted every field, consumed every house,
destroyed every temple. The miserable inhabitants fleeing
from their flaming vUlages, in part were slaughtered ; others,
without regard to sex, to age, to the respect of rank, or
sacredness of function — fathers torn from children, hus
bands from wives — enveloped in a whirlwind of cavalry,
and amidst the goading spears of drivers, and the trampling
of pursuing horses, were swept into captivity in an unknown
and hostUe land. Those who were able to evade this tempest,
fled to the walled cities ; but escaping from fire, sword, and
exile they fell into the jaws of famine.' Overcharged by the
orator's genius as this purple passage undoubtedly is, the
position was serious enough. An English brigade under
Baillie was surrounded and cut up after a gallant resistance.
Munro, the victor of Baxar, smirched his reputation by fling
ing his artillery into the tank at Conjeveram, and retreating
in panic to Madras, where he was hooted in the streets by

XVII WARS IN WESTERN AND SOUTHERN INDIA 197
the indignant inhabitants. In October 1780 the capital of
the Carnatic, Arcot, fell before Haidar Ali.
It is well toi pause for a moment at this date, 1780-1,
and examine the position as Hastings had to face it — in his
own words, a ' war either actual or impending in every quarter
and with every power in Hindustan '. ' The fortunes ofthe
English in India ', says Sir Alfred Lyall, ' had fallen to their
lowest water-mark.' Nor were the dangers from Indian
powers the only ones : France had declared war in 1778, and
though Chandarnagar and Pondieherry, the latter gallantly
defended by BeUecombe, had been captured in October,
the French were known to be preparing a formidable expe
dition from home, hoping to recover their old prestige by
fishing in the troubled Deccan waters. There could be
litrie hope of help from England, now standing desperately
at bay and confronting a coalition of France, Spain,
Holland, and the revolting North American States.
Though Hastings had in some measure brought these
troubles upon himself— for the Indian complications sprang
mainly from the ill-judged renewal of the alliance with
Raghoba in 1778, which he had only succeeded in carrying by
the exercise of his casting vote — yet the dauntless demeanour
with which he faced them extorts our fullest admiration. He
interfered vigorously in the affairs of the Madras Presidency,
suspended the Govemor and sent the old veteran Sir Eyre
Coote from Bengal, with all possible reinforcements and
supplies, ' as the only possible instrument to retrieve our
past disgraces '. He followed this up by dispatching Pearce
in January 1781 to make his famous overland march from
Bengal to Madras. He seconded the efforts of his captains
in the field by his indefatigable diplomacy. He detached
two of the most formidable members of the hostUe coalition,
winning over early in 1781 the Raja of Berar, who had for
some time threatened an invasion of Bengal from the south,
and concluding a treaty with Sindhia in October of the same

198 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
year, by which the Maratha chief engaged to negotiate a peace
between the other beUigerents and the British. The result
was the Treaty of Salbai in May 1782 (see supra, p. 194),
which isolated Haidar Ali by withdrawing from him the aid
of all the Maratha powers.
Meanwhile, in southern India, Eyre Coote, revisiting the
scenes of his former fame twenty years before, defeated
Haidar Ali with the loss of ten thousand men at Porto Novo
on July I, 1781. He next effected a junction with Pearce,
who, having reached Pulicat, forty miles north of Madras,
was threatened by Tipu, son of Haidar Ali ; their combined
forces fought a rather indecisive engagement in August at
PollUore. A month later Coote won a complete victory
over Haidar Ali at Solingar. War had now been declared
with the Dutch. In November 1781 Negapatam was taken,
and in January 1782 the splendid harbour of Trincomali
passed to the English. Here, however, came a check to
their good fortune. Braithwaite, with a considerable force,
after a desperate resistance lasting two days, was cut up in
Tanjore by Tipu ; and de Suffrein, the great French admiral,
having first fought an indecisive engagement with Sir Edward
Hughes on February 17 off Pulicat, landed more than two
thousand French troops. Haidar Ali, forming a junction with
them, captured Cuddalore from the British. Fortunately the
French had strict orders to do nothing of importance till
the arrival of Bussy, who, like Coote, was returning to the
arena of his early exploits. But Bussy's arrival was long
delayed owing to the increasing power of Great Britain on
the seas. Though he started from Cadiz in November
1 78 1, he found such difficulty in evading British squadrons
that he was only able to join de Suffrein at Trincomali in
March 1783, after long detentions at the Cape and the Isle
of France. Moreover, he was unlucky in the hour of his
coming. He landed at Cuddalore in April 1783, only to
find that Haidar AH had died in December of the preceding

XVII WARS IN WESTERN AND SOUTHERN INDIA igg
year, and that Tipu, with whom he wished to co-operate,
had departed to the Malabar coast, where things were not
going too well for him. Coote and Bussy were not destined
to renew their battles, for the brave old English general
died on April 26. The command lapsed into the hands of
General Stuart, an incapable man, who invested Cuddalore
in a dilatory manner. Before anything effective could be
done, news arrived of peace between England and France,
and Tipu thus lost his last ally. The chief interest of the
years 1782 and 1783 lies in the naval operations of the
French and British fleets off the coasts of Coromandel and
Ceylon. Between February 1782 and June 1783 de Suffrein
and Hughes fought five severe engagements, all of them so
stubbornly contested that they were regarded as drawn battles.
De Suffirein's greatest success was the recapture of Trinco
mali in August 1782, after he had cleverly outwitted his
opponent. Up to that date the French had, on the whole, the
superiority in naval matters, though they had been greatly
hampered for want of a base on land. But reinforcements
sent from France were constantly intercepted in European
waters, and the arrival of a new fleet under Sir R. Bickerton
in October gave the preponderance to the British. After
Haidar All's death operations were chiefly confined to the
western theatre of the war. In May 1783 Tipu captured
Bednore ; but when he proceeded to the investment of
Mangalore on the coast, FuUarton made a brilliant raid into
Mysore from the south-west. In November 1783 he cap
tured Palghat and occupied Coimbatore ; he was advancing
on Tipu's capital, Seringapatam, hoping to end the war with
one daring stroke, when to his bitter chagrin he was recalled
by the Madras authorities, who had already begun to negotiate
for peace. The Governor there was now Lord Macartney,
who had arrived in June 1781. He was an energetic man of
considerable force of character, and his internal administra
tion, where he showed himself straightforward and incor-

200 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA
ruptible, was a great improvement on that of his predecessors;
but he had no experience of the tortuous path of Indian
diplomacy, and in the negotiations which ended the war he
was no match for the wily Tipu, who succeeded in delaying
matters till Mangalore had fallen. The Sultan treated the
English envoys with studied disrespect, making it appear that
the English had begged a peace, and that he had graciously
granted it in the hour of victory. The Treaty of Mangalore,
on the basis of uti possidetis, was signed in March 1784.
Though Hastings strongly disapproved of its terms and tried
in vain to amend them, the treaty at least enabled him, when
he laid down his office a year later, to leave the British
dominions at peace with all the native powers.

CHAPTER XVIII
CHAIT SINGH AND THE BEGAMS OP OUDH.
THE IMPEACHMENT OP 'WAEBEN HASTINGS
The wars described in the last chapter had been a very
heavy drain on the Company's tfeasury, and Hastings,
whose administration hitherto had been financially success
ful, had now to face something very like bankruptcy. In
this period of difficulty and embarrassment he was led into
those dealings with Chait Singh, the Raja of Benares, and
the 'Begams', or Princesses, of Oudh, which furnished the
most damaging counts at his trial, and have to some extent
inevitably dimmed his reputation. The facts were briefly as
follows : The Raja of Benares had formerly owed allegiance
to Oudh, but by the treaty of 1775 he henceforward held his
lands from the Company as overlord. In 1778, on the out
break of hostilities with the French, Hastings considered that
he was justified in demanding, over and above the ordinary
tribute of 22^ lakhs (£225,000), a special sum of 5 lakhs
(£50,000) as a contribution for war expenses. The Council
rather demurred to the right to ' demand ', and preferred
the word ' request ' ; but the Governor-General carried his
point by suggesting that the question of right should be
reserved for the Directors. The Raja asked that the exac
tion should be limited to a single year, and was punished
for his ' contumacy ' by being ordered to pay the whole
forthwith instead of by instalments. Chait Singh then asked
for six or seven months' indulgence, whereupon payment
was demanded within five days, and he was told that if he

202 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
failed to comply he would be treated as though he had
refused absolutely.
In 1779 the demand was repeated. The Raja remon
strated submissively enough, and objected that his agree
ment with the Company exempted him from all contribu
tions beyond the tribute ; but when British troops were
ordered to march against him, he yielded, and paid the
£50,000 and an additional fine of £2,000 for the expenses
of the troops employed to coerce him.
In 1780 the demand for five lakhs was repeated; Chait
Singh sent a confidential agent to Calcutta, and offered the
Governor-General a present of two lakhs (about £20,000).
Hastings at first refused, but finally accepted it. He was
accused at the trial of having intended to appropriate this
money, but this charge may be dismissed as groundless.
The money was spent in the Company's service in equipping
an expedition against Sindhia. At the same time, it is only
fair to say that Hastings's critics had some reason to be led
astray by the mystery in which he involved the matter at the
time. Not wishing the rest of his Council to have control
over the money or to know the source from which it was
derived (and this was natural enough, for the only really
upright course would have been to refuse it), he first spoke
of it as a contribution from his own private estate, though,
to safeguard himself, he revealed all the circumstances to
the Director Sulivan as well as to the Accountant-General
of the Company's treasury in Calcutta, and five months
later informed the Directors that the money was not his
own. But the five lakhs were exacted as before from
Chait Singh, and apparently (though this is not certain) an
additional fine was imposed for the effort to evade payment.
Attempts to gloss over this transaction had better be left to
the thick-and-thin apologists of Hastings. It leaves upon the
mind a most unpleasant impression of his attitude towards
the unfortunate Raja. Hastings knew that the money was

XVIII CHAIT SINGH AND THE BEGAMS OF OUDH 203
only offered as a bribe, and would certainly not have been
paid except to relieve Chait Singh of the larger contribu
tion. There was some justice in the stinging comment of
the eleventh Report ofthe Select Committee of 1783 : ' The
complication of cruelty and fraud in the transaction admits of
few parallels. Mr. Hastings . . . displays himself as a zealous
servant of the Company, bountifully giving from his own
fortune ... on the credit of supplies, derived from the gift
of a man whom he treats with the utmost severity, and whom
he accuses in this particular of disaffection to the Company's
cause and interests. With £23,000 of the raja's money in
his pocket, he persecutes him to his destruction.' '
Chait Singh was not yet free of requisitions. He was next
required to furnish 2,000 cavalry — a demand, on his protests,
reduced to 1,000. The Raja ultimately got together 500,
with 500 matchlock men as substitutes, and sent word to
the Governor-General that they were ready to obey his orders.
But he received no answer,^ for Hastings had determined to
impose upon him an immense fine of fifty lakhs (£500,000).
' I was resolved ', he said, ' to draw from his guilt 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.'
Hastings left Calcutta in July. Chait Singh hastened to
Baxar, and abjectly humbled himself before the Governor-
General, who, however, declined to give him an answer till
he arrived at Benares. There, Hastings refused another per
sonal interview, and submitted his demands in writing. In
answer he received a letter from the Raja in self-defence,
which an impartial judge can only regard as perfectly
respectful, and, considering the way he had been treated,
' Reports of the House of Commons, vol. vi, p. 582. The rupee was
then reckoned at a little over 2s. ^d.
'^ Hastings himself admits that Chait Singh probably received no
reply. See his Narrative of the Insurrection which happened in ihe
Zemeendary of Benares.

204 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
extraordinarily moderate. Hastings, however, pronounced it
to be ' not only unsatisfactory in substance but offensive in
style ', and though he had only a weak escort he had Chait
Singh put under arrest. But though the Raja quietly sub
mitted, this indignity placed upon him in his own capital
was more than his troops could stand. They rose suddenly,
without his connivance, and massacred the English sepoys
with three officers. Chait Singh himself, fearing the conse
quences, made his escape in the general confusion. Hastings
was in great peril, and was forced to fly for safety to Chunar.
The rising became very serious, but the Governor-General
showed his customary coolness and resource, and, summoning
all available forces to his aid, defeated his enemies. Chait
Singh, protesting his innocence of the massacre, was driven
out of the country and found an asylum at Gwalior. His
domains were declared forfeit and were conferred upon his
nephew, who had henceforth to pay a tribute of forty lakhs,
instead of twenty-two and a half, to Calcutta.
On this transaction some brief comments must be made.
Modern apologists of Hastings either defend it by under
stating the facts, or find it convenient to slur it over. The
whole proceeding was really indefensible. It is true that
the Managers of the Impeachment overstated their case,
confused the issues by lack of legal training, and used the
most unwarrantable language. Hastings's defenders have a
right to say that he had no thought of private gain, that his
action was not perhaps more high-handed than many of those
of Lord Wellesley, nor more unrighteous than Sir Charles
Napier's treatment of the Amirs of Sind, and to point out
that neither of these eminent men was impeached. But it
does not follow that the episode was above criticism. Much
time and trouble were expended at the trial in discussing
the question whether Chait Singh was a Raja or a mere
Zamindar. This point is really immaterial. A more impor
tant one is whether the Company had not definitely engaged

xvm CHAIT SINGH AND THE BEGAMS OF OUDH 205
in 1775 to levy no further contributions from Chait Singh
as long as he paid his stipulated tribute. Wilson, in his
notes on Mill, maintains that there was only a resolution of
the Council to that effect, but no treaty. We now know,
however, that there was a definite agreement with Chait
Singh of July 5, 1775, that while he paid his contribution
' no demands shall be made upon him by the Honble
Company, of any kind, or on any pretence whatsoever, nor
shall any person be allowed to interfere with his authority,
or to disturb the peace of his country '.' WUson further
states that a later Sunnad or grant of 1776 declared all
former Sunnads to become null and void. He mentions that
the prosecutors of Hastings affirmed that the Sunnad was
altered in compliance with the representations of Chait
Singh, but replies that they could not prove that any other
Sunnad vfSiS ever executed.'' But again, we now know that
' Selections from the Letters, Despatches and other State Papers in the
Foreign Department of the Government of India, iy'j2-iy8;. Ed. by
G. W. Forrest, vol. ii, p. 402. The extract consists of the draft agree
ment with Chait Singh produced by Warren Hastings al the secret con
sultations of the Bengal Council, Jime 12, I77S- Sir George Forrest
prints less than half of the proceedings of that day, without any marks of
omission to show that the entry is incomplete. The full account may
be read in Reports from Committees of the House of Commons {iSo/\),
vol. V, pp. 618-19. The portion omitted, though no doubt this is acci
dental, contains statements of Warren Hastings which tell strongly
against Sir George Forrest's view of the Chait Singh incident. Hastings
says, almost prophetically, that without some such an arrangement
Chait Singh ' will expect from every change of government, additional
demands to be made upon him, and will of course descend to all the
arts of intrigue and concealment practised by other dependent Rajahs.
Hastings actually proposed that Chait Singh should pay his revenue at
Patna and not at Benares, ' because it would not frustrate the intention
of rendering the Rajah independent,' and for fear lest the influence of a
Resident at the latter place 'might eventually draw on him severe
restrictions, and end in reducing him to the mean and depraved state of
a mere zamindar.' Sir George Forrest also omits all record of the fact
that the agreement was reconsidered on July 5, and, with some modifica
tions in detail, was agreed to by the whole Council. The terms of the
agreement were communicated to Chait Singh by the instructions of the
Council to Fowke. August 24, 1775, Reports from Committees of the
House of Commons, vol. v, p. 466.
2 History of British India, vol. iv, p. 256 (ed. 1858).

2o6 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
the prosecutors were right, that the words objected to were
altered, a revised Sunnad given to Chait Singh, and the
original draft recalled.' Therefore the agreement of 1775
was the one still regulating the relations between the
Raja and the Company. The Council at Calcutta,
though now consisting only of two persons very friendly
disposed to Hastings, were obviously much embarrassed
by the escapades of the Governor-General, and asked
themselves three questions : ' Firstly, Where were the
Governor-General's particular instructions for such extra
ordinary demands on Chait Singh ? Secondly, Why was that
chief put in arrest when he offered to make every conces
sion ? Thirdly, Whether there was not a compact between
him and the Company which specified that he was only to
pay them a certain annual tribute ? ' ^ Their answers to
these questions show more desire than ability to support the
Governor-General. It is noticeable that in dealing with the
third, which, as they naively admit, ' involves much argu
ment', the theory that the Sunnad of 1 7 76 had contravened the
agreement of 1775 plainly never occurred to them. Neither
did it occur to the Court of Directors, who in their judge
ment on the transaction concluded that the compact of 1775
pledged the Company to make no further demands upon
Chait Singh beyond the stipulated tribute. But, waiving the
question of the prior agreement and assuming that Hastings
had the right in emergencies to revise the Company's treaty
obligations, the question still remains whether he did not
act in a harsh and precipitate manner towards a dependent.
Here the facts speak for themselves to all those who are not
obsessed with the conviction that Hastings was faultless.
Many modern writers seem to have persuaded themselves
that he was justified ; but the late Sir Alfred Lyall, not only
' Selections from the Letters, Despatches, Sec, vol. ii, pp. 512, 549,
6S7- I am at a loss to understand Sir G. Forrest's comments on this
point in his Introduction, vol. i, p. Ixviii.
2 Selections from the Letters, Despatches, &c., vol. iii, p. 831.

XVIII CHAIT SINGH AND THE BEGAMS OF OUDH 207
an historian but a man of affairs, who did not even in the
capacity of biographer lose all critical sense, admits in his
masterly little Life that 'Hastings must bear the blame of
having provoked the insurrection at Benares. . . . He followed
the recognized custom of needy Indian potentates . . . and
whenever the English in India descend to the ordinary level
of political morality among Asiatic potentates they lose all the
advantages of the contrast '. All those who have studied
the records at first hand will also assent to Lyall's declaration
that there was ' a touch of impolitic severity and precipita
tion about his proceedings against Chait Singh ', suggesting
that ' he was actuated by a certain degree of vindictiveness
and private irritation ' against him.'
One final line of defence should be noticed, namely that
the political position in India was so serious as to justify
almost any means of obtaining money ; and that Hastings
made, and rightly made, expediency the sole criterion here.
Then it can only be said that, moral considerations apart,
the whole proceeding was a sorry failure ; and, if utility is
the sole test, the Governor-General's action stands con
demned. He set forth to get money from the guUt of the
Raja ; he got nothing. He jeopardized his own safety in
a manner which earned the criticism of Sir Eyre Coote, and
was stigmatized by the Court of Directors as ' unwarrantable
and impolitic' By his precipitate act in arresting Chait
Singh in his own capital amid 200,000 of his own country
men, 420 miles from Calcutta, he brought a hornet's nest
about his ears, and the Raja escaped with part of his wealth.
Further, through his injudicious letter encouraging the army
in the hope of plunder, all the rest of the treasure found
(twenty-three lakhs of rupees) was divided up amongst the
troops, and the total financial result to the Company was the
cost of the hostilities that ensued. In the future, no doubt,
' Warren Hastings, by Sir Alfred Lyall (English Men of Action
Series), pp. 126, 127.

208 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
the Company gained by the larger tribute exacted from the
Raja of Benares, but at a great cost to the unhappy country.
Hastings himself had declared in 1775 that the province of
Chait Singh was 'as rich and well cultivated a territory
as any district, perhaps, of the same extent in India '. In
1784, when he visited the country, he records that he
' was followed and fatigued by the clamours of the discon
tented inhabitants ', and he declares that ' the cause existed
principally in a defective if not a corrupt and oppressive
administration '.'
The second incident was the famous case of the Begams,
or Princesses, of Oudh. The Nawab Wazir of Oudh, Asaf-ud-
daula, had for some years fallen into arrears with his subsidy
to the Company. His mother and grandmother, the Begams,
held \a.rge jagirs or landed estates and had inherited, though
there was some doubt of the authenticity of the will, a valu
able treasure from the late Nawab. The Nawab Wazir had
long desired to obtain part of this wealth, which he claimed
was unjustly withheld from him. However this might be,
in 1775 the widow of Shuja-ud-daula on the representations
of the British Resident agreed to pay her son £300,000,
in addition to £260,000 already given to him, on condi
tion that he and the Company guaranteed that he should
make no further demands upon her. Hastings at the time
was opposed to such a pledge being given, but he was out
voted in the Council and the agreement was made. In
1 78 1 Asaf-ud-daula asked that the treaty with the Begams
should no longer be considered valid, and that he might
seize their treasure to pay his debt to the Company, and
Hastings, badly in need of money, consented. The
Governor-General justified this abrogation of treaty rights
on the ground that the rebellious conduct of the Begams was
a reason for withdrawing from them British protection. At
' Selections from the Letters, Despatches, Set., G. W. Forrest, vol. iii,
p. 1082.

XVIII CHAIT SINGH AND THE BEGAMS OF OUDH 209
this point, however, the Nawab Wazir, who was thoroughly
afraid of the ' uncommonly violent temper of his female
relations ', began to hang back, and he had to be screwed up
by Hastings to the attempt to resume the jagirs and seize
the treasure. ' You must not allow any negotiations or
forbearance,' wrote the Governor-General to his agent in
Oudh, ' but must prosecute both services untU the Begams
are at the entire mercy of the Nabob.' ' British detach
ments were marched to Fyzabad to support the Nawab's
troops, and the eunuchs who acted as stewards for the
Begams were forced by imprisonment, fetters, starvation, and
the threat, if not the actual infliction, of the lash to part
with the hoarded treasure. Making every allowance for the
difficulties of Hastings, it is impossible not to regret and
condemn this proceeding. Even if we grant that the
Begams were unjustly withholding state property from its
rightful owner, and that the Company was not bound to
maintain its deliberately given guarantee, yet the temperately
worded verdict of Sir Alfred Lyall is the mildest form of
censure that meets the case : ' The employment of personal
severities, under the superintendence of British officers, in
order to extract money from women and eunuchs, is an
ignoble kind of undertaking ; ... to cancel the guarantee
and leave the Nawab to deal with the recalcitrant prin
cesses was justifiable ; to push him on and actively assist in
measures of coercion against women and eunuchs was con
duct unworthy and indefensible.'^ This point is of some
importance, for a rather ill-judged attempt has lately been
made to save Hastings's reputation. 'The cruelty', says
Sir G. W. Forrest, ' practised by the Nawab and his servants
has been greatly exaggerated, but it was sufficient to have
justified the interference of the Resident. To have
countenanced it by transmitting the orders of the Vizier
1 Idem, vol. iii, p. 950.
2 Warren Hastings, Sir A. Lyall, pp. 136, 137.

2IO HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
was a grave offence. But for what took place Hastings at
Calcutta cannot be held responsible. He ordered the
Resident not to permit any negotiation or forbearance, but
there is a wide gulf between legitimate severity and cruelty."
Unfortunately for this comfortable doctrine it is quite
clear from the extracts that Sir G. Forrest is editing that
Hastings was the moving spirit throughout. He goaded
on the reluctant Nawab, who protested that he was acting
under compulsion, and we find two successive Residents
informing the Governor-General, in answer to letters up
braiding them with being too mild, that they had gone as
far as they deemed possible. Middleton writes in February
1782 apologizing for having admitted a 'temporary forbear
ance': ' I must also observe that no further rigour than that
which I exerted could have been used against females in
this country ' ; '^ and Bristow in June quotes the opinion of
the officer who commanded the troops, that ' all that force
could do has been done '." The eunuchs were seized in
January and not released till December, and all this time
the Residents were in constant communication with the
Governor-General. It is quite obvious that they did not
relish the work thrust upon them ; that they could not satisfy
Hastings's desire for coercion, and pleaded for gentler
methods. The Governor-General himself, when Asaf-ud-
daula repented of coercing the Begams, declared that the
Nawab had been influenced by his minister to assume ' a
very unbecoming tone of refusal, reproach, and resentment ;
in opposition to measures recommended by me, and even
to acts done by my authority '.^
One other point must be briefly noticed. The defenders
of Hastings maintain that the Begams were acting in
' Selections from the State Papers of the Governors-General, vol. i
p. ^251."' Selections from the Letters, Despatches, &c., vol. iii, p. 96c.
* Idem, p. 969.
* Idem, p. 9S2.

XVIII CHAIT SINGH AND THE BEGAMS OF OUDH 211
complicity with Chait Singh, and that the Governor-General
was convinced of the fact. To this it may be replied firstly,
that if his treatment of the Raja of Benares was high-handed
and oppressive — and it must certainly have appeared to be so
at the time — it was sufficient to arouse the instincts of self-
preservation in the hearts of any native rulers. The Court
of Directors themselves declared, ' it nowhere appears from
the papers at present in our possession that the Begams
excited any commotions previous to the imprisonment of
Chait Singh, and only armed themselves in consequence of
that transaction, and it is probable that such conduct pro
ceeded from motives of self-defence under an apprehension
that they themselves might likewise be laid under un
warrantable accusations '. Secondly, the testimony to the
fact is almost worthless, consisting of vague ex post facto
statements of interested parties and hearsay evidence.
Thirdly, were it true and Hastings convinced of it, the right
and straightforward course would have been to produce
the evidence at the time and openly to have demanded
satisfaction from the Begams.
When all deductions are made for the great difficulties
that beset him, it seems impossible altogether to acquit
Hastings in these two famous cases. It is probable enough
that, had it not been for the unexpected rising of Chait
Singh's troops, which put everything to the test ofthe sword,
Hastings would have lessened the fine he intended to inflict.
But the point is that his harsh and precipitate attitude,
culminating in the arrest of the Raja after the latter's abject
submission, could have left no hope in the breast of that
unfortunate man. The massacre of British troops (for
which Chait Singh was not personally responsible) most
disastrously embittered the whole question. But for that
untoward incident, the Court of Directors might merely have
reversed the Governor- General's action as impolitic and
restored the Raja to his former position — a solution actually

212 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
suggested at the time by the Bengal CouncU' — and the
affair would only have been remembered as one of a few
errors of judgement in a long and otherwise glorious period
of office. In the case of the Begams of Oudh, Hastings
himself at the order ofthe Directors made partial restitution.
He was naturally the kindest of men, but there was a note
of relentlessness in his character when he was in difficulties,
and it is clear that he had steeled himself in this instance to
measures of unjust severity. He would have been glad to
thrust the responsibility on his agents, and he wished his
purpose to be carried out without knowing too accurately
how it was affected.
To pass so much of censure on the Governor-General's
conduct is not for one moment to condone the proceedings
of the managers in the impeachment. They grossly ex
aggerated and distorted the facts, and used language which
could only have applied to the worst excesses of the worst
of tyrants. Above all, they assumed that Hastings's motives
throughout were based on self-aggrandizement and corrup
tion. This at any rate was absolutely untrue. His aim
was the security and welfare of the Company and British
dominion in India. But until we hold that mere expediency
may override all considerations of ethical and political
right, we must continue to regard his conduct on these
occasions as a serious departure from the best traditions of
British statesmanship in the East.
By the end of 1779 the quarrel between the executive
and the judicature, the Council and the Supreme Court —
those ' ermined interlopers ', as they were called — to which
we have already alluded, became an open scandal. The
Council ordered the zamindars not to acknowledge the
jurisdiction of the judges, and the judges declared the
Governor-General and CouncU guUty of contempt of court.
' Selections from the Letters, Despatches, Sec, G. W. Forrest, vol. iii,
P- 79,5-

XVIII CHAIT SINGH AND THE BEGAMS OF OUDH 213
But the tension was suddenly ended. In 1780 Hastings
conferred upon Sir Elijah Impey the Presidency of the
Sadr Diwani Adalat, or Company's Court of Appeal, with
a salary of £6,500 revocable at the will of the Governor-
General and Council — an office which he was to hold in
addition to his Chief Justiceship of the Supreme Court and
salary of £8,000. Impey, although he accepted the salary,
declared himself prepared to refund it if his appointment
were not approved at home. From the point of view of
Hastings this adroit solution of the problem had many
advantages. It put an end to an intolerable situation, con
ciliated Impey, and anticipated by many years the policy
which extended the appellate jurisdiction of the Supreme
Court over the provincial courts of the province. But at
home there was a vehement outcry on the ground that his
action violated the spirit of the Regulating Act, the chief
object of which was to render the Supreme Court indepen
dent of the Executive. The law officers ofthe Crown after
wards gave their opinion that there was nothing illegal in
the appointment, but Parliament was not satisfied ; it passed
an Act in 1781 exempting the Governor-General and
Council from the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court, and
a year later recalled Impey, though the subsequent attempt
to impeach him broke down. Sir James Stephen has ably
defended Impey from the charge of having acted from
corrupt motives, but he admits that the Chief Justice after
his fierce conflicts with the Council was not well advised in
accepting an arrangement, which at any rate gave the im
pression that he had compromised his independence. It
certainly seems impossible to deny that Impey had an evil
reputation in India. CornwaUis, who was not naturally
censorious and would never say a word against Hastings,
wrote in 1786 in alarm to Dundas, 'I trust you will not
send out Sir Elijah Impey. All parties and descriptions of
men agree about him ' ; and again in 1788, ' If you are in the

214 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
hanging mood, you may tuck up Sir Elijah Impey, without
giving anybody the smallest concern '.'
Hastings spent eight months of 1784 in Benares and
Oudh reorganizing the internal affairs and finances of the
provinces, which were in the greatest distress partly through
famine and partly through misgovernment. In Benares the
rule of the new Raja had proved a poor substitute for the
mild and comparatively equable sway of Chait Singh. On
his return to Calcutta Hastings received the news of Pitt's
India Act, and declaring that ' fifty Burkes, Foxes and
Francises' could not have planned a worse measure, he
acted on the resignation of his office which he had tendered
early in the year, and left the shores of India in February
1785- Pitt's famous statute was the culminating point of one of
the recurrent periods of state inspection into East Indian
affairs. For seven years after the passing of the Regulating
Act (1773) popular attention had been mainly occupied
with the rebellion of the North American Colonies and the
war with France, but from 1780 India again attracted the
notice of politicians. In 1781 a new Charter Act prolonged
the Company's privileges for ten years and still further
extended the control of the state over it in two directions :
in the first place, three-quarters of any surplus, after a divi
dend of eight per cent, had been paid, was to go to the
Treasury ; secondly, as the Regulating Act had obliged the
Court to communicate to ministers all dispatches received
from India relative to revenue, civil, and military affairs,
so they were now compeUed to submit for inspection all such
dispatches sent to India. In the same year ParHament
appointed two committees, the first ' Select ' and the second
' Secret ', to inquire into the administration of justice in
Bengal, and to investigate the causes of the war in the
1 Correspondence of . , . Marquess Coi'nwallis, Charles Ross, vol, i,
pp. 238, 310.

XVIII CHAIT SINGH AND THE BEGAMS OF OUDH 215
Carnatic. These committees presented voluminous reports,
and in May 1782 the House of Commons resolved that
Hastings and the President of Bombay should be recalled
from office. The Proprietors of the East India Company
sturdily refused to ratify this resolution merely in accord
ance with a vote of the House of Commons ', and the fall of
Rockingham's ministry saved the Governor-General. The
coalition government of Fox and North took office in 1783,
and Fox brought forward his India Bills. The main pro
visions of the most important were that for four years all
political and military power should be transferred to seven
Directors or Commissioners, to be appointed at first by
Parliament and afterwards by the Crown : all commercial
business was to be controlled by nine ' assistant directors ',
also to be nominated in the first instance by Parliament but
afterwards by the Court of Proprietors. Pitt, in his fierce
opposition to the BUls, seized upon the fact that the
immensely valuable patronage of India would practically
pass into the hands of the government, and to play upon the
ever-present fear that the corrupting power of ministers
would be extended was, in the eighteenth century, the
surest method of rousing popular feeling. This, however, in
face of the great Parliamentary preponderance of the coali
tion, would have been of little avaU had not George III
through his influence over the Lords been able to force a
dissolution. The BiU passed the Commons by ample
majorities, but was thrown out in the upper house by what
Fox described as ' an infamous string of bed-chamber
janissaries '. The coalition were promptly dismissed from
office by the king, and on the appeal to the country a few
months later were utterly defeated. The Whig Party was
ruined. Pitt came into power for twenty years and carried his
India Act in 1784. This measure practically made the East
India Company, in everything except its patronage and
commerce (now rapidly dwindling), a subordinate depart-

2l6 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
ment of state. Civil and military matters were to be con
trolled by six ' Commissioners for the affairs of India ',
popularly known as the ' Board of Control ', consisting of
the Chancellor of the Exchequer, one of the principal
Secretaries of State, and four Privy Councillors. In practice
the commission soon became a phantom body and all real
power passed into the hands of the senior commissioner
(other than the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Secre
tary of State), who was known as the President of the
Board of Control. The orders of the commissioners were
to be transmitted to India through a secret committee of
the Directors, and the Court of Proprietors was deprived of
any right to annul or suspend any resolution of the Directors
approved of by the Board. The government of India was
placed in the hands of a Governor-General and Council of
three, and the subordinate Presidencies were made definitely
subject to Bengal in all questions of war, revenue, and
diplomacy. In the meantime the enemies of the late Governor-
General were preparing an elaborate assault on his whole
career, and in this work the generous humanitarian
sympathies and lofty, though often misdirected, indignation
of Burke were reinforced by the thwarted ambition and
bitter enmity of Philip Francis. Hastings arrived in Eng
land in June 1785, and it seemed for a time as though the
storm that threatened him would pass over. But in 1786
Burke, on an unwise challenge from Hastings's agent, moved
in Parliament for papers dealing with various points in his
administration. The attack, at first repeUed, gathered in
intensity and effectiveness. The House acquitted Hastings
on the question of the wars against the Marathas and the
RohUlas, but passed condemnatory resolutions on his deal
ings with Chait Singh and the Begams of Oudh. Pitt, who
had hitherto supported Hastings, felt bound to vote against
him on the two latter counts. An amazing amount of

xvra IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS 217
misplaced ingenuity has been expended in the endeavour
to find some motive more or less unworthy for this action.
The simple truth appears to be that he and Dundas felt
there was too much evidence, at least for a prima facie case,
for them to hold out any longer ; and it must be admitted
that before the full defence was made, which could only be
done at the trial, the facts at the very least called for criti
cism and an explanation. The following passage in the letter
of Dundas to CornwaUis of March 21, 1787, should put this
controversy finally to rest : ' The proceeding (i. e. the im
peachment) is not pleasant to many of our friends ; and of
course from that and many other circumstances, not pleas
ing to us ; but the truth is, when we examined the various
articles of charges against him with his defences, they were
so strong, and the defences so perfectly unsupported, it was
impossible not to concur.' '
The trial began in Westminster Hall on February 13,
1788. The articles of impeachment as finally presented
were twenty in number. Most of them dealt with Hastings's
relations with Oudh. He was charged with the violation of
treaties made with the Nawab, unnecessary interference in
his internal affairs, compulsion put upon him to maintain an
excessive number of troops, with oppression in the case of
the Raja of Benares, with the arbitrary settlement of the
land revenues of Bengal, the removal of the treasury from
Murshidabad to Calcutta, with fraudulent dealings in con
tracts, and the acceptance of presents and bribes. The
chief managers of the impeachment were Burke, Fox, and
Sheridan, and they were helped and prompted throughout by
Francis. Largely through interminable wrangling over the
admissibility of evidence the trial was spun out to an in
ordinate length. As it dragged on its slow course the grow
ing violence and irritability of Burke, whose mind became
' Correspondence of . . . Marquess Cornwallis, Charles Ross, vol. i,
p. 281.

2l8 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
almost unbalanced by the strain, gradually alienated all
popular sympathy from his cause. It was strongly felt that,
whatever Hastings's faults and errors might have been, they
were more than adequately requited by the long-drawn-out
agony ofthe trial. In 1791 it was decided to drop all the
articles of charge except those dealing with the case of
Chait Singh and the Begams of Oudh, fraudulent contracts,
presents and bribes. The verdict was only given in the
eighth year of the impeachment, on April 23, 1795.
Hastings was acquitted on all the articles. In the voting
the highest minorities were recorded in the charges relating
to the rulers of Benares and Oudh, which were defeated by
majorities of 23 to 6.
The pity is that the matter ever went any further than the
Parliamentary inquiry. Hastings's critics might well have
been content with the censure then passed on these two
points, the least defensible of his acts. Following the pre
cedent created in Clive's case, the Commons should at the
same time have carried a rider recognizing the exceptional
difficulties under which the late Governor-General laboured,
and recording a generous appreciation of his long and
splendid services to Great Britain in the East. Thus the
justice of the case would have been met and the procedure
in Parliament might well have been supplemented in due
time by the grant of some high honour from the Crown.
Unfortunately this course was not followed, and year after
year the unedifying spectacle was presented of Hastings,
still patient, imperturbable, and courageous, standing at the
bar ofthe Lords, a target for the terrible invectives launched
against him by the three greatest orators of the day.
Yet perhaps we may say that the impeachment had its
uses, for while it ended in the acquittal of the accused, it
brought about the condemnation ofthe system under which
he had been called upon to govern ; and even if it revealed
on his part some acts of impolitic and unjust severity and

XVIII IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS 2ig
some instances of lax financial control, it also made known,
as perhaps nothing else could have done, his splendid
administrative abilities, his cool and dauntless courage, his
marvellous equanimity under cruel provocation, and, finally,
his untiring efforts, at last crowned with success, to wrest
victory from defeat, and, in a time of world-wide disaster
elsewhere, to leave the British inheritance in the East in
extent and resources not less than he found it.

CHAPTER XIX
INTEBNAL BEPOEMS. THE GEEAT LAND SETTLE
MENT. LOED COBNWALLIS AND SIE JOHN SHOBE
When Hastings left India, John Macpherson, the senior
member of CouncU, succeeded him as temporary Governor-
General. He was not above the average type of the
Company's servants in their worst epoch. Concerned in
some discreditable intrigues with the Nawab of the Carnatic
both before and after he had entered the Company's
service, he had been cashiered by Lord Pigot but reinstated
by the Court of Directors. During his year and a half of
office he only succeeded in making some ill-advised over
tures to the Maratha government at Poona which after
wards embarrassed his successor, and in carrying through
some reductions in expenditure. His administration, though
approved by the Court of Directors and rewarded with
a baronetcy, was declared by Lord Cornwallis, a man not
given to exaggeration, to be a ' system of the dirtiest
jobbing '.'
The feeling was now widely prevalent in England that
a Governor-General should be appointed who had not
spent his official career in the corrupt atmosphere of the
covenanted service. The choice of the Court fell first
upon Lord Macartney, who, without having passed through
the subordinate ranks of the Company's service, had
enjoyed as Governor of Madras considerable Indian ex
perience. He was, however, passed over when he made
' Correspondence of Charles , first Marquess Cornwallis, Charles Ross,
3 vols., 1859, ¦^ol- '> P- 371-

^riiul,a-'-^ffl|tlS6#^^""''*'*"' -SMAU-^ BENGAL

INDIA
in 1795
British Territory.  .^
Bntish Protected States.. .[Ml
Mahrattas  ^w
Scale of Milea
0 SO 100 200 300 400

P 4 SON, LTD.

222 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
his acceptance conditional on his elevation to an English
peerage, and the office was conferred upon Lord Cornwallis,
who on two former occasions, in 1782 and 1785, had
declined it. A BUl was carried through Parliament (1786)
legalizing his appointment both as Governor-General and
Commander-in-Chief, and permitting him in emergencies to
override a majority in his Council.
Lord Cornwallis was a man of high character, who in
spite of his surrender to Washington at Yorktown — the
reverse that ended the American War of Independence —
retained the trust and respect of his countrymen. He was
the personal friend of Henry Dundas, for sixteen years
President of the Board of Control, and of Pitt, the Prime
Minister, and had perhaps more than any other Governor-
General the support of the Court of Directors. These
circumstances, together with the extraordinary legal powers
granted to him by the Act of 1786 — a tribute at once to
his personal integrity and a proof that the nation believed
drastic reforms in Indian administration to be necessary —
gave him far greater authority than any servant of the
Company, however able, could have obtained. Yet it
would hardly be fair to attribute the whole of ComwalUs's
success to these advantages of position, conspicuous though
they were. His standard of probity in financial matters
was exceptionaUy high, and probably transcended that of
all other politicians of his day. He seems almost to have
been without personal ambition. His sole aim was to do
what he conceived to be his duty adequately and without
parade, and he was as phlegmaticaUy calm in his triumphs
as he was stoically unmoved in his defeats. There was
abundant need for his reforming hand. It is perhaps
somewhat necessary to emphasize this fact. Modern writers
on Warren Hastings go so far in their defence of his policy
that they sometimes leave the impression that there was
nothing for Cornwallis to amend. But this was certainly

XIX ADMINISTRATION OF LORD CORNWALLIS 223
not the case. Hastings, as we have shown, cared little for
money himself, and his faults where it was concerned were
carelessness and extravagance rather than avarice, but he
hardly seems to have been revolted by the vitiated atmo
sphere in which he moved, and he freely used means, which
a later age and a higher standard can only regard as
questionable, to bind men to his interests and win their
support. Sir John Malcolm says with truth that ' his most
strenuous advocates . . . while they defend his personal
integrity, are forced to acknowledge, that the whole system
of the government over which he presided was corrupt and
full of abuses '.'
In his assault on this system Cornwallis was in great
measure single-handed. It was hopeless to expect the
Court of Directors to take any clear and consistent line
on the question of financial reform. We are apt to regard
the Directors in England and their servants in India as
two distinct bodies with very divergent interests, but though
this is true to a certain extent, in some respects they were
wont to act rather in collusion than in opposition. The
position of Director at this time was chiefly valued for the
patronage in Indian appointments and the opportunities
for securing lucrative contracts which it conferred. There
are many indications of a questionable co-operation between
the Company's servants abroad and their nominal masters
at home. The payment to Clive of his huge fagir was
readily acquiesced in by the Court till they began to
quarrel with him on other grounds. Johnstone, member
of the Bengal Council in 1765, and other delinquents who
had received valuable presents against the direct prohibition
of the Directors, had influence enough in Leadenhall Street
to quash the suits that were instituted against them for
restitution of their ill-gotten gains. The notorious Paul Ben-
field wielded such influence both in the Court of Directors
' Sketch ofthe Political History of India, John Malcolm, 1811, p. 40.

224 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
and in Parliament as to prevent for many years all inquiry
into the scandal of the Nawab of Arcot's debts— debts of
millions of pounds ' in favour ', as Burke declared, ' of
a set of men whose names with few exceptions are either
buried in the obscurity of their origin and talents or dragged
into Hght by the enormity of their crimes '.' In spite of
characteristic exaggeration there is some truth in the same
orator's paradox : ' The servants in India are not appointed
by the Directors, but the Directors are chosen by them.
The trade is carried on with their capitals. To them the
revenues of the country are mortgaged. The seat of the
supreme government is in Calcutta. The house in Leaden
hall is nothing more than a 'change for their agents,
factors, and deputies to meet in.' '^ How else but by the
existence of collusion between the Directors and their
servants in the East can we account for the fact that the
Resident of Benares, one of the posts in the gift of the
Governor-General, was allowed to make an annual income
of £40,000 a year besides his official salary of £1,350?
When Cornwallis had cleansed the Augean stables he
wrote, 'the splendid and corrupting objects of Lucknow
and Benares are removed ; and here I must look back to
the conduct of former Directors, who knew that these
shocking evils existed, but- instead of attempting to suppress
them, were quarrelling whether their friends, or those of
Mr. Hastings, should enjoy the plunder '.^
Such was the state of things with which Cornwallis had
to deal. Nor must it be supposed that any mere extension
of state control over the East India Company would neces
sarily have done away with the corrupt atmosphere. Parlia
mentary government at this time was still hopelessly venal.
Cornwallis himself was pestered by men of high rank in
' Burke's Speeches, vol iii, p. 109.
^ Idem, vol. ii, p. 473.
' Correspondence of . . . Cornwallis, Charles Ross, vol. i, p. 306.

XIX ADMINISTRATION OF LORD CORNWALLIS 225
England, including the Prince of Wales, to perpetrate ' some
infamous and unjustifiable job ',' and when the question of
the renewal of the Company's charter came to the fore in
1793, he declared he feared the 'furious clamour' that
would be raised against ' annexing the patronage of India to
the influence of the Crown ', and he stUl thought a Court
of Directors, though its constitution might be improved,
could ' prove a useful check on the ambitious or corrupt
designs of some future minister'.^
In a history like the present it is impossible to deal
adequately with the work of each Governor-General in
every field ; but it is important to gain a clear idea of each
man's most characteristic contribution to the building up
of British dominion in India. Few were destined to do
more permanent work than Lord Cornwallis, especially in
the department of internal affairs. Externally the interest
of his rule is almost confined to his war with Tipu Sultan
of Mysore, and his success there, though considerable, was
not of the nature of a complete triumph. In internal affairs
his governor-generalship is one of the most notable, and
his achievements in order of importance are the reform of
the covenanted service, the permanent settlement of the
land revenues of Bengal, and the reorganization of the
Bengal courts of law.
The emolument of Englishmen who spend the best part
of their lives in the East has always been fixed on a higher
scale than that of their fellow-countrymen in temperate
climates. Modern practice, the outcome of much expe
rience and many mistakes in the past, has solved the
question by the payment of adequate salaries during the
working period of the civil servant's career, and retirement
with a generous pension at a comparatively early age. The
plan adopted by the Court of Directors, which they only
' Idem, vol. ii, p. 51.
^ Marquess Cornwallis, W. S. Seton-Karr, p. j6.
9U Q

226 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
abandoned reluctantly at CornwaUis's earnest solicitation,
was small nominal salaries with large commissions at a
fixed rate on the collection of revenues. The meagreness
of the salaries is often greatly exaggerated, and if they were
too small, the commissions and perquisites were a great
deal too large. The Resident at Benares at this time, as
we have seen, had a salary of i,ooo rupees a month or, at
the current value of the rupee, £1,350 a year, which would
now be considered fair remuneration for the position ; but
he made besides in indirect ways the huge amount of
£40,000 a year and, if we are to believe Cornwallis, other
perquisites besides. The truth seems to be that, as there
was no pension awaiting the Company's servant on his
retirement, it was considered absolutely necessary that in
fifteen to twenty years' service each man should have accu
mulated a fortune upon which to retire in comfort. At
this period we find that the Company's servants in Bengal
(i) received a fixed salary from the Court of Directors,
(2) received also commissions on the revenues of Bengal,
(3) engaged in the forbidden private trade. ' I am sorry
to say ', wrote CornwalHs, ' that I have every reason to
believe that at present almost all the collectors are, under
the name of some relation or friend, deeply engaged in
commerce, and by their influence as collectors and judges
of Adalat become the most dangerous enemies to the
Company's interest." The reforms effected by Cornwallis
were wide and sweeping. He proved the stern foe of every
kind of job, sinecure, or dubious contract. For the vicious
system of commissions he substituted generous salaries at
a fixed amount, and he separated the executive and judicial
powers of the Company's servants. He thus left the
functions and position of the collector very much what we
know them to be to-day.'' The covenanted service of the
' A Comprehensive History of Itidia, H. Beveridge, vol. ii, p. 575.
^ It must be noted however that the absolute separation between
executive and judicial powers has not been maintained. See infra,
p. 289.

XIX ADMINISTRATION OF LORD CORNWALLIS 227
Company from that date assumed a new aspect, and grew
by natural development into the imperial civil service of
the Indian Empire.
In India the great bulk of public revenue has always
been raised from the land. When the British in Bengal
were granted the diwani in 1765, they found a system in
vogue by which the ' ryot ' or peasant cultivator paid a
fixed share of the produce of his land either in cash or
kind to the ' zamindars '. The ' zamindars ' were at first
mere collectors of the revenue. But the office graduaUy
tended to become hereditary in the families of the original
holders. Thus the ' zamindari ', which was originally, as it
has been described, an hereditary contract agency, became
something resembling a landed estate. The zamindar re
ceived the territorial revenues of the state from the ryots
and paid the Mughal sovereign or his Viceroy nine-tenths
of what he received, retaining the remaining tenth for
himself. He succeeded to his zamindari by inheritance,
but was expected to pay a fine on his succession. He
could sell or give away his office on obtaining permission,
but if deprived of it by the state, he became entitled
to compensation. Over the lands in his zamindari he had
a right to regulate the incidence of the cesses (or taxes)
imposed by the ruler of Bengal, and he was responsible
for the keeping of the peace within his jurisdiction. On
the acquisition of the diwani in 1765 the collection of the
revenue was left in the hands of natives, though in 1769
with dubious success British ' supervisors ' were appointed
to control them.
In 1772, as we have seen, Hastings, on taking over the
management of the diwani from Indian agents, leased the
right to collect the revenues to the highest bidders for five
years. This quinquennial settlement however proved a
failure. The farmers of the revenue offered more than
they could pay, and at the end of the period they were
Q 2

228 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
2i millions in arrears. Hastings, following instructions
from home, returned to the system of annual leases.
This precarious tenure by universal consent was a mistake.
The flow of capital to the land was checked. The revenue
steadily diminished. Cornwallis reported that on his arrival
in India he found agriculture and trade decaying, ryots
and zamindars sinking into poverty, and money-lenders the
only flourishing class in the community. The annual
tenure was not regarded favourably by the British Parlia
ment of landlords, who looked upon the zamindars as
landholders in the ordinary sense of the word. An Act
of Parliament was passed in 1784 directing the Court of
Directors to abandon the annual system and frame ' per
manent rules ' for the raising of the land revenues.
Nearly two years later the Court of Directors tardily
urged Cornwallis to make a ten-years' settlement with the
zamindars, which was eventually to be declared permanent,
if it proved satisfactory. From that date, 1786, to 1789
Cornwallis with the aid of John Shore, a Bengal civUian
whose knowledge of land tenures was wide and profound,
studied the question, and in 1789 a settlement for ten years
was made. In 1793 Cornwallis urged upon Dundas, against
the advice of Shore, that the existing settlement should be
made permanent. Dundas eagerly welcomed the sugges
tion, and shut himself up for ten days at Wimbledon with
Pitt, the Prime Minister, that they might study the question
without interruptiqp. At the end of that time they decided
for Cornwallis against Shore, and on March 22, 1793, the
settlement was fixed in perpetuity.
Upon this famous Permanent Settlement historians have
passed diametrically opposite judgements. 'It was', says
Marshman, 'a bold, brave, and wise measure. Under the
genial influence of this territorial charter, which for the first
time created indefeasible rights and interests in the soU,
population has increased, cultivation has been extended, and

XIX ADMINISTRATION OF LORD CORNWALLIS 229
a gradual improvement has become visible in the habits and
comfort of the people.' ' On the other hand, Holmes says :
' The Permanent Settlement was a sad blunder . . . The
inferior tenants derived from it no benefit whatever. The
zamindars again and again failed to pay their rent charges,
and their estates were sold for the benefit of the govern
ment.'^ The views quoted are typical of two opposing schools,
and are not so irreconcilable as may at first sight appear.
The Permanent Settlement, in contrast to the chaotic
system which it supplanted, had many fairly obvious advan
tages. It ultimately improved the position of the zamindar,
who was secured in his zamindari as long as he paid the
state revenues. He henceforth appropriated to his own
benefit the difference between the rents he received from
the ryots and the claim of the state. He had no longer
to pay fines on succession or obtain permission before
effecting a sale, and he was relieved from the burden of
maintaining order in his district. The Permanent Settle
ment gave popularity and stability to the British govern
ment, and has helped to make the province the wealthiest
and most flourishing in India. It has avoided the evils
of periodical assessments which, at however long intervals,
produce economic dislocation, evasion, the concealment of
wealth, and the deliberate throwing of land out of cultiva
tion. Even though the state sacrificed much future revenue,
it gained indirectly through the general increase in pros
perity and the abolition of those checks to industry and
improvements which must always appear when the govern
ment bears away part of the profit.
On the other hand, the immediate effect, even upon the
zamindars, was disastrous. Many of them, being unable
to recover the rent from the cultivators, could not pay the
' The History of India, J. C. Marshman (1871), vol. ii, p. 35.
^ History ofthe Indian Mutiny, T. R. E. Holmes, p. 12.

230 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
state dues and were forced to part with their ancient rights
to new proprietors. To such of them as were able to with
stand the first strain and to the new owners of zamindaris
the Permanent Settlement ultimately gave an enormous
increase in rent at the expense of the state and the ryots,
while the hope that they would invest much capital in
improving and developing their ' estates ' was doomed to
disappointment. The amount to be paid by the zamindars
was fixed at three and three-quarter millions sterling, while
the rents received by them now exceed thirteen millions.
The state once and for all parted with the power to divert
a portion of this unearned increment, and the rest of India
has to be taxed more heavUy that Bengal landlords may
enjoy a position of especial emolument. Though Corn
wallis endeavoured to some extent to mitigate, in the
interests of the ryots, the hardships of an economic rent, it
cannot be said that he was very successful. Their status was
undoubtedly impaired, and it was not until 1859 that the
Bengal Land Act afforded them real relief. This feature of
the Permanent Settlement is its greatest blot in the eyes of
those who regard the zamindar as originaUy the headman of
the free village, representing the cultivators and nominated
by the government to collect and pay over the state revenues.
According to this view, though he tended as time went on to
be looked upon as the landlord of his zamindari, the peasants
who paid the dues ' were neither his tenants nor his vassals.
... A very great blunder as well as gross injustice was com
mitted when a settlement was made with zamindars alone,
and rights of property every whit as good as theirs were
completely ignored.' '
Summing up therefore, it may be said that most of the
advantages of the Permanent Settlement might equally weU
have been obtained by a settlement for a long term of years.
The state would not then have parted for ever with all power
' A Comprehensive History of India, H. Beveridge, vol. ii, p. 631.

XIX ADMINISTRATION OF LORD CORNWALLIS 231
to derive an increased revenue from the unearned increment
of the land. ' The land revenue ', throughout the Permanent
Settlement area, says Mr. E. D. Maclagan, ' has now, like the
English land tax, none of the characteristics of taxation,
and may be said to be at the present day nothing more than
a rent charge, the burden of which has long ago been dis
counted by the reduced selling price of the land which it
affects.' ' Had the Permanent Settlement but been post
poned for another ten or twenty years, the capacities of the
land would have been better ascertained. Many mistakes
and anomalies would have been avoided, and the reforms
brought about by Cornwallis himself in the civil service
would have trained up a class of officials far more competent
to deal with so vast and intricate a subject.
In the organization of the judicial courts, civil and
criminal, Cornwallis completed the work begun by Warren
Hastings. Briefly to summarize a very technical and diffi
cult subject, he vested the collection of the revenues and
the administration of justice in separate officers, though this
principle was afterwards departed from in the governor-
generalship of Lord Hastings. An ascending hierarchy of
civil courts was established, consisting of (i) small courts for
the recovery of petty debts, presided over by native com
missioners ; (2) Zillah, or District, and City Courts under
a British judge with native assessors ; (3) four Provincial
Courts, each under three European judges, also with native
assessors ; (4) the Court of Appeal, or Sadr Diwani Adalat,
consisting of the Governor-General and members of Council
in Calcutta. A parallel organization of criminal courts was
set up — the judges being practicaUy the same and those of
the provincial civil courts going on circuit — surmounted by
the Court of Appeal, the Sadr Nizamat Adalat. The
criminal jurisdiction of the native Deputy Nawab, or Naib
Nazim, was thus finally abolished, and an elaborate new
' The Imperial Gazetteer of India, vol. iv, p. 229.

232 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
Code of Regulations, drawn up by George Barlow, was
printed and published to guide the officials of the new
judicial system.
In these three fields, then, the status of the covenanted
civil service, the collection of the land revenues, and the
organization of the judicature, lay the real and important
work of Cornwallis. ' He gathered up the scattered frag
ments of government which he found and reduced them to
one comprehensive system. He gave substance and per
manency to what had before been light and transient. He
laid the foundation of the present Indian constitution.'
In his foreign policy Cornwallis was anxious above all to
maintain the neutrality and peace which was consonant with
the declaration of Parliament made in Pitt's Act of 1784
and repeated in 1793, that 'to pursue schemes of conquest
and extension of dominion in India are measures repugnant
to the wish, the honour, and policy of this nation '.
He refused in 1788 to assist the son of Shah Alam, then
residing at Benares, to recover his throne at Delhi, and he
succeeded with some adroitness in extricating himself from
the agreement which Macpherson had injudiciously made
with the Peshwa — ' a very awkward, foolish scrape ',' but he
was not able to avoid hostilities with the ruler of Mysore, the
most formidable and relentless ofthe Company's adversaries.
The path of the Governor-General was entangled with
former ill-advised treaties made by the muddle-headed
governments of Madras, and by the habitual treachery of the
native powers. A very involved story must here be briefly
told. The Nizam of Hyderabad, always the ally and gener
ally the embarrassment of the Company, appealing to the
Treaty of Masulipatam (1768), caUed for the aid of British
troops to recover certain of his former territories from Tipu,
while at the same time, as was afterwards discovered, he
' Correspondence of . . . Marquess Cornwallis, Charles Ross, vol. i,
p. 219.

XIX ADMINISTRATION OF LORD CORNWALLIS 233
intrigued with the latter for a coalition against the English.
When Lord CornwalHs looked into the diplomatic history of
the point, he discovered that in 1769 a treaty had been made
with Haider Ali explicitly recognizing his claims to the terri
tories of which the Treaty of Masulipatam professed to
deprive him. Further, the treaty of 1784, concluded with
Tipu himself, also acknowledged these rights. On the other
hand, it was clear that Tipu was meditating war against the
Company s dominions, and Cornwallis was anxious before
embarking on it to secure the alliance of the Nizam, but
a clause in Pitt's Act of 1784 prevented the Governor-
General without the consent of the home authorities from
declaring war on native princes or entering into a treaty with
that object, unless previously attacked. Cornwallis, by a
rather desperate piece of casuistry, determined to accept the
Nizam's appeal to the treaty of 1768, though his action in
doing so violated the two subsequent treaties of 1769 and
1784. He adopted the extraordinary expedient of writing
a letter to the Nizam, explanatory of the treaty of 1768,
which declared that, if the districts claimed by the Nizam
should ever come into the possession of the British, they
should be handed over to him ; troops were to be supplied
to the Nizam but were not to be employed against any
powers in alliance with the British ; a list of these powers
was added and the name of Tipu was deliberately excluded.
The war with Mysore was in all probability, as Cornwallis
said, ' an absolute and cruel necessity ', but that so naturally
open and frank a man should be driven to such expedients
to range the Nizam on his side, illustrates the diflSculties of
the neutral course imposed by resolutions of Parliament and
the precepts of the Court of Directors upon the Indian
government, and, it must be confessed, lent some support to
those who argued that Tipu was almost forced henceforward
to take up arms in self-defence. Little wonder that even
the peace-loving Cornwallis spoke feelingly of the ' unavoid-

234 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
able inconvenience of our being constantly exposed to the
necessity of commencing a war, without having previously
secured the assistance of efficient allies '.'
Tipu himself forced on the war. In 1787 he had sent
envoys as far as Constantinople and Paris to seek allies
against the British, and he was buoyed up by many deluding
hopes. In December 1789 he attacked Travanoore, a small
state in the extreme south-west of the Peninsula, whose Raja
was an aUy of the Company, and in the foUowing year he
devastated the country with his usual wantonness and cruelty.
Corr^wallis succeeded in forming a triple league against him
by agreements with the Peshwa and the Nizam in June and
July 1790, each of whom was to provide a contingent of
troops and share in the profits of the conquest. Both were
unwUling allies and rendered no useful aid, but at least they
were prevented from joining Mysore.
The campaign of 1790 conducted by General Medows
was unsatisfactory. Accordingly in December 1790 the
Governor-General himself assumed the command, captured
Bangalore in March of the following year, and advanced on
the capital, Seringapatam ; but though he defeated Tipu in
a pitched battle in May, he was forced through a shortage
of supplies to spike his heavy guns and retreat. The third
campaign in the late summer of 1791 was more successful.
Tipu's mountain fastnesses were reduced, and in January
1 792 a second advance was made with an imposing force on
Seringapatam, and the outworks of the town were captured.
Tipu then made his submission, which was accepted by the
Governor-General. Some critics have supposed that Corn
walHs had it then in his power to complete the work which
he left to Wellesley, but there were many good reasons for
stopping short of the storm of Seringapatam. Sickness was
spreading in the British camps ; treachery, and with good
reason, was suspected in the Nizam and the Marathas. AVar
' A Comprehensive History of India, H. Beveridge, vol. ii, p. 582.

XIX ADMINISTRATION OF LORD CORNWALLIS 235
with France was evidently imminent, and the Directors were
clamouring for peace. Further, the Governor-General was
not eager to take over the management of the whole country
of Mysore, and so deliberately stayed his hand. By the
treaty of March 1792, Tipu was forced to cede half his
dominions, pay an indemnity of more than £3,000,000, and
surrender two of his sons as hostages.
The war brought the Company their first really im
portant accession of territory since 1765. On the west of
Mysore they obtained Malabar and the sovereignty over
Coorg, whose Raja had supported their cause ; on the south,
Dindigul with the surrounding districts; on the east, the
Baramahal and the command of the famous passes through
which Haider Ali used to make his devastating incursions.
The general result was that the British had cut off the
Sultan of Mysore from approach to the sea on the west, and
commanded the defiles giving access to the table-land of his
country. The Marathas gained territory on the north-west
and the Nizam on the north-east of Mysore. Each of the
confederates got one-third of the indemnity. CornwaUis
summed up the results of the war by saying, 'We have
effectually crippled our enemy, without making our friends
too formidable '.'
There was a pause for the moment, but the omens were
not favourable for a lasting peace. Tipu was humiliated and
cowed, but in his diminished kingdom he nursed an im
placable resentment against the power that had vanquished
him, and he had already begun to meditate busy intrigues with
the French, the Amir of Afghanistan, and the native states
of southern India. The Peshwa and the Nizam eyed each
other jealously, and even during the campaign the Marathas
were only kept from falling on the plains of Mysore by their
fear of the British forces. In the meantime, while Corn-
1 Correspondence of . . . Marquess Cornwallis, Charles Ross, vol. ii,
P- 164-

236 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
wallis allied with the Peshwa was defeating Tipu, Sindhia
and Holkar, the nominal generals of the Maratha con
federacy, were fighting one another in northern India — a
rivalry presaging trouble for the head of the nation at Poona
and for the tranquillity of all India.
StiU, on the whole, Cornwallis, now created a marquis,
could leave India in October 1793 with the feeling that
no immediate disturbance was imminent. Just before his
departure, on the declaration of the Revolutionary war with
France, the helpless French possessions were occupied by
British troops.
The retirement of CornwaUis coincided with the renewal
of the Company's charter in 1793. Had the period of
their privileges chanced to lapse ten years earlier, it is likely
that popular feeling would have gone hard against any
extension of the monopoly. But the reforms of Cornwallis
enabled a highly favourable balance-sheet to be set forth.
The great seaports and manufacturing towns, Liverpool,
Bristol, Glasgow, Manchester, Norwich, Paisley, and Exeter,
petitioned against the exclusion of the country in general
from a share in the Indian trade, and the whole question of
Free Trade or Restriction was raised; but ministers sup
ported the Directors, and the Company's privileges were
extended for another twenty-four years, with the small con
cession that 3,000 tons of shipping should be provided
annually for the use of private shippers. One of the main
arguments of Dundas was that, if the trade to India were
thrown open, the colonization of the country would follow,
and India be lost to Great Britian.
Lord Cornwallis had once expressed a hope that he would
never again see the supreme government in the hands of
a Company's servant. He was, however, himself succeeded
by such a one, Sir John Shore, his colleague and adviser
in forming the land settlement in Bengal. The appoint
ment was due to the failure to find in England what King

XIX ADMINISTRATION OF LORD CORNWALLIS 237
George III described as ' a very proper man of distinction ' —
a failure that caused Dundas, the famous President of the
Board of Control, to entertain for a time the idea of himself
proceeding to India. Since the governor-generalship of
Cornwallis, only three of the Company's servants were pro
moted to the highest place, namely Sir John Shore, Sir
George Barlow, and Sir John Lawrence, and in each case,
it is interesting to note, their period of office was marked
by a policy of peace and non-interference.
Certainly in the administration of Sir John Shore the
neutral policy laid down by Parliament and the Court of
Directors received a fair trial. The Indian government
showed its genuine desire to allow the native powers to
manage their own affairs. British dominion remained sta
tionary, and Sir John Shore preserved neutrality even up to
a pitch which, in the opinion of some, jeopardized the
national honour of Great Britain. ' It was proved ', wrote
Sir John Malcolm, ' from the events of this administration,
that no ground of political advantage could be abandoned,
without being instantly occupied by an enemy ; and that to
resign influence, was not merely to resign power, but to
allow that power to pass into hands hostile to the British
government." Shore's period of office proved the lull
before the storm. For five years a precarious peace was
preserved, while the ominous clouds were gathering that
resulted in the wars and annexations of Lord Wellesley.
When the time for British interference came, it was all the
more drastic for having been so long delayed.
The two native powers that most gladly submitted to
British protection, the Muhammadan governments of Oudh
and Hyderabad, were willing to do so because of their very
weakness. The Company's alliance with them, especially
with the Nizam, by the mere logic of events was destined
1 Sketch of the Political History of India, John Malcolm, 181 1,

238 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
to carry the British far on the way to dominion in India ;
but at present the government hardly reaHzed the lengths
to which such engagements would lead them, and, in so far
as they did realize them, shrank from the responsibilities
involved. At the end of the Mysorean war, CornwalHs tried
to persuade the Marathas and the Nizam to enter upon
a mutual guarantee to protect each other's territories against
Tipu Sultan. The Nizam, as the weaker party, had been
wilHng to accede to this request, but the Marathas had
refused, with the intention, no doubt, of making the Nizam
their prey in the future as they had so frequently done in
the past. The Nizam then endeavoured to obtain such
a guarantee from the East India Company, but Cornwallis
hesitated to give him more than a vague assurance of sup
port. Sir John Shore firmly refused to do more than his
predecessor, and the Nizam therefore turned to other aid.
He employed a distinguished French officer, Raymond, to
train his troops and recruit battalions of Frenchmen.
In the meantime the Maratha states were making their
plans for the plunder of Hyderabad. Something must be
said here of the power of their confederacy. A glance at
the map will show the dominating position they held in
central India. The territories of the Peshwa formed a broad
belt of country, running down the western shore of the
Deccan between the Nizam's dominions and the sea to
the northern frontier of Mysore. The boundaries between
the districts controlled by the Gaikwar, Holkar, and Sindhia
were very wavering and ill defined, but roughly we may say
that the Gaikwar held Kathiawar and Gujarat ; Holkar, the
south-western part of Malwa ; Sindhia, north-eastern Malwa,
the territory west of the Jumna, and the upper Ganges and
Jumna Doab. The lands of the Raja of Berar extended in
a broad belt from his capital, Nagpur, to the sea at Cuttack
on the Bay of Bengal. Thus the Marathas commanded the
wide centre of the peninsula, and stretched from Gujarat in

XIX ADMINISTRATION OF LORD CORNWALLIS 239
the west to Orissa in the east, their territory reaching up
northwards to the confines of the Punjab, and on its
southern frontiers enveloping on three sides the dominions
of the Nizam.
The constitutional position of the Maratha confederacy
at this time forms a curious and baffling political puzzle,
but for the understanding of what follows it is essential that
an outline of the main features should be grasped. The
nominal head of the whole, the descendant of Sivaji, still
dwelt in his palace prison at Satara in the original Maha
rashtra. All real power in western India had long passed
to the Peshwa (Prime Minister) at Poona, but he too had
now become almost a roi faineant in the hands of his
minister, the able Nana Farnavis. The nominally subor
dinate members of the confederacy had in the meantime
passed beyond the control of Poona in all but name. The
Bhonsla Raja of Berar claiming kinship with Sivaji, Holkar
of Indore, and Sindhia of Gwalior, hereditary generals of
the Peshwa, who were originally given their lands as a
reward for military service, and the Gaikwar of Baroda, were
all practically independent princes. Between Sindhia and
Holkar there was a family feud. The Raja of Berar was
rather isolated by position from Poona intrigues, and the
Gaikwar alone of Maratha powers never challenged British
suzerainty, but maintained treaty relations of some kind or
another from the date of Warren Hastings's Maratha war.
The greatest Maratha chieftain, in personal ability and
in extent of his dominions, was Mahadji Sindhia, who since
1784 controlled Hindustan from the Sutlaj to Agra, held
valuable territories in Malwa and the Deccan, and possessed
a fine army disciplined and recruited by De Boigne, a
brilliant Savoyard soldier of fortune. The old Emperor
Shah Alam had been forced to put himself under Sindhia's
protection, and, at the peremptory request of his protector,
had issued patents appointing the Peshwa supreme Vicegerent

240 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap-
of the Empire, and Sindhia himself -the Peshwa's Deputy.
So by an extraordinary series of political fictions and a
curious turn of the political wheel, the Mughal emperor
had now passed under the control of a general of the
Hindu confederacy, which was swayed by the minister of
the Peshwa — himself the Mayor of the Palace of the Raja
of Satara, whose claims were historically based upon a
rebellion against Mughal sovereignty. It is true that Sindhia
for a time suffered vicissitudes of fortune. He was defeated
by a Rajput coalition in 1786, and in 1788 he temporarily
lost his hold on Delhi, when a savage Rohilla chief imprisoned
and blinded the miserable Shah Alam. But by 1792 he
had recovered his position, had rescued and restored the em
peror, and again stood forth, in Sir John Malcolm's striking
words, 'the nominal slave, but the rigid master of Shah
Alam, Emperor of Delhi; the pretended friend but the
designing rival of the house of Holkar . . . the oppressor of
the Rajput princes . . . and the proclaimed soldier but the
actual plunderer of the family of the Peshwa'.' In 1792
he obtained new patents from the emperor, making the
titles Vicegerent and Deputy hereditary and perpetual.
With these he marched to Poona and held a solemn
investiture. He persuaded the Peshwa that a serious
mistake had [been made in the late war in supporting
the British power against Mysore, and urged a closer con
nexion with Tipu. Before any definite action could be
taken, Mahadji Sindhia died suddenly in 1794; his suc
cessor, Daulat Rao Sindhia, was a youth in his teens, and
for a time the control of Maratha affairs passed again into
the hands of Nana Farnavis. There was, however, no change
in the hostUity displayed to the Nizam, who appealed to
Sir John Shore for support. The Governor-General, dreading
to be dragged into a war with the whole Maratha confederacy,
' Quoted by H. Beveridge in his Comprehensive History of India,
vol. ii, p. 661.

XIX ADMINISTRATION OF LORD CORNWALLIS 241
refused to intervene, though the Nizam was undoubtedly as
much an ally of the Company as the Raja of Travanoore
had been in 1790. This policy has been universally con
demned as a slavish observance of neutrality. British good
faith was tarnished in the eyes of native powers. In fact,
had it not been for the 'incapacity of Indians for acting
together' which has so often saved the British position in
India, serious consequences might have been the result of
Sir John Shore's timidity. The Nizam was defeated at
Kharda (Kardla) in March 1795 — the last occasion, as
Marshman notes, when all the Maratha powers mustered
together — and forced to submit to humiliating terms. But
dissensions broke out at Poona on a change in succession
to the Peshwaship, and there ensued such a tangled skein
of treachery and intrigue as to be almost unparalleled
even in eastern history. As a result, the Marathas forfeited
in great measure the prizes of their victory. Nana Farnavis,
to gain the Nizam's support against the opposite party, sur
rendered most of the advantages gained at Kharda.
In northern India, Shore acted with more vigour than he
had done in the south. The Nawab of Oudh died in 1797,
and was succeeded by a reputed son of ignoble birth and
utterly worthless character. The Governor-General inter
posed, and raised the brother of the late Nawab to the
throne, taking the opportunity to conclude a treaty with
him which made the Company responsible for the whole
defence of Oudh, in return for an annual subsidy of seventy-
six lakhs of rupees, and the cession of the fort of Allahabad ;
he also bound the Nawab to hold no communications with
any foreign state. The motive impelling Sir John Shore to
this unwonted attitude was probably the recent presence at
Lahore (1796) of the last of the invaders of India from the
north-west, Zeman Shah of Kabul, who aroused for a moment
in Hindustan hopes and fears that he would repeat the
career of his grandfather, Ahmad Shah Durrani. But he

242 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA
was recalled to deal with troubles in Afghanistan. The
days of invasions by Asiatic conquerors from the mountains
of the north-west were over.
Sir John Shore's integrity was undoubted, but the serious
mutiny of the Bengal officers at the end of his governor-
generalship went far to prove the wisdom of Cornwallis's
warning, ' Such is the present temper of the British part of
the community in India . . . that nobody but a person who
has never been in the service can be competent to govern
our possessions with that energy and vigour which is essen
tial to our political safety and internal prosperity.' The
mutiny was due to dissatisfaction with the economical
reforms of Cornwallis and jealousy between the King's and
the Company's services, and so threatening was the position
that the Governor-General was driven to make many con
cessions to the disaffected. He was thereupon superseded
and, after Dundas had again dallied with the idea of going
to India, Cornwallis was appointed Governor-General in
February 1797. But so many points were yielded to the
mutineers even by the Court of Directors that Cornwallis
resigned office before leaving England, and Shore, who
was created Lord Teignmouth on his retirement, was suc
ceeded in 1798 by the Earl of Mornington.

CHAPTER XX
EXPANSION. LOED "WELLESLEY. SUBSIDIABY
ALLIANCES AND ANNEXATIONS
Richard Colley Wellesley, Earl of Mornington (in
the peerage of Ireland), had held office as a Lord of the
Treasury and Commissioner of the Board of Control. He
was in the prime of life, thirty-seven years of age, a great
classical scholar, a master of stately if rather grandiloquent
English, of brilliant and ardent temperament, and endowed
with greater genius though less solidity of character than
his more famous younger brother. He was one of the
greatest of British rulers of India. Only Clive, Warren
Hastings, and Dalhousie can challenge comparison with
him, and in actual achievement he outdistanced them all.
He came to India at an auspicious time for one who wished
to play a great part, when the policy of non-interference
and neutrality was on the point of breaking down, and he
seized the tide of his opportunity at the flood. He had
great chances and made the most of them— brilliant mili
tary commanders, governors of the subordinate Presidencies
who did not dream of opposition, and, for the first few
years at any rate, the active sympathy of Dundas and Pitt.
But above all his own imperious wUl, wide and bold poli
tical grasp of facts, and gorgeous imagination swept onward
to a more ambitious view of British Dominion than had
hitherto been entertained. It was afterwards realized that
the change he inaugurated was in any case inevitable. But
whUe others shrank from it even when they saw it coming,
Wellesley went boldly forth to anticipate and to meet it.
R 2

244 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
He saw that Great Britain could no longer play any but the
predominant part in India. A balance of power among
the native states was impossible, however conscientiously the
East India Company might strive to support it. When
the armies of the Nizam and the Peshwa fought at Kharda,
British representatives were with the sovereigns in either
camp, and aU the efforts of Sir John Shore were directed to
isolating the conflict and preserving a benevolent neutrality.
To WeUesley such an attitude was impossible, and in seven
years' time he wrought a marvellous transformation ; he
crushed the power of Mysore, extended British control, pro
tective but dictatorial, over the great Muhammadan states
of Hyderabad and Oudh, took over the administration of
Tanjore, Surat, and the Carnatic — that running sore of
administration — struck boldly at the seat of Maratha power,
left the Peshwa a mere dependent on British support, robbed
Sindhia of Delhi and his royal prisoner, and was only
prevented from anticipating the work of one of his successors.
Lord Hastings, by the fact that his generals for the first
time blundered in their tactics, and that his brilliant but
somewhat breathless progress had long alienated the panic-
stricken Court of Directors, and was now beginning to
alarm even the ministers of the Crown.
Wellesley's first problem was Mysore. In his search for
allies against the power that had humiliated him, Tipu had
sent his emissaries to Arabia, Kabul, Constantinople, and
Mauritius. The Governor ofthe Isles of France incautiously
blazoned abroad the alliance between the French Republic
and the tyrant of Mysore. Tipu with his own hand planted
the tree of Liberty at Seringapatam — never surely before or
since planted in such uncongenial soil — and was elected a
member of a Jacobin Club. A few French troops (under
a hundred in number) landed on the west coast of southern
India at Mangalore almost at the same time as Lord Morn
ington stepped ashore at Madras. The Governor-General

XX . LORD WELLESLEY AND EXPANSION 245
promptly determined on war. He would have launched
against Mysore a miHtary expedition at once, but he found
the unprepared state of the military forces at Madras
rendered this impossible, and altered his method though
not his intention. He postponed operations for a year and
made preparations with characteristic thoroughness. He
endeavoured to revive the tripartite treaty of 1790 with the
Nizam and the Marathas. The influence of Sindhia and
the distracted state of the Maratha confederacy kept the
Peshwa aloof, but he bound the ruler of Hyderabad to the
British cause by the first of his farhous ' subsidiary ' alli
ances, September i, 1798, that is, an alliance which implied
the subordination of the allied Prince to the British govern
ment in external policy and foreign relations, the maintenance
and payment of a contingent of the Company's troops,
and the expulsion of the officers of other European nations.
The Madras government with characteristic timidity op
posed this measure, but Lord Mornington bore down their
feeble opposition. This disbandment of the Nizam's for
midable French force was carried out with great coolness
and adroitness by Malcolm and Kirkpatrick, and an inter
cepted letter from Bonaparte at Cairo proved, at least to
Wellesley, that action had not been taken a moment too
soon. The Govemor-General demanded absolute submis
sion from Tipu, and, sweeping aside the latter's temporizing
letters as insolent evasions, set his forces in motion.
Simultaneously the main army under General Harris and
the Nizam's contingent controlled by Arthur Wellesley,
the Governor-General's younger brother, afterwards Duke
of Wellington, invaded Mysore from the east, while a Bom
bay force made its way through the Western Ghats. Tipu
was first defeated by the western invading force, then
routed at Malavalli by Harris, and driven within the walls
of his capital, Seringapatam. The city was carried by
assault on May 4, 1799, after Tipu had refused to accept

246 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
the hard terms of giving up £2,000,000 and half his remain
ing lands. The Sultan himself was killed in the breach.
Momington's success was greater than he had expected.
He thought to have crippled Tipu permanently, not to have
had his kingdom at disposal. He annexed to the Com
pany's dominions large and important territories : Kanara
on the west, Coimbatore on the south, and some districts
on the east, together with the fortress of Seringapatam.
The general result was that Mysore was surrounded on all
sides except the north by the British frontier, and the
Company held now continuous territory in the south from
the coast of Coromandel to Malabar. To the Nizam were
assigned certain lands on the north-east, while to the
Peshwa, who may be said at least to have observed neutral
ity, some districts were offered on certain conditions, which
he refused. Upon this they were divided between the
Nizam and the East India Company. A child of the
Hindu royal family dispossessed by Haider AH was raised
to the throne of Mysore, which, in spite of its diminished
territories, was larger than the hereditary dominions of his
house before the annexations of the last two Muhammadan
usurpers. Tipu's sons were provided for with ' dispro
portionate magnificence '. The conquest was loudly ac
claimed in England. General Harris was raised to the
Baronage and the Governor-General was made Marquis
Wellesley in the peerage of Ireland — an honour which he
considered inadequate and describes bitterly as a ' double-
gilt potato '. Sir Arthur Wellesley succinctly thus summed
up the first year's work of the Governor-General : ' Our prin
cipal ally the Nizam was restored to us, the French state
growing in the peninsula of India was destroyed, our formid
able native enemy Tipu, the certain ally of the French in
India, was subdued ..."
The history of the first and second wars with Mysore
' A Selection from the Wellington Dispatches, S. J. Owen, p. 10.

XX LORD WELLESLEY AND EXPANSION 247
throws into relief the greatness of Wellesley's achievement.
The ruler who had defied the arms of Hastings and pro
longed the war of Cornwallis to three campaigns was van
quished in two months. Tipu was a savage and cruel
despot, but his implacable enmity to the British claims the
respect due to consistency. He, like his father, understood
that Great Britain rather than any native power was the
enemy, and he never leagued himself with her against his
neighbours. It must be admitted that Wellesley, when he
had once obtained incriminating evidence against Tipu,
gave him little opportunity to recant or explain, but ruth
lessly swept aside his letters as evasive and unsatisfactory.
The allies Tipu sent so far to seek failed him in the hour
of need, and he had to face unaided the whirlwind he had
raised. Had the Maratha chieftains, sinking their internal
differences, possessed his singleness of purpose and all-con
suming hate, the final advance of British supremacy might
have been long delayed.
Elsewhere Lord Wellesley extended the Company's sway
by more peaceful means in accordance with the principle
that he boldly enunciated a few years later : 'The Company
with relation to its territory in India must be viewed in the
capacity of a sovereign power.' In October 1799 he made a
subsidiary treaty with the Raja of Tanjore, who practically
resigned the whole administration in return for an annuity
of £40,000. He took advantage of a change of succession
at Surat to abolish the double government, pension off" the
Nawab, and assume supreme control. He then applied
the same policy in more important fields. The government
of the Carnatic had long been an open scandal. The dual
control had debased the Nawab, ruined his people, and so
corrupted the settlement of Madras that the civil servants
of that Presidency possessed the worst reputation of all the
Company's representatives. By a treaty made with Corn
wallis the Governor-General had been empowered to assume

248 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
the whole administration in time of war. This Wellesley
had refrained from doing, but at the capture of Seringa
patam he found evidence that the Nawab and his son had
entered into some sort of correspondence with Tipu. This
evidence, it must be confessed, was not very conclusive or
convincing, but the evils of the Nawab's government were
undeniable, and it afforded Wellesley the pretext he desired.
On the death in July 1801 of the Nawab (son of that
Muhammad Ali to establish whom so much British and
French blood had been shed in the wars of 1746-
63), Wellesley used this evidence to assume the whole
civil and military government of the Carnatic, ' perhaps ',
as he himself declared, ' the most salutary and useful
measure which has been adopted since the acquisition of
the diwani of Bengal '. One-fifth of the revenue was paid
to the new Nawab, who was aUowed to retain the title.
Wellesley next turned his attention to his northern fron
tier. He held that the buffer-state of Oudh formed but a
weak defence on the north-western boundary of Bengal,
and he called upon the Nawab to disband a portion of his
own ineffective army and receive a larger subsidiary force.
The Nawab resisted till, wearied by the importunity of the
British Resident, he expressed a wish to abdicate. Wellesley
eagerly welcomed such a solution, and declared that the
Nawab's intention could ' not be too much encouraged '.
But the proposal had not been seriously meant, and in
any case the Nawab had only contemplated it on condition
that his son should succeed him; when he found that
Wellesley objected to this stipulation, he withdrew his offer.
Wellesley's indignation knew no bounds, and, express
ing himself 'extremely disgusted at the dupHcity and in
sincerity of his conduct ', he presented the Nawab with a
draft treaty, which greatly increased the number of the
subsidiary force and raised the subsidy payable to one
and a quarter million steriing. The Nawab's protest, which

XX . LORD WELLESLEY AND EXPANSION 249
showed some ability and appealed effectively to former
treaties, was arbitrarily ignored by the Governor-General
as containing 'unfounded calumnies and gross misrepre
sentations both of facts and arguments '. The Nawab
submissively gave way. But new demands were made upon
him. Wellesley had lately developed his favourite instru
ment of the subsidiary treaty in a new direction. By a
revised agreement in 1800 the Nizam of Hyderabad, instead
of guaranteeing an annual subsidy, handed over for the
upkeep of the subsidiary force the territory acquired in the
Mysorean wars of 1792 and 1799 (which brought the
British frontier to the river Kistna), and was formally
granted protection against all external enemies. Wellesley
determined to adopt the same expedient in the case of
Oudh, and though the Nawab had not failed with his sub
sidy, he demanded and extorted the surrender of Rohil
khand and the northern districts between the Ganges and
Jumna, amounting roughly to one-half of his dominions.
The settlement of the ceded districts was handed over to
a commission presided over by Henry Wellesley, the
Governor-General's brother. Thus trenchantly Lord Welles
ley dealt with what he called 'the corruption, imbecility,
and abuse of that vicious and incorrigible system of
vexation and misrule ' — the government of Oudh. What
ever may be thought of the means employed, the practical
results were all-important. Oudh was now surrounded by
a belt of British territory which abutted on the Himalayas
and marched with the ill-defined frontiers of Sindhia's
dominions in northem India.
NaturaUy the voice of criticism was raised on many of
these transactions. The conduct of the Governor-General
was sufficiently high-handed, especiaUy in his dealings with
the Nawabs of Surat and Oudh. An effective case was
made out against him in the polemics of the day, and on
paper it was sometimes unanswerable. In fact, no one

250 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
who studies impartially the records of this period can deny
that Wellesley was impatient of opposition, too regardless
of the feelings of native rulers, often unjustified in the
interpretation he chose to put upon treaties, and somewhat
unscrupulous in the diplomatic pressure he exerted against
those who dared to resist his designs. Even a favourable
critic, for instance, has to admit that in the case of Oudh
he ' subordinated the feelings and interests of his ally to
paramount considerations of British policy in a manner
that showed very little patience, forbearance, or generosity '.'
His course has been justified on the ground merely of
political exigency, and the measure of his success in ex
tending the bounds of British dominion has been held a
sufficient defence of the means he employed. But the
poHtical justification was assuredly not the only one. The
sweeping and somewhat ruthless changes he made in the
political map of India did undoubtedly on the whole make
not only for the stability of British rule but for the ameliora
tion of the lot of millions ; there is apparent through all the
Governor-General's speeches and dispatches a burning in
dignation at the wrongs and miseries inflicted by incom
petent native governments on their hapless subjects, and a
determination to wage a relentless war against the forces
of anarchy and misrule. On that broad and general plea
it is perhaps necessary, and it is certainly prudent, to rest
Lord Wellesley's case, though to do so is frankly to abandon
the outposts of a technical and legal defence.
As at this time most of the energies of the government at
home were bent on combating the insatiable ambition of
Bonaparte in the Revolutionary war with France, so Wellesley
shared their cares in his distant outpost of empire, and his
survey ranged even beyond the wide limits of his immediate
charge. He has indeed been accused of exaggerating the
French peril, partly because he counteracted it so thoroughly
' British Dominion in India, Sir A. Lyall, p. 246.

XX LORD WELLESLEY AND EXPANSION 251
that men forgot its magnitude. Indeed, when he assumed
office the growth of French influence in the courts and
camps of native rulers was a serious menace to British
power. No one could then know how quickly this menace
would vanish before the Governor-General's vigorous treat
ment. Tipu was negotiating with the Governor of the Isles,
and French officers were preparing to drill his troops.
A French general commanded an army of 15,000 men in
the Nizam's dominions, and Sindhia had 40,000 trained men
under a French commander, so that Wellesley without much
exaggeration could speak of ' the French state erected by
M. Perron on the banks of the Jumna '.
The danger from French ambition Wellesley removed
step by step, but he was not content with defensive strategy
only. He projected an expedition against Mauritius, from
which as a base French privateers preyed upon the
shipping of the Indian Ocean, but was baulked by the
refusal of Admiral Rainier to co-operate with him without
authorization from home. He urged the ministry to take
the Cape from the Dutch, now in alliance with France.
He contemplated an attack upon Batavia, and in 1800
eagerly obeyed orders from England to send an Indian
army to Egypt, which under General Baird landed at Cosseir
on the Red Sea and marched across the desert and down
the Nile to the shores of the Mediterranean at Rosetta, only
to find the French force at Alexandria had capitulated,
and that Bonaparte had abandoned his designs of direct
eastern conquest. At the peace of Amiens, March 1802,
which afforded but a thirteen-months' breathing space in
the war with France, Wellesley on his own responsibility
suspended the restoration of the French settlements — an
action afterwards approved by the home government.
So far Lord Wellesley had carried with him in his poHcy
the support of Pitt's ministry, though he had already alien
ated the sympathies of the Directors, who showed growing

252 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA
uneasiness at the constant extension of their territorial posses
sions. There were other causes of dissatisfaction. Wellesley
was one of the first statesmen to appreciate the teaching of
Adam Smith, and his leanings towards the principles of
Free Trade were not popular in Leadenhall Street. The
appointments conferred upon his brothers Henry and Arthur,
and even the salaries paid to them, were criticized in a
manner that roused the fury of the high-minded though
autocratic Governor-General, who stigmatized the comments
of the Court as a ' direct, marked, and disgusting personal
indignity' to himself. His far-sighted efforts to secure
a better training and education for the civil servants of the
Company by establishing the college of Fort WUliam were
neutralized, and, finally, the wide sweep of his political out
look which caused him to dispatch John Malcolm in 1800
on a commercial and political mission to Persia, aroused
nothing but distrust and dislike in what the Governor-
General afterwards allowed himself in a letter to Dundas
to style 'the most loathsome den of the India House'.
In January 1802 he therefore announced his approaching
resignation, but the Directors, though as yet wiUing to
wound, were still afraid to strike, and they asked him to
retain office for at least another year. Wellesley, foreseeing
trouble from the Maratha confederacy, acceded to their
request. Wellesley's Maratha policy was destined to plunge him
into a war which at its early stages proved to be the most
successful and glorious ever waged by British arms in
India, but later on was clouded by some unfortunate
blunders and defeats. The fame of his governor-general
ship was temporarily dimmed ; the Directors clamoured for
his recall ; he lost for the first time the support of the
ministry, and resigned before he could gather up the broken
threads of his poHcy and complete his work.
The Maratha powers had regarded with great uneasiness

GEORGE PHILIP & SON, LTD,

254 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
the revised subsidiary treaty with the Nizam, by the terms
of which the East India Company engaged to protect his
ill-defended territories against all enemies. They thus saw
one of their most fertile plundering preserves withdrawn
from them, and they greatly dreaded this thrusting of the
wedge of British influence into their own territories; but
had they remained united among themselves, they would
have had Httle need for fear. AU British statesmen had
a salutary dread of stirring up the enmity of that hardy
race of warriors, and Dundas in 1788 thought that an
alliance with them, and the resulting combination of British
infantry and Maratha cavalry, was 'all that is wanting to
make our power complete'. The Marathas' own internal
dissensions brought on them the fate they feared.
In March 1800 the shrewd old statesman Nana Farnavis
died at Poona, and with him departed, in the words of the
British Resident, ' all the wisdom and moderation of the
Maratha government '. Both Daulat Rao Sindhia and
Jaswant Rao Holkar at once endeavoured to obtain the
upper hand at Poona, and went to war with each other.
The harassed Peshwa, Baji Rao II, at first submitted, though
with extreme reluctance, to the control of Sindhia, but at the
moment Holkar was the strongest and most enterprising
of the Maratha chieftains. He defeated their united armies
at Poona in October 1802, the Peshwa fled for refuge to
Bassein, and, being now in desperate plight, appealed for
help to the British government.
There is not much doubt of the policy that would have
been pursued by Lord Cornwallis or Sir John Shore. They
would have left the Maratha rulers to settle their own
disputes and have confined themselves at the utmost to
protecting the frontiers of Hyderabad. Lord Wellesley
decided otherwise. He believed with reason that the policy
of non-intervention would only have meant postponing the
evil day. He shrank from the ungenerous task of meeting

XX LORD WELLESLEY AND EXPANSION 255
the fugitive's request for aid with a refusal, and vividly
foresaw the danger that the Peshwa might, if rebuffed,
throw himself into the hands of the French as the Nizara
had done in 1795 — though it may be noted that his
brother Arthur did not believe in the possibility of a
Maratha-French alliance. Accordingly, by the Treaty of
Bassein, December 31, 1802, he entered into a subsidiary
alliance with the nominal head of the Maratha confederacy,
involving the usual terms, the permanent stationing of the
Company's troops at Poona, the control of the allied state's
foreign policy, the cession of territory to meet the charges
of the army of occupation, and a stipulation particularly
humUiating to Sindhia and Holkar that the claims of the
Peshwa upon the Nizam and the Gaikwar of Baroda should
be subject to British arbitration. British troops reinstated
the Peshwa in his capital in May 1803, and Holkar's troops
precipitately retired.
This treaty is rightly regarded as one of the most impor
tant landmarks of British dominion in India. ' Wellesley's
subsidiary troops ', says Sir Alfred Lyall, ' were encamped at
the capitals of the -four great Indian powers . . ., at Mysore,
Hyderabad, Lucknow, and Poona'. But the Treaty of
Bassein was far more momentous than former subsidiary
alliances. Henceforward the Company had either to con
trol the greatest Indian power, or was committed to hostUi
ties with it. The ministry at home, which had hitherto
upheld the Governor-General, began to utter its misgivings.
Lord Castlereagh, President of the Board of Control,
characterized the policy as ' critical and delicate ', and laid
his finger correctly enough on its weakest aspect. To enter
into treaty relations with the Marathas 'assumes that the
genius of their government is industrious and pacific instead
of being predatory and warlike '. He believed that it made
war inevitable, and he hinted at the desirability of abandon
ing the connexion or modifying it. Wellesley replied that

256 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
he had good hope of peace, but if war must come the treaty
would enable the British to meet it under the most favour
able circumstances.
On this point there was soon very little doubt ; as Arthur
Wellesley acutely observed, the treaty was made 'with a
cypher'. The alarm and anger of the other Maratha
leaders, was soon manifest. Though they were often at
variance with their titular chief, they willed that none
should lower his prestige but themselves, and they rightly
regarded the Treaty of Bassein as equivalent to an open
surrender of national independence. They therefore began
to compose their differences. The Peshwa himself secretly
approved their action. Sindhia and the Bhonsla Raja of
Berar, who was, according to Arthur Wellesley, the chief
mover in the business, at once combined. Fortunately the
recent devastating war between Sindhia and Holkar was too
fresh in the memories of both these chieftains for a cordial
co-operation at present, but at least they made peace with
each other, and Holkar withdrew his forces to watch events ;
the Gaikwar held aloof.
Sindhia and the Bhonsla remaining south of the Narbada
were requested, if their intentions were peaceable, to separate
their forces and recross the river. They refused to do so,
and war was the only alternative. The British had never
been called upon in India to meet a more formidable enemy.
Their forces during the war at no time exceeded 55,000
men ; the Maratha armies were estimated at 250,000, besides
40,000 troops organized into brigades trained and disci
plined by Frenchmen. Wellesley mapped out a comprehen
sive plan of campaign. The enemy was to be assailed at
all points. The two main theatres of the war were to be
the Deccan under Colonel Arthur Wellesley, and Hindustan
under General Lake. But operations were to be conducted
simultaneously in Gujarat and Orissa, where the territory of
the Raja of Berar ran down to the sea and thrust a barrier

XX LORD WELLESLEY AND EXPANSION 257
between the southem districts of Bengal and the northern
possessions of Madras.
The blows dealt at the enemy were swift and terrible.
Arthur Wellesley captured Ahmadnagar in August 1803, and,
forestalling the combined armies of Sindhia and the Bhonsla
in an attempted dash on Hyderabad, brought them to
action on September 23, 1803, at Assaye, a village about
forty-five miles north of Aurangabad. Though he had
under 5,000 men and the enemy over 50,000, Wellesley
won a 'transcendent victory', as the Governor-General
exultingly described it, and utteriy shattered the Maratha
army in a fiercely fought battle, the British loss in killed
and wounded amounting to over 1,500. The remaining
strongholds of Sindhia in the Deccan were speedily cap
tured, and he was forced to make a truce on November 23
which dissolved the confederacy. Sindhia two months later
was secretly supporting the Bhonsla again, but WeUesley
pursued them into Berar, defeated them at Argaon in
November, and captured the great fortress of Gawilgarh in
December 1803.
The campaign in Hindustan was perhaps even more
important. There the Frenchman Perron, acting as Regent
for Sindhia, had founded an almost independent power in
the Doab, the land lying between the Jumna and the
Ganges. Lake, marching from Cawnpore, captured Aligarh
at the end of August, and so disheartened Perron that he
left Sindhia's service. Lake defeated his successor at the
battle of Delhi in September, marched into the city, and
took under British protection Shah Alam, now a miserable,
blind old man of eighty-three, ' seated under a small tattered
canopy '. Lake made a treaty in October with the Raja of
Bharatpur, occupied Agra on October i8, and vanquished
Sindhia's remaining army at Laswari in November. In the
minor theatres of war everything had happened as Wellesley
had planned. In Gujarat, Broach was captured and all

258 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
Sindhia's territories taken from him. In Orissa, Cuttack had
been occupied and the Bhonsla's forces defeated. Four
months' campaigning had seen the utter defeat of the whole
Maratha confederacy. It was a wonderful result of a
campaign wonderfully organized, and unstinted praise has
been rightly given to the master mind which wUled and
planned the whole.
Nor was the victory won over a despicable foe. The
fighting was severe and the battles were fiercely and stub
bornly contested. For all that, the enemy partly owed their
defeat to their abandonment of the old traditional Maratha
tactics of wild, plundering raids, a swift retreat, and harassing
guerrilla warfare. The true fortune of Maratha armies, as
Holkar, more successful than his rivals, contended, was on
their saddle-bow. The trained battalions and batteries of
Sindhia could crush other native powers ; they could only
offer a fierce resistance to the Company's forces. De Boigne,
the able French adventurer, who had trained these troops,
had always foretold that they would never conquer British
armies. Sir Thomas Munro, an acute observer, wrote of the
Maratha army, ' its discipline, its arms, and uniform cloth
ing, I regard merely as the means of dressing it out for the
sacrifice.' The results of the campaigns were consolidated in two
treaties, that of Deogaon with the Raja of Berar, and that of
Surji-arjangaon with Sindhia. Negotiations were entrusted
to Sir Arthur AVellesley, who added the laurels of a diploma
tist to those of a soldier, claiming with truth that he had
* made two very good treaties of peace '. The territorial
dominions of the East India Company were widely extended.
Their power henceforward shadowed and protected the
descendants of Akbar on the throne of the Mughals. The
annexation of the Doab and the overlordship of the cities
of Agra and Delhi carried the British frontier to the upper
course of the Jumna and the barrier of the Himalayas.

XX LORD WELLESLEY AND EXPANSION 259
The acquisition of Cuttack and Balasore linked up the
Presidencies of Bengal and Madras, and all the eastern
seaboard now passed under British control. Valuable dis
tricts were ceded in Bundelkhand and Gujarat. All Sind
hia's possessions in the Deccan were forfeited, and a great
part of Rajputana was freed from his sway. In addition
both Sindhia and Holkar recognized the Treaty of Bassein,
admitted British Residents to their courts, definitely sur
rendered their claims on the Nizam, and engaged to take
no Europeans other than British into their service. The
Raja of Berar relinquished to the Nizam districts in
Berar west of the Warda river, and received a British
Resident at Nagpur, while Sindhia, in February 1804,
entered into a defensive aUiance with the East India
Company. Wellesley triumphantly declared that the Peace ' com
prehends every object of the war ', as indeed it did, but he
added, and here events proved him wrong, that it contained
also ' every practicable security for the continuance of tran
quillity '. Indeed Wellesley was curiously blind to the real
feelings of the Maratha powers after the war, which were
sullen resentment, bitter humUiation, and smouldering en
mity. To the Governor-General in the enthusiasm of his
victory, swayed no doubt by a halt unconscious desire
to win the approval of the ministry at home, it appeared
that ' the influence and ascendancy of the British govern
ment in the councils of Hyderabad and Poona have been
increased and permanently established, not by limiting the
authority, controlling the independence, or reducing the
power of these states, but by the operation of arrangements
which have confirmed and corroborated their respective
rights, authorities, and independence, extended their domi
nion, consolidated their power, and augmented their re
sources ; secured them from the vexatious claims and
litigious and violent interference of other powers, and
s 2

26o HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
estabHshed the resources of permanent tranquillity and
prosperity within the limits of their respective dominions.
Our influence and ascendancy in the Councils of those
allies are now founded on the solid basis of their entire
confidence in the equity and moderation of our views and
in their just reliance on our protecting power.' '
No doubt it was provokingly perverse of the native
powers not to adopt these enlightened views, but their real
feelings could hardly have been more widely different from
this stately presentation of them. Nor did the Governor-
General's eloquent arguments altogether carry conviction to
the ministry in England. Lord Castlereagh, in a dispatch
which crossed that from which the foregoing passage is
quoted, hinted a doubt whether the recent acquisitions did
not contravene (as they most certainly did) the policy upon
which Parliament had hitherto professed to act, and render
' the frame of our government complicated and unwieldly
in such a degree as to hazard its becoming enfeebled and
embarrassed in ordinary hands ', when the directing mind
of Lord Wellesley was in due course removed from the
supreme control.
The peace indeed was soon endangered. For this
Wellesley, even in the opinion of his brother, was partly
responsible by pressing upon Sindhia and the Bhonsla a too
stringent interpretation of the treaties. These chiefs rapidly
became disaffected, but war broke out actually with Holkar,
who had taken no part in the recent fighting. On his plun
dering the territory of the Raja of Jaipur, Wellesley ordered
operations to be commenced. For the first time his generals
made mistakes. Colonel Monson, advancing too far into
the plains of Rajputana, was forced into a disastrous retreat,
losing five battalions and six companies. Sindhia soon rose
in revolt, but the Maratha cause again waned. Holkar
failed to take Delhi, ably defended by Ochterlony; one
' A Selection from Wellesleys Dispatches, S. J. Owen, p. 439.

-xx LORD WELLESLEY AND EXPANSION 261
army was defeated at Dig, November 12, and Holkar was
himself routed by Lake at Farruckhabad, November 17,
1804. Then followed a serious error on the part of the
British commander. The Raja of Bharatpur had aban
doned the British side, and Lake determined to capture his
famous fortress and capital. He was essentially a field
officer with no experience of sieges, and he was hot-
tempered and impetuous. He launched four successive
assaults on Bharatpur, all of which were beaten back, with
a loss in kiUed and wounded of 3,203 men, and he was
driven to make a peace with the Raja in April 1805, leaving
him in possession of the fortress he had defended — a serious
blow to British prestige.
The disaster was far from irreparable. Holkar's power
had received some shattering blows, and in all probability
another campaign would have seen him vanquished, but
Lake's failure seemed to justify all the warnings and pre
monitions of the Governor-General's opponents. Lord
Cornwallis, now in his sixty-seventh year, was appointed to
supersede WeUesley. He arrived in- India in July 1805,
and Wellesley left in August.
It is easy to inveigh against the Directors for not appre
ciating the late Governor-General's brilliant services, but
there was something to be said for their point of view. The
debt of the Company had rapidly increased under stress of
the constant military operations from 17 miUions in 1797,
to 31 mUlions in 1806. Wellesley's attitude to the Court
was marked by a hauteur and contempt that he did not
trouble to conceal. A widespread belief was gaining
ground in England that our Indian conquests were getting
larger than we could profitably or even safely manage. We
have seen that even in the hour of victory the ministry had
faltered in their usual approval of Wellesley's actions, and in
the shadow of defeat they withdrew their support. Pitt
expressed the opinion that the Governor-General ' had

262 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA
acted most imprudently and illegally, and that he could not
be suffered to reraain in the govemment '.'
There was a curious contrast in the treatment at horae
meted out to Lord Wellesley and his great predecessor,
Warren Hastings. The Court of Directors on the whole,
and the Court of Proprietors without any qualification, had
steadily supported Hastings, and it was Parliament that had
brought him to trial and striven for seven years to procure
his condemnation. In the case of Wellesley Parliament
promptly voted down two attempts of a private member to
carry an impeachment, and passed a resolution eulogizing
his ardent zeal for the public service. The Courts of Direc
tors and Proprietors, on the other hand, pursued the late
Governor-General with unrelenting opposition, and voted
for his condemnation by an overwhelming majority. It
was not till after the lapse of thirty years that they made
their recantation by assuring him that they could now look
back with feelings common to their countrymen to the
eventful and brUliant period of his government in India.
' Correspondence of . . . Marquess Cortiwallis, Charles Ross, vol iii,
p. 522.

CHAPTER XXI
EEAOTION PBOM THE POLICY OP ANNEXATION.
LOED COBNWALLIS, SIE GEOEGE BABLOW,
LOBD MINTO
The aim of Lord Wellesley had been, as we have seen, to
build up and consolidate British dominion in India, partly
by absorbing those decadent, dependent rulerships such as
Surat and the Carnatic, the administration of which had
long been an eyesore to those imbued with western ideas,
partly by securing a general control over all native states
from Cape Comorin to the Sutlaj, maintaining in their
territories subsidiary forces, and regulating their foreign
policy. An attempt was now to be made to withdraw from such
wide responsibilities, limit the Company's sphere within
a well-defined area, and leave the native powers outside the
pale either to make their own peace or prey upon each
other in intestine strife.
It may be noted that both Cornwallis and Barlow shrank
from applying this policy with logical consistency. It was
impossible now to denounce the subsidiary treaties with
Hyderabad or Oudh, or even with Poona. The efforts of
Wellesley's immediate successors were therefore confined to
casting off embarrassing ties with Sindhia and Holkar, and
sacrificing the subsidiary relation with those powers which
Wellesley had contemplated. Even so, they went too
far in the opinion of an acute observer, Metcalfe, after
wards acting Governor-General, who epigrammatically but
rather unfairly described their policy as ' disgrace without

2^4 HISTOklCAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
compensation, treaties without security, and peace without
tranquiUity.' The British, he held, could no longer hope to
' insulate themselves ', and to meet Maratha ambition and
enterprise with the language of peace would be to ' preach to
the roaring ocean to be still '.
It is easy to pour contempt on such a policy, which in
the retrospect of the historian compares unfavourably with
the long views and masterly schemes of Lord Wellesley, but
it must be remembered that, for'the moment, the financial
position was desperate. The treasury was empty. Expen
diture was annually exceeding revenue, and the export
trade was practically at a standstill. The preceding years,
said Cornwallis, called annually for ' reinforcements of men
and remittances of money ', which yielded ' little other
profit except brilliant gazettes . . . We literally have not
the means of carrying on the ordinary business of govern
ment '. For this reason the veteran statesman, though he
recognized that it was ' a desperate act to embark for India
at the age of sixty-six ', saUed at what he believed to be the
call of duty to carry out an unpopular policy.
He entered upon office again as Governor-General and
Commander-in-Chief in July 1805, and soon after pro
ceeded to the Upper Provinces to pacify if possible the
restive Sindhia, and put an end to the war with Holkar.
Cornwallis desired to conciliate Sindhia by the restoration
of Gwalior and Gohad, and to relinquish all territory west
of the Jumna with the exception of Agra. But he un
doubtedly went too far in his desire for peace. To limit
British responsibilities to the line of the river unfortunately
implied removing British protection from several Rajput
chieftains who had rendered loyal service in the late war.
Cornwallis contemplated the surrender of Delhi to Sindhia
and the removal of the king to some point within British
territory, and he was even disposed to abandon the demand
for the release of the British Resident imprisoned by

XXI REACTION FROM POLICY OF ANNEXATION 265
Sindhia ' as a mere point of honour ' He exaggerated the
danger of a renewed war, and altogether failed to appre
hend how near the power of Holkar was to collapse. But
it is ill criticizing the work of a dying man, and CornwaUis
was dying by inches. Sending forward his instructions to
the horrified Lake, who protested vigorously against them,
he was carried up the Ganges. At the end of September
one of his staff wrote, ' the powers of his mind are unfortu
nately failing him fast, he dozes away the remnant of life
that is left him '. On October 5 he died at Ghazipur,
having won, even from those whose policy he was opposing,
the respect due to his sterling honesty and noble sim
plicity of character. He was succeeded provisionally by
Sir George Barlow, senior member of Council, a man of
mediocre abilities and unpopular manners, but a conscien
tious administrator, with the civil servant's characteristic
virtues of a regard for economy and of loyally carrying out
the policy of his superiors, whatever his own feelings might
be. He had proved a zealous subordinate to Lord Welles
ley, but he did not hesitate to foUow on the Hues that
Cornwallis had indicated.
A new treaty was made with Sindhia in November 1805,
by which some ofthe clauses of the Treaty of Surji-arjangaon
were modified. The defensive alliance was not renewed.
Gwalior and Gohad were given back to him 'out of con
siderations of friendship '. The East India Company were
to claira nothing to the south, and Sindhia nothing to the
north, of the river Charabal, but the British withdrew their
protection (and this was the discreditable point in the agree
ment) from the chieftains of Rajputana who had supported
their cause.
In the meantime Lake had advanced as far as Amritsar,
having hunted Holkar northwards till he appealed, but
appealed in vain, for assistance to Ranjit Singh, then found
ing his Sikh kingdom. The Maratha chief received far

266 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
better terms than he could have hoped for. Though he was
called upon to renounce his claims north of the Charabal,
he was proraised the restoration of his forts in the Deccan
after eighteen months. The Governor-General, dreading
that the treaties with Sindhia and Holkar Tmight imply
that the Company was under an obligation to defend the
trans-Chambal states, published declaratory articles sur
rendering Tonk and Rampur to Holkar, and withdrawing
British protection from the rest, with the result that in
a short tirae several of thera felt the devastating hand of the
Maratha leaders, and araongst others the Raja of Jaipur, to
whora we were under special obligations.
Against these consequences Lord Lake bitterly protested,
but Barlow had certainly carried out the will of the home
government, and his policy held the field for ten years.
With more political good sense than consistency he sharply
recalled to his duty the Nizam, who was beginning to intrigue
with the Maratha powers as though the subsidiary treaty no
longer existed, and he successfully resisted the orders of the
Directors to denounce the Treaty of Bassein. In internal
affairs his considerable administrative talents enabled him
to carry some drastic economies and to produce equilibrium
in the finances.
A dangerous rautiny of sepoys at Vellore in the Madras
Presidency afforded curious premonitory symptoms of the
revolt of 1857. Some injudicious changes in military dress
and new regulations in regard to the fashion of wearing the
hair, like the famous order to use the greased cartridges,
were taken to imply an attack upon caste and religion. As
in the great Mutiny, the movement was fostered by the
princes of a dethroned dynasty, the heirs of Tipu of Mysore,
and was attended by the massacre of British officers. It
caused the recall of Lord William Bentinck, the future
Governor-General, from the governorship of Madras.
In 1807 Lord Minto, President of the Board of Control

XXI REACTION FROM POLICY OF ANNEXATION 267
in the new Whig ministry of 1806, exchanged that office for
the governor-generalship. This step was the outcome of
a curious deadlock. Barlow's appointment, at first avowedly
provisional, had been made permanent with the consent of
ministers. Ten days later Lord Minto announced to the
Court the pending nomination of the Earl of Lauderdale.
The Directors refused to acquiesce, on the ground that
Barlow had been properly appointed and that Lauderdale
was a free-trader, i. e. an opponent of the Company's
monopoly, and a former supporter of the principles of the
French Revolution. The ministry, exercising for the first
time a right vested in them by Pitt's Act of 1784, recalled
Barlow over the heads of the Directors without being able
to give any convincing reasons for their sudden change of
mind, which was strongly suspected to be nothing more
than the desire to exercise a valuable piece of patronage.
The constitutional question was raised in both Houses of
Parliament, and produced a veheraent though short-lived
controversy. The Directors were unwilling to force a con
flict with the Cabinet, and a compromise was effected by
the withdrawal of Lord Lauderdale and the appointment of
Lord Minto.
The new Governor-General, as Sir Gilbert Elliot, had
been one of the managers for the impeachraent of Warren
Hastings and of Sir Elijah Impey, and his sympathies were
therefore supposed to be against the expansion of British
dominion. Lord Minto went to India believing in the policy of non
intervention, and on the whole, in his dealings with the
native powers, he did not depart from it. But though he
waged no important wars on the soil of India, and main
tained the settlement effected by Cornwallis and Barlow
with the Marathas, he found himself obliged from time to
time to abandon the strictest interpretation of a laisser faire
attitude. To some extent as Governor-General he was forced

268 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
to unlearn the lessons he had inculcated as President of the
Board of Control, and when he laid down his office British
power was obviously on the eve of another great forward step.
But it did not come in his time, and therefore for just a
decade after the retirement of Lord Wellesley the Company's
dominions may be said to have remained on the whole
stationary. It is true the surface of Indian politics was not
unruffled, but the greater Maratha powers had received such
severe blows in the late wars that the disturbances which
occurred were local and temporary, and the wide and inter
connected movements of Lord Wellesley's time were totally
absent. In addition Holkar becarae insane, and the most
formidable enemy of British rule was thus impotent for harm.
There were disturbances in Bundelkhand, now under the
Company's control, having been exchanged for districts near
Poona which the Peshwa had originally ceded in the Treaty
of Bassein, and thus again recovered. The country was
settled after several turbulent chieftains had been defeated
and their strongholds captured, including the famous for
tresses of Ajaigarh and Kalinjar. The Governor-General was
forced to arbitrate between the Peshwa and some of his dis
contented feudatories. But the most striking instances of
Lord Minto's divergence from a strict non-interference
policy were in regard to the Raja of Berar and the Sikhs,
the formidable people of the Punjab with whom the British
now for the first time came into contact.
Ill 1809 a turbulent Pathan chieftain named Amir Khan,
at the head of 40,000 horsemen and more than 20,000
Pindaris or robber bands, claiming to be in alliance with
Holkar, invaded Berar. The British government had no
obligation to assist Berar, for the Raja had always refused
to conclude a subsidiary aUiance; indeed, if Amir Khan
were, as he claimed to be, really one of Holkar's generals,
to interfere would be an actual violation of the treaty by
which the Company had engaged not to interfere in Holkar's

XXI REACTION FROM POLICY OF ANNEXATION 269
affairs or with any wars he should wage with states not having
treaty relations with the Corapany. Nevertheless Lord Minto
decided he could not permit the forces of anarchy to be let
loose in a country so near the frontiers of the Nizam as
Berar, and he dispatched a force to aid the Raja of Berar
merely on the grounds of preserving order, without exacting
any subsidy or treaty in return. This act of moderation on
his part, together with the fact that Holkar disowned Arair
Khan, prevented his action from bringing on a general
Maratha war, as it so easily might have done. Arair
Khan was repulsed from Berar, and the peace of India
was preserved.
The Sikhs are, properly speaking, not a race but a sect,
and the name itself means ' disciples '. The religion was
founded by a Guru, or Prophet, named Nanak (1469-1538),
and developed by a line of successors, especially by Guru
Govind Singh, who met a martyr's death at Delhi in 1 708.
Sikhism inculcates belief in one God ; it denounces idolatry,
caste distinctions, and the claims of Brahmanism. Its
adherents, who were mostly of Jat origin, dwelt in the upper
Punjab — in the troubled region which was so often the battle
ground of the Mughals and Afghans. Muhammadan persecu
tion transformed a peaceful sect into a military theocracy, or
commonwealth of the elect, known as the ' Khalsa ', organized
loosely into twelve ' misls ' or confederacies. All true Sikhs '
took the surnarae of ' Singh ', or ' the lion ', and first as horse
men, then as infantry, they formed the finest native fighting
force that ever took the field. They seized the opportunity
of the anarchy in northern India, brought about by the
invasions of Nadir Shah of Persia (1739) and Ahmad Shah
Durrani (1756), to extend their hold over the Punjab.
Though Ahmad Shah inflicted a severe defeat upon a great
Sikh army in 1761, he returned to Afghanistan.
The greatest Sikh chieftain, Ranjit Singh, born in 1780,
became a soldier, like Mithridates of Pontus, at the age of

270 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
twelve, made Lahore his capital in 1799, and gradually
subdued all the other misls west of the Sutlaj. In 1805
Holkar, then flying before Lord Lake, begged for his aid ;
but Ranjit Singh, having no wish to quarrel with the British
on his account, declined to afford him protection.
Ranjit Singh had long cast covetous eyes on the territory
of the Sikh chieftains who dwelt east of the Sutlaj in the
country lying between that river and the Jumna, sometimes
known as Sirhind. These states had acknowledged the
supremacy of the Marathas, and when Sindhia had been
driven out by the British they had informally been taken
under the protection of the Company. In 1806 some of
the chiefs quarreUing amongst themselves called in Ranjit
Singh, who, eager to extend his influence, crossed the river
both in that year and in the following one. Some of the
Sikh chiefs, taking alarm, applied in 1808 to the British
Resident at Delhi for protection, and the Governor-General
was called upon for a momentous decision. Ranjit Singh
clearly set forth his view in the words ' The country on this
side of the Jumna except the stations occupied by the
English is subject to my authority. Let it remain so.'
Were he left to himself, he would undoubtedly in a few
years have brought the Cis-Sutlej Sikhs to subjection. Was
he to be allowed to advance to the Jurana? To resist him
might mean war, and indeed few at the time could have
expected the conciliatory shrewdness actually displayed by
the Sikh ruler. Nevertheless Lord Minto risked the con
sequences. He did more ; it was decided not only to confine
Ranjit Singh to the line west of the Sutlaj, but to suggest to
him an offensive and defensive alliance against the French,
if they should ever march on India through Persia. Metcalfe,
a promising young civilian, was sent to negotiate this difficult
business. Ranjit Singh astutely made non-interference in
his designs east of the Sutlaj the price of an alliance against
the French ; but in the meantime the fear of a French

XXI REACTION FROM POLICY OF ANNEXATION 271
invasion had vanished, since Napoleon had embarked upon
the Peninsular War. This completely altered the position
of affairs, and the British envoy was now merely required to
state that all Sikh states east of the Sutlaj had passed with
the defeat of Sindhia under British protection, and to demand
the withdrawal of the Sikh army. At first Ranjit Singh was
obstinate. War was on the eve of breaking out when the
Maharaja, conquered at last by Metcalfe's indomitable
patience, yielded, and concluded at Amritsar, in April 1809,
a treaty which guaranteed him from molestation west of the
Sutlaj, provided he confined himself to that bank of the
river. Ranjit Singh is one of the great personalities of Indian
history. A born leader of men, gifted with an iron wUl,
selfish, treacherous, crafty, persevering, brave, and avaricious,
he possessed just that combination of virtues and vices which
is best adapted for building up an Oriental empire. Where
he differed from many other great eastern potentates was in
his statesraanlike recognition of the strength of the East
India Company, the reliance he placed on British proraises,
and his loyalty to his plighted word. And so the Treaty of
Araritsar was never broken while the Maharaja lived. The
British frontier to the north-west, with its outpost garrison
at Ludhiana, followed an unusually well-defined line, the
course of the Sutlaj, and a powerful and friendly native state
lay between the Company's dominions and any possible
invasion frora the mountains.
As we have seen, the mission to Ranjit Singh was partly
due to fear of French designs ; the same cause produced
three other famous embassies by which, under Lord Minto's
rule, the Indian government widely extended the sphere of
its foreign relations. In the light of later knowledge, both
geographical and historical, the fear of a Franco-Russian
invasion through the north-western passes may seem almost
grotesque, and in fact it was probably never within the

272 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
bounds of possibility. But no one, in those days when
ancient kingdoms in Europe were faUing like ninepins,
could set a limit to the power and ambition of Napoleon.
As far back as 1801 a joint expedition had been proposed
to proceed by way of Astrakhan, Bokhara, Khiva, Herat, and
Kandahar. The Battle of Copenhagen and the assassina
tion of the Tsar gave Napoleon other work to do. Russia
and Great Britain made a treaty in 1805.
Napoleon's eager brain next tumed to an alliance with
Persia. The king of that country, being at war with Russia,
appealed to the Indian government for help on the strength
of Malcolm's treaty of 1800, an, appeal which was necessarily
disregarded since Russia was aUied to Great Britain. The
King of Persia then made application to Napoleon, who
sent General Gardanne as his ambassador to Teheran.
A treaty was concluded by which the French agreed to aid
Persia against Russia, and Persia undertook to provision
and reinforce any French army marching through their
country to invade India. But another rapid change in the
European political situation followed. In 1807 Napoleon
defeated the Russians at Friedland, and the treaty of Tilsit
bound the Tsar Alexander to an alliance with France.
Scheraes were revived for a Franco-Russian expedition
against India through Asia Minor and Persia, now to be
reconcUed to Russia by French intervention. Alexander,
however, passively opposed the plan, perceiving that all the
advantages would go to his ally, and having a better know
ledge than Napoleon of the appalling difficulties of the
route. Within a year Napoleon again had other work upon
his hands, and the vision of a French empire in the East
faded away. Indeed, as far as India was concerned.
Napoleon's devastating career only served to generate the
expansive force which brought about Lord Wellesley's great
wars, to justify thera in the eyes of reluctant British states
men, and to force Lord Minto to embark on an Asiatic

X.XI REACTION FROM POLICY OF ANNEXATION 273
rather than a purely Indian policy ; whUe Napoleon himself,
as events were to prove, was destined to spend his last years
in the narrow prison of an island belonging to the East India
Company. Before the danger was recognized as over, John Malcolm,
who had been sent to Persia by Lord Wellesley in 1799,
was dispatched to Teheran by the Governor-General, whUe
Sir Harford Jones was sent independently by the home
government. A good deal of natural confusion and un
seemly wrangling foUowed ; but ultimately the Indian
government accepted the treaty concluded by the Crown
envoy, which bound the Shah to dismiss the French
ambassador and resist the passage through his dominions
of a European force marching on India, in return for a
promise of assistance in men or money if his country were
attacked by Europeans.
Mountstuart Elphinstone was sent with an erabassy to
Kabul on a similar errand. He did not, however, enter
Afghanistan proper, for the Amir, Shah Shuja, met him at
Peshawar and agreed to oppose the French and Persians in
any attempt to march through his country ; but before
Elphinstone had returned, Shah Shuja was driven from his
throne by intestine rebellion, and was clamouring in vain
for British support in his dynastic troubles. Thirty years
later he was to be restored with consequences equally
disastrous to himself and those who reimposed his hated
rule upon his subjects. The third treaty was concluded
with the Amirs of Sind, who promised to exclude the
French frora their territory.
All these alliances were inoperative, for by 18 10 France
and Russia were at war again and the French peril passed
away. The armies that Napoleon had dreamed of marching
through the East were lost amidst the Russian snows. The
Indian government, indeed, was able to turn frora defensive
diplomacy to offensive warfare. Successful expeditions were

274 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
undertaken, not only against French possessions in the East,
but also against those of other nations forced into unwUling
alliance with Napoleon. When Portugal passed under French
control, Goa was occupied ; and in 1809 Macao, a Portuguese
station in China, was seized, a proceeding which nearly
plunged the Company into a war with the Chinese Empire.
The French frigates and privateers that made their head
quarters at the Isles of France and Bourbon had done
briUiant service for their country and inflicted terrible
damage on British shipping. In 1810, however, strong
naval expeditions were sent against them by the Indian
government. Bourbon (restored in 18 15) and Mauritius
(permanently retained) were captured. From the Dutch,
whose country now lay at the mercy of Napoleon, the Cape
of Good Hope had been finaUy taken in 1806. Amboyna
and the Spice Islands were conquered in 1810, and in the
following year Lord Minto won the consent of the home
governraent for an attack on Java, the last Dutch eastern
possession. A formidable fleet of ninety sail, carrying 12,000
troops under Sir Samuel Auchmuty as Commander-in-Chief,
assembled at Malacca in June. Lord Minto himself accom
panied the expedition, nominally as a volunteer, but really
to organize the civil administration after the conquest.
Napoleon had spared no pains to have the defences of the
island strengthened, and had sent General Jansens, who had
surrendered the Cape to the English, to command the 17,000
troops in Java, with the significant warning that ' a French
General does not allow himself to be taken a second time '.
The English expedition arrived early in August and promptly
occupied Batavia. The main French army was lying behind
strong entrenchments and redoubts at Cornelis, eight miles
distant. The position was brilliantly stormed by Colonel
Gillespie, and the broken ranks of the enemy were relent
lessly pursued for ten miles. The French lost 6,000 prisoners,
mostly Europeans, and 300 guns. They left 1,500 dead

XXI REACTION FROM POLICY OF ANNEXATION 275
within their lines or along the route of their flight. The
English had 900 put out of action, including 85 officers.
General Jansens retired to the eastern part of the island,
but was soon forced to capitulate. Thus Holland lost the
whole of her eastern empire. The Directors had ordered
that if the expedition were successful, the Dutch fortifica
tions were to be levelled and the troops withdrawn ; but
Minto, seeing that it would be an inhuman act to abandon
the Dutch colonists to the mercies of an exasperated native
population, had the courage and independence to disregard
these instructions. Having crushed the dangerous revolt of
a native chief, he entrusted the government of the island to
Sir Stamford Raffles, whose administration forms a brilliant
chapter in the history of British colonization. In 18 14 their
eastern possessions, with the exception of the Cape, were
restored to the Dutch, Java being actually handed over
in 1816.
These notable achievements added military glory to the
rule of Lord Minto, who was created an Earl and sailed for
England in 1813, to die within a few months of his return.
When he surrendered his charge he could claim that, with
the exception of the minor operations in Bundelkhand, he
had kept an honourable peace in India without drawing
sword against the native powers. But signs were not wanting
that there was trouble in store for his successor. The out
rages of the Pindaris, roving free lances and robber bands,
in central India, the encroachments of the Gurkhas of Nepal,
and the insolent defiance of the Burmese indicated that a
period of unrest and disturbance was again approaching.

X 2

CHAPTER XXII
FINAL DEFEAT OF THE MAEATHA CONFEDEEACY.
LOED HASTINGS
The year in which the Earl of Moira (afterwards Marquis
of Hastings) began his long and notable period of office
marked a new stage in the history of the East India
Company. Since 1808 the question of the renewal of their
charter (which was to expire on AprU 10, 1814) had been to
the fore, and a Parliamentary Committee was engaged in
inquiring into every branch of their administration. Two
great questions were involved, the commercial monopoly,
and the political or territorial rights of the Company. It
was fairly plain that neither Parliament nor public opinion
would tolerate a further grant of the full monopoly of the
Indian trade. On the other hand, there was practically
no desire to oust the Company from its political position,
and that for two reasons. The people felt that the immense
patronage of the Indian services would be less corruptly
administered by the Court of Directors, standing apart as
it did from the Party system, than by ministers obsessed
with the idea of purchasing the votes and allegiance of
their followers ; while politicians themselves were disposed
to be well content with a constitution which gave them
a very real control over Indian affairs, and yet enabled
them, if anything went wrong, to shift a good deal of the
responsibility upon the shoulders of the Company.
The Directors fought stubbornly for every inch of their
ground, and even vi'hen they were plainly told that the free
export of goods to India from the ' outports ', i. e. Liverpool,

DEFEAT OF THE MARATHA CONFEDERACY 277
Bristol, Hull, &c., would have to be conceded, they con
tended fiercely that aU imports from India should be brought
to the London docks. But petitions against this restriction
poured in from the great provincial ports and manufacturing
towns ; and finally, though they were allowed to retain the
profitable monopoly of the China trade, the commerce of
India was thrown open. The whole question was thoroughly
sifted in both Houses of Parliament, and Warren Hastings,
an old man of eighty-one, was summoned to give evidence.
As that venerable figure appeared for the last time before
the bar of the House where more than a quarter of a century
before he had stood for so many weary years to hear his
whole career arraigned and held up to scorn and obloquy,
members of the House, obeying a spontaneous irapulse, rose
and uncovered, an act of respect they repeated when
Hastings, having given his evidence, withdrew. His testiraony
was all against change .-and therefore, though listened to
with deference, weighed little with his hearers. The whole
inquiry, indeed, proved but a disraal tribute to the value of
expert evidence. All the greatest Indian authorities. Lord
Teignmouth, Munro, and Malcolm were opposed to the
abolition of the monopoly, and even Lord Wellesley ap
peared in the unexpected r61e of the Company's panegyrist.
The dangerous pitfalls that beset political prophecy are well
exemplified in the solemn warning of the Court of Directors
that, if the trade to India were thrown open, it would prove
their own utter ruin, involve a breakdown in the civil and
military services, endanger the tranquillity and happiness
of the people of India, imperil British interests in Asia, and
even, as they declared by a fine effort of imagination, over
throw the constitution at home. One point raised in the
controversy must not be omitted in a volume of this series.
As a last resort the Directors painted in vivid colours the
perils of a European colonization of India. Merchants and
agents, artisans and labourers would flock to the East and

278 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
settle in the country. These colonists, following the example
of the North American states, would eventually achieve
independence, and India would be lost to Great Britain.
Such a danger only existed in the heated imaginations of
interested controversialists, and, as a matter -of fact, the
imraigration of Europeans into the country was still severely
Hmited by statute. No person could proceed to India
without a licence either from the Company or the Board
of Control ; they could be sent home by the government
of India if it were deemed desirable, and they were raade
subject to the Regulation that forbade to Europeans the
holding of lands. So little was actually done in the way
of colonization that, in a period of eighteen years after
1 814, the total nuraber of persons not in the Company's
service proceeding under licence to India was only 1,324.
The ablest speech in the Commons was made by Canning,
who shed the dry light of reason and the gleams of his
mordant humour upon the overcharged statements of either
side. The immigrants under the Act would probably be
a few pedlars in hardware or needy knife-grinders, and they
were hardly likely to project a colonial rebellion after the
American pattern on the background of the immemorial
East. In the Lords, Earl Grenville went rauch further
than the government in his attack upon the Company, and
in a speech of remarkable prescience advocated a scheme
that would have antedated by many years the solution of
succeeding generations. He held that twenty years, the
term for which the Company's privileges were to be pro
longed, was too long a period to farm out the coramerce of
half the globe and the sovereignty over sixty millions of
people, particularly at a time when the whole fortune of the
British Empire was at stake owing to the Napoleonic wars.
Any plan adopted should be limited in duration to the
restoration of peace. He believed that the Crown should
definitely take over the political and territorial rights of the

xxn DEFEAT OF THE MARATHA CONFEDERACY 279
Company, for ' no sovereign ever traded for a profit ; no
trading Company ever yet administered government for the
happiness of its subjects.' The highest offices in India
were already practically in the gift of the Crown, and
appointments to the civil service should be made by com
petition from the great public schools and universities.
The Company's railitary forces should be absorbed into
the King's service, and the Indian markets should be
thrown open to British capital and enterprise in the most
unrestricted way. But Lord GrenvUle was half a century
before his time. The Charter Act, as eventually passed, con
firmed the Company in the government of India for twenty
years from April 18 14, and threw open the trade to India,
but left them the monopoly of the profitable commerce
with China. A small sum annually (£10,000) was aUotted
for the encouragement of education, literature, and science.
For raany years this fund was badly administered, but the
clause marked the first open recognition by the government
of the duty of ameliorating the moral and intellectual
condition of the peoples of India.
The Earl of Moira, who came out to India in his sixtieth
year, had been an opponent of Lord Wellesley's policy, and
yet he was destined to complete the fabric of British
dominion in India almost exactly as his great predecessor
had planned it.
He was first called upon to deal with Nepal, the country
lying along the northem frontiers of Bengal and Oudh for
about seven hundred miles from the Sutlaj to Sikkim, and
running back with an average breadth of about a hundred
and thirty mUes up the snow-clad slopes of the Himalayas.
A Hindu race claiming Rajput origin had conquered the
original inhabitants of Mongolian stock in the fourteenth
century, and to some extent intermarried with them. The
tribe of the Gurkhas under a powerful raja had, about ten
years after Plassey, subdued the other ruling clans and

28o HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA CHAP.
given its name to the whole race. The Gurkhas were 'a
yery hardy, warlike stock, and they soon found their narrow
mountain home too confined for them. Checked in their
northern raids by the colossal power of the Chinese erapire,
they had since the beginning of the nineteenth century
pressed hard on the ill-defined frontiers of Bengal and
Oudh, and about this time they seized some districts in
the southern lowlands claimed by the East India Company.
They refused to withdraw and hostUities began in November
1814. The first war waged by the Earl of Moira presents a
curious contrast to his great series of operations against the
Maratha powers. He has been accused of a failure to
appreciate or provide for the peculiar difficulties of the
campaign. But it must be remembered that Nepal is one
of the most difficult countries in the world for military
operations ; the gallant little Gurkhas are the best fighting
race, with the possible exception of the Sikhs, that India
produces ; the forces employed had no past experience that
could aid them to contend with the tactical and strategical
difficulties of the hill country, while the generals, with the
exception of Ochterlony, showed great incapacity. In spite
of the fact that the army of invasion numbered 34,000,
while the Gurkhas could muster no more than 12,000, the
first campaign of 18 14-15 was perilously near being a
failure. General GiUespie, the hero of the fighting in Java,
was repulsed and killed in a premature assault upon a
mountain fort. General Martindale was checked at Jytak,
the central attacks on Palpa and Katmandu, the capital,
were driven back and only General Ochterlony in the
extreme west of Nepal succeeded in holding his own.
Later in the year raore success was achieved, and in
December 18 15 the envoys of the ruling chiefs accepted
a treaty involving the cession of certain territories and the
residence of a British representative at Katmandu. The

X.XII Defeat of the maratha confederacy 281
central government however disowned the action of their
plenipotentiaries and, though Lord Moira offered to moderate
his terms, hostilities had to be resumed. Ochterlony, now
in supreme command, advanced after hard fighting to within
fifty miles of the capital, when the Gurkha chieftains
announced their acceptance of the Treaty of Sagauli, March
1 8 1 6. The Governor-General was only too pleased to
accept the settlement, and no attempt was made to inflict
a severer penalty. Both sides had learnt to respect each
other's fighting qualities. The gains to British dominion
were not unimportant. The Gurkhas abandoned most of
their claims in the Tarai, or lowlands, along their southern
border. The provinces of Kumaon and Garhwal at the
extreme west of Nepal were surrendered, and the site of
Simla, the future hot weather capital of British India, was
thus acquired ; the north-west frontier of the Company's
possessions was carried right up to the mountains. A path
way was opened up to the regions of central Asia; ' countries
before unknown have been added to geography ; and nature
has been explored by science in some of her raost inac
cessible retreats, and most rare and majestic developments.
. . . Roads have been cut along the sides of precipices ; bridges
constructed over mountain torrents ; stations have been
formed which have grown into towns ; and the stir and
activity of human life have disturbed the silence of the
lonely forests, and broken the slumber of the eternal snows.' '
A protective treaty with the Raja of Sikkim drove a barrier
between the eastern frontier of Nepal and Bhutan. Unlike
some native states, the Nepalese were content with having
once defied the British power, and have never since that
date departed from an attitude of friendly independence.
The war was over, and the Governor-General, now Marquis
of Hastings, whose equanimity and patience had sometimes
failed him during its course, could afford to draw breath.
' The History of British India, H. H. Wilson, vol. ii, p. 59.

282 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
At one time the danger of a wide-reaching combination of
Indian powers against the British had seemed very immi
nent. The Gurkhas had sent their emissaries far and wide
to Sindhia, Ranjit Singh, the Pindari chieftains, and even to
the capitals of the Burmese and Chinese empires. After
the first unsatisfactory campaigns, when the British forces
were locked up in the hill country, the Maratha states and
Amir Khan, the Pathan leader of free corapanies, were
obviously raaking ready to fish in troubled waters ; even
our great Sikh ally, perhaps doubting for once of British
invulnerability, had moved 20,000 men to the banks of
the Sutlaj.
The government, with the approval of George Canning,
the new President of the Board of Control, now turned
to deal with the Pathan and Pindari hordes, who had
made central India outside the ring fence of British
dominion a hell upon earth for the cultivators of the
soil, and had lately even extended their raids into British
territory. The Pindaris were first heard of during the wars waged
in the Deccan between Aurangzeb and Sivaji. They
followed the Maratha armies, as irregulars and skirmishers
without pay, subsisting on the plunder of the enemy's terri
tory. Sorae of them were of Pathan origin, but broken and
desperate men of all races joined their ranks ; since the
beginning of the nineteenth century Sindhia had granted
their leaders settlements in Malwa near the Narbada. After
1805, the Maratha powers, cowed by Lord Wellesley's wars,
were mainly at peace. The Pindaris, without having the
excuse of warfare, extended their raids far and wide in
central India — mere plundering and looting expeditions
attended by every forra of infamy, torture, and outrage upon
the wretched peasants.
The ravages of the Pindaris had done more than any
thing else to discredit the policy of non-intervention. Their

XXII DEFEAT OF THE MARATHA CONFEDERACY 283
expeditions grew more and more daring and ferocious. In
181 2 they broke into Bundelkhand, and for some time an
attempt to keep them out was made by maintaining a line
of fortified posts reaching from that district to the gulf of
Cambay. The expedient proved neither economical nor
effective. In 1815 and 1816 they plundered the Nizam's
dominions, and in the latter year cruelly and wantonly
ravaged the Northern Circars. This was the final blow
that broke down the patience of the home authorities and
the Calcutta Council. The Governor-General had long
been urging war. Given a free hand at last, he made
far-sighted and comprehensive preparations. To surround
the Pindaris in Malwa, he gathered together a huge army
of 113,000 men and 300 guns, subdivided into the army of
Hindustan (four divisions) which he himself commanded,
and the army of the Deccan (five divisions) under Sir
Thomas Hislop. Such a force might seem excessive for
the task of rounding up and exterminating an army of
brigands ; but the Governor-General realized that since the
laisser-faire policy of the Cornwallis school was now being
definitely reversed, he would have in every Maratha power
a potential enemy eagerly waiting for any failure or faltering
on the part of his generals. While one cordon of his army
facing inwards had to encircle the robber bands, a wider
ring facing outwards had to check the attempts of the
Maratha states to break through to their assistance. His
prescience was fully justified ; ' the hunt of the Pindaris
became merged in the third Maratha war ' ' and, though
the campaign was brilliantly and finally successful, he had
not a gun nor a man too many. The words above quoted
give the key to the complicated operations which foUow,
and two main movements must be distinguished, the con
verging of forces upon the Pindari bands in central India
1 The Oxford Student's History of India, by Vincent A. Smith,
p. 204.

284 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
and the defeat or neutralization of Sindhia, Holkar, the
Bhonsla, and the Peshwa.
Serious trouble for the past two years had been threaten
ing from Poona. The Peshwa, one of the most treacherous
and cowardly of his line, had fallen under the influence of
an unscrupulous minister, Trimbakji, and was intriguing
once more to place himself at the head of the Maratha
confederacy. In July 18 15 the minister of the Gaikwar of
Baroda was basely murdered, when visiting Poona under
a British safe conduct to settle some disputed claims and
counterclaims between the two Maratha governments.
Trimbakji's guilt was certain, and the Peshwa's compHcity
strongly suspected. Fortunately at this crisis the Resident
at Poona was Mountstuart Elphinstone, who happily com
bined the qualities of a scholar, diplomatist, and raan of
action. He proraptly deraanded the arrest of Trimbakji,
and the Peshwa, after prevaricating as long as he dared,
delivered him up to the British authorities in Septeraber
1 8 1-5. A year later Trirabakji made a romantic escape
from his prison and could not be found, though it was
strongly suspected that the Peshwa was in communication
with him. The Peshwa was meanwhile mustering his
forces ; his whole demeanour was so shifty that Elphin
stone threatened hira with open war and forced hira on
June 13, 18 1 7, to sign a more rigorous subsidiary treaty
involving the cession of territory and an explicit renunciation
of all claims to the suprerae place among the Maratha
powers. ' We had no choice ', wrote Hastings, ' consistently
with our own security but to cripple him if we left him on
his -throne.' A year before (May 18 16) a subsidiary alliance
at his own request had been raa.de with Apa Sahib, the
regent- for the imbecile Raja of Nagpur, who was so depen
dent for his position on British bayonets that he left his
capital to live under the protection of the camp of his
auxiliaries.

XXII DEFEAT OF THE MARATHA CONFEDERACY 285
The Governor-General therefore could feel, when he left
Calcutta in July 181 7 to begin his great enveloping move
ment, that two of the Maratha powers had no excuse for not
recognizing the determination of the British to be supreme
in India south of the Sutlaj and to crush the forces of
anarchy. Sindhia remained, and his attitude was not
encouraging, for he was obviously very uneasy as to the fate
of the ruffians whom he partly protected. Lord Hastings
gave him little scope for ambiguity. Having crossed the
Jumna he marched towards Gwalior. He made it clear to
Sindhia that the days of non-intervention were over, and
that the British governraent intended to cast its protection
over the states of Malwa and Rajputana. On November 5,
181 7, Sindhia, practically under compulsion, signed a treaty
which bound him to give assistance against the Pindaris,
and abrogated the clause in the Treaty of Surji-arjangaon
debarring the British from making treaties with the Rajput
chieftains. The latter gladly and eagerly welcomed the
sheltering arm of British protection, and treaties were con
cluded by Metcalfe at Delhi with nineteen Rajput states,
including Jaipur, Udaipur, Jodhpur, and Bundi.
On the very day that Sindhia was coerced into signing
the revised subsidiary treaty, the Peshwa rose in final
rebellion, expecting that his example would be followed by
all the Maratha powers. The British residency was sacked
and bumt. Elphinstone made his escape, marshalled his
forces, and, though fearfuUy outnumbered, brilliantly defeated
the enemy at Kirki. The Peshwa fled southwards, and as he
went possessed himself of the person of his titular suzerain,
Sivaji's descendant, the Raja of Satara. He was pursued
and defeated in several engagements, but for many months
eluded capture, doubling and twisting on his course in the
vain attempt to break through to Berar. The Maratha states
of central India were themselves in sore straits. At Nagpur,
Apa Sahib, who had mounted the throne on the murder

286 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
of the Raja, and at Indore, Holkar, or rather his government
for he was still a minor, by a strange infatuation revolted
just as the cordon of British armies was closing round thera.
They struggled desperately but fruitlessly in the toUs. The
forces of the Nagpur residency won a brUliant victory against
terrible odds on the Sitabaldi hills on November 27.
Holkar's forces -were utterly crushed at Mehidpur on
December 21. Both states were forced to accept treaties
which greatly curtailed their territories and practically
reduced them to vassalage.
Meanwhile, in spite of a serious outbreak of cholera in
the British camp and the diversions created by the Maratha
risings, the ring of fire and steel was closing round the Pindaris.
They first darted northward, but were headed off from
Gwalior and hemmed in on the south and east. Many of
them were cut up and dispersed, but their wonderful mobility
rendered it exceedingly difficult to prevent a certain number
from making their escape. Very early in the campaign the
Pathan leader. Amir Khan, who possessed a regular army
with 150 guns, was persuaded to disband his forces on
condition of being recognized as Nawab of Tonk. One
Pindari leader was given lands at Gorakhpur, but many
refused submission. Chitu, the most wicked and des
perate of aU, was hunted into the jungle and devoured by
a tiger. The final operations of the war were directed against the
fugitive rulers of the defeated Maratha states. The Peshwa,
after two more pitched battles at Koregaon and Ashti,
bravely fought by his general Gokla, and having over and
over again baffled and eluded his pursuers, finaUy surren
dered to Sir John Malcolm on June 18, when that distin
guished officer with excessive generosity, to the great chagrin
of the Govemor-General, guaranteed the fugitive a pension
of £80,000 a year. The ex-Peshwa resided henceforward
at Bithur, twelve miles north-west of Cawnpore, the city that

XXII DEFEAT OF THE MARATHA CONFEDERACY 287
his infamous adopted son. Nana Sahib, was destined to
desecrate with one of the most revolting of human crimes.
Two hundred miles away, his confederate Trimbakji expiated
his guilt by a lifelong imprisonment in the fort of Chunar
near Benares.
In the long pursuit of the Peshwa the faineant Raja of
Satara had luckily fallen into British hands, and the Indian
government, adopting the precedent followed by Wellesley
in the case of Mysore, decided to confer upon him, as the
representative of the line of Sivaji, a small principality carved
out of Baji Rao's forfeited domains. He was accordingly
solemnly enthroned as Raja of Satara on AprU 11, 1818.
This policy was hardly justified by its results ; the rule of
the restored dynasty proved an evil and incompetent one,
and Satara was one of the states to which subsequently the
doctrine of Lapse was applied by Dalhousie ; but the Indian
government erred, if at all, on the side of generosity. An
interesting alternative to the restoration of the old line was
the suggestion of Sir Thomas Munro that the Company
itself should assume the office of Peshwa, as in Bengal it
had stood forth as Diwan.
Apa Sahib, the Bhonsla Raja of Berar, who had been
pardoned and restored after Sitabaldi, proved a traitor, and
his depleted dominions were given to another member of
his house. He escaped from British custody and gathered
together the remnants of defeated armies in the Mahadeo
hills among the aboriginal tribes of the Gonds. After
winning sorae prelirainary successes, his bands were broken
up ; he fled to the Raja of Jodhpur and thence to Ranjit
Singh, who was allowed by the British government to give
him an asylum which was practically a prison. With the
fall of Asirgarh in March 1819, the commandant of which
had afforded help to Apa Sahib, the military operations of
the war were concluded.
A great revolution had been effected in the political states

288 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
of India. To sum up very briefly the results of this most
complicated and intricate of campaigns : —
The Pindaris ceased to exist. Sindhia without having
stirred in his own defence was humbled and rendered
impotent for harm. Holkar was left with but half of his
original possessions. Nagpur was mulcted in territory "and
reduced to the condition of a vassal state. The Peshwa
was dethroned and his hereditary office abolished. His
dominions with the exception of the districts granted to the
Raja of Satara became part of the Presidency of Bombay.
Some of Great Britain's bitterest enemies were settled as
pensioners or prisoners within easy distance of Calcutta.
Her protection now shadowed the ancient houses of the
Rajput states, and her dominion extended from Cape
Comorin to the banks of the Sutlaj, across which the military
commonwealth of the Sikhs, at the zenith of its prosperity,
still wielded and disciplined by its able ruler, stood flrm
in friendship and alliance. Such peace and order as had
not been known since the greatest days of the Mughal
Empire extended through central India.
Full justice has not perhaps always been done to the
moderation of British policy throughout this epoch. Seldom
have forbearance and firmness been more happUy com
bined. Those bad rulers, the Peshwa and Apa Sahib, were
again and again given chances to reform. The terras
offered to the ruffian leaders of the Pindaris might be
described as excessively generous. The fall of Asirgarh
revealed deliberate treachery on the part of Sindhia
which might have justified his deposition, and had Lord
Wellesley been Governor-General, we may conjecture
that his days of political independence would have been
numbered, but Hastings passed him over in contemptuous
silence. In spite of the warlike nature of Lord Hastings's adminis
tration, some most important civil and administrative reforms

XXII DEFEAT OF THE MARATHA CONFEDERACY 289
were carried through. No Governor-General ever had four
more brilliant subordinates than Sir John Malcolm, Sir
Thomas Munro, Mountstuart Elphinstone, and Sir Charles
Metcalfe, and all these men left the impress of their characters
upon Indian history. Elphinstone's pacification of the pro
vinces conquered from the Peshwa, and Munro's ryotwari
settlement of the land revenues of Madras, i. e. a settleraent
raade directly with the cultivators and dispensing with
middlemen, are two of the abiding memorials of British
adrainistration. Elphinstone at Poona was ably seconded
by Grant Duff, the Resident at Satara ; and so by a curious
coincidence two of the greatest historians of India were
engaged at the same time in adrainistrative duties in the
same province.
In Bengal some legal reforms were found necessary
owing to the congested state of the law courts. In civil
actions the procedure was curtailed and simplified, while
an important change was made in the administration of
criminal justice. The rule laid down by Lord CornwalHs
that the offices of coUector and magistrate were never to
be united, though in theory unimpeachable, had some
practical disadvantages. A complete separation of the
executive and judicial power implies a highly organized
state. Among primitive civilizations there is much practical
advantage, provided officials can be trusted, in uniting both
functions in the same hands. Henceforward Lord Corn
wallis's prohibition was removed. Lord Hastings probably
felt, and with reason, that the newer generation of the
Company's servants with their higher traditions would prove
superior to temptations to which their predecessors had
succumbed. Measures were also taken to protect the rights
of the ryots as against the zamindars where experience
showed that the working of the Perraanent Settlement
pressed too hardly on the cultivators of the soil. They
were given a, certain prescriptive right of occupancy as long

290 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
as they paid their customary rents, and these rents could
no longer be arbitrarily increased.
A beginning was made, on hurable lines, with the educa
tion of the natives by the establishment of vernacular schools
near Calcutta, and the first vernacular newspaper was
published by the missionaries of Serarapore. The finances
of India were prosperous, and the only shadow on the
administration was caused by the rather doubtful transactions
of the firra of William Palmer & Co. with the govemment
of the Nizam. Their loans to the Nizam had received the
sanction of the Governor-General, but there was some
question whether they did not infringe an Act of ParHament
against the financial dealings of Europeans with native
states. The only charge that could with justice be brought
against Lord Hastings was that he had failed to exercise due
caution in examining the details of the case, and out of
excessive good nature had suffered his confidence to be
abused. The Directors had already voted him a grant of
£60,000 after the completion of the Nepalese war, but
henceforward their relations with him were strained, though
they admitted the purity of his motives. He resigned office
in 1821, but did not actuaUy lay down his functions till
January i, 1823.
Lord Hastings had carried through a great and necessary
work. His material achievements challenge comparison
with those of Lord Wellesley, but he was of course not so
great or commanding a figure. He owed much of the
success of his adrainistration to a brilliant band of sub
ordinates, men who had been trained and inspired by his
great predecessor. Hastings did not possess WeUesley's
dignity, eloquence, or originality ; there was an element of
vanity in his otherwise estimable character, and signs are
not lacking that he would hardly have shown Wellesley's
equanimity in the face of reverses or his noble consideration
of defeated generals. On the other hand, he conceived

XXII DEFEAT OF THE MARATHA CONFEDERACY 291
and carried through the grandest strategical operation ever
undertaken in India, in the course of which twenty-eight
actions were fought and a hundred and twenty fortresses
taken without a single reverse. He was less precipitate
than Lord WeUesley, less harsh to errant native rulers, and
he did not proceed against them till his case was very
strong. He was an able administrator, a hard and con
scientious worker, a good judge of men, and his name and
farae deservedly rank only just below the greatest in the
roll of Governors-General.

u 2

CHAPTER XXIII
' THE FIEST BDEMESE WAB. LOED AMHBBST
On Lord Hastings's resignation, the brilliant orator and
statesraan, George Canning, was appointed Governor-
General ; but before he could sail for India the suicide of
the Marquis of Londonderry (better known as Lord Castle
reagh) opened to him the office of Foreign Secretary and
the leadership of the House of Commons, whereupon he
resigned his Indian appointment. The Directors, after con
sidering the claims of Lord William Bentinck, nominated
Lord Amherst, who had shown firmness and restraint on an
abortive mission to China. In the seven months' interval
which elapsed before Amherst's arrival in India the reins
of government were held rather uneasily by John Adam,
senior member of Council. A capable official in a sub
ordinate capacity, he was hardly fitted for the head of the
government and attempted with unhappy results, as we shall
see later, to check the free discussion of political affairs in
the press. The fabric of British dominion in India having
been completed by Lord Hastings as far north as the Sutlaj
River, at last it might seem to those who desired peace and
the maintenance of equilibrium that a period of quiescence
had arrived. But again such hopes were doomed to dis
appointment. The frontier to the north-west was to reraain
unviolated for another twenty years, but to the north-east
ward the boundary line was still perilously indefinite.
The vast Bay of Bengal forms a great irregularly shaped
horseshoe, starting from Cape Comorin in the south-west to
the Malay Peninsula in the south-east. British dominion

C£OR&E PHILIP S. SOM, Ltd.

294 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
now extended continuously all up the western side, round
the northern bend, and as the district of ChUtagong bounded
by the river Naaf formed part of the province of Bengal, it
stretched for about a hundred miles down the eastern side
of the bay. The eastern boundary line of Bengal, roughly
speaking, raight have been found by drawing a line from
Chittagong northward to the hUls; but it was very ill-
defined and variable. Immediately to the east of this line
lay the kingdom of Assam with various little independent
or semi-independent states. Neither the Company nor its
servants in India had any desire to increase their responsi
bilities or their territory south and east of their outpost
Chittagong, and it may safely be said that not even the most
aggressive of the Governors-General had foreseen that,
within thirty years from this date, the red line of British
dominion would have crept without a break down the
eastern side of the bay to a point on the same parallel of
latitude as Madura in the extreme south of India. But
since there was no natural barrier of mountain or river to
the province of Bengal upon the east, the same law of
development which had governed British expansion in the
past again became operative. The British dominion in
India there came into collision with a people of Tibeto-
Chinese origin, who spreading outwards from the fertile
valley of the mighty Irrawaddy had conquered down the
coast southwards to the Malay peninsula and northwards to
the confines of Chittagong, and was seeking to extend its
sway further inland over Assam and the Brahmaputra
valley to the north-eastern bend of the Himalayas. The
same decade that saw Clive's victory at Plassey witnessed
the first great step taken by the Burman chief Alompra in
the founding of his considerable power — the conquest of the
province of Pegu from the Takings in the delta of the Irra
waddy. In 1766 the Burmese wrested Tenasserira from
Siam; in 1784 they annexed the hitherto independent

XXIII THE FIRST BURMESE WAR 295
kingdom of Arakan, and by 1793 they had absorbed Upper
and Lower Burma and were close to Chittagong. Fugi
tives flying from territories occupied by Burmese armies
frequently took refuge over the British border, and some
times, from a base established there, made retaliatory raids
back upon the conquered provinces. The Burmese fre
quently demanded the surrender of the fugitives, and
though, whenever they were clearly crirainals, the British at
Chittagong were willing to hand them over, they were natur
ally reluctant to refuse all right of asylum to defeated belli
gerents, especially in view of the cruelty of their enemies. In
1817-18 the Burmese forces were threatening Assam, and in
the latter year they sent an insolent letter to the Indian
government, laying claim to Chittagong, Dacca, Murshid
abad and Cossimbazar. The letter was carefully timed,
for the Burmese believed that the British were hard pressed
in the Pindari war. Before it arrived, however, the danger
had passed, and Lord Hastings with great forbearance
chose to treat the dispatch as a forgery. The Burmese
having in the meantime been defeated by the Siamese were,
as the Governor-General had foreseen, ' thoroughly glad of
the excuse to "remain quiet '. The respite was only tempo
rary ; in 1822 the Burmese subjugated Assam and now con
fronted the British all along their ill-defined north-eastern
frontier. Their hitherto almost unbroken success had filled the
Burmese with an overweening sense of their own prowess in
war. They believed that no troops could stand against
them, and ' from the king to the beggar they were hot for
a war with the English '. Indeed, no conflict in which we
engaged in the East was so wantonly provoked. In Septem
ber 1823 they made an attack upon Shahpuri, a small
island off Chittagong belonging to the Company, and com
menced hostilities on the Assam frontier. British demands
for satisfaction having been absolutely ignored. Lord

296 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
Amherst declared war on February 24, 1824. The campaign
that followed was, considering the fighting qualities of the
enemy, one of the most prolonged and least successful in
the Company's history. The best defence of the Burmese
lay in the natural features of the country, which was one vast
expanse of forest and morass, laced longitudinally by moun
tain ranges and the valleys of the Irrawaddy, Sittang, and
Salween. The central plain of Burma proper was regularly
flooded in the period of the rains and clouded by steaming,
noxious exhalations deadly to the health of European troops.
As a fighting force in the open the Burmese army was
a negligible quantity, but the Burmese soldier, each man
carrying his mattock, was extraordinarily skilled at throwing
up earthworks and sinking rifle-pits, or in building with
great rapidity stout stockades of timber.
The British plan of campaign was to approach from the
sea, capture Rangoon, and send an armed flotilla up the
Irrawaddy to the capital ; but the wrong season had been
selected for such strategy. Rangoon was occupied in May
by Sir Archibald Campbell, and then the rains, which trans
formed the Irrawaddy from a navigable channel into a rush
ing torrent, prevented for six months the advance up
country. The Burmese had abandoned the town at the
first appearance of the enemy and driven off all their flocks
and herds into the jungles of Pegu. The British forces had
thus to depend on rotting provisions provided by fraudulent
Calcutta contractors, and amidst the fever-laden mists of
the drenched country round Rangoon were soon decimated
by disease.
In the meantime Bandula, the ablest Burmese general
and the conqueror of Assam, was sent to attempt the inva
sion of Bengal from the north-east. He cut up an isolated
British detachment at Ramu that had advanced too far
frora the base at Chittagong, but he was then recalled to
march to the relief of Rangoon. In December he arrived

xxiii THE FIRST BURMESE WAR 297
before the town with 60,000 men, but he was driven back
and retreated to Donabew, forty miles up the river.
Elsewhere, when it was found that Campbell was cooped
up in Rangoon, the Indian government attempted to advance
on Ava by two expeditions, one marching southwards
through Cachar and Manipur, the other through Arakan
and up the higher valley of the Irrawaddy. Both were fail
ures. The first expedition was baffled by the difficulties of
the country between Cachar and Manipur, and effected
a retreat to Bengal ; the second occupied Arakan without
much difficulty but made very slow progress through in-
efificient leadership, and was so terribly reduced by fever
that it had ultimately to be withdrawn.
Though the main force was almost inactive at Rangoon
or engaged on minor operations, Campbell, in the autumn
of 1824, had employed the fleet to transport troops to
Tenasserira, and the province was quickly reduced. From
it he drew large supplies of fresh provisions and cattle for
the suffering army at Rangoon. Thus in February 1825,
though he had wasted valuable time on dUatory preparations,
he was able to resume his long interrupted advance up the
Irrawaddy both in the flotilla and on land. Bandula in
April was defeated and kUled at Donabew after holding out
bravely for a month, and three weeks later Campbell occu
pied Prome, the capital of Lower Burma, where he spent
the rainy season. In August negotiations for peace were
begun but terms were rejected by the Burmese, who had not
even yet learnt their lesson. Fighting began again in
November, and the British forces, having routed the enemy's
forlorn hope at Pagan, advanced to Yandaboo within sixty
railes of the capital. There, on February 24, 1826, peace
was concluded. The King of Ava agreed to cede the pro
vinces of Arakan and Tenasserira absolutely, to withdraw
from Assam and Cachar, to recognize the independence of
Manipur, enter into a commercial treaty, admit a British

298 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
Resident at Ava, and pay an inderanity of a milHon sterling.
A glance at the map wiU show the importance of these
results. The Burmese empire had been shorn of most of
its sea frontage by the surrender of two long narrow pro
vinces. Tenasserira extends southwards almost as far as
does Cape Comorin on the other side of the Bay of Bengal,
parted from it by fourteen hundred miles of sea. Assam,
Cachar, and Manipur could henceforward be reckoned as
British protectorates, for the Burmese were debarred from
interference in that quarter. But they were left in possession
of the whole basin of the Irrawaddy, and they had access to
the sea by its mouths and the coast of the broad wedge of
territory that parted the two provinces ceded to the British
from one another.
The war had been for those days enormously expensive,
for it had cost thirteen mUlions sterHng, or more than twelve
times the charges for the Pindari and Maratha campaigns.
It had lasted two years, and, when every allowance has been
made for the great difficulties to be faced, it must be
admitted that the conduct of it reflected little credit either
on the Indian government or the generals in the field.
The latter were far too deUberate and leisurely in their
raoveraents, and showed great lack of initiative. The
Governor-General and his Council had no clear and consis
tent policy. Many of the difficulties of commissariat and
transport could have been provided for, and throughout
there was a lamentable failure to concentrate and economize
the forces employed. Had it not been for the splendid
work of Sir Thoraas Munro, the Governor of Madras, in
sending reinforceraents and supplies, that failure would have
been still raore marked. At the conclusion of the war
Lord Amherst was given an earldom — a distinction he can
hardly be said to have earned. He was a man of very
mediocre abilities, and never showed any real grasp of the
Indian problems of his day.

XXIII THE FIRST BURMESE WAR 299
In the meantime various minor disturbances had been
caused throughout India by the conviction that the British
would be defeated in Burma. Above all, a usurper at
Bharatpur, the famous stronghold that had resisted the
-desperate assaults of Lord Lake, defied the British power by
keeping the rightful heir, a minor, from his inheritance.
Sir David Ochterlony, starting with some precipitancy to
Bharatpur, was promptly recalled by the Governor-General,
and soon afterwards died of an illness partly, it is supposed,
brought on by vexation and chagrin. There were ominous
signs of unrest in Malwa, Bundelkhand, and Maratha terri
tory, especially after the recall of Ochterlony, which was
attributed to British fear of attacking an impregnable strong
hold. Sir Charles Metcalfe in a famous minute maintained
that ' our influence is too pervading to admit of neutrality '.
He won over the government to his view, and in January
1826 Lord Combermere took the great fortress by storm.
A raore sinister fact was the Sepoy mutiny at Barrackpore
near Calcutta in 1824. The native soldiers feared the
Burraese as raagicians, and also held they would lose caste
if required to go on shipboard. Besides these reasons, the
officers with criminal folly had refused to redress, or even
inquire into, some very real grievances respectfully put
before them by the troops. The mutiny was only quelled
after the mutinous regiments had been fired upon by British
artillery, and the parade ground made a shambles. The
name of the 47th Bengal Native Infantry was erased from
the army list.

CHAPTER XXIV
LOBD WILLIAM BENTINCK AND INTEBNAL
BEFOEMS
With the retirement of Lord Amherst there ensued a ten
years' respite from major railitary operations. The new
Governor-General, Lord WiUiam Bentinck, was happy in
his date. He could hardly have found a more favourable
opportunity to carry out the liberal and humanizing policy
to which he was devoted. At the end of the decade India
was destined again to enter upon a troubled epoch ; it
proved fortunate indeed that, in the interval, measures
for the improvement of the country and the amelioration
of_ the people were pressed on. The reform movement,
interrupted for a time by the campaigns that followed the
governor-generalship of Lord Auckland, never altogether
lost its impetus, and was resumed with fresh vigour at
the close of the war period by Lord Dalhousie. At first
sight, perhaps, the omens for Bentinck's success were not
very propitious. He had been deprived of the governorship
of Madras in 1807 for an alleged failure to cope with the
mutiny at Vellore. As a soldier he had at least enjoyed
the opportunity of seeing operations on the grand scale, for
he was present at Marengo ; but his own mUitary career had
been undistinguished, and in the Peninsular campaign he
had not impressed the Duke of Wellington as possessing
pre-eminent qualities either for war or diplomacy. He was
a true Liberal of his day, thoroughly in accord with the
ideals that inspired the era of Catholic emancipation and
Parliamentary reforra. His personal habits were simple, and

LORD W. BENTINCK AND INTERNAL REFORMS 301
he intensely disliked the state that is generally considered
necessary for the position he occupied. In this respect, as well
as in his philanthropic care for the peoples of India, economy
in administration and earnest desire to preserve peace, he
may be compared with that other essentially Liberal Gover
nor-General among his successors, the Marquis of Ripon.
Bentinck's character to a certain extent lacks warmth and
picturesqueness. Many were repelled by his chilling manner
and somewhat cold benevolence. Yet he was undoubtedly
the first Govemor-General openly to act on the theory that
the welfare of the subject peoples was a main, perhaps the
primary, duty of the British in India, though this conception
had already inspired the work of many great administrators,
such as Elphinstone and Munro. Making every allowance
for the warmth of personal friendship, and the eulogistic
phraseology proper to the epigraphic style, it remains broadly
true in the stately language of Macaulay's inscription that
Lord WUliam Bentinck ruled India ' with prudence, integrity,
and benevolence . . . never forgot that the end of govern
ment is the welfare of the governed . . . aboHshed cruel
rites . . . effaced humUiating distinctions . . . (and) allowed
liberty to the expansion of public opinion '. The famous
statement that he ' infused into Oriental despotism the spirit
of British freedom ' represents rather the pious aspirations
of the Governor-General and the ultimate tendency of his
policy, than anything actuaUy achieved.
His internal policy raay be briefly considered under the
three heads of economical, administrative, and social reform.
His first duty was retrenchment, rendered necessary by the
wasteful extravagance of the Burmese war. Bentinck faced
this task with his usual moral courage and noble disregard
of personal unpopularity. A saving of one and a half
millions was made by economies in the civil and military
services. How necessary the reform was in the former case
is seen from the fact that, even after the change, the average

302 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
income of a civilian, ranging from member of Council to
writer (the lowest grade), was still as high as £2,000 a year.
The scale of remuneration in the army had never been so
high as in the civU service. We have seen how Clive, in
1765, abolished the custom of double 'batta' (extra allow
ances made to officers in addition to their pay) in the teeth
of disaffection and mutiny. By enforcing the new rule that,
in the case of troops stationed within 400 miles of Calcutta,
only half ' batta ' was to be aUowed, Bentinck earned much
unmerited odium — unmerited because he was merely carry
ing out imperative orders from home. Further, part of the
land revenue of Bengal, which, through the indulgence of
the government and the ingenuity of native forgers of docu
ments had been fraudulently alienated, was recovered for
the state. By these and other financial reforms, though he
succeeded to a depleted treasury and a deficit of a mUlion, he
left behind hira a surplus of a million and a half.
Secondly, in the domain of adrainistrative reforra, Bentinck
abolished the provincial courts of appeal and circuit set up
by Cornwallis, which by their dilatory procedure had blocked
the course of justice and raerely afforded ' resting places for
those raembers of the service who were deemed unfit for
higher responsibilities '. The judicial reforms of Lord Corn
waUis had found no place for the employment of native
Indian abiUty except in the lowest grades ; and though this
defect had largely been remedied since that tirae by the
appointraent of raany native judges, the home authorities
and the most enlightened of the civil servants in India were
in favour of extending the principle. Measures were now
taken, therefore, to enlarge the jurisdiction of the native
judges and increase their salaries. At the same time a great
boon was conferred upon the suitors by perraission to use
the vernacular tongue instead of Persian, which had hitherto
by an absurd legal convention been the language of the
courts. Under Lord WilHam Bentinck the great revenue

XXIV LORD W. BENTINCK AND INTERNAL REFORMS 303
settlement of the North-west Provinces, which took ten years
to complete, was begun by Robert Bird. It was made for
thirty years, and, according to the locality, either with the
tillers of the soU, the landowners, or in some cases the
village community, and it affected territory populated by
23,000,000 people.
Thirdly, there were the social reforms that have immor
talized his name. He abolished, in 1829, the Hindu practice
of Sati, or Suttee — the immolation of widows on the funeral
pyres of their husbands. By this inhuman rite no fewer
than 700 women were said to have been burnt alive in 181 7
in Bengal alone. The prohibition of Sati had been urged
by the Court of Directors upon Lord Amherst, but he shrank
from interfering wdth a custom sanctioned by Brahman appro
val. Even men like Elphinstone, whose humanity was beyond
question, seem to have dreaded the change, on the ground
that it would violate the Company's traditional policy of
toleration, and there were many dismal prophecies of dis
turbances if the custom were prohibited. But Bentinck,
who had the courage of the genuine reformer, gladly took
full responsibility upon himself, and, as so often happens,
none of the gloomy prognostications of the prophets of evil
were fulfilled. In 1830 there began, through the instru
mentality of Colonel Sleeman, the breaking up of the Thugs
(Thags), brotherhoods of hereditary assassins who, formed
into a caste and worshipping the goddess Kali, went about
the country strangling and robbing peaceful travellers. By
such raeans Bentinck showed his care for the moral and
material welfare of the people. Their intellectual develop
ment was affected by a change which had far-reaching con
sequences. It was decided in 1833 that the funds granted by
government for education should be henceforward devoted,
not to the fostering of Oriental leaming, but to the instrac-
tion of the natives of India in the English language and in
western science. There were many opponents of this change.

304 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
ably led by H. H. Wilson, the historian ; bul the question
was reaUy settled by a famous minute of Lord Macaulay,
at the time a raeraber of the Governor-General's CouncU,
who trenchantly routed the Orientalists. Macaulay charac
teristically saw only one aspect of the question. Subsequent
experience has shown that there was more to be said on the
other side than he was prepared to admit. But actual trial
alone could reveal the fact that raany of the extravagant
hopes based upon the change were dooraed to disappoint
ment. Further, it was not so much the fact that English
was established as the official and literary language that was
unfortunate, as the choice of models and text-books after
wards made. It would have been prudent to train the sub
ject races for self-government by inculcating obedience to
law and a sense of discipline. The whole trend of English
ideas for the next fifty years lay in the direction of a pro
nounced individualism and freedom from restrictive bonds
of every kind. Englishmen with law-abiding habits and
phlegmatic temperaraents could indulge in revolutionary
theories without any noticeable effect upon their practice.
But the quicker and subtler brain of the Oriental is not
so apt to keep speculation and action apart. The prose
raodels, on which for raany years Indian education was
based, consisted of Burke, Benthara, Mill, and the phUo
sophical Radicals. Absurdly enough, our Eastern subjects
were prepared for taking their part in the government of the
country by the study of writers who taught that government
itself was at best a necessary evil. We attempted to raise
a race of administrators on the literature of Revolt. This
unfortunate feature affected one department of knowledge
only. In other fields, in the domain of science, law, and
letters, the results were all to the good.
In foreign affairs and in his relations with the native
powers, Bentinck sedulously upheld the doctrine of non
intervention pressed upon him by the authorities at home.

xxiv LORD W. BENTINCK AND INTERNAL REFORMS 305
In this aspect his administration has won less favour with
historians. It is undoubtedly true that non-interference
necessarily involved to some extent condoning evils in
states bordering upon British dominion. Native princes
were left a free hand as long as they discharged their treaty
obligations to the Company ; ' the character ', says Wilson,
'of an importunate and self-interested creditor, was to be
substituted for that of a benevolent and powerful protector '.'
But it was worth while to give the principle an extended
trial, and Bentinck's defenders may justly claim that the
great benefits which the period of peace enabled him to
confer upon British India proper, should be set against any
evils that he was forced to tolerate in native states. In
necessary cases he did not even shrink from intervention.
But his motive was always hatred of misgovernment, not
extension of British influence or acquisition of territory.
Three cases may be especially noticed ; in one he took
over the whole administration of a feudatory state, in the
other two he made his only annexations to British dominion.
In Mysore the Raja set up by Lord WeUesley, when he
carae of age, proved utterly unworthy of the trust conferred
upon him. But Wellesley had explicitly reserved the right
of resuming the government of the state in the event of
mal-administration, and therefore Bentinck in 1831, though
he is afterwards said to have regretted doing so, pensioned
off the Raja, and for fifty years the country was administered
entirely by British officials. In 1832 the small principality
of Cachar on the north-east frontier of Bengal, from which
the Burmese had withdrawn by the Treaty of Yandaboo, was
annexed at the request of the inhabitants. A high forest-
clad district, it has since been cleared and covered with
tea plantations. In 1834 he deposed the Raja of Coorg,
a monster of cruelty, and incorporated the country in
British dominion, ' in consideration of the unanimous wish
' The History of India, H. H. Wilson, vol, iii, p. 365,
CH4 X

306 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
of the people '. Coorg lies between Mysore and the ocean
on the western coast of southern India, and, standing 3,000 feet
above sea-level, it has been found to possess a healthy climate
and to be especially adapted for the cultivation of the coffee
plant. Disturbances appeared in Bhopal, Gwalior, and Jaipur,
embarrassing to the Governor-General, who, however, steadily
refused to swerve from his considered policy of neutrality.
But aU indications go to show that before very long even
he would have been compelled to enter on a more active
foreign policy. In 1835, on the eve of his departure, he
recorded his conviction that the advance of Russia towards
the Indian frontier was the greatest danger to which our
empire in the East was exposed, and it has been well
noticed by Sir Alfred Lyall that his commercial treaty with
Ranjit Singh, and the agreement with the Amirs of Sind
(to be dealt with later), were but preliminary steps that led
to the Afghan war. But that forward movement, had
Bentinck reraained to direct it, would never have taken so
violent and fatal a course as it did.
This peaceful and financially prosperous administration
undoubtedly did the East India Company a great service,
for any disastrous war or pecuniary deficit would have been
promptly driven home when the question of the renewal
of the charter, which expired in 1834, again came to
the fore.
The monopoly ofthe Indian trade had gone in 181 3. It
soon became clear in the long debates in Parliament, and
negotiations between the Court and the Board of Control,
that the Company could not hope to save its monopoly of
the China trade. Ideas of Reform and Free Trade were
everywhere triumphant, and Huskisson himself led the
attack upon the Company. It was not even permitted to
compete in the China trade on level terms with private
traders, but was forced to divest itself of its commercial

XXIV LORD W. BENTINCK AND INTERNAL REFORMS 307
character altogether, and to part with its assets at a valua
tion. At one time it hardly appeared probable that it
would retain its existence as a governing body, but ministers
shrank from taking over the whole administration of India,
and the Company remained in an anomalous position, half
a private corporation, half a government department, its
dividends now fixed at 10 J%, a charge upon the revenues
of India — in Lord Ellenborough's striking phrase, 'in the
very undignified and not very popular position of the
mortgagees in possession'. The Charter Act further con
stituted a fourth Presidency of Agra (soon afterwards, 1835,
reduced to the lieutenant-governorship of the North-west
Provinces), conferred on the govemment of India the
power of passing Acts instead of Regulations, added a fourth
(legal) member to the CouncU of the Governor-General
(Macaulay being the first to hold the office), gave the head
of the supreme government for the first time the title of
Governor-General of India (instead of Govemor-General
of the Presidency of Fort William in Bengal), and definitely
and finally subordinated the Presidencies of Bombay and
Madras to his control. The Act further gave the stamp ot
national and Parliamentary approval to the liberal policy
of the reigning Governor-General in laying down the famous
principle, a full realization of which is only becoming
possible in our own time, ' that no native of India, nor any
natural-born subject of his Majesty, should be disabled
from holding any place, office, or employment, by reason of
his religion, place of birth, descent or colour '.
Finally, every British subject was to enjoy the right of
proceeding to the principal seats of government in India
without licence, and of purchasing and holding lands.
Henceforward, therefore, there was no legal barrier to the
colonization, in the ordinary sense of the word, of the
Presidency towns. On Lord William Bentinck's resignation
in 1835, Sir Charles T. Metcalfe, one of the ablest of the

3o8 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
Company's servants in India, who had just been appointed
Governor of the new Presidency of Agra, was made pro
visional Governor-General. The Court of Directors at first
desired that his appointment should be permanent, till he
completely forfeited their favour by carrying in September
¦his famous Act, freeing the Press in India from all restric
tions. The previous history of Press regulations in India
is complicated and not very easy to summarize. The cen
sorship had been originally established by Lord WeUesley
in 1801, for mUitary reasons during the war with France.
A government official was charged with the duty of reading
all journals before publication, and striking out anything
he deemed inadvisable. This censorship was nominaUy
abolished by Lord Hastings seventeen years later — nominally,
because, though he did away with the name of an invidious
office, he issued a comprehensive set of rules, very strictly
limiting the topics with which Indian papers might deal,
and practically prohibiting all criticism of the Executive
under penalty of deportation from India. John Adam in
1823 sent back to England an editor who, in spite of having
received many warnings from Lord Hastings himself, had
infringed these restrictions. In the same year new regula
tions were made obliging every printer in Bengal to obtain
a licence before he could publish a newspaper ; four years
later a simUar rule was adopted in Bombay. These regula
tions remained in force tiU they were repealed by Metcalfe.
The governor-generalship was offered to Mountstuart
Elphinstone, but declined by hirn owing to feeble health.
The Tory government then nominated Lord Heytesbury,
formerly ambassador to St. Petersburg, but before he could
sail, the Ministry fell and the Whigs cancelled the appoint
ment — an action which naturally exposed them to a storm
of criticism. In an evil hour for India and Great Britain,
they entrusted the governor-generalship to Lord Auckland.
Metcalfe agreed to accept the lieutenant-governorship of

XXIV LORD W. BENTINCK AND INTERNAL REFORMS 309
the North-west Provinces, but found he had completely lost
the confidence of the Court of Directors, and, on being
passed over for the governorship of Madras, resigned the
service. The Directors thus allowed one of their ablest
servants to leave India. Metcalfe lived to earn further
distinction under the Crown ; he became successively
Governor of Jamaica in 1839, and Governor-General of
Canada in 1842. His later career will be found described
in other volumes of this series.

CHAPTER XXV
THE FIEST AFGHAN WAB. LOED AUCKLAND AND
LOED ELLENBOEOtTGH
With the accession of Lord Auckland to office the chief
centre of political interest shifts to the north-west frontier
of India, and it will be necessary briefly to sum up the
course of events in that quarter since the famous treaty with
Ranjit Singh in 1809. That treaty extended the British
sphere of influence in the form of protectorates over the
Rajputs and the Sikhs of Sirhind to the banks of the Sutlaj.
Beyond that river, Ranjit Singh had been left a free hand to
continue his career of conquest. The whole of the Punjab
soon acknowledged his sway. The army of the Khalsa,
originally composed almost entirely of horsemen armed with
matchlocks, was transformed mainly into infantry battaUons
and artillery brigades. Having subdued the other Sikh
chieftains Ranjit Singh came into collision with the eastern
outposts of Afghanistan. He seized Attock on the Indus,
took Multan in 1818, conquered Kashmir in 1819, and
during the next two years subdued the Derajat — the long
strip of plain country between the Indus and the hills. In
1822 he took into his service two of Napoleon's officers who
had fought at Waterloo, AUard and Ventura, and these men
with Court and Avitabile, who followed them, made the
Sikh armies a still more formidable fighting force. Though
twice defeated by the Afghans, Ranjit Singh ultimately
made himself master of Peshawar, and forced the Afghan
governor to pay hira tribute. He had now welded together
a corapact kingdom erabracing the Punjab and Kashmir

THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR 311
and running up on the north-west to the base of the Afghan
hiUs. The conquests of the Sikh chief drew the attention of
the Indian government to the north-west. They had long
desired to obtain some influence in the valley of the Indus,
and in 1831 Captain Alexander Burnes, a brUliant young
linguist and traveller, under the thinly veiled pretext of con
veying a present of English cart-horses to Ranjit Singh from
Lord Ellenborough, President ofthe Board of Control, was
sent up the Indus and the Chenab to Lahore. Later in the
year Lord William Bentinck, conquering for political reasons
his innate dislike of pageantry, met Ranjit Singh in great
state on the banks of the Sutlaj, and renewed the treaty of
alliance. Beyond the north-western frontier of the Sikh dominions
lay Afghanistan, a bleak tableland sloping gently frora north
east to south-west, intersected by deep ravines and surrounded
by steep mountain ranges. It contained three important
cities — Kabul, nearly 6,000 feet above sea-level, in the north
east, Kandahar in the south-east, and Herat to the north
west. The political state of Afghanistan had long been one
of anarchy. It is impossible here to unravel the tangled
skein of intrigue and dynastic revolution. In 1836 Shah
Shuja Abdali or Durrani, the Amir, to whom Lord Minto
had sent Mountstuart Elphinstone in 1809, was living at
Ludhiana, a pensioner of the British government. Dost
Muhammad of the Barakzai clan was established at Kabul,
and three of his brothers, who hardly pretended to acknow
ledge his authority, were lords of Kandahar. Herat was
still ruled by a prince of the Durrani dynasty which Dost
Muhammad had displaced in Kabul. Afghanistan was
beset on the east by the Sikhs, and on the north and west by
Persia. Just as Ranjit Singh, debarred by Lord Minto's
Treaty of 1809 from expansion eastwards, was eager for
aggrandizement at the expense of his northern neighbours,

312 HISTORICAL (GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
so the Shah of Persia, who had been forced to yield part of
his northern territory to the Russians, was determined, if
possible, to compensate himself towards the south-east.
Afghanistan seemed thus in imminent danger of being
squeezed out of existence between the two powers. In
7833 Shah Shuja had sought alliance with Ranjit Singh in
an abortive attempt to recover his throne, and the Sikh
raonarch had seized the opportunity to occupy Peshawar.
Four years later the Persian armies, trained and officered by
Russians, were gathering round the walls of Herat.
The Afghan policy of Lord Auckland has met with prac
tically universal condemnation at the hands of historians,
and every re-reading ofthe evidence deepens and strengthens
the conviction that the war was politically one of the most
disastrous, and, morally, one of the least justifiable ever
waged by the British in India. Of that verdict there can
be no reversal. Yet it is at least possible to recognize that
there were many difficulties confronting Lord Auckland in
1837. It is far easier to understand how the poHcy was
initiated than to conceive why it was persisted in, when
many of these difficulties had solved themselves, and every
voice of weight and experience was raised in protest against
it. The chief motive in the whole business was perhaps
the dread of Russian influence in Asia. AVe have seen that
by the Treaty of Teheran, concluded in 1809 and revised in
1 8 14, Great Britain had agreed to help Persia with men or
money against any European invader. The only result of
that not very prudent engagement was to place us in an
embarrassing and slightly ridiculous position. When Persia
and Russia were at war in 1826 the Shah appealed to his
ally, and the folly of contracting such obligations to a
distant central Asian power was at once apparent. The
British lamely excused themselves from rendering aid on
the plea that the Persians were the aggressors, though it
was perfectly clear that they had only declared war after

xxv THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR 313
frequent and repeated provocation from the Russians.
When the war was over and the Persians severely defeated,
the British government attempted to salve their political
conscience by paying their ally a large indemnity to cancel
the clause in the treaty of 18 14 which bound them to aid
Persia. This not very impressive stampede from their treaty obliga
tions left British statesmen with an uneasy sense of danger
from Russian power, which indeed during the preceding
fifty years had grown at an amazing rate. McNeill, British
Minister to Persia in 1836, pointed out that a Russian regi
ment ' at her farthest frontier post, on the western shore of
the Caspian, has as great a distance to march back to
Moscow as onward to Attock on the Indus, and is actually
farther from St. Petersburg than from Lahore, the capital of
the Sikhs '. With excessive political prevision, EngHshmen
looked forward to the time when the Russian frontier should
be conterrainous with our own on the north-western frontier.
They hardly seem to have realized that these vast distances
were as much a source of weakness as an evidence of
strength. Russia's outposts were still at least a thousand
miles away from the Indian boundary and a corresponding
distance from their base. The alarm of the rainistry seems
now excessive, for we appreciate better the difficulties of the
approach from central Asia to the north-western ramparts of
India. But it was at any rate obvious that Russian agents
were encouraging the Persian advance on Afghanistan, and
it was considered prudent to check this advance as far frora
the British frontier as possible.
Dost Muharamad was eager for an alHance with the
British government. The chief difficulty in the way of
accepting his proposal was that he made it a condition of
his friendship that British diplomacy should be exerted to
prevail on Ranjit Singh to restore Peshawar to him. Now
Lord Auckland was undoubtedly right in deciding at all

314 Historical geography of india chap.
hazards to retain the friendship of the Sikh ruler, who was
one of the most remarkable characters in Indian history.
lUiterate, a drunkard, cruel, despotic, and unscrupulous, he
realized, as no other eastern potentate ever did, the value to
himself of our friendship, and he was absolutely loyal to his
treaty obligations. It was certainly not worth whUe to
jeopardize that alliance for the support of Dost Muhammad,
who, though an able ruler and, as events were to prove,
really desirous of a treaty with the British, was less known
to us at the time. As it happened, the difficulty was by no
means as formidable as it appeared : Burnes himself con
sidered, and many others have since held, that the Peshawar
question could have been solved by diplomatic treatment,
and that it would have been perfectly possible to win the
friendship of Dost Muhammad, of whose abUity he warned
Lord Auckland, without losing that of Ranjit Singh.
Were that idea abandoned, the wise course would now
seem to have been to withdraw from all interference with
Afghanistan, leaving Dost Muhammad to defend himself,
rest the British line of defence on the Sutlaj, and support
Ranjit Singh, if possible, with men and money against all
aggressors. Then, before the Persian and Russian armies
could have reached our frontier, they would first have had"
to conquer and traverse the terrible plateau of Afghanistan
and defeat the powerful army of the Khalsa trained and led
by Napoleon's generals. It is only fair, however, to note that
one objection to this policy was that there was a deeply
ingrained conviction in the minds of all politicians of the
day that the mere fall of Herat, both for political and
geographical reasons, would irretrievably damage British
prestige in India itself ' Near Herat ', says Sir T. H.
Holdich, ' there exists the only break in the otherwise con
tinuous and formidable wall of mountains which traverse
Asia from the Bering Strait to the Caspian Sea. Near
Herat it is possible to pass from the Russian outposts . . .

xxv THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR 315
to India without encountering any formidable altitude — and
this is possible nowhere else.' '
Before describing Lord Auckland's own policy, it is
necessary to narrate briefly the course of events. Immedi
ately on his arrival in India, Dost Muhammad appealed to
him for support against Persia and Ranjit Singh, and received
an answer to the effect that it was not the practice of the
British govemment to interfere in the affairs of other inde
pendent states. Dost Muhammad either at the same time
or soon after made overtures to Persia and Russia, probably
with the idea only of exerting diplomatic pressure on the
British. But Lord Auckland, in spite of his pretence of
non-interference, could not bring himself to let Dost
Muhammad go his own way.
Captain Burnes was sent to Kabul, nominally on a com
mercial mission. The Persians, with Russian support, were
already marching on Herat, and two months after Burnes's
arrival in Kabul the siege began. Had the town fallen, the
seriousness of the position as regards Afghanistan would
have been intensified a thousand times. But a young British
officer, Eldred Pottinger, who was travelling in Afghanistan,
entered the town disguised as a Muhararaadan devotee, and
organized a gallant defence.
Two raonths after Burnes's arrival a Russian emissary
entered Kabul, but for a time Dost Muhammad kept him
at arm's length. It was quite obvious that the Amir would
have preferred an English to a Russian alliance, and
Burnes himself wrote to Lord Auckland that it was a pity
we could not act with him. But the Governor-General and
his advisers seem to have conceived a most unreasonable
prejudice against this able ruler. They required him in a
supercilious dispatch to break with Russia, but would not
engage to protect him from the result of such an action,
promising merely to use their good offices with Ranjit Singh
' The Imperial Gazetteer of India, vol. i, p. 14.

3i6 historical geography of INDIA chap.
for the restoration of Peshawar. Dost Muhammad naturally
swung over to the Russo-Persian side. The Russian envoy,
hitherto treated with coolness, was received with marked
favour, and Bumes left Kabul five days later.
Then Lord Auckland took the fatal plunge. He deter
mined, with the aid of Ranjit Singh, 'the old man of
Lahore ', to depose Dost Muhammad, and place once more
upon the throne Shah Shuja, the discredited pensionary of
Ludhiana, who had failed in an attempt to recover his
kingdom only four years before. In this he acted without
consulting his CouncU, against the advice of his Commander-
in-Chief, and in opposition to the Board of Directors. The
ministry in England must share the blame, for a letter from
Sir John Hobhouse, President of the Board of Control,
approving of the policy, crossed the dispatch of the Governor-
General announcing its adoption. Macnaghten, secretary to
the government, a man of the highest intellectual attainments,
like Biirnes a brilliant linguist and a high authority on Indian
law, was sent to Lahore, and the faraous Tripartite Treaty
between the Sikhs, Shah Shuja, and the East India Company
was signed June 26, 1838. The treaty itself laid no obliga
tion on the British even to cross the Indus. Auckland's
first idea was to make a demonstration in force at Shikarpur,
while Shah Shuja was replaced on his throne by his own
adherents and his Sikh allies. It was soon ascertained,
however, that unless he received more effective help he
would never be restored at all. AVhen Macnaghten returned
from Lahore he found that the Govemor-General had already
comraitted himself to an invasion of Afghanistan. The objec
tions to this policy were in truth overwhelming. It was
morally unjustifiable. However much it might be opposed
to British interests. Dost Muhammad had a perfect right as
an independent sovereign to ally himself with Persia or
Russia. It was politically inexpedient, for Dost Muhammad
was an able ruler and had won the rarely yielded allegiance

xxv the first AFGHAN WAR 317
of his Afghan subjects. Though Shah Shuja was by no
means lacking in capacity, his career had been one long
faUure. Expelled from the throne in 1809, his two attempts
to return had ended in complete disaster. He was distrusted
and disliked in Afghanistan, and his cause there never aroused
one spark of enthusiasm. It was proposed, too, by an amazing
perverseness to make him ruler over a fanatical Muhammadan
people by the aid of Hindu Sikhs, between whom and his
future subjects there had raged, only five years before,
di jehad or holy war. Every one whose judgement was worth
anything condemned the policy. Bentinck, Elphinstone,
Wellesley were unanimous against it, and the Duke of
Wellington in prophetic words declared that the consequence
of crossing the Indus to settle a government in Afghanistan
would be a 'perennial march into that country'. Finally,
even such poor excuse as the framers of the policy originally
had was swept away by the course of events before they
were finally committed to it. The Russian government,
under pressure from London, disowned and recalled its
agents. Their emissary at Kabul returned to St. Petersburg
and shot himself in chagrin and despair. The Shah of
Persia, alarmed by a British expedition to Karrack in the
Persian Gulf, raised the siege of Herat September 9, 1838,
and withdrew to his own country. The danger from Russian
intrigues had thus completely passed away, and a golden
bridge was built for a retreat from an untenable position.
But the Governor-General and his supporters were now
infatuated with their scheme, and talked glibly of the pro
posed invasion of one of the most difficult countries in the
world for military operations as a promenade militaire. On
October i, 1858, Lord Auckland issued a minute justifying
his poHcy, in which, according to the severe but not un
merited verdict of Sir Herbert Edwardes, ' the views and con
duct of Dost Muhammad Khan were misrepresented with
a hardihood which a Russian statesman might have envied'.

3l8 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
The history of the campaign must be briefly told. The
' Army of the Indus ' mobilized at Ferozepore. Ranjit Singh
objected to the passage of the British force through his
territories. It was therefore decided that the Sikh expedi
tion, accompanied by Shah Shuja's son, should invade
Afghanistan from the Punjab through the Khyber Pass,
whUe the main British army under Sir John Keane and
Sir Willoughby Cotton, accompanied by Shah Shuja himself,
entered by the Bolan Pass after traversing Sind. Macnaghten,
as envoy and minister to Shah Shuja's court, had political
charge of the expedition with Captain, now Sir Alexander,
Burnes, as his chief lieutenant. One political crime leads
inevitably to others, and the passage through Sind was in
flagrant violation of a treaty lately made with the Amirs of
that country, but our relations with those unfortunate chief
tains will be dealt with later. After much difficulty and loss
of baggage animals through the faUure of fodder, the army
emerged from the Bolan Pass in March. Kandahar was
occupied in April, and Ghazni taken by storm in July.
Dost Muhammad evacuated Kabul, and in August 1839
Shah Shuja was triumphantly conducted into his capital.
So far success had attended the expedition, and a shower
of honours fell upon the civil and military services. Auckland
received an earldom. Sir John Keane, the Commander-in-
Chief, a peerage, and Macnaghten a baronetcy. But this
fair prospect was soon overclouded. Ranjit Singh died in
June, before the object of the expedition was attained. It
was only his iron hand and strong personality that had kept
the Sikh misls united, and his death seriously endangered
the British communications, for the Sikhs were soon in a
state of disaffection. Later in the same year (November)
the complete failure of a Russian expedition to Khiva showed
how exaggerated had been the dread of Russia that inspired
the policy of the war.
It soon became apparent that Shah Shuja depended

xxv THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR 3I9
entirely on the support of British bayonets. The mere fact
that he was imposed on the country from outside had
alienated all popular support. The cost of the English
army of occupation was excessive, and a serious dilemma
presented itself. The British must either withdraw, when
Shah Shuja's power would collapse like a house of cards,
or, if he were to be maintained upon his throne, they must
remain permanently in the country at a ruinous cost to the
Indian treasury. So hostile was the feeling of the people
that it was found impossible to evacuate the country, even
after Dost Muhammad had surrendered himself in 1840
and been sent an honoured prisoner to Calcutta.
Probably the best way out of a bad business would have
been to withdraw with Shah Shuja on the ground that he
was found unacceptable to his subjects; but this would
have been tantamount to a confession that the whole policy
was a failure. The result was the adoption of an unfortunate
half-way course. It was decided for the time to leave the
troops quartered in Afghanistan, and to economize as much
as possible by cutting down the stipends paid to the chiefs
of eastern Afghanistan by the government to maintain com
munications with India. The natural result followed that
the chiefs became contumacious and closed the passes.
Constant outbreaks all over the country showed that the
situation was growing rapidly worse. The loose morals of
some of the British officers quartered at Kabul stirred up
a fierce and abiding resentment in the minds of the towns
men. Two fatal mistakes were coraraitted by the British : the
first was the appointraent of General Elphinstone, a brave
but old and incapable officer in bad health, to the command
of the troops in Kabul. For this most calamitous step Lord
Auckland was directly responsible, for he acted in opposition
to the advice of the Commander-in-Chief, who wished to
appoint General Nott, the coraraander at Kandahar, a
vigorous soldier. Secondly, by an act of supreme folly, the

320 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
palace-citadel of Kabul known as the Bala Hissar was given
up to Shah Shuja for his seraglio, and the troops were
cantoned in a plain exposed to attack on every side and
separated from their provisions and stores. By the autumn
of 1 84 1 the country was seething with rebeUion and intrigue,
but the leaders remained blind to what was patent to many
of their subordinates. The fertUe brain of Macnaghten had
been busy with schemes to acquire Herat and even to send
expeditions against the Sikhs. In November he was pre
paring to leave Afghanistan to take up the government of
Bombay, and Bumes, who was to succeed him as envoy at
Kabul, congratulated hira on leaving the country ' in a state
of profound tranquillity'. The next day Burnes's house
was surrounded by a howling mob, and he was dragged out
and cut to pieces, while the British forces a mile and a half
away, under the inefficient leadership of Elphinstone, made
no attempt to interfere till too late. Then follows a miserable
and almost incredible record of British incapacity and Afghan
treachery. The military leaders were at variance with each
other pnd with Macnaghten. Appeals were sent to General
Sale at Gandamak and General Nott at Kandahar to come to
the rescue. But Sale, finding he had not sufficient transport,
preferred to fall back on Jalalabad to keep open communica
tions with India, and Nott declared, with apparently good
reason, that the march to Kabul through the snow was
impossible. The British force abandoned at Kabul com
mitted every conceivable blunder. Elphinstone allowed
his stores to be captured without striking a blow, and
Macnaghten, fearing starvation, concluded a humiliating
treaty on December 1 1 . He engaged that the British
should evacuate Afghanistan, that Dost Muhammad should
be set free, and Shah Shuja be given the choice of accom
panying the British or remaining in Afghanistan with a
pension. Akbar Khan, son of Dost Muhammad, was to
escort the army to the frontiers. A few days later Mac-

xxv THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR 321
naghten, distrusting Akbar Khan, was drawn into some
questionable negotiations with rival chiefs. He was betrayed
by them, enticed to an interview with Akbar Khan, and
assassinated. In spite of this a renewed treaty for withdrawal was made
with the Afghan chiefs, though Major Eldred Pottinger
earnestly pleaded that all negotiations with them should be
abandoned, and that the array should either seize the Bala
Hissar and hold out tUl succour came, or cut their way
through, sword in hand, to Jalalabad where Sale was gallantly
holding out. But neither of these, the only possible or even
honourable courses, was adopted. On January 6, after giving
up many of their stores and guns, the British forces and
camp followers, in all 16,000 men, began their retreat,
relying on the assistance of Akbar Khan, who proved quite
unwUling or unable to protect them from the attacks of the
Ghilzais and other tribesmen who swarmed round the line
of route. From the beginning there was a complete failure
to take the most ordinary precautions to maintain order or
discipline. The generals lost their heads and the troops
their moral. After a time the women and chUdren and
raany of the ofificers, including Pottinger and Elphinstone
hiraself, were surrendered as hostages to Akbar Khan. The
rest struggled on in misery and privation through snow
storms and a constant hail of bullets. The retreat becarae
a rout, the rout a massacre. No pen can do justice to the
ghastly horrors of the final struggle. The last despairing
stand was made at the Pass of Jagdalak, when twelve officers
laid down their lives. One man, Dr. Brydon, half dead with
wounds and exhaustion, staggered into Jalalabad — with the
exception of about 120 prisoners in the hands of Akbar
Khan, the sole survivor of 1 6,000 men who had set out
from Kabul a week before.
It is not surprising that Lord Auckland, the man mainly
responsible, was shattered and unnerved by this appalling

322 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
calamity. He steeled himself to speak of it in a proclama
tion as a ' partial reverse ', and as affording ' a new occasion
for displaying the stability and vigour of the British power ' ;
but in fact he could only suggest the withdrawal of Sale to
Peshawar. His subordinates did what they could for the
restoration of British prestige. The first relief force under
Wyld, after entering the Khyber and capturing the fort of
Ali Musjid, was forced to fall back. General Pollock, an
able officer, was sent to Peshawar, but had not started on
his quest to relieve Jalalabad when Auckland laid down the
reins of office. Lord Ellenborough, the new Governor-
General, came to India with a considerable reputation, and
was undoubtedly a rauch abler man than his predecessor.
As President of the Board of Control, an office he held
on three occasions, he had shown vigour and decision of
character. He was a ready and eloquent speaker of a some
what florid type, self-confident, impulsive, and rather head
strong, so that even his friend the Duke of Wellington
found it necessary to warn him of the need of ' caution and
temper '.
As soon as he arrived in India he announced that the
British government would no longer ' perU its arraies, and
with its armies the Indian Empire ', to support the Tripartite
Treaty. Its aim rather was now to save the troops in
Afghanistan and inflict ' some signal and decisive blow ' on
the enemy. But within a month the defeat of General
England at Hakalzai and Palmer's surrender of Ghazni
caused him to falter in his resolution. Impulsively he
deterrained on iraraediate evacuation without any attempt
at reprisals or even the rescue of the prisoners still in
the hands of the Afghans. Nott was ordered to abandon
Kandahar, Pollock to withdraw to Peshawar. The order
feU upon the army, as Outram said, 'like a thunderclap',
for the position in Afghanistan had greatly improved.
Pollock had marched through the Khyber on April 5, the

xxv THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR 323
same day on which the wretched Shah Shuja fell by the
hand of an assassin ; he reached Jalalabad ten days later to
find that the ' illustrious garrison ', as Ellenborough named
it, had already saUied forth and defeated the besieging army
in a pitched battle, whUe Nott had raore than held his own
at Kandahar. Neither Pollock nor Nott made any move
ment to obey the order for retirement, but pleaded lack of
transport as a pretext for delay. In India there was an
outburst of indignation, and Ellenborough saw he had raade
a mistake. Too much has perhaps been made of an error
of judgement on the part of a Governor-General who had to
decide a most difficult question before he had been a month
in the country or had mastered the facts. But Ellenborough
had ostentatiously refused to listen to the advice of experts,
and he made things worse by his ill-advised endeavours to
reverse the order while maintaining a verbal consistency. In
July he repeated the order for a withdrawal frora Afghanistan,
but suggested to Nott that if he considered it feasible he was
to ' retreat ' to India, not by the Bolan Pass, but by Ghazni
and Kabul through the Khyber, while Pollock was given
leave to co-operate with him. A glance at the map reveals
the rather puerile equivocation of the Governor-General's
phraseology, and his critics were quick to note that the
responsibility of making the decision was ungenerously
thrown upon the shoulders of the generals. They, however,
were glad enough to bear it. Pollock marched out of
Jalalabad on August 20, defeated the Afghans at Jagdalak
and Tezin, and planted the British flag once more on the
Bala Hissar on September 16. The next day he was joined
by Nott, who on his route had destroyed the fortifications
at Ghazni, and brought away by Ellenborough's express
orders the gates of the tomb of Mahmud of Ghazni which
the conqueror was supposed to have carried off" from the
famous temple of Somnath in Gujarat in a. d. 1024. The
European prisoners, who had been hurried by their guards

324 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA
frora place to place, were rescued : by an inexcusable act of
vandalisra the great Bazaar of Kabul was blown up, and the
city, after being sacked, was evacuated on October 12. The
Governor-General met the returning troops in a great camp
at Ferozepore with triumphal arches and histrionic paeans
of victory. In a bombastic proclamation he announced to
the Princes of India that 'our victorious army bears the
gates of the temple of Somnath in triumph from Afghanistan
and the despoUed torab of Mahraud looks on the ruins of
Ghazni. The insult of 800 years is avenged'. But the
Muhammadans were only offended by this amazing fustian,
and the Hindus had forgotten their ancient history, while
antiquarians unkindly pointed out that the gates were much
later in date than the eleventh century. In the end ' this
glorious trophy of successful war', to quote the famous
proclamation, was consigned to a lumber-room in the fort
at Agra, and the British in India were left with the
exasperating conviction that the Governor-General had only
made himself and thera slightly ridiculous in the eyes of
the world. Dost Muhararaad was released, and, raaking his
way back to Afghanistan, soon re-established his power.
His subsequent career was destined to show how futile had
been the sacrifice of 20,000 lives and the waste of fifteen
millions sterling.

CHAPTER XXVI
THE ANNEXATION OF SIND UNDEB LOED ELLEN-
BOEOUGH
The conquest of Sind followed in the wake of the Afghan
war and was raorally and politically its sequel.
Sind is the name given to the country lying on both sides
of the Indus south of the Punjab and extending to the sea.
The river gives it Hfe and fertUity, but it is surrounded on
both sides to the east and west by barren and arid deserts.
Sind had successively acknowledged the sway of the Mughals,
made submission to Persia under Nadir Shah, and after his
death owed for a time allegiance to Afghanistan.
Since the end of the eighteenth century the country was
ruled by a number of chieftains or Amirs, of the Talpura
tribe, coraing originally frora Baluchistan. The most impor
tant were seated at Khaipur, Mirpur, and Hyderabad ; and
the first of these claimed a vague suzerainty over the
others. The British in India had for many years looked with
longing eyes on the Indus river, but an early factory estab
Hshed at Tatta had been abandoned. A treaty was made
with the Arairs in 1809 (renewed in 1820) that they should
not permit any settleraent of ' the tribe of the French ' in
their country. But Sind reraained practically unexplored by
Europeans till Burnes in 1831, as already mentioned, made
his way up the Indus on his passage to Lahore. ' Alas ',
said a Seiad, ' Sind is now gone since the English have
seen the river '. The foreboding proved all too true. In
1 83 1 Ranjit Singh proposed to Lord William Bentinck the

326 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
partition of Sind between hiraself and the Company; a sug
gestion which the Governor-General of course refused even
to discuss. Instead, in 1832, the Amirs very reluctantly
agreed to a treaty (renewed in 1834) that the rivers and
roads of Sind should be open to 'the merchants and
traders ' of Hindustan, but that no armed vessels or military
stores should pass through the country. Another article,
which showed the vivid fear of British absorption felt by
the Arairs, ran, 'that the two contracting parties bound
themselves never to look with the eye of covetousness on
the possessions of each other '.
During the years 1834 to 1836 Ranjit Singh was again
contemplating the conquest of Sind, which obviously lay at
his mercy. The Indian government practically took the
Amirs under its protection by warning the Sikh ruler that
he could not be aUowed to seize the country. In return
for this service the British considered, perhaps fairly, that
they had a right to make conditions with the Amirs favour
able to themselves, and they wrested a very reluctant consent
from thera in 1838 to the adraission of a British Resident
at Hyderabad. Unfortunately they did not stop there :
under Auckland and his cabinet of secretaries British policy
in India had fallen to a lower level of unscrupulousness
than ever before ; and the plain fact is that the treatraent of
Sind frora this time onward, however expedient politically,
was moraUy indefensible.
On the outbreak of the Afghan war it was deterrained, in
flagrant violation of the treaty of 1832, that the British forces
should raarch through Sind. The Indian government appear
to have held that they could legally amend a treaty by the
formal announcement to the weaker party that they intended
to violate one of its provisions. Accordingly the Amirs were
informed that ' whUe the present exigency lasts . . . the
article of the treaty prohibiting the use of the Indus for
the conveyance of military stores must necessarUy be

XXVI THE ANNEXATION OF SIND 327
suspended '. Further, a demand was made for a large sura
in commutation of Shah Shuja's claims for tribute, which the
Amirs had naturally ceased to pay during his thirty years
exUe from Kabul. Upon this the Amirs produced signed
and sealed releases from all further claims given them by
Shah Shuja himself in 1833. ' How this is to be got over ',
said the British Resident, ' I do not myself see ' ; but Auck
land was not so easily baffled ; the money was exacted and
the unfortunate Arairs under threat of an advance upon
Hyderabad were forced to enter into a new treaty in February
1839, by which they were required to pay three lakhs a year
for a subsidiary force to be kept in their country ; they were
also inforraed that ' neither the ready power to crush and
annihilate thera nor the will to call it into action were
wanting, if it appeared requisite however remotely for the
safety and integrity of the Anglo-Indian Empire or frontier '.
Such a brutal assertion of the doctrine that raight is right
is, fortunately for our national credit, unique in the annals
of British adrainistration in India. Even this treaty, how
ever, after being accepted by the Arairs, was arbitrarUy
revised by Auckland and his advisers in their own favour,
and returned to the Sind chieftains for signature, who
' objected, implored, and finally gave way '.'
During the Afghan war Sind was the British base of
operations both for the original invasion and the reconquest
of the country. The Amirs on the whole faithfully kept
their agreements with us, and the fearful disasters that fell
upon our army did not tempt them to any acts of hostility.
Certain vague charges of disaffection were however made,
based on evidence now generally recognized to have been
unsatisfactory. Even if true, it would have been in accor
dance with the traditions of British rule in India to condone
them, for the Amirs had received considerable provocation,
' The History of the British Empire in India. By Edward
Thornton, vol. vi, p. 411.

328 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
and Lord Ellenborough himself declared that it was irapos
sible to believe they could entertain friendly feelings towards
us. Unfortunately, the settleraent was not left 'to Outram,
the Resident at Hyderabad, who thoroughly knew the Amirs
and was personaUy liked by them, but to Sir Charles Napier,
who was sent to Sind with full civil and miHtary powers in
September 1842. Napier was a brilliant general, happily
combining the virtues of daring and caution, but he was
impulsive, hot-headed, and extremely combative. He
promptly announced to the Amirs that he considered the
charges made against them had been substantiated and
that he was authorized to revise the subsidiary treaty of
1839. The new terms submitted, or rather forced upon
them, were that cessions of territory should be made in
place of the tribute of three lakhs to maintain the subsidiary
force, that the Amirs should provide fuel for British steamers
navigating the Indus and should cease to exercise the
privilege of coining. Money was henceforward to be issued
by the British government and to bear on one side the
' effigy of the sovereign of England '. This last provision
was naturally looked upon by the Amirs as a complete
surrender of their national rights, and it is probable enough
that from this time onward they only prolonged negotiations
with a view to taking up arms at a favourable time. Before,
however, the Amirs had accepted the treaty, Napier seques
trated the territory in question, and by his proclamations
acted as though Sind had passed under his jurisdiction.
To intimidate the Amirs, he took the amazing course of
marching, without any declaration of war, upon Imangarh,
a famous desert fortress, and razing it to the ground. The
Amirs were induced by Outram to sign the treaties lest
worse should befall them. They did so, but earnestly
warned him to leave Hyderabad, as they would not be
answerable for the temper of their countrymen. Their
warning was fulfilled three days later, when a fierce mob

XXVI THE ANNEXATION OF SIND 329
attacked the Residency and compelled Outram after a
gaUant defence to take refuge on a steamer. Open war
now ensued, and on February 1 7, at Miani, Napier by bril
liant generalship utterly defeated an army of 30,000 men
with a force of less than 3,000, inflicting on them a loss of
5,000 in killed and wounded. Hyderabad fell, and a
month later another victory was won at Daba over the Amir
of Khaipur. Though there was still fighting to be done, the
war was now practically over. No one has ever successfully
defended on moral grounds British policy in regard to Sind.
It is difficult to believe, as Mr. Innes says, 'that the case
for annexation was not more or less deliberately manu
factured'.' An able and ambitious general, eager for dis
tinction, and impatiently believing that the undoubted
benefits of British rule justified almost any means of
extending it, brought the rough-hewn ready-made solution
of the soldier to bear on an intricate administrative problem.
He was allowed to dictate the policy and was supported by
the Governor-General against the high authority and con
sidered protests of one of the most capable and best
informed of the Company's servants. Sir James Outram
remonstrated against the whole business as unjustifiable,
and refused to touch a single rupee of the plunder of
Hyderabad, which brought Sir Charles Napier £70,000.
The Court of Directors condemned the policy, and Sir John
Hobhouse, President of the Board of Control, afterwards
declared that EUenborough himself would not have given
his approval had he known all the facts. Nor indeed is
there need to seek laboriously for an ethical justification,
since the author of the policy cynically abandoned the
defensive position. Sir Charles Napier only saw that the
government of the Amirs was weak and inefficient. He
conscientiously believed that British adrainistration would
confer incalculable blessings on the country and was really
' A Short History ofthe British in India. By A. D. Innes.

33° HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
indifferent how many legal, technical, and even moral
considerations he swept away in benefiting the people of
Sind against their will. He was gifted with a grim humour
which disdained to employ political euphemisms for this
drastic benevolence. Besides his sardonic pun in announc
ing his victory to Ellenborough ('peccavi', i.e. 'I have Sind'),
we have the admissions in his Diary, ' We have no right to
seize Sind, yet we shall do so, and a very advantageous,
useful, humane piece of rascality it wiU be. . . . My present
position is not however to my liking : we had no right to
come here, and are tarred with the Afghan brush.' ' Sind
was annexed in August 1843 and the Amirs were sent into
exile. The country was pacified and settled by Sir Charles
Napier, who in this field for his talents displayed an energy
and abiHty that were altogether admirable.
Ellenborough's action in Gwalior, though it did not err
on the side of indulgence to the susceptibUities of a feuda
tory chief, is far more capable of justification. At least
there he sought no territory and was confronted with a
grave menace to British sovereignty. At the end of the
Maratha war of 18 18, Sindhia had been left the most
powerful of the Maratha chiefs ; he possessed from that
time the only really formidable native array south of the
Sutlaj. Daulat Rao Sindhia had died in 1827, and in 1843
a minor was on the throne ; the Regent, approved by Lord
Ellenborough, was disraissed from office by the youthful
widow of the late ruler, and a characteristic scene of intrigue
and counter-intrigue followed, which seemed only too likely
to end in civil war. The great danger lay in the condition
of the army ; it consisted of over 40,000 men, a force far
too large for the needs of a feudatory state, and in the strife
of factions its influence was plainly increasing and becoming
predominant in the govemment. Formidable as it was,
' The Life and Opinions of General Sir C. J. Napier. Ed. by
Sir W. Napier, vol. ii, pp. 218, 290.

XXVI THE ANNEXATION OF SIND 331
Ellenborough would not have interfered had he not clearly
foreseen that a Sikh war was imminent. In September 1843
the Sikh Maharaja was assassinated. Palace revolutions
quickly followed ; there too the army of the Khalsa was
obviously calling the policy of the state, and was on the
verge of an outbreak. Ellenborough decided that he could
not run the risk of these two disorderly armies fraternizing
in the future. He proclairaed that the Company could not
permit ' the existence within the territories of Sindhia of an
unfriendly government nor that those territories should be
without a government wUling and able to maintain order '.
The British, who had held themselves so lightly bound by
treaty obligations in the business of Sind, suddenly developed
an extreme punctiliousness even in regard to obsolete con
ventions. Ellenborough unexpectedly appealed to Lord
Wellesley's treaty with Sindhia of 1804 establishing a
subsidiary force, which had remained a dead letter from
the day it was signed and been ignored in subsequent
diplomatic relations. Two British armies advanced on the
Charabal, though Ellenborough assumed that peaceful
negotiations could still settle the question at issue. But
the Gwalior army took matters into its own hands. It
prevented a meeting between the Governor-General and the
rulers of the state, and fought two battles with the British
forces on December 29, 1843. At Maharajpur, north
of Gwalior, Sir Hugh Gough, not anticipating resistance,
came upon the enemy unexpectedly. There was no room
for generalship, but by sheer hard fighting the victory was
won. The enemy lost 3,000 killed and wounded, but the
British losses also were severe, amounting to 797 ; on the
same day a second and less costly victory was won by
General Grey at Paniar.
The results were important. For though the dominions
of Sindhia were left entire, Gwalior was now definitely made
a protected state, and as the ruler at the time was a minor.

332 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA
this practically meant that for the next ten years the country
was under British adrainistration, the native council of
regency being bound to follow the advice of the Resident.
The army, thoroughly cowed by its two severe defeats, was
cut down to 9,000 men, and a British contingent of 10,000
was enlisted. Thus by Lord Ellenborough's foresight all
danger of a union between disaffected armies from GwaUor
and Lahore was at an end. Strangely enough, in the days
of the Mutiny, while Sindhia and the native army under the
guidance of his famous minister Dinkar Rao remained
loyal, the British contingent mutinied, murdered its officers,
and inflicted a severe defeat on General Windham at
Cawnpore in November 1857. Lord Ellenborough return
ing in triumph to Calcutta was astounded to receive the
news that the Directors, exercising their constitutional right
for the first time, had ordered his recall. They thoroughly
distrusted his erratic genius : the tone of his dispatches had
offended them : they most justly disapproved of the poHcy
in Sind, and they accused him of systematically subor
dinating the interests of the civil to those of the military
service. On his return he was elevated to an earldom.

CHAPTER XXVII
THE FIEST AND SECOND SIKH WABS AND THE
CONQUEST OP THE BUNJAB. LOED HABDINGB
AND LOBD DALHOUSIE
Lord Ellenborough, who could at least take long views,
had foreseen that a Sikh war was inevitable in the near
future, and the Directors, though they did not desire that
he should wage it, probably recognized that hostilities could
not long be postponed, for on the suggestion of the Duke
of Wellington they appointed to succeed him Sir Henry
Hardinge, a Peninsular veteran in his sixtieth year.
Since the death of Ranjit Singh in June 1839, the state
of the Punjab had been one of chronic revolution ; all real
power was in the hands of the Khalsa army, which over
awed the nominal rulers at Lahore through its delegates
the Panchayats or Committees of five, who somewhat
resembled the 'Agitators' of the Roundhead army in the
English Civil War. A disraal series of revolutions and
assassinations followed, the array in tum setting up and
deposing those members of the royal house who bid
highest for its favour. So helpless were these puppet
princes that in 1841 Sher Singh, who was then seated on
the unsteady Sikh throne, implored the help of Lord
Auckland against his seditious soldiery. Rajas and minis
ters were murdered in quick succession. The army even
drove away over the frontier Court and Avitabile, the
European captains who had given therri their wonderful
coherence and discipline. Finally, in 1845, the army
acknowledged the clairas of Dulip Singh, a reputed son of

334 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA
their great chieftain, a child of five, whose mother the Rani,
an able, intriguing, and licentious woman — the Messalina of
the North, as Hardinge called her — acted nominally as
regent, aided by her favourite minister and paramour, LaU
Singh. Though she courted and fawned upon the army,
she dreaded its absolute and capricious power, and found
her only hope of security in urging it on to challenge
British supremacy. Either it would spend its superabun
dant energies in a career of conquest and the sovereignty
of Hindustan would pass to the Sikhs, or it would be
shattered in the conflict and she could then make her own
peace with the offended British nation. Her position could
hardly be worse and might conceivably be bettered. This —
. the main feature of the first Sikh war — must constantly be
borne in mind. The leaders were half-hearted or even
treacherous, fearing victory alraost as much as defeat. We
were fighting against a fine army without a general, or, at
any rate, without one supreme controlling mind.
On Deceraber 13, 1845, the Sikhs began to cross the
Sutlaj. The British commander at Ferozepore made no
attempt to dispute the passage, for which at that particular
time and place we were inevitably to some extent unprepared.
This involves no reflection on British policy. For some
years, through the foresight of Ellenborough and Hardinge
the frontier had been quietly and gradually strengthened,
the army being increased to 40,000 men and 100 guns.
Even as it was, some critics were found to aver that the
massing and movements of these troops had provoked the
war ; and yet, had less been done, the opposite accusation
of negligence would have been loudly made. To such
a dilemma statesmen are always liable to be exposed, when
a war long foreshadowed finally breaks out. Strategic
counsels of perfection must sometimes be relaxed for
political reasons. It was undoubtedly worth while to take
some risks and so avoid jeopardizing all chances of peace ;

RANJIT SINGH'S
DOMINIONS . IN 1839.
THE SIKH CAMPAIGNS
1846, 1849.
Statute Miles
0 ' " ' "so 100
Battlefields marked
thus....  -  iSc

GEORGE PHILIP 4 aONiJ-TPj-

33^ HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
for peace need never be despaired of tUl the first shot is
fired in anger.
On the news of the Sikh advance the Governor-General
issued a proclamation, declaring all Sikh possessions east
of the Sutlaj forfeit, and hurried his forces from Ambala
and Ludhiana to save Ferozepore. The first battle was
fought at Mudki, December i8, the British under Sir
Hugh Gough coming in touch with the enemy somewhat
unexpectedly after a march of twenty-two miles. There ' in
a stout conflict ' during ' an hour and a half of dim starlight '
the Sikhs were defeated with the loss of seventeen guns,
but the British casualties were very heavy, amounting to
872 killed and wounded. Among the dead was General
Sir Robert Sale, the defender of Jalalabad. The victorious
army then advanced on Ferozeshah, where 35,000 Sikhs
under Lall Singh were awaiting them behind strong
entrenchments. Though after the battle of Mudki the
Governor-General had rather quixotically taken the office
of second-in-command under Sir Hugh Gough, he now
obliged the latter to delay the attack tUl Sir John Littler
had arrived with reinforcements from Ferozepore — an act
of very doubtful wisdom, for the gain in nurabers was more
than counteracted by the serious loss of time. The battle
therefore did not begin till four o'clock of a short winter's
day (December 21). A fierce frontal attack was made by
the British troops, but two divisions were temporarily re
pulsed and the entrenchments were only partly carried
when it became too dark to continue the fight. The
British troops bivouacked on the battlefield, having lost
touch with one another and being still exposed to a spas
modic and harassing fire from the enemy's batteries. During
that ' night of horrors ', as the Comraander-in-Chief acknow
ledged, ' we were in a critical and perilous state ', and there
is no doubt that the British array came within an ace of
a ruinous defeat. But fortunately there was dissension in

xxvH THE FIRST AND SECOND SIKH WARS 337
the Sikh ranks through the treacherous conduct of their
leader, and when the dawn of December 22 came a deter
mined rush finally carried the entrenchments. Even so
the danger was not past, for a fresh Sikh army under
Tej Singh appeared, but after making a reconnaissance in
force he retired, not realizing that the British soldiers were
fasting, worn out with fatigue, and almost destitute of
ammunition. The British losses amounted to 694 kiUed,
including 103 officers, and 1,721 wounded. The Sikhs
were estimated to have lost 8,000 raen, and seventy-three
guns were taken.
After this severe defeat the Sikhs retreated across the
Sutlaj, but finding that the British, who were waiting for
heavy guns and ammunition to be brought up from Delhi,
did not follow them, they recrossed the river, and one of
their divisions made a dash on Ludhiana. Sir Harry Smith
(afterwards Governor of Cape Colony) was sent to inter
cept them, and, after suffering a check at Buddewal,
brilliantly defeated thera at the battle of AHwal on January
28, 1846. He captured sixty-seven guns and drove the
Sikhs in full rout back across the Sutlaj.
The final battle was fought on February 10 at Sobraon,
a village on the British bank of the river. The Sikhs
had constructed a position of extraordinary strength, and
hoped to secure a retreat, if necessary, by a bridge of
boats in their rear. After a fierce artillery duel lasting
two hours, the Sikh position was carried by storra, though
only through fighting of the most desperate description.
The bridge of boats collapsed under the weight of the
flying Sikh regiraents, and a fearful scene of slaughter
and vengeance ensued ; nearly ten thousand of the enemy
were shot down by grape and shrapnel in the bed of
the river, which ran red with blood, the British soldiers,
infuriated by the mutilation of their dead in former
battles, refusing to heed the cries for quarter. Our own
014 Z

338 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
losses were again very severe, amounting to 2,383 killed and
wounded. The army of the Khalsa was now vanquished, but the
campaign had been a revelation. The magnificent fighting
qualities of the Sikhs, and their skill as gunners and en
gineers, were for the first time appreciated. The war had
lasted but fifty-four days, but during that time there had
been four pitched battles — the fiercest and most desperately
contested that British troops in India had ever been called
upon to fight. Criticisms were, perhaps inevitably, passed
on British strategy in the campaign. Gough was said to
have been too fond of frontal attacks and not to have
reconnoitred sufficiently the Sikh positions ; but if British
losses were heavy, the battles were proportionately decisive,
and the Indian array, with rather a low proportion of Euro
pean troops, was meeting the finest fighting force it had
ever encountered.
Hardinge entered the capital, Lahore. The Sikhs by their
absolutely unprovoked violation of British territory could have
looked for little else than the coraplete loss of their indepen
dence. But Hardinge stopped short of the annexation of
the Punjab for two reasons ; in the first place respect was
paid to the raemory of Ranjit Singh, the old and faithful
ally of Great Britain ; and secondly, the Governor-General
doubted whether he was strong enough to occupy the whole
country. Shorn of some of their territory, and limited as to
the size of the regular army they might maintain, the Sikhs
were given one more chance to preserve their national
existence. By the treaty of peace concluded in March 1846,
all Sikh territories to the left of the Sutlaj, with the JuUundur
Doab (the land between the Sutlaj and the Bias), were
given up. An indemnity of one and a half miUions was to
be paid, or Kashmir ceded with half a million, and the
latter alternative was the one actually accepted by the
Sikhs. Kashmir was then handed over to Golab Singh,

XXVII THE FIRST AND SECOND SIKH WARS 339
Raja of Jamrau, a Sikh chief who had been neutral in the
war, for one milHon sterHng. The army was henceforward
to be limited to 20,000 infantry and 12,000 cavalry. Such
were the penal clauses of the treaty. An attempt had
now to be made to support the government of the little
Maharaja, and it was agreed that a British force should
occupy the capital, Lahore, tUl the close of the year, during
the reconstruction of the government. Colonel Henry
Lawrence was left behind as Resident, with Lall Singh
as first minister. The Governor-General, now Viscount
Hardinge, and the Commander-in-Chief, now Lord Gough,
marched back in triumph to Calcutta with 250 captured Sikh
guns to impress upon the peoples of India how severe had
been the defeats inflicted upon the army of the Khalsa.
But the political position in the Punjab was still critical.
Fortunately, Henry Lawrence by his sympathetic adminis
tration and personality won a wonderful influence over
many of the Sirdars, or chieftains, though he was from the
first opposed and thwarted by the court party headed and
instigated by the Queen Mother. Lall Singh was soon
found to have been concerned in a treacherous attack on
the Raja of Kashmir, and his dismissal was found neces
sary. The friendly Sirdars themselves petitioned that the
British garrison should not be removed at the end of the
year, or the army of the Khalsa would again assert itself
As a result, a new treaty was signed in December 1846
setting up a Regency Council of eight Sirdars, and main
taining British garrisons in the country for eight years till
the Maharaja came of age. Henry Lawrence was to pre
side over the Council, and therefore was in fact the ruler
of the Punjab, a position of magnificent responsibility. He
gathered under him a famous staff of frontier officers, his
brothers George and John Lawrence, Abbott, Edwardes,
Hodson, Nicholson, and Lumsden, and entered upon that
wonderful work of civUizing the Punjab, which was to be

34° HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
finally completed under British sway. A crusade was made
against Sati, female infanticide, punishment by mutilation,
and all the other abuses of Sikh rule. The burden of the
land revenue was lightened and vexatious customs dues
were abolished. But though these reforras brought relief
to the common people, they were unpopular with the Sirdars.
The Queen Mother supported the national and anti-foreign
party with intrigues and plots, and it was found necessary
in August 1847 to remove her from Lahore. The remnant
of the Khalsa army looked sullenly on, stiU unconvinced of
its inferiority to British troops and attributing its late
defeats to the treachery of its leaders. Revolt would
probably have come sooner or later in any case ; it was
possibly hastened by the temporary withdrawal of Lawrence,
who returned to England for a hard-won holiday in January
1848. Lord Hardinge returned with him. His short
administration had been almost wholly concerned with
affairs in the Punjab. But he had won laurels not only as
a conqueror but as an economist, and after the war he had
carried out bold reductions in the army, 50,000 infantry
being disbanded on the ground that the formidable forces of
Gwalior and the Punjab had been vanquished and broken.
The Earl of Dalhousie landed at Calcutta in January
1848. He was in his thirty-sixth year, the youngest Governor-
General that had hitherto held office. He had won a con
siderable reputation as President of the Board of Trade,
but his great mental qualities were as yet known to few.
Whether for good or ill, he was destined to leave a deeper
personal impress on the destinies of India than any of
his predecessors since Lord Wellesley. At the very
beginning he was highly tried, for within three months of
his arrival Hardinge's policy of ' experimental forbearance '
in leaving the Sikhs a partial autonomy had broken
down, and the Punjab was aflame with rebellion. The
national party araong the Sikh chieftains, as we have seen.

XXVII THE FIRST AND SECOND SIKH WARS 341
had long been viewing with impatient and ill-concealed
distrust the beneficent — but to them unpalatable — results
of British influence. The first outbreak occurred at Multan
in the south-west of the Punjab, where the Sikh Governor,
Mulraj, took up arms, after his followers, probably with his
coraplicity, had barbarously raurdered two young British
ofificers. Although Mulraj proclairaed a religious war and
suraraoned all true Sikhs to flock to his banner, Dalhousie
decided on the advice of Lord Gough, who was in this
case unusually cautious, that operations raust be postponed
till the cold weather. Most authorities have held that, had
Henry Lawrence been at Lahore and Lord Hardinge at
Calcutta, troops would have been moved up at once and
the insurrection would probably have spread no further. It
was, however, a very difficult point for a Governor-General
to decide, who had only been three months in the country,
and had not yet made hiraself so absolutely conversant
with Indian affairs as he afterwards becarae. It is per
missible to surmise that a year later Dalhousie, with his
prompt and masterful will, would have overruled the Com
mander-in-Chief instead of supporting him. There was,
however, a good political reason for inaction, which is some
times forgotten; it was theoretically the duty of the Sikh
government at Lahore to punish Mulraj, who had risen
against their authority, and, at any rate, till they proved
unable or unwilling to demand reparation for the outrage
on British subjects, the British government would legally
have no right to interfere.
Though the supreme government therefore rightly for
the time withheld its hand, a young lieutenant, Herbert
Edwardes, employed under the Sikh Council of Regency,
who was engaged in settling some districts beyond the
Indus, hastily gathered together what levies he could, and
attacked Mulraj, being, as he said himself, 'very like a
Scotch terrier barking at a tiger*. He defeated the Sikh

342 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
rebel in two engagements and drove him into Multan in
July. Dalhousie supported these operations as far as he
could, though he had not authorized them. General Whish
and Edwardes began a regular siege of Multan, a very
strong fortress, on September 7. Meanwhile the revolt
throughout the Punjab was gradually spreading. The
Maharani was found to be in correspondence with Mulraj
and was removed to Benares. The British Resident at
Lahore sent Sher Singh with a large force to assist the
besieging army, but it went over bodily to the enemy on
September 14. The blockading forces were at once with
drawn from the trenches, and the siege was not resuraed
for three months. At Lahore the Resident maintained his
position with difficulty. The old soldiers of the Khalsa
flocked everywhere to join Sher Singh, and the Sikh leaders
entered into alliance with Dost Muhammad, the Amir of
Afghanistan, once their bitterest foe, buying his aid by the
surrender of Peshawar.
The rising had now become a national one, and the
British government were warranted in meeting it with all
their power. On October 10 the Governor-General made
his famous declaration that, ' unwarned by precedent, un
influenced by example, the Sikh nation has called for war,
and on my word, Sirs, they shall have it with a vengeance '.
For the moment however, of necessity action lagged behind
these brave words. It was not till November 16 that Lord
Gough crossed the Ravi. Six days later, having attacked
Sher Singh at Ramnagar on the Chenab with characteristic
impetuosity, he fought a drawn battle. In January he ad
vanced to the River Jihlam, and on the 13th attacked the
Sikh array, 30,000 in number, entrenched in a magnificent
position where our cavalry had little room to manoeuvre. The
battle of ChUianwala has been graphically, if somewhat un
fairly, described as ' an evening battle fought by a brave old
man in a passion '. It was long believed that the Com-

XXVII THE FIRST AND SECOND SIKH WARS 343
mander-in-Chief, angered at being fired upon by the Sikh
gunners, gave up his original intention of a reconnaissance
and a flank moveraent on the morrow, and ordered a frontal
attack. His tactics were almost unaniraously condemned at
the time, and Dalhousie in a private letter to the President
of the Board of Control wrote, ' the conduct of this action
is beneath the criticism even of a militiaman Hke myself'.'
Mr. R. S. Rait, in his recent biography of Lord Gough,
claims to have shown on the evidence of his subject's diary
and correspondence that there was no sudden change of
plan, and that the story of his ' Irish blood ' being roused by
bullets faUing near him is apocryphal. He also contends,
though here no doubt his defence is more open to question,
that the alteration in the Sikh formation made it impossible
to retreat and unsafe to encamp, and that the mistakes in
the battle were due to subordinates.^ Wherever the responsi
bility lay, mistakes were undoubtedly raade. The result of
the battle was that, though the Sikhs after a desperate resis
tance abandoned their lines, they only retreated three miles
in good order with the loss of twelve guns ; on the other
hand, a British brigade was repulsed with fearful loss, four
guns captured, the colours of three regiments taken, and
some cavalry squadrons disgracefully routed. British losses
in killed and wounded amounted to 2,357 men and eighty-
nine officers.
The account of the battle made a painful impression at
home, and Sir Charles Napier was hurried out to supersede
Lord Gough as Commander-in-Chief; but before he could
arrive the latter rehabUitated his reputation and ended the
war by a brilliant stroke. The battle of Gujrat, ' the battle
ofthe guns', was fought on February 22. The Sikh array
' The Life of the Marquis of Dalhousie, By Sir Williain Lee-
Warner, vol. i, p. 1 88.
^ The Life and Campaigns of Hugh, first Viscount Gough, vol. ii,
pp. 211-44.

344 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
was 50,000 strong, but this time the position was carefully
reconnoitred, and Gough was prevailed upon to make
proper use of his artillery. The infantry attack was not
delivered till a tremendous bombardment had silenced the
Sikh batteries. The enemy was put to flight and a brUliant
and relentless pursuit made the battle completely decisive.
MeanwhUe after a desperate resistance the town of Multan
was stormed, and Mulraj, who had retreated to the citadel,
was finaUy forced to surrender at discretion. On March 12
Sher Singh and the remnant of the Khalsa array laid down
their arms, and the Afghan forces of Dost Muhararaad, which
had taken no effective part in the war, were chased back to
their hills.
Dalhousie, who received a Marquisate, had next to settle
the future of the country. The practical courses of action
were first, the re-establishment of the status quo before the
rising, with possibly the annexation of the province of
Multan ; secondly, the permanent adrainistration of the
country by British officials, the Maharaja raaintaining the
titular sovereignty only ; thirdly, the incorporation of the
whole of the Punjab into British dominion. Sir Henry
Lawrence and Lord Ellenborough were strongly opposed to
annexation, and the Cabinet inclined to their way of think
ing, though Dalhousie could get no very clear lead from
them. Dalhousie considered that the first course would
have given the Sikh nation better terras than they had any
right to expect, and would have savoured of weakness on
the part of Great Britain. As regards the second, he had
no love for those titular pageantries and shadowy sovereign
ties which had done so much in the past to embarrass
British statesmanship ; accordingly, on his own responsi
bility he annexed the whole of the Punjab by proclamation
on March 29, 1849 — ^ momentous step which finally carried
the frontiers of British India to their natural limits, the base
of the mountains of Afghanistan. He endeavoured to meet

XXVII THE FIRST AND SECOND SIKH WARS 345
the argument that Dulip Singh, being a minor, could not
justly be held responsible for the misdeeds of his subjects,
by granting him a generous pension of ;£'5o,ooo a year.
The child was given an English education, ultimately
embraced Christianity, and lived the life of an English land
lord on an estate in Norfolk. The Sikhs submitted to their
lot more quietly than any one had anticipated, and as regards
the material result the policy of the annexation was abun
dantly justified.
To settle the new province a Board of three commis
sioners was set up, consisting of Sir Henry Lawrence as
President, his brother John, and Charles Mansel, who was
replaced in 185 1 by Robert Montgomery. Dalhousie would
have preferred a single head, but he felt himself bound not
to pass over Sir Henry Lawrence, and though he appreciated
his fine and chivalrous character he did not consider him
competent to take sole charge. To him was especially
entrusted the ' political ' work, i. e. negotiations with the
chiefs, the disarming of the country, and the levying of the
new Sikh regiment. To his brother John was given the
settlement of the land revenue, while the third comraissioner
was mainly concerned with judicial matters. Fifty-six sub
ordinates, the pick of the services, civil and military, formed
the staff of the new province, and helped to carry out the
settlement of the Punjab, which was destined to be one of
the most brilliant administrative achievements of English
men in the East. The people were disarraed. A line of
fortresses was carried along the north-west frontier. Roads
were constructed throughout the province, the most notable
being thatwhich connected Lahore with Peshawar — a triumph
of engineering skiU. Canals were made both for transport and
irrigation. The land tax was reduced from a half of the
value of the produce to about a quarter. All internal imposts
on the transport of goods were swept away. Slavery,
thuggee, and dacoity were finally stamped out, and a clear

346 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA
and siraple code of crirainal and civil procedure, suited to a
primitive political organization, instead of the cumbrous and
complicated regulations of the older provinces, was drawn
up. The most wonderful tribute to the success of these
measures was the material prosperity and the contentment
of the people. Within three years of the desperate valour
and grim carnage of ChUianwala, Sikh soldiers were fighting
for the Company in Burma of their own free will, and, when
a little later the Mutiny threatened the existence of British
dominions in India and offered to all subject peoples an
unequalled opportunity for vengeance on their conquerors,
the Punjab never faltered in its loyalty.
The credit for these splendid results must be shared
between Lord Dalhousie and his subordinates, but the
Governor-General played perhaps the predominant part.
Though the plan of a Board was not adopted for that pur
pose, as was once erroneously supposed, it yet enabled him
to inspire the policy of the coraraissioners and control their
work. This was especially the case since there early appeared
a cleavage of opinion between the brothers Lawrence. The
elder was inclined to favour the Sirdars, or Sikh aristocracy,
who were devoted to him personally, and to press on with
material improvements regardless of the cost to the revenue.
John Lawrence had more sympathy with the peasants than
the chieftains, and as guardian of the public purse brought
forward many practical objections to his brother's pet
schemes. Not till nearly three years had elapsed did these
differences prove a serious bar to administration. But early
in 1853 the two brothers mutually agreed that it would be
better for one of them to go. Dalhousie believing, in spite
of Henry's many fine qualities, that John, ' take him all in
all ', was ' the better man ', removed the elder brother, to his
deep chagrin, to Rajputana as agent for the Governor-
General, abolished the Board that had served its purpose,
and made John Lawrence Chief Commissioner ofthe Punjab.

CHAPTER XXVIII
THE SECOND BUBMESE "WAB. LOBD DALHOUSIE.
THE DOCTBINE OP LAPSE
The second war of Dalhousie's administration was waged
on the far eastern frontier. It arose out of his determina
tion to protect the interests of the merchants who, trusting
to the Treaty of 1826, had settled on the southern coast of
Burma. For sorae tirae they had been subject to petty
persecutions at the hands of the Governor of Rangoon, who
did everything possible to impede their trade, and in 1851
they applied for redress to Calcutta. Dalhousie sent a
frigate to Rangoon to deraand corapensation. Many con
sidered this action needlessly provocative, and even John
Lawrence wrote meaningly, ' Why did you send a commo
dore to Burma if you wanted peace ? ' while Dalhousie
himself afterwards admitted ' these commodores are too
combustible for negotiations '.' But since the British govern
ment had long ceased to maintain a Resident at the court
of Ava, owing to the insults to which they were subjected,
there was perhaps no other means of showing the Burmese
authorities that the matter was one of urgency. Even as it
was, they ignored the representations of the commodore and
his demands for compensation and fired upon hira, when he
rather injudiciously detained a royal vessel and proclairaed
the blockade of the ports. They thus brought upon thera
selves the vigorous action of the Governor-General; an
' Life of the Marquis of Dalhousie, Sir William Lee- Warner,
vol. i, pp. 417-18.

348 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
ultimatum was sent to the Court of Ava, demanding com
pensation and an indemnity of £roo,ooo under threat of
war. The home authorities considered the tone of this
dispatch too peremptory ; but Dalhousie defended it on the
ground that ' no Indian potentate would attend to any com
mand conveyed as a European power would word it ', and
there seems little doubt that he would gladly have avoided
what he called the ' mortification of war '. At the same
time he was determined, if war should come, that it should
be waged before the rains set in. No answer having been
vouchsafed to the British ultimatum, Dalhousie pressed on
preparations for war with extraordinary energy and thorough
ness. He superintended nearly every detail himself, for he
was determined that the mistakes and blunders of the first
war should not be repeated. The commissariat and trans
port were thoroughly well organized. Every precaution to
ensure the comfort and health of the troops was elaborately
thought out. Within eight weeks from the commencement
of warlike preparations, the flotiUa appeared off Rangoon.
Martaban was quickly captured. The great pagoda of
Rangoon was stormed on April 14 : Bassein fell a month
later. The Comraander-in-Chief, General Godwin, sent
a force to reconnoitre Prome but did not advance thither,
fearing to endanger his communications. The Governor-
General himself proceeded to Rangoon in September, and
determined that Prome should be taken. It was occupied
in October; Pegu, already captured but besieged by the
Burmese, was finally relieved in November, and military
operations were thus concluded. Dalhousie pressed upon
the Court of Directors the necessity of annexing the pro
vince of Pegu, partly because we could hardly abandon
those of the inhabitants of that province, who had gladly
welcomed British protection, to the fiendish cruelties of the
Burmese. The Court accepted this suggestion, but put him
in a difficulty by requiring either that the cession of Pegu

xxviii THE SECOND BURMESE WAR 349
should be regularly made in a treaty, or else that an advance
should be raade to Ava and the whole country subjugated.
Dalhousie realized that an advance to Ava 600 miles
from our base was a chimerical scheme, even had the
requisite transport and supplies been forthcoming, which
they were not. On the other hand, any treaty with the
barbaric court of Ava would be as ' flimsy as the paper on
which it is traced ' ; he therefore took his own strong line,
and when his overtures for a treaty produced no response,
proclaimed the annexation of Pegu, or Lower Burma, on
December 20, 1852. The results completely justified his
bold action. Though the Burraese never formally recog
nized the cession of territory, they were too cowed to resent
it in arms. The administration of the new province under
Major Arthur Phayre was highly successful ; but it was
clearly proved that the ceded territory was large enough to
tax his energies fully for many years. Granted that Burma
was destined ultimately to pass under British sway, it was
better, as Dalhousie declared, to take a second bite of the
cherry. Dalhousie indeed experienced the usual fate of
statesmen in being attacked from either side ; for while
some thought he had not gone far enough, others con
sidered he had gone much too far ; and he and the Court
of Directors were roundly trounced for their love of terri
torial aggrandizement; but all the evidence goes to show
th^t neither the Governor-General nor the home authorities
desired annexation for its own sake. The new province
extended as far north as Myede fifty miles beyond Prome.
Westward it was bounded by the hills of Arakan and east
ward roughly by the river Salwen. Independent Burma
was now shut off altogether from the sea, and the whole
coast-line of the Bay of Bengal from Cape Comorin to the
Malay Peninsula passed under British control.
Sir WUliam Lee- Warner has noticed three epochs in
British relations with native states, first that of the ' ring

350 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
fence' down to 1813, when native states were treated as
reaUy foreign and not interfered with ; secondly, that of
'subordinate isolation' from 1813 to 1857, when the states
were protected but their internal affairs were left entirely to
themselves ; and thirdly, that of ' subordinate union ' from
1857 to the present day, when none are permitted to suffer
from the misrule of their chiefs. Now in the first stage the
oppressed subjects had at least the remedy of rebellion, in
the last they can appeal to the strong arm of the suzerain.
In the middle stage they had no redress. The British
government often found itself confronted by the unpleasant
dUemma of either breaking its agreements with native rulers
or allowing their subjects to be down-trodden.
Dalhousie, girding against this state of things, sought a
way out and found it in the famous doctrine of ' lapse ', the
principle of which had been distinctly recognized before his
time. It was that in dependent states or those that owed
their very existence to British power, the sovereignty, when
the natural heirs of the royal line came to an end, passed
back or 'lapsed' to the supreme power. The question,
however, was complicated by that of adoption. All childless
Hindus were accustomed to adopt sons whose main duty it
was to perform those funeral rites without which the dead
man would find no rest in the hereafter. Dalhousie claimed,
undoubtedly with perfect correctness, that the sovereignty of
a ruler could not pass to a son adopted without the consent
of the suzerain. He held that, in view of the abuses to which
native rule was so fatally liable, ' the British government in
the exercise of a wise and sound policy is bound not to put
aside or neglect such rightful opportunities of acquiring
territory or revenue as may from time to time present them
selves, whether they arise from the lapse of subordinate
states by the failure of all heirs of every description what
soever, or frora the failure of heirs natural where the
succession can be sustained only by the sanction of the

XXVIII THE SECOND BURMESE WAR 35I
government being given to the ceremony of adoption
according to Hindu law. The government is bound, in
duty as well as in policy, to act on every such occasion with
the purest integrity, and in the most scrupulous observance
of good faith. When even a shadow of doubt can be shown,
the claim should at once be abandoned." It must be
remembered in the first place that the doctrine was not
invented by Dalhousie ; the principle at any rate had been
recognized as early as 1834: secondly, that he applied it
only to dependent states — those which had been avowedly
dependencies of some suzerain conquered by Great Britain
or had been actually established by her: thirdly, that in
applying the doctrine he was animated by compassion for
the peoples of the feudatory states as well as by a desire for
territorial aggrandizement. It is not true, as has been so
often said, that all native states were in danger of faUing
under British sway; for Dalhousie clearly recognized the
right of those rulers, whose sovereignty dated back before
the British regime, to adopt heirs freely.
On the other hand it is equally to be remembered that
there was some technical difficulty in deciding which states
were dependent and which were not, and the Governor-
General's decision was sometimes overruled, as in the case
of Karauli; secondly, that whatever may have been the
facts, the natives did undoubtedly believe that the existence
of all native principalities was threatened. As Mr. Innes
well says, ' there was fully adequate precedent for every one
of his annexations. But his predecessors had acted on
the general principle of avoiding annexation if it could be
avoided ; Dalhousie acted on the general principle of
annexing if he could do so legitimately.' ^ It was accidental,
no doubt, that just at this time so many native rulers died
' The Life of the Marquis of Dalhousie, Sir W. Lee-Warner,
vol. ii, p. 116.
2 A Short History of the Bi-itish in India, A. D. Innes, p. 279,

352 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap,
without heirs, but that being so, it would have been more
expedient sometiraes for the pararaount power not to have
exerted its full rights. It raust be remembered also that
' lapse ' was not the only means by which Dalhousie increased
British dominion ; opponents might say with some plausi
bility that, if the doctrine of lapse did not apply to all states,
other principles, as in the case of Oudh, could readily be
appealed to when Great Britain desired a pretext. An
impartial critic, while fully recognizing the high and pure
motives of the Governor-General, wUl not deny that there
was abundant reason for uneasiness in the minds of native
rulers, and there is much evidence to show that such
uneasiness did, as a matter of fact, exist. Finally, as his
latest biographer admits. Lord Dalhousie was sometimes
rather unguarded and injudicious in the language he em
ployed. The states that actually passed under British sway
by lapse were Satara in 1848, Jaitpur and Sambalpur in
1849, Baghat in 1850, Udaipur in 1852, Jhansi in 1853,
and Nagpur in 1854. In the case of three at least, and
these the raost iraportant, no valid objection could be taken
to Lord Dalhousie's policy either on the score of expediency
or legal right. Satara was purely the creation of the British
governraent. It had been bestowed as a principality on the
representative of the house of Sivaji by Lord Hastings in
181 9 after the overthrow of the Peshwa, and its existence
had always been an embarrassraent to the Presidency of
Borabay, with which it was now incorporated. Jhansi was
a tributary and dependent state in Bundelkhand which had
also passed under British sway araong Baji Rao's other
dominions. It had been revived more than once, but on
this occasion the belated adoption of the last Raja was set
aside. The widowed Rani was pensioned, but in the Mutiny
took a dreadful revenge for the loss of her throne by the
massacre of every European who fell into her hands. Nagpur
was by far the most important of all the lapsed states.

xxviii THE SECOND BURMESE WAR 353
Conquered in 181 8, Hastings had given back the forfeited
kingdom to a prince of the royal house. The last Raja died
in 1853, leaving neither collateral heirs nor adopted son.
There was no need assuredly for the British government to
grant away the sovereignty again. Of the political advantage
to Great Britain of the annexation there could be no doubt.
Nagpur comprised territory of 80,000 square miles with a
population of 4,000,000 ; its possession gave us the finest
cotton lands in India, and complete control of the land
route from Calcutta to Borabay. On the other hand it
might be pleaded that, as one of the great states of the
Maratha confederacy, its annexation was bound to prompt
misgivings in the hearts of other native rulers, who might
not appreciate the subtle distinction — not ahvays clear even
to western minds — between 'dependent' states and 'pro
tected allies '. Yet, on the whole, it may be concluded that
the advantages of annexation in this case outweighed the
disadvantages. The public auction of the jewels and furni
ture of the royal house, which made such an unfortunate
impression, was a tactless blunder and one that might well
have been avoided. In the other four cases mentioned there
was some legitimate doubt as to whether they, properly
speaking, fell under the definition of dependent states, and
in regard to Udaipur in the Central Provinces it was fairly
clear that, if heirs failed, the sovereignty lapsed to the Raja
of Sarguja, not to the Corapany. In any event the states
were small, and the gain of subjecting them to British rule
hardly compensated for the uneasiness caused to surrounding
chiefs. In the case of Baghat, a Cis-Sutlaj hill state, and
Udaipur, Dalhousie's decision was afterwards reversed by
Lord Canning. Finally the home government refused to
approve of Dalhousie's tentative proposal to annex the little
Rajput state of Karauli, on the ground that it was ' a pro
tected ally ' and not ' dependent '. They were undoubtedly
right, and Dalhousie at once accepted their decision ; on

354 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
higher political grounds it would have been extremely impol
itic to annex these ancient Rajput states, and it is perhaps
surprising that the Governor-General ever suggested it.
Besides these actual acquisitions of new territory. Lord
Dalhousie swept away certain titular sovereignties which had
long ceased to have any real meaning, on the ground that
they might at any time become a nucleus and raUying-
ground for seditious agitation. Since 1801 the Nawab of
the Carnatic had been avowedly a roi faineant ; in 1853, on
the death of a holder of the title, Dalhousie supported the
contention of the Madras government, that no successor
should be recognized. He maintained that the treaty of
1 80 1 created merely a personal, and not a hereditary title,
which had only been re-granted in 1819 and 1825 by the
indulgence of the British government. This decision was
partially reversed in 1867, when the claimant to the Nawab
ship was pensioned and allowed to adopt the semi-royal
style of Prince of Arcot. The regal title was also abolished
in the case of Tanjore, whose last Raja died in 1855 leaving
only daughters. Dalhousie would gladly have arranged for
the abolition of the Mughal's title at Delhi, but in this
respect he was overruled by the Court. Finally, on the
death of Baji Rao, the ex-Peshwa, in 1853, Dalhousie refused
to continue to an adopted son, afterwards known as the
notorious Nana Sahib, the huge pension of £80,000 which
Sir John Malcolra had unwisely granted.
The annexation of Oudh falls under the head neither of
conquest, lapse, nor abolition of purely titular sovereignties.
Since Lord Wellesley's farao.us treaty of 1801, Oudh had
been a protected feudatory state with full internal indepen
dence. Power without responsibility was thus given to the
ruler of Oudh (on whom the title of King was conferred by
Lord Hastings in 18 19), and the degeneration ofthe native
administration followed its dreary and normal course in such
cases. The court was given up to vicious luxury and puerile

xxviii THE SECOND BURMESE WAR 355
amusements. The people were oppressed ; a special feature
of misgovernment in Oudh was that many of the landowners,
or ' talukdars ', who were mainly Rajput in origin, resisted
in their fortified strongholds the officers and disorderly
armies of the King, and preyed on the hapless peasantry
and weaker members of their own class. For many years
the disorder had been going from bad to worse. Successive
Governors-General had given solemn warning to the ruling
house, especially Lord William Bentinck in 1831 and Lord
Hardinge in 1847. But all without the least effect. Of the
need of drastic intervention on behalf of a down-trodden
people there can be no doubt. Colonel Sleeman in 1851
(though Dalhousie's critics declared he was sent forth as the
' missionary of a foregone conclusion ') and Colonel Outram
in 1854, both as a rule supporters of native dynasties and
opposed to the policy of lapse, reported that the condition
of Oudh was deplorable and could hardly be worse. Lord
Dalhousie himself was in favour of taking over the adminis
tration and leaving to the King his nominal sovereignty with
his palace, rank, and titles. But the home authorities over
ruled him and decided on annexation. In this particular'
case they were undoubtedly wrong and the Governor-General
right. Lord Dalhousie would never have suggested the
recognition of a titular sovereignty, to which as we have
seen he was generally much opposed, had it not been for
strong countervailing reasons. These were first, the un
swerving loyalty of the Oudh dynasty to British rule ever
since the treaty of 1801 : secondly, the fact that the King
of Oudh could with some reason maintain that annexation
involved the repudiation of treaty obligations. The facts
are involved and obscure, but may briefly be stated thus ; —
In 1837 Lord Auckland had concluded a treaty with the
King of Oudh binding him either to introduce reforms or to
hand over the administration to the British govemment whUe
retaining the sovereignty. Now the Court of Directors
A a 2

356 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
disallowed this treaty, but Lord Auckland only informed the
King of the disallowance of one clause, and by an inexcusable
piece of carelessness the treaty was actually included in a
subsequent governraent publication and was referred to as
still in force by succeeding Governors-General. Upon Lord
Dalhousie was thrust the invidious task of explaining to the
King that the treaty, which he and forraer Governors-
General had beheved to be in force since 1837, had really
been abrogated two years after that date, and of expressing
a tardy regret that the coramunication of this fact had been
inadvertently neglected. Such miserable and unpardonable
misraanagement obviously gave too much ground to those
who held that the annexation of Oudh was ' a gross breach
of national faith '. But for this the home authorities, and
not Lord Dalhousie, were responsible. He would gladly
have avoided the necessity of carrying out the annexation,
but nobly volunteered to settle the question with all the
weight his eight years' rule had given hira rather than leave
the task to a successor newly arrived in India. Outram in
vain attempted to induce the King to abdicate ; the annexa
tion was proclaimed on February 13, 1856, and a generous
pension was settled on the deposed monarch.
Only the briefest mention can be made of the great
internal reforms initiated and developed by Lord Dalhousie.
He opened the first Indian railway, planned under Lord
Hardinge, and set up the first telegraph wire — ' the accursed
string that strangled us ', as one of the mutineers called it.
He set up the Public Works Departraent, and established
a cheap and uniform postage service over the length and
breadth of India; he was called upon to carry out the
famous educational dispatch of July 1854, which 'sketched
in outline a coraplete scherae of public education controlled
and aided, and in part directly managed by the state '.
When Lord Dalhousie left India his health was obviously
shattered by his unsparing labours, and he died in i860 after

XXVIII THE SECOND BURMESE WAR 357
four years of physical pain and distress. These years were
saddened by the apparent overthrow of his life work in the
Mutiny. Naturally, though in great raeasure unjustly, his
great annexations of territory, his innovations and reforms,
were held to be the main cause of the revolt. He was
accused of roughly overriding native feeling and native
susceptibilities, of bUndness to signs of unrest in the sepoy
array, and of allowing the proportion of European to native
troops to sink to too low a point. He refused to speak out
in his own defence, partly because he proudly trusted to the
verdict of posterity, partly from a noble resolve not to
embarrass his successor or the home government by opening
the floodgates of controversy. His private papers were left
under seal for fifty years, and it is only within the last decade
that they have been given to the world.' Their publication
has cleared up many doubtful points, but his reputation had
long been rehabilitated. Most of the charges against hira
were found to have been grossly exaggerated and some
absolutely disproved : it was known, for instance, that he
had urgently impressed upon the Cabinet that raore
European regiments should be sent to India, but his
warnings had been disregarded. The great traits of his
character are no longer in dispute. He was inspired with
a noble and vivid ideal of duty, which drove him on to
sacrifice his health and comfort recklessly. His powers of
work were colossal, and, though he came to India with
practically no previous experience of Indian problems, he
mastered them in a remarkably short space of time. His
minutes and dispatches are masterpieces of eloquent EngHsh,
lucid statement, and mercUess logic. He was a supremely
able judge of character. ' As an imperial administrator ',
says Sir Richard Teraple, one of his subordinates, ' he has
never been surpassed and seldom equalled by any of the
illustrious men whora England has sent forth to govern
' By Sir William Lee- Warner in his Life of the Marquis of Dalhousie.

358 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA
India.' On the other hand, to use a hackneyed yet useful
phrase, he had the defects of his qualities. He possibly
atterapted to do more than any one man, however able,
could do. There was not much field left to his subordi
nates except to carry out his rather imperious will. Though
he freely supported men with whom he was in complete
agreement, he was somewhat intolerant of original ideas. It
is only fair to remeraber that there was an opposition in India
to many tendencies of his policy, and not a factious opposi
tion only, but one based on reasoned principles. Men like
Henry Lawrence, Low, Sleeman, and Outram, while freely
adraitting his splendid qualities, considered that he would
have done better to pay more heed to native feelings and
prejudices even at the cost of sacrificing some of his most
valuable reforms. He had more downright opponents.
The letters and diaries of Sir Charles Napier show to what
a pitch enmity between able and high-minded men can
be carried. In the controversy between them few doubt
that on the whole Dalhousie was right, and Napier wrong.
The latter, as we have seen in the case of Sind, had an
almost limitless capacity for seeing only the right on his
own side, and only the wrong on that of his opponents.
But the coUision between these two strong men, due to the
fact that Napier altered the pay of the troops and disbanded
regiments without consulting the Governor-General and
Council, was doubly unfortunate. It seems undoubtedly
true that Sir Charles Napier had some premonitory warnings
of mutinous discontent in the sepoy armies. He was not
consistent in his stateraents on the point, and greatly
exaggerated them for controversial reasons. For the same
reasons Dalhousie refused even to consider thera. Had
Napier been raore temperate in his warnings and Dalhousie
more ready to listen to advice, the whole question might
have been opened and settled instead of being obscured by
heated manifestoes, slashing minutes, and bitter enmities.

CHAPTER XXIX
THE CAUSES OF THE MUTINY. LOBD CANNING
Lord Canning, who succeeded the Marquis of Dalhousie
in February 1856, had won a reputation for scholarship
at Oxford and for statesmanlike ability as Postmaster-
General. He was capable and industrious but somewhat
diffident of his own powers, and not personally arabitious.
Slow in making up his mind to any particular course of
action, and conscientious almost to a fault, when he had
once chosen his ground he defended it skilfully and held
it with tenacity. Seeing many sides to every question and
an adept at weighing evidence, he possessed the judicial
rather than the administrative temperament. He hid a
warm heart under a reserved and cold manner. Had his
lot been cast in peaceful times he would have been an
ideal head for the Indian government, but he was called
upon to deal with one of the most terrible crises that
ever confronted a statesman. Some of his actions were
open to criticism, and have been freely criticized : but on
the whole he emerged nobly from the appalling ordeal to
which he was subjected. If he lacked the daring resolution,
imperious wUl, and personal force of Dalhousie, he displayed
a splendid constancy under taunts and misrepresentation,
and he possessed a curious power of detaching hiraself
from the influences and passions of the moraent in solving
intricate problems.
It appeared at first as though a central Asian question
might chiefly engage the new Governor-General's attention.
In 1855 the British minister at Teheran had been driven

360 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
away by insulting treatment. In the following year Persian
forces occupied Herat — a breach of the treaty of 1814.
Canning was ordered by the home government to declare
war in the name of the Company. A British expedition
was sent to the Persian Gulf, captured Bushire and inflicted
several defeats on the enemy. Finally a peace was made
in May by which Persia agreed to evacuate Herat and
interfere no more in Afghan affairs. This short war, and
two treaties made in 1855 and 1857 with Dost Muhammad
(signed by Sir John Lawrence but really due to Herbert
Edwardes), were of importance as winning the favour of the
Afghan chief and preventing him frora embarrassing us
during the Mutiny. The victorious troops on their return
found work to do on a grimraer field, for the sepoys had
broken out in the meantime.
There are two main views of the origin and meaning
of the Indian Mutiny : one, that it was a mere railitary
rising : the other, that it was a widespread conspiracy
carefully organized for the overthrow of British power. The
raen with the best opportunity of judging came to dia
metrically opposite views on this point. Sir John Lawrence
held that the Mutiny had its origin in the army and that
its proxiraate cause was the cartridge affair and nothing
else. It was not attributable to any antecedent conspiracy
whatever, although it was afterwards taken advantage of
by disaffected persons to compass their own ends. The
view of Sir James Outram is almost the exact antithesis of
this : he believed that it was the result of a Muhammadan
conspiracy making capital of Hindu grievances. The car
tridge incident merely ' precipitated the Mutiny before it
had been thoroughly organized and before adequate arrange
ments had been made for making the Mutiny a first step to
a popular insurrection '.
On the whole, in spite of the fact that in some districts
the people seem to have risen before the sepoys, Lawrence's

XXIX THE CAUSES OF THE MUTINY 361
view seems most nearly to approximate to the truth. We
raay assume, therefore, that the rising was mainly military
in origin, but that it occurred at a time when, for various
reasons, there was much social and political discontent, and
that the rautineers were promptly joined by interested
adventurers, who tried to give it a particular direction
to suit their own schemes. Fortunately for British dominion
in India there was no single national cause to which the
agitators could appeal. The fabric of British power was
built over the ashes of warring factions and race enmities.
The Mutiny was exploited alike to revive the vanished
glories of the Mughal Empire — the foe of all Hindu
principalities — and to re-establish the power of the Maratha
Peshwa — the hereditary rebel against Mughal authority.
The fact that the political direction of the Mutiny first fell
into the hands of men who replaced Bahadur Shah upon
his iraperial throne, was enough in itself to alienate the
sympathies of all Hindu states. The attempt to summon
back the ghost of Maratha supremacy was, as it were, only
the political second thought of the Mutiny, and came too
late for success, when the back of the rebellion was broken
and the cause of the insurgents was obviously waning.
The causes of the Mutiny may be summed up under the
headings, political, social, religious, and military, but if the
view adopted above is the right one, it is obvious that
the latter alone can properly be considered to have brought
about the actual outbreak ; the other headings apply rather
to the general unrest ofthe time which afforded so favourable
a field for that movement to develop and spread.
To deal with the political causes first. There can be no
doubt that Dalhousie's annexations and the doctrine of
lapse had caused a thrill of uneasiness and suspicion
throughout India. This fact does not necessarily involve
any condemnation of the late Governor-General's policy.
In all great reforms some vested interests must be alienated.

362 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
and it is arguable that, but for the blunder of the greased
cartridges, the political discontent would have been allayed
by time and never have passed beyond the stage of a vague
unrest. But some Englishmen in India had uttered warn
ings of the dangers ahead. Colonel Sleeman in 1853 had
written words that future events made prophetic : ' The native
states I consider to be breakwaters, and when they are all
swept away we shall be left to the mercy of our native army,
which may not always be sufficiently under our control.'
Since Lord Dalhousie entered upon office, the great Sikh
power had finally faUen ; Oudh, the preraier Muhararaadan
state, had been annexed ; Satara, the original seat of the
Sivaji, and Nagpur, one of the greatest states of the Maratha
' pentarchy ', had been absorbed. Little indeed was left of
the majesty of the Mughal Empire, but even that was
diminished, for it had been ordained that on the death of
the titular King of Delhi -his successor was to leave his
ancestral palace and eschew something of his royal splen
dour. In private unguarded words were often used which
might well lead to the conviction that British policy had
embarked on an unscrupulous course of aggrandizement.
This, as we have seen, was far from the truth, but native
hearers could hardly be expected to discriminate between
authoritative statements and such language, half jest half
earnest, as that used for instance by Sir Charles Napier
in his private correspondence : ' Were I Emperor of India
for twelve years, she should be traversed by railways and
have her rivers bridged. . . . No Indian Prince should exist.
The Nizara should be no raore heard of . . . Nepal would
be ours. ..." We have seen that Dalhousie had refused to
continue to Nana Sahib, the adopted son of the ex-Peshwa,
the huge pension that had been granted to the latter by
Sir John Malcolm. In this he was perfectly justified, for the
' The Life and Opinions of General Sir C. J. Napier. Ed. by
Sir W. Napier, vol. iv, p. 188.

XXIX THE CAUSES OF THE MUTINY 363
grant was only raade to Baji Rao for life, and in the course
of the thirty-five years during which he enjoyed the pension,
he had accumulated a large fortune which Nana Sahib
inherited. ' But, in the eyes of Hindus, Nana Sahib had
succeeded to the ofifice and privUeges of the Peshwaship;
the withdrawal of the pension made him the bitter and
relentless foe of British rule, and was widely resented by
his countrymen as an act of injustice. During the early
months of 1857 Nana Sahib was moving to and fro from
Delhi to Lucknow, a sinister figure, weaving a web of
intrigue and sending his emissaries far and wide to enlist
support and foster every moveraent of revolt.
Secondly, from the social aspect, every annexation of
a native state not only deposed a reigning house but stUl
further limited the rapidly narrowing field in which men of
Indian race could display their political and administrative
talents. In the pacification of conquered territories, and in
the land settlements carried out in recent years, the claims
of native aristocracies ' had been severely scrutinized by
zealous officials, whose aim, in many ways laudable, was to
protect the ryot, or peasant, from exaction and deal with
him directly instead of through hereditary revenue collectors
and middlemen. Bentinck's resumption of rent-free tenures
had regained for the state much revenue that had been
fraudulently withheld, but it had also reduced to poverty
many landowners whose title-deeds had been lost or who
had held their estates by long prescriptive right. In the
five years preceding the Mutiny the famous fnam commis
sion at Bombay (i. e. a comraission to inquire into rent-free
tenures) had confiscated 20,000 estates. In Oudh, above all,
serious social unrest had been caused by the changes, raany
of thera inevitable, that followed on annexation. Unfortu
nately, Sir James Outram, under whom the transformation
was being smoothly worked, left Oudh in April 1856, and
was succeeded by an energetic, just, but unsympathetic

364 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA CHAP.
officer, Coverly Jackson, as Chief Commissioner. The native
royal army was disbanded and the soldiers lost their liveli
hood. A too strict inquiry was made into the titles of the
'Talukdars' of Oudh, the hereditary revenue- coUectors,
whose ofifice had given them almost feudal rights over the
soil and its cultivators. The recall of Jackson and the
appointment of Sir Henry Lawrence did much to mend
matters, and, in spite of the fact that Oudh became the
chief theatre of the war, the ' Talukdars ' did not as a body
support the rebels tUl Havelock in his first advance was
forced to turn back from Lucknow, nor did they themselves
rise tUl Lord Canning's injudicious proclamation, which wUl
be mentioned later, drove them to desperation.
Thirdly, to the devout Hindu, and especially to the
priesthood, the hated and iconoclastic power of the British
seemed to have invaded even the immaterial realms of
faith and caste. There was a widespread belief that Lord
Canning had been commissioned to convert India to
Christianity. Hindu mythology had been disparaged in
a brilliant essay by Macaulay, at one tirae raember of the
Governor-General's Council. Sati and infanticide had been
prohibited. European science, astronomy, and surgery were
all opposed to the teaching of the Brahmans. The mysticism
and symbolism of the East were fading before the cold
light of western materialism. The telegraph and railway
were looked upon askance as magical and diabolical
agencies. Recent laws had been passed that Hindu widows
were free to marry a second time, and that a change of
religion should not debar the convert frora inheriting pro
perty. ' It must be admitted ', says Sir William Lee- Warner,
' that even the most ignorant and apathetic Hindu was
brought into more conscious touch with the spirit of the
West during the eight years preceding 1857 than at any
other period in the history of India.' '
' The Life of the Marquis of Dalhousie. By Sir William Lee-
Warner, vol. ii, p. 379.

XXIX THE CAUSES OF THE MUTINY 365
Lastly, we must take into account the condition of the
sepoy array. The disparity in nurabers between European
and Indian troops had lately been growing greater ; when
Lord Dalhousie left India the array consisted of 233,000
natives and 45,322 British soldiers. For this, as we have
seen, Dalhousie was not to blarae : he had in vain endeavoured
to get drafts frora home to replace the regiments taken away
from India for service in the Crimea. The disproportion was
rendered more serious by the growing deficiency of ofificers,
and of officers of the best type, who had been employed by
Dalhousie in increasing numbers for administrative posts
upon the frontier. The distribution of the troops was also
very faulty. Delhi and Allahabad were wholly held by
native levies and, except for one regiment at Dinapore,
there were no British soldiers between Allahabad and
Calcutta. The Bengal army, as distinct from those of Madras and
Bombay, had always been more difficult to handle from the
great number of high caste men, Brahmans and Rajputs, in
its ranks. Their discipline had been lately impaired. They
had intensely disliked service in Afghanistan, and the men
who returned were taunted by their fellows with having
forfeited their caste. There had been some sinister out
breaks of insubordination in recent years. In 1824, as
already mentioned, the 47th regiment was disbanded for
refusing to serve in Burma. In 1844 four Bengal regiments
declined to serve in Sind till extra allowances were made to
thera. The 66th native infantry rautinied at Govindgarh in
1849, and the 38th Bengal native infantry, who were acting
within their rights, refused to serve in Burma in 1852.
Great uneasiness was caused to the Bengal army in July
1856 by the passing of the General Service Enlistment Act,
which forbade henceforward the enlisting of any recruit,
who would not march whithersoever his services should be
required. Hitherto, the scruples of the high caste sepoy as

366 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
to crossing the sea, or serving out of India, had been
respected, but with the rapid growth of the erapire this
limitation had been found irksome. The Act only applied
of course to the future, but the sepoy was now practically
the member of an hereditary mUitary caste, and it raeant to
him either that his sons must be debarred from following
his own profession or that they must run the risk of being
outcasted. The terrible blunder of the 'greased cartridges' fanned
into a fierce and devouring flame all this smouldering
discontent. The facts are well known. A rumour pervaded
the sepoy army that the cartridges to be used with the new
Enfield rifle had been greased with the fat of cows and pigs
with the deliberate intention to outcast and defile both the
Hindu, to whom the cow was sacred, and the Muhammadan,
to whom swine were unclean. The story was everywhere
received with an eager credulity which defied explanation,
arguraent, remonstrance, and denial. Most unfortunately
there was a certain amount of truth in the charge. Through
carelessness or ignorance animal fat had actually been used
in the ammunition factories at Woolwich. This was not
discovered at once and was denied by the officers in good
faith. The sepoys knowing the fact to be true, when they
heard the denial, naturally imagined that they were being
wilfully misled, and their worst suspicions were confirmed.
Even when the mistake was rectified, no protestations of
their ofificers, no proclamations or orders had any effect in
restoring confidence.
Through the first four months of 1857 the whole native
army of Bengal was in a- state of sullen, brooding unrest.
Outbreaks of incendiarism — a sure sign of sepoy discon
tent — occurred at Barrackpore in March, and a native regi
ment was disbanded. In April at the great mUitary station
of Meerut in the North-West Pr6vinces some troopers of
a native cavalry regiment, in spite of the explanations and

XXIX THE CAUSES OF THE MUTINY 367
appeals of their Colonel, refused on parade to use the
cartridges supplied to them. After trial by court martial
they were sentenced to ten years' imprisonment. On May 9
they were publicly degraded, stripped of their uniforms, and
manacled. The assembled troops, overawed by loaded
field guns and the drawn swords of an English dragoon
regiment, made no sign, but the mutineers, as they were
marched off" to jail, shouted back reproaches on their
comrades and curses on their commanding officer.

CHAPTER XXX
THE MUTINY
At Meerut on May lo, 1857, when the station was plunged
in the calm of a Sunday evening, three native regiments
rose, shot down their officers, broke open the prisons,
released their comrades, and raarched off to Delhi. Had
they been vigorously pursued and cut down, it is more than
likely that the Mutiny would have spread no further ; but
through the fatal inaction of the commanding officer of the
station they were allowed to escape undisturbed. On the
morning of the next day the outposts of the mutineers
galloped into Delhi and called upon the troops there to
revolt. Not a single British regiment was quartered at that
tirae in Delhi, and in a few hours the city was in the hands
of the rebels. The British officers of the sepoy battalions
were murdered, every European found met the same fate,
and the telegraph operator had only time to flash his alarm
ing messages to the chief stations in the Punjab when he
was cut down at his post. Finding resistance hopeless, the
British defenders of the great magazine with splendid
gallantry blew it and a thousand mutineers into the air.
The rebels bursting into the Palace proclairaed Bahadur
Shah, the old King of Delhi, once raore Mughal Emperor
of India.
Fortunately a short respite was given to the British
authorities reeling under this shattering blow. No further
mutinies, except in small and isolated stations, occurred for
about three weeks, and though the space of time was all
too short for what had to be done, it was something gained.

THE MUTINY 369
The most vigorous action came frora the Punjab, in spite
of the fact that a threefold peril had to be faced in that
province— disaffection in the sepoy regiraents, the risk of an
Afghan invasion, and that of a rising ofthe Sikhs. Happily
Dost Muhararaad remained splendidly loyal to the treaties
of 1855 and 1857, and the army of the Khalsa made no
attempt to profit by the disasters of their recent conquerors.
The sepoy regiments at Lahore were promptly disbanded,
and a movable coluran was formed under John Nicholson
to attack and destroy any mutinous bodies.
The most pressing need for the restoration of British
prestige was the recapture of Delhi. Both Canning and
Sir John Lawrence veheraently urged this upon Anson, the
Commander-in-Chief, who, for the moment however, found
it irapossible to advance for lack of transport and supplies.
Before the expedition could start, rautiny becarae general
over Oudh, Rohilkhand, and many parts of central India.
Between May 29 and June 5 the sepoys rose at Nasirabad
in Rajputana, at Nimach in the Gwalior state, at Bareilly in
Rohilkhand, and at Lucknow, Benares, and Cawnpore in
Oudh, while the Rani of Jhansi headed the revolt in
Bundelkhand and massacred every European that fell into
her hands. In almost every case the mutineers after the
outbreak set their faces towards Delhi : many murdered
their ofificers before doing so ; some, with a curious remnant
of fidelity, escorted them first to positions of safety and then
after saluting them marched off to join their comrades. In
Oudh alone was this movement checked. The mutineers
at Cawnpore had actually started along the Delhi road on
June 5 when they were headed off by Nana Sahib the next
day and brought back to besiege the British garrison weakly
entrenched there. The rebels of Lucknow also reraained
to besiege the Residency, well provisioned and fortified by
Sir Henry Lawrence, who alone of men in high positions
seems to have realized from the beginning of the year the
014 B b

37° HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA
true nature of the peril that was approaching. For the
raoment, however, we must disregard the course of events
in Oudh and return to the movements converging on
Delhi. Anson, marching from Ambala, died.of cholera on May 25
at Karnal, less than half-way on the road to Delhi. He was
succeeded by Sir Henry Barnard, who on June 4 was
joined by Archdale Wilson frora Meerut. Their corabined
forces defeated a rebel array at Badli Sarai on June 8, dis
lodged the enemy from the famous Ridge overlooking the
city of Delhi, and made their camp there. Nominally the
besieging force, they were themselves in reality besieged.
Their nuraber at first was under 5,000. That of the eneray
was about 30,000, and reinforceraents were constantly
thronging into Delhi by the southern and eastern roads,
which were completely open. All through June and July
the English force maintained its position on the Ridge with
difficulty, having constantly to beat back fierce attacks from
the mutineers in the city.
Meanwhile Sir John Lawrence and his able coadjutors,
Herbert Edwardes, John Nicholson, and Sydney Cotton,
having crushed down rautiny in their own province, were
straining every nerve to reinforce the array before Delhi
and taking a splendid risk in denuding the Punjab of troops.
To many the policy must have seeraed hazardous in the
extrerae. There could be no certainty then that Dost
Muhammad would remain faithful to his treaties, or, even if
he did, that he could restrain his turbulent countrymen
from raids upon our frontier. It must have appeared very
doubtful whether the Sikhs could permanently resist the
temptation to recover their independence. Little wonder
that Lawrence, upon whom responsibility for failure would
have fallen, often lagged behind the eager promptings of
Edwardes or Nicholson. In his proposal, however, to
surrender Peshawar to the Afghans and withdraw to the

INDIA IN 1857
THE MUTINY YEAR
Statute MUea
0 100 200 300 400 500

GEORCiE PHi.LIP 4 EON, LTOj

372 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
line ofthe Indus, he seems in the face of Edwardes's fervent
entreaties to have contemplated a calamitous blunder from
which he was only saved by the order of the Governor-
General, to whom he appealed, to ' hold on to Peshawar to
the last '. At the end of July Lawrence at last considered
it safe to send Nicholson with his splendid column to join
the British forces before Delhi, and the latter's wonderful
vigour inspired a new spirit into the besiegers. Barnard,
like Anson, had been smitten down by death (July 5), and
his successor. General Reed, having soon resigned from ill-
health, the nominal coraraander was Sir Archdale Wilson,
though the real leader was Nicholson himself On
September 6 the heavy siege train arrived, after a daring
attempt of the eneray to intercept it had been brilliantly
defeated by Nicholson. On September 14 the Kashmir
Gate was blown in and four columns advanced for the
storra of Delhi. After six days' desperate fighting the
city fell and the palace was taken. The English had
1,450 men put out of action, including Nicholson, who
was mortally wounded as he stepped forward in a narrow
lane swept by a withering fire to encourage a division
that had momentarily wavered. The King was taken
prisoner with his two sons, and the Princes were pistolled by
Hodson, a brilliant cavalry leader, who had persuaded hira
self that they were guUty of the murder of English raen and
women, and that an attempt to rescue them would be made
by the mob before he could take thera to a place of safe
custody. To complete the narrative of the taking of Delhi the
chronological order of events has been disregarded, and we
raust now retrace our footsteps. We have seen that by the
first week in June Oudh was seething with rebellion and the
rautineers were converging round two centres, Lucknow and
Cawnpore. While the rising in that province threatened to
cut all coraraunications between Calcutta and the Punjab,

XXX THE MUTINY 373
it, at any rate, kept large bodies of rebels occupied who
would otherwise have flocked to Delhi. The siege of the
entrenchraents at Cawnpore began on June 6 and lasted till
the 26th ; that of the Residency at Lucknow began on July i
and continued till its final relief on November 16. The
most strenuous efforts were made to relieve these two towns,
and it was round them that the fiercest fighting of the whole
war took place. On June 11 NeiU by a bold and fortu
nate stroke secured the great fortress of Allahabad, valiantly
held by an English ofificer with a small Sikh force but in
imminent danger of falling into the hands of the enemy.
This town was destined henceforward to be the base of
operations for the relief of the beleaguered garrisons in
Oudh and the ultimate reconquest of the province. Twelve
days later Neill was joined by General Havelock just returned
frora the Persian expedition, an officer grown grey in the
service in subordinate positions, to whora the task of reliev
ing Lucknow and Cawnpore had been committed. On
July 7 Havelock marched out of Allahabad with a little
array of 2,000 men for what was to prove, considering the
appalling difficulties that faced him, perhaps the most
glorious campaign of the Mutiny. His meagre force was
decimated by cholera and dysentery. The fierce rays of the
Indian sun beat unmercifully on the exhausted ranks; and
the eneray fought desperately and deterrainedly. Havelock
was outnumbered ten to one. Yet between July 12 and
September 25 he fought twelve pitched battles and accom
plished his task. He knew even before he left Allahabad
that, though the garrison at Lucknow was holding out, the
end had come to the heroic defence at Cawnpore, and all
he could hope to do there was to save, if possible, the lives
of the women and chUdren who were in the hands of Nana
Sahib. The facts of the surrender are well known and can
be only briefly summarized here. The garrison, through
terrible misery and suffering, held outtiU June 26, and then.

374 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
as the only hope of saving the non-combatants, surrendered
on promise of honourable treatment to Nana Sahib, who
from his estate at Bithur, granted him by the Company, was
directing the operations of the mutineers. The British left
their entrenchraents and were conducted to boats on the
river, but even before they had pushed off" frora the bank a
hail of bullets and grape-shot from the banks overwhelmed
them and a hideous carnage began. Four men only made
their escape, the rest were massacred, and about 125 women
and children were dragged ashore and reserved for a yet
more dreadful fate.
After four fierce conflicts Havelock entered Cawnpore
only to find that the day before his entry the captives, with
some others brought in from other stations to the number
of two hundred and eleven, had been foully raurdered and
their bodies flung into the famous well of Cawnpore. Leav
ing Neill, who had followed him from Allahabad, to take
a grira vengeance for this ghasty deed, Havelock marched
out on July 25 to cover the forty-two miles that separated
him from Lucknow. There Sir Henry Lawrence had died on
July 4 from a shell wound, but his work and influence lived
on after him and inspired the defence which was splendidly
maintained by Inglis. After winning two victories Have-
lock's little army was so shattered by cholera, sunstroke, and
losses in action that he was forced for the moraent to fall
back on Cawnpore. There he defeated a large force of the
enemy who were pressing Neill hard, and recruited his
strength. He crossed the Ganges once more on September
19 with Outram, who had come out to supersede him, but
who nobly volunteered to serve under his leadership till
Lucknow was relieved. He routed the enemy in three
more battles and fought his way at the point of the bayonet
into Lucknow on September 25, just five days after Delhi
had been finally occupied. As John Nicholson was mortally
wounded in the storm of Delhi, so Neill, who so much

XXX THE MUTINY 375
resembled him in impetuous valour and force of character,
met his death in the narrow streets of Lucknow.
These two events, the fall of Delhi and the relief of
Lucknow, mark the end of the first stage of the Mutiny —
the first desperate fight for very existence that had to be
waged by raen standing despairingly at bay without help
frora England. The back of the Mutiny was broken.
Frora henceforward begins the second stage of reconquest.
There was indeed yet much to be done ; Lucknow itself
had to be relieved a second time, for Havelock and Outram
were not strong enough to remove the garrison and were
themselves besieged ; but the tension of the situation was
lessened ; there was time to draw breath ; reinforcements
were steadily pouring in from England, and two Generals of
great experience. Sir Colin Campbell, Commander-in-Chief
(afterwards Lord Clyde), and Sir Hugh Rose (afterwards
Lord Strathnaim), were, the one on his way, and the other
already landed in India. The operations that remained
were briefly the reconquest of Oudh and Rohilkhand by
Sir Colin Campbell, the brilliant campaign of Sir Hugh
Rose in central India, starting from Bombay through dis
tricts where the rebels had hitherto been left almost undis
turbed, and the final breaking up and pursuit of fugitive
bands. On November 9 Sir Colin Campbell advanced with 5,000
men for the second relief of Lucknow, and entered the city
after a desperate conflict on the i6th. The non-combatants
were removed, and Campbell began his return march to
Cawnpore on the 2 7th, leaving Outram strongly posted with
4,000 men at the Alam Bagh, a large walled garden about
four miles from the city. There the brave old hero Have
lock, who died on November 24, worn out by his exertions
and privations, was fittingly buried near the city he had
saved. Sir Colin CarapbeU on his return was only just in
time to avert a serious disaster, for the mutinous Gwalior

376 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
contingent, 20,000 strong, under Tantia Topi, a Maratha
Brahman, had suddenly advanced from Kalpi and repulsed
General Windham, left in charge at Cawnpore. These
troops had rautinied in June, but this was the first effective
move they had made. Campbell severely defeated them on
December 6, and proceeded to a regular carapaign in Oudh
and Rohilkhand. He was joined before Lucknow by a
force of Gurkhas under Jang Bahadur, the able minister of
the Raja of Nepal, who never lost faith in the British cause.
Lucknow was finally captured and cleared of rebels by
March i, though Campbell's dread of losing men enabled
large bodies of the enemy to make their escape. The resis
tance in Oudh was unfortunately prolonged by Canning's
injudicious proclamation at the end of March, which declared
the lands of all Talukdars forfeit to Government except
those of six specifically mentioned and of others who could
prove their loyalty. Canning's intention undoubtedly was
to restore most of these estates after careful inquiry, but
this was naturally not understood by the Talukdars, who in
large numbers abandoned the attitude they had hitherto
adopted of neutrality or mere passive support of the rebels
for one of active participation, maintaining a harassing
gueriUa warfare tUl the end of the year. In May Campbell
captured Bareilly in Rohilkhand, and this practically con
cluded operations on a large scale in the north.
Meanwhile Sir Hugh Rose had conducted a brUliant and
decisive campaign in Bundelkhand, the southernmost theatre
of the Mutiny. Advancing from Mhow, his base of opera
tions, on January 8, 1858, he captured Ratgarh, and relieved
Saugor in February. In March he invested Jhansi, and,
after utterly defeating a great relieving army under Tantia
Topi at the battle of the Betwa, he carried the fortress by
storm. In May he routed a large army at Kunch. The
campaign seemed over and he had just laid aside his cora
mand when he was startled by news of the deepest import.

XXX THE MUTINY 377
The Rani of Jhansi and Tantia Topi, round whom the pur
suers were closing, had conceived the brUliant design of
marching to Gwalior on the desperate chance that Sindhia's
army would come over to thera. The Gwalior contingent
or subsidiary force, as we have seen, had long joined the
rebels, but Sindhia had hitherto kept his own army loyal.
The daring scheme succeeded. When Sindhia raarched
forth to encounter the enemy his whole array deserted hira ;
he himself barely escaped with his personal bodyguard to
Agra. The rebels occupied Gwalior, seized the arsenal and
the treasury, and proclaimed Nana Sahib as Peshwa. Rose
recognized at once the terrible danger that Tantia Topi
might now strike southwards into the Deccan and, with all
the prestige that the possession of Sindhia's capital gave him,
blow into flame the disaffection which, though as yet kept
under, was known to exist south of the Narbada. With a
supreme effort he flung his wearied troops on Gwalior and
defeated the rebels in two battles, in one of which the Rani
of Jhansi, clad in male attire, met a soldier's death. He
recaptured the city on June 20.
Though it still sraouldered in outlying districts, the great
conflagration of the Mutiny had now been stamped out, and
Canning felt himself justified in proclaiming peace on July 8.
Some of the leaders still eluded their pursuers. But Nana
Sahib was eventually driven into the pestUential jungles of
the Tarai on the borders of Nepal and probably perished
there miserably, for he was never seen again. Tantia Topi
escaped southwards and was hunted up and down Bundel
khand and Malwa till he was betrayed into the hands of the
British in April 1859 and hanged for complicity in the
massacre of Cawnpore.

CHAPTER XXXI
THE END OF THE EAST INDIA COMPANY
The Mutiny was over. Some reasons for the final English
victory raay here be considered. First, widespread and
formidable though the revolt was, it was yet to some extent
localized. The area affected was the Punjab, the United
Provinces, Rohilkhand, Oudh, the territory between the
Narbada and the Charabal, and the western part of Bihar
and Bengal. On the north-west Afghanistan reraained
friendly under Dost Muharamad, Sind was quiet, Rajputana
was loyal under the tactful guidance of George Lawrence,
a third member of that family the value of whose services
to England in the Mutiny was incalculable. India south of
the Narbada made no movement of importance, though
a native regiment mutinied at Kolhapur in the southern
Maratha country, and there were very dangerous ebullitions
of feeling at Hyderabad, the Nizam's capital. Central and
eastern Bengal were undisturbed, and Nepal rendered the
British valuable assistance in putting down the revolt.
Secondly, with the exception of the Rani of Jhansi, the
Begam of Oudh, and some minor chiefs, none of the
feudatory princes threw in their lot with the rebels. Sindhia
and Holkar reraained loyal, though their armies rose. The
chieftains of Sirhind, prominent araong whora were the Rajas
of Patiala and Jind, repaid with a splendid devotion the
protection granted to their ancestors against the aggression
of Ranjit Singh. It would not be easy to estiraate how
much Great Britain owes to two great Indian statesmen,
Sir Dinkar Rao of Gwalior and Sir Salar Jang of Hyderabad,

THE END OF THE EAST INDIA COMPANY 379
for the retention of her Indian Empire. Sir Dinkar Rao,
the minister of the young Sindhia, did much to keep his
master loyal, and the importance of this can hardly be over
stated. Had Sindhia raised the standard of revolt, every
Maratha state would have joined him. ' His loyalty ', says
General Innes, 'saved India for the British." Again, the
peril of an outbreak at Hyderabad, with its large and
turbulent Muhammadan population, was at one tirae very
great, and it was only warded off by the extraordinarily
prompt and energetic conduct of Sir Salar Jang, ' a man ',
says Mr. Rice Holmes, 'whose name deserves to be ever
mentioned by Englishmen with gratitude and admiration '?¦
Thirdly, it raay be said that the mutiny which called forth
so much abUity on the British side produced no leader
amongst the rebels ; perhaps the most capable was a woman,
the Rani of Jhansi. Sir John Lawrence used to dwell on
the many errors of judgement committed by the mutineers
and to declare that after they had revolted they seeraed
to become demented in their manner of conducting the
rebellion, and often took the one course that was fore
doomed to failure.
Fourthly, there were the exceptional characters of the
raen who were called upon to grapple with the Mutiny at
the outset — the Lawrences, Outram, Havelock, Nicholson,
NeiU, and Edwardes. Had they proved weak, or even men
of ordinary ability, none could have foretold the issue. The
hardest fighting fell to their share. It is noticeable that the
mutineers were far more formidable as a fighting force in
the earlier months. The battles were more stubbornly con
tested, and the losses inflicted on the British far greater in
the fighting round Delhi and in Havelock's and Outram's
campaigns than they were in the operations of Sir Colin
Campbell and Sir Hugh Rose. After the fall of Delhi and
' The Sepoy Revolt. By Lient.-General M°Leod Innes, p. 301.
' History ofthe Indian Mutiny. By T. R. E. Holmes, 1898, p. 499.

380 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
the first relief of Lucknow the resistance of the rautineers
sensibly weakened. Sir Hugh Rose conducted a briUiant
carapaign, but he had the advantage of leisurely preparation
and a good and efficient cavalry force, while the arraies he
met were dispirited and badly led.
Fifthly, there were the noble efforts of Lord Canning and
Sir John Lawrence at an early stage to check the outcry
both in England and India for a ruthless and indiscriminate
policy of vengeance. That outcry was natural enough, for
the provocation had been terrible. Many excesses could
be forgiven to the men who had gazed with starting eyes
and quivering lips on the horrors of the shambles of
Cawnpore. Even Nicholson clamoured that 'the flaying
alive, irapaleraent, or burning of the raurderers of the
woraen and chUdren at Delhi ' ' should be legalized. But
Canning, though ready to exact the sternest penalties from
the guilty, insisted that no mistake should be made as to
their guilt. He passed regulations to check the excesses
of self-appointed tribunals and to ensure proper trial and
inquiry in all cases. He was loudly and bitterly assailed at
the tirae, but raaintained his view with a noble disdain of
popular claraour. He was nicknamed ' Clemency Canning '
in derision, but it was afterwards recognized that his clemency
was not only morally splendid but politically expedient, for
nothing could have been more dangerous than to embitter
irretrievably our relations with the subject peoples.
The suppression of the Mutiny was deemed a fitting tirae
for the Crown finally to take over the control of the Indian
governraent. Against this decision the Company protested
in a dignified and weighty petition drawn up by John Stuart
Mill. They proudly claimed that the foundations of the
Indian Erapire had been laid by themselves ' at the same
period at which a succession of administrations under the
' History of the Indian Mutiny, Kaye and Malleson, vol. ii, p. 301.

XXXI THE END OF THE EAST INDIA COMPANY 381
control of Parliament were losing to the Crown of Great
Britain another great empire on the opposite side of the
Atlantic'. They challenged the most searching investiga
tion into the causes of the Mutiny, and pointed out with
much force that in Indian affairs the government of the
Crown had long possessed the deciding voice, and was thus
' in the fullest sense accountable for all that has been done,
and for all that has been forborne or omitted to be done '-
It was unreasonable to seek a remedy by 'annihilating the
branch of the ruling authority which could not be the one
principally in fault, and might be altogether blameless, in
order to concentrate all powers in the branch which had
necessarily the decisive share in every error, real or supposed '.
But the Company did not seek to vindicate themselves at
the expense of any other authority : ' They claim their full
share of the responsibility of the manner in which India
has practically been governed. That responsibility is to
them not a subject of humiliation, but of pride. They are
conscious that their advice and initiative have been, and
have deserved to be, a great and potent eleraent in the
conduct of affairs in India, and they feel complete assurance
that the more attention is bestowed and the more light
thrown upon India and its administration, the raore evident
it will become that the government in which they have
borne a part has been not only one of the purest in inten
tion, but one of the most beneficent in act, ever known
among mankind . . . and they are satisfied that whatever
further improvements may be hereafter effected in India
can only consist in the development of germs already
planted, and in building on foundations already laid, under
their authority, and in great measure by their express instruc
tions.' In a further paper the Corapany pointed out the
essential difference between the government of India and
that of other colonies of the empire, 'the government of
dependencies by a Minister and his subordinates, under the

382 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
sole control of Parliament, is not a new experiment in
England. That forra of colonial governraent lost the United
States, and had nearly lost all the colonies of any consider
able population and importance. The colonial administra
tion of this country has only ceased to be a subject of general
condemnation since the principle has been adopted of leaving
all the important colonies to raanage their own affairs, a course
which cannot be followed with the people of India.' All
governments require constitutional checks, and in the case
of India, since representative institutions were, at the time
at any rate, impracticable, the constitutional security must
lie in the construction of the administrative system itself;
' the forms of business are the real constitution of India '
These dignified protests did not avail to avert the change,
though, as the Court of Directors acknowledged, the ' clamour
which represented the governraent of India by the Corapany
as characterized by nearly every fault of which a civilized
government can be accused ' was succeeded by ' an almost
universal acknowledgement that the rule of the Company
has been honourable to themselves and beneficial to India '.'
The assumption of the government of India by the Crown
was indeed, as Sir H. S. Cunningham wrote, ' rather a formal
than a substantial change '.'' All real power had long passed
to the President of the Board of Control, and the Directors
had been for sorae tirae in the position of an advisory
council, though with considerable powers of initiative. The
last Charter Act of 1853, by throwing open the civil service to
competition, had deprived the Directors of their raost valued
privilege, the patronage of India : it had also reduced their
nurabers from twenty-four to eighteen, and made six of them
nominees of the Crown. This enabled the Government
to appoint to the Court retired servants of the Company,
1 Report to the General Court of Proprietors, iS.^S, p. 2.
" Earl Canning. Ey Sir H. S. Cunningham [Rulers of India Series],
p. 170.

XXXI THE END OF THE EAST INDIA COMPANY 383
men who had little chance of being elected under the
old system, and thus to leaven the directorate with first
hand Indian experience. The Act was obviously preparing
the way for the assumption by the Crown of the govern
ment of India in narae as well as in fact, for it gave
no definite renewal of the charter for a terra of years, as
former measures had done, but raerely provided that the
Indian territories should remain under the administration
of the Company in trust for the Crown until Parliament
should determine otherwise. The Act of 1858 completed
the process thus begun. A Secretary of State for India was
to take the place of the President of the Board of Control.
He was to be advised by a Council of fifteen appointed in
the first instance for life, afterwards for ten to fifteen years ;
eight members were selected by the Crown, seven by the
Court of Directors, subsequent vacancies in these seven
places being filled by the Council itself. Though some of
the old powers of the Court of Directors passed to the
Secretary of State, its influence mainly lingered on in the
Council. One of the chief advantages of the transfer of
government from the Company to the Crown, though it
caused at the time serious disaffection among the white
troops, and especially among the ofificers, lay in the end of
the awkward dualism of the Company's and the Queen's
army, the Indian and the Royal navy.
On November i, 1858, the new government was pro
clairaed by Lord Canning at Allahabad as first Viceroy and
Governor-General for the Crown. The Queen, who had
rejected the first proclamation submitted to her and re
quested that the revised draft 'should breathe feelings of
generosity, benevolence, and religious toleration', disclaimed,
as the Company had so often done, all desire for an exten
sion of territory, promised to respect ' the rights, dignity, and
honour' of native Princes and to uphold religious tolera
tion, and declared it to be her will ' that so far as may be,

384 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA chap.
our subjects, of whatever race or creed, be freely and ira-
partially adraitted to offices in our service, the duties of
which they may be qualified by their education, abiHty, and
integrity, duly to discharge'. Pardon and amnesty were
offered to all those still in arms against the British govern
ment who had not been guilty of the murder of British
subjects. The proclamation ended with a promise of
measures for the material and moral improvement of the
Indian peoples in whose ' prosperity will be our strength,
in their contentraent our security, and in their gratitude
our best reward '.
The govemment now deliberately and openly renounced
the policy of lapse, and the feudatory chiefs were granted
sunnads or charters empowering them to adopt heirs.
Henceforward the continual existence of native states was
guaranteed, but their rights were limited and defined. They
could have no relations with foreign powers, nor with each
other, except through British mediation. Their military
forces were to be strictly limited. Over internal affairs they
had full control, except that in his minute of April 30,
i860. Lord Canning affirmed the principle that the govern
ment of India is not precluded ' from stepping in to set
right such serious abuses in a native government as may
threaten any part of the country with anarchy or disturb
ance, nor from assuming temporary charge of a native state
when there shall be sufficient reason to do so '.
The change from Company to Crown government made
few changes in the Indian administration. The Charter
Act of 1853 had already enlarged the Governor-General's
Executive Council for legislative purposes to twelve members,
namely the Governor-General and Commander-in-Chief, the
four ordinary members of the Executive Council, two judges,
and four representative members norainated by the govern
ment of Bengal, Madras, Bombay, and the North-West
Provinces. The Indian Councils Act of r86i, which com-

XXXI THE END OF THE EAST INDIA COMPANY 385
pleted the change, added a fifth meraber to the Executive
Council, and to the Legislative Council not less than six or
more than twelve additional raerabers, at least one-half non-
official, to be nominated by the Governor-General. Legis
lative Councils were also established in the other provinces
and Lieutenant-Governorships.
Thus ended the Honourable East India Company,' not
so much from any special responsibUity for the Mutiny, for
in political matters it had been for many years absolutely
controlled by the state, but because it was felt to be an
anachronism that a private corporation should, even though
it were only in narae, adrainister so vast a dominion. ' It was
created by the Crown, two hundred and fifty years before ',
says Marshman, ' for the purpose of extending British com
merce to the East : and it transferred to the Crown on
relinquishing its functions an empire more magnificent than
that of Rome."' This great work was not accomplished,
as we have seen, without some blunders and political crimes.
To disguise them and to maintain that British administra
tors were always swayed by impeccable motives and un
erring statesmanship is to produce an unreal and impossible
picture, for we are dealing after all with human agency.
But when all necessary qualifications are made the annals
of the Company form one of the most fascinating and
Ulustrious pages in history. There were grave mistakes,
but they were rectified, great abuses, but they were swept
away. If territories were sometimes questionably acquired,
they were honestly and capably administered. Of the
Company's servants, Clive, Warren Hastings, Wellesley,
and Dalhousie were amongst the greatest Englishmen of
their day as conquerors or statesmen ; others, such as
CornwalHs, Bentinck, Munro, Thomason, and Metcalfe,
1 The Company for purposes of liquidation and legal requirements
maintained a formal existence until 1874.
' The History of India, J. C. Marshman, 1874, vol. iii, p. 457.
914 C C

386 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA
evolved in an uncongenial atmosphere a high standard of
humanitarian administration.
The closer India was brought to Great Britain by im
provements in communication, the steamship, the railway,
and the telegraph, the more possible and the more expedient
became the control of the Imperial government. In spite
of his vice-regal title the head of the Indian administration
after 1858 was more dependent on the Secretary of State
than his predecessors had been on the Board of Control
and the Court of Directors, whom an adroit Governor-
General could often play off one against the other. No
Governor-General under the Crown has defied the home
authorities like Warren Hastings, or overridden them like
WeUesley. Though it might be undoubtedly better that
the state in the nineteenth century should take over the
government of the Indian Erapire, it is certain that only
an association based on individual effort and drawing its
profits frora coramerce could in the beginning have acquired
it from so distant a base, and have toiled so patiently for
results so long deferred. GraduaUy the political and terri
torial displaced the mercantUe and economic character of
the Company. Leadenhall Street gave place to Whitehall.
The East India Company, founded by a little body of
pioneer traders in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, under
whora our colonial dominions had their smaU beginnings,
ended its career in the time of Queen Victoria, under whom
grew up the British Empire of to-day.

INDEX

Abbott, Punjab frontier officer,
339-
Achin, visited by James Lancas
ter, 1601, 25.
Adam, John, provisional Gover
nor-General, 1823, 292, 308.
Adams, defeats Mir Kasim, 160.
Afghanistan, subdued by Akbar,
1 1 ; Tipu Sultan intrigues with
Amir of, 235 ; Elphinstone's
mission to, 273 ; physical fea
tures of, 311 ; the iirst Afghan
war, 1839-42, 316-24. See
also Dost Muhammad.
Agra, English agency at, 35 ;
occupied by Lake, 1803, 257 ;
, Presidency of, established, 307.
Ahmad Shah Durrani, sacks Delhi,
1757, 137, 241; his invasion of
India, 269.
Ahmadabad, English agency at,
36-
Ahmadnagar,Muhammadan king
dom of, 10, II ; captured by the
British, 1803, 257.
Aix-la-Chapelle, Peace of, 1748,
103, 105.
Ajaigarh, captured by the British,
268.
Ajmer, English agency at, 35.
Akbar, Mughal Emperor, 1556-
1605, II ; Midnall at court of,
22.
Akbar Khan, son of Dost Muham
mad, 320, 321.
Alam Bagh, the, 375.
Albuquerque, Portuguese Viceroy,
1509-15, 16; quarrels with Ma
gellan, 17.
Aldercron, Colonel, 134.
Aldworth, Thomas, establishes
factory at Surat, 1612, 26, 35.

Alexander the Great, subdues
north-western Hindustan ; his
death, 9 ; referred to, 14.
Alexander VI, Pope, Bull of, 1493,
15-
Alexandria, an emporium of
eastern trade, .14 ; French at,
capitulate, 251.
Aligarh, captured by the British,
257- .
Ali Musjid, captured by the Brit
ish, 322.
Ali Vardi Khan, Nawab of Bengal,
1741-56, 70, 74; his character,
129; 130,132, 142.
Aliwal, battle of, 1846, 337.
Allahabad, entered by the British,
1764, 153; made over to the
Emperor, 160, 161; restored' to
Oudh, 173, 174; ceded to the
Company, 241 ; Havelock
starts from, 373; proclamation
at, 383.
AUard, officer of Napoleon, 310.
Almeida, Portuguese Viceroy,
1505-9, 16.
Alompra, Burman chief, 294.
Altona, India House at, 67.
Amboyna, captured by Dutch
from Portuguese, 1605, 28 ;
massacre of, 1623, 33 ; repara
tion exacted for, 34 ; captured
bythe English, 1810, 274.
Ambur, battle of, 1749, 107.
Amherst, Lord, Govemor-General,
1823-8, 292-9 ; declares war
on Burma, 296; his character,
298 ; later references to, 300,
303-
Amiens, Peace of, 1802, 251.
Aminchand (Omichand), decep
tion of, by Clive, 138, 140, 163.

c c 2

388

INDEX

Amir Khan, leader ofthe Pindaris,
268-9, 282, 286.
Amritsar, Treaty of, 1809, 271.
Angria, Kanhoji, the corsair chief,
71,72, 86, 147.
Anson, Commander-in-Chief, 1857,
369, 37°-
Antwerp, an emporium for the
Indian trade, 14; subscription
books for the Ostend Company
opened at, 65.
An-waru-din, Nawab of Camatic,
fights with the French, 105 ;
killed, 1749, 107.
Apa Sahib, Raja of Berar, 284-8.
Arabia, Tipu Sultan sends envoys
to, 244.
Arabians, the, conquer Sind, 10.
Arakan, i ; conquered by the Bur
mese, 295 ; ceded to the British,
297.
Aravalli range, the, a water
shed, 6.
Arcot, Clive's relief of, 1751, no,
117; captured by Haidar Ali,
197; debts of Nawab of, 195,
224.
Argaon, battle of, 1803, 257.
Arni, battle of, no.
Aryan invasions, early, 8.
Asaf Jah, see Nizam-ul-Mulk.
Asaf-ud-daula, Nawab of Oudh,
British treaty with, 1775, 185;
relations with Warren Hastings,
208-10.
Ashti, battle of, 286.
Asirgarh, captured by the British,
287-8.
Asoka, his empire, 273-232 B.C., 9.
Assada, settlement of Courten's
Association at, 40.
Assada merchants, another name
for Courten's Association, 40.
Assam, 294 ; subjugated by the
Burmese, 295, 296 ; a British
protectorate, 298.
Assaye, battle of, 1803, 257.
Attock, seized by Ranjit Singh, 310.
Auchmuty, Sir Samuel, comman
der in campaign in Java, 274.
Auckland, Lord, Governor-
General, 1836-42, 308-22 ;

Afghan policy of, 312-17 ; later
references to, 326-7, 333 ; his
treaty with Oudh, 355-6.
Aungier, Gerald, President of
Surat and Governor of Bombay,
1669-77, 77 ; advises armed
reprisals, 43.
Aurangzeb, Mughal Emperor,
1658-1707, 12; break up of
empire under, 42 ; English de
clare war on, 43 ; grants condi
tions of peace, 45-6 ; grants an
audience to Sir William Norris,
56; relations with Norris, 57;
dies, 1707, 60, 61.
Austrian succession, war of, 69,
91, 96, 98, 127.
Ava, attempt of the British to ad
vance on, 297 ; British Resident
leaves, 347; Dalhousie refuses
to advance to, 349.
Avitabile, 310, 333.
Babar, Mughal Emperor, 1526-30,
his career, 10.
Badli Sarai, battle of, 1857, 370.
Baghat, passes to British by lapse,
352-3-
Bahadur Shah I, Mughal Em
peror, 1707-12, 62.
Bahadur .Shah II, Mughal Em
peror, 1837-58, 361, 368.
Bahour, battle of, in.
Baillie, defeated by Haidar Ali,
1780, 196.
Baird, General, in Egypt, 1800,
251.
Baji Rao II, the last Peshwa, ap
peals to British Government,
254 ; forms subsidiary alliance
with the British Govemment,
255 ; rebels and is deposed,
284-7. 352 ; death of, 354, 363.
Balaji Vishvanath, first Peshwa,
founds a dynasty, 13.
Balasore, English established at,
38; burnt by Heath, 1686, 45.
Bandula, Burmese General, de
feats British at Ramu, 296 ; de
feated and killed, 297.
Bangalore, captured by Corn
wallis, 234.

INDEX

389

Bankibazaar (Bankipore), Ostend
Company's settlement at, 67-8.
Bantam, factory established at, 25 ;
re-established, 34 ; controls
Madras till 1653, 38; French
factory at, 92.
Baramahal, acquired by the Brit
ish, 1792, 235.
Bareilly, mutiny at, 369 ; captured
by Sir Colin Campbell, 376.
Barents, William, Dutch ex
plorer, 17.
Barker, Sir Robert, witnesses
treaty between the RohiUas and
Oudh, 174, 177.
Barlow, Sir George, acting Gover
nor-General, 1805-7, his code,
232 ; policy of, 237, 263 ; his
period of office, 265-7.
Bamard, Sir Henry, Commander-
in-Chief, 1857, 370; dies, 372.
Barnet, Commodore, threatens
Pondieherry, 1745, 99, 100.
Barrackpore, Sepoy mutiny at,
1824, 299; incendiarism at, 1857,
366.
Barre, member of Parliament,
1766, 180,
Barrier Treaty, the, 1715, 65.
Barwell, Richard, member of
Council under Warren Hastings,
182-3.
Bassein, inBiirma, taken, 1 85 2, 348.
Bassein, in western India, cap
tured by the Marathas, 1738,
71 ; surrendered to the British
and given back again, 192 ; re
captured, 193.
Bassein, Treaty of, with Peshwa,
1802, importance of, 255 ; re
sults of, 256; recognized by
Sindhia and Holkar, 259 ; later
references to, 266, 268.
Batavia, founded 1619, 33; Lord
Wellesley contemplates attack
on, 251 ; occupied by the Brit
ish, 1 71 1, 274.
Baxar, battle of, 1764, 153.
Beard, John, opposes Littleton in
Bengal, 56.
Beckford, member of Parliament,
1766, 180.

Bednore, captured by Tipu Sultan,
1783, 199.
Begam of Oudh, in the Mutiny, 378.
Begams of Oudh, case of, 1781-2,
208-12 ; charges relating to, in
impeachment of Warren Hast
ings, 216-18.
BeUecombe, defends Pondieherry,
197.
Benares, sovereignty of, passes to
the Company, 1775, 185; con
dition of, 1784, 214; Raja of,
see Chait Singh ; emoluments of
Resident at, 224, 226; mutiny
at, 369.
Bencoolen, English Presidency at,
34 ; duelling and drunkenness
at, 79, 80, 83.
Benfield, Paul, and the Nawab of
Arcot's debts, 195, 223.
Bengal, conquered, by Akbar, 1 1 ;
early English settlements in, 38 ;
loss of, by the English, 1689,
45 ; English return to, 46; made
a separate Presidency, 1699, 56 ;
the Nawabs of, their dealings
with the English, 69-70, 131-2 ;
commerce of, 70 ; relative
strength of English and French
in, 94-6 ; the key to India, 96 ;
revolution in, Clive's first
governorship of, 129-48; mis
government in, Clive's second
governorship of, 149-55;
Clive's reforms in, 155-62;
the Directors' belief in wealth
of, 150; famine in, 1769-70,
167. See also under Diwani,
Permanent settlement.
Bengal Land Act, the, 1859, 230.
Bentinck, Lord William, Govemor-
General, 1828-35, 300-7 ; Go
vernor of Madras, 266, 292, 300 ;
his administrative and social re
forms, 301-4; relations with
native powers, 304-6 ; with
Ranjit Singh, 31T, 325, 326;
opinion on the first Afghan war,
317; relations with Oudh, 355;
later references to, 363, 385.
Berar, Muhammadan kingdom of,
10.

390

INDEX

.Berar, dominions of Raja of, 2 38-9.
See also Bhonsla Raja.
Bernier, his view of Indian troops,
142.
Best, Captain, his victory over the
Portuguese, 1612, 26, 30.
Betwa, battle ofthe, 1858, 376.
Bharatpur, Lake's failure before,
1805, 201; captured by Lord
Combemiere, 1826, 299.
Bhonsla Raja, of Berar, dominions
of, 238 ; position of, in Maratha
confederacy, 2 39 ; part of, in
second Maratha war, 256-8 ;
his loss of territory, 259 ; dis
affected, 260 ; aided by the
British against the Pindaris,
268-9 > P^rt of> in third Maratha
war, 285-7. ^^^ ''^^'' ^V^
Sahib.
Bhopal, disturbances in, 306.
Bickerton, Sir R., British admiral,
1782, 199.
Bidar, Muhammadan kingdom of,
10.
Bijapur, Muhammadan kingdom
of, 10 ; submits to the Mughals,
12.
Bird, Robert, his settlement ofthe
North-West Provinces, 303.
Bithur, Baji Rao II a prisoner at,
2S6.
'Black Hole' of Calcutta, the,
1756. 13.1-
Board of Control, established by
Pitt's Act,l7S4,2i6; abolished ,
1858, 382; referred to, 278,
306.
Bolan Pass, the, 2.
Bombay, harbour of, 7 ; ceded by
Portugal to Charles II, 1661,
30 ; becomes chief English
settlement, 1687, 37, 41 ; sur
rendered by Charles II to the
Company, 1668, 41 ; besieged
by the natives, 1686, 45 ; history
of, 1 708-46, 70-1 ; strongest of
the Presidency towns, 1746, 71 ;
styled a colony, English women
sent to, 76 ; early governors of,
77 ; hospital and church at, &c.,
78 ; slaves for, 82 ; superior to

French settlements on western
coast, 94 ; as affected by the
Regulating Act, 1773, 191.
Bonaparte. See Napoleon.
Boscawen, Admiral, besieges Pon-
dicherry, 1748, 103-4; referred
to, 108.
Boston, Company's tea thrown into
sea at, 1775, 181.
Both, Dutch Govemor-General,
1609-14, 32.
Boughton, Gabriel, obtains licence
to trade in Bengal, 1650, 38.
Bourbon, Isle of, acquired by the
French, 1657, 94 ; value of, 95 ;
developed by La Bourdonnais,
99 ; captured by the British,
1810, restored, 1815, 274.
Brahmanical Hinduism, 8, 9.
Brahmaputra river, the, 3.
Braithwaite, defeated by Tipu Sul
tan, 1782, 198.
Brazil, discovery, of, 16.
Bristow, Resident at Lucknow,
210.
Broach, captured by the British,
257-
Bruges, an emporium of eastern
trade, 14.
Bruyninx, Dutch minister at Bms-
sels, 65.
Brydon, Dr., sole survivor of retreat
from Kabul, 321.
Buddewal, battle of, 1846, 337.
Buddhism, rise of, 8, 9.
Bundi, treaty with, 285.
Burdwan, acquired by the British,
'51-
Burgoyne, 144, 163 ; his strictures
ou Clive, 164-5 ! surrenders at
Saratoga, 1 777, 193.
Burhanpur, English agency at,
35-
Burke, Edmund, quoted on Sur
man's embassy, 62; on Clive,
165 ; on Warren Hastings, 171,
I75i 17^; °° ^^e ravaging of
the Carnatic, 196 ; his part in
impeachment of Warren Has
tings, 216-19 ' on the Company's
servants, 224; referred to, 214,
304'

INDEX

391

Burma, nature of the country, 296.
See Burmese, the.
Burmese, the, 275; their conquests,
294, 295 ; threats to the British,
295 ; first Burmese war, 1824-6,
296-8 ; second Burmese war,
1852, 347-9.
Burnes, Alexander, Captain, after
wards Sir, goes up Indus to
Lahore, 311, 324; view of Pe
shawar question, 314; mission
to Kabul, 315-6; in Afghan
campaign, 318; murdered,
1841, 320.
Bushire, captured by the British,
360.
Bussy, quoted, 61 ; takes Jinji,
108 ; his achievements in the
Deccan, 109 ; opposes policy of
Dupleix, III, 115; summoned
to Madras, 121 ; at variance
with Lally, 1 2 1-2 ; captured
at Wandiwash, 122; danger of
his aiding Siraj-ud-daula, 136;
views of, 124; returns to India,
1783, 198-9.
Bute, Marquess of, 123.
Cabot, John, discovers Newfound
land, 1497, 15.
Cachar, annexed, 1832, 305.
Calcutta, site of, at Sutanati, 45 ;
founded by Chamock, 1690, 46 ;
Fort William built at, 61, 70 ;
strength of, compared with
Chandarnagar, 94, 129; captured
by Siraj-ud-daula, 1856, 133 ;
Black Hole of, the, 133; re
covered, 135.
Calicut, Vasco da Gama at, 1498,
15-
Camoens, the poet, 1 6.
Campbell, Sir Archibald, occupies
Rangoon, 296-7.
Campbell, Sir Colin, afterwards
Lord Clyde, his relief of Lnck
now, 1857, 375 ; his campaign
in Oudh and Rohilkhand, 375-6,
379-
Canning, George, on Charter Act
of 1814, 278; President of Board
of Control, 282 ; accepts and

resigns governor-generalship,
292.
Canning, Lord, Governor-General,
1856-62, 353, 359; character
of J 359 ! prevents surrender of
Peshawar, 372 ; his Oudh pro
clamation, 376; proclaims peace,
377 ; nicknamed ' Clemency
Canning', 380.
Carlyle, Thomas, on Ostend Com
pany, 67.
Carnac, Colonel, one of Clive's
Select Committee, 155.
Carnatic, the, boundaries of, 73 ;
the war in, 105-19; adminis
tration taken over by Lord
Wellesley, 1801, 244, 247-8 ;
sovereignty of, absorbed by Lord
Dalhousie, 1853, 354.
Caron, founds French factory at
Surat, 1668, 92.
Cartier, Governor of Bengal, 1 770-
2, 167.
' Cartridges, the greased,' 362,
366-7.
Cartwright, Ralph, establishes
stations in Bengal and Orissa,
i633> 38-
Caste, system, the, 8.
Castlereagh, Lord, afterwards
Marquess of Londonderry, Presi
dent of Board of Control, criti
cizes Lord Wellesley's policy,
255, 260 ; suicide of, 292.
Catherine of Braganza, Bombay
part of her dowry, 30.
Cawnpore, Mutiny at, 369 ; siege
of, 373 ; massacre of, 374, 380.
Ceylon, Dutch capture Portuguese
posts in, 1658, 28.
Chait Singh, Raja of Benares,
requisitions on, 201-4; deposi
tion of, 204 ; case of, considered,
204-8, 211, 214; charges rela
ting to, at the impeachment,
216-18.
Champion, Colonel, commander in
Rohilla war, 175-6, 185.
Chandarnagar, French factory
founded at, 1674, 92 ; compared
with Calcutta, 94 ; progress of,
96, 116; captured by the British,

392

INDEX

^1h1, 127,136-7; retaken,i778,
197.
Chanda Sahib, Nawab of the Car
natic, supported by Dupleix,
107-11 ; murdered by Raja of
Tanjore, in.
Changama, Pass of, British victory
at, 1767, 169 ; Haidar Ali in
vades Carnatic by, 1780, 195.
Charles I, of England, treaty of,
with Portugal, 1642, 30 ; fails to
get reparation from the Dutch,
34 ; grants a licence to Courten's
Association, 1635, 39, 40.
Charles II, of England, receives
Bombay from Portugal, 1661,
30 ; grants charters, and surren
ders Bombay, to the Company,
41 ; his wars with Holland, 42.
Charles II, of Spain, death of, 63.
Charles V, Emperor, 17.
Charles VI, of Austria, founds the
Ostend Company, 63-5 ; aban
dons the Company, 66-7.
Charnock, Job, quoted, 42-3 ;
founds Calcutta, 1690,46, 70.
Charter Acts, of 1781, 214; of
1793. 225, 236; of 1813, 276-9;
of 1833, 306-8 ; of 1853,382-4.
Charters of the East India Com
pany, of 1600, 23 ; of 1609, 26 ;
of 1657, 40 ; of 1661 and 1683,
41 ; of 1686, 44, 49 ; of 1693,
60.
Chatham, Lord. See William Pitt,
the elder.
Chauth, Maratha blackmail, 1 3.
Child, Sir John, President of Surat
and Governor of Bombay, 1682-
90, 44 ; seizes Mughal shipping,
45 ; dies, 1690, 46.
Child, Sir Josia, four times gover
nor of the Company, 44; his
autocratic power, 48-9 ; quoted,
49 ; spends ;,f 80,000 in bribes,
50.
Chilianwala, battle of, 1849, 342-3,
346.
China, East India Company's trade
with, 279; trade with, surren
dered, 1834, 306-7.
Chinsura, Dutch settlement in

Bengal, 129; surrender of, to the
British, 141.
Chittagong, Directors order the
capture of, 1686, 45 ; acquired
by the British, 151 ; claimed by
the Burmese, 294-5.
Chitu, Pindari leader, 286.
Chunar, Hastings escapes to, 204 ;
Trimbakji imprisoned at, 287.
Clavering, Lieutenant-General, one
of the councillors in Bengal
under Warren Hastings, 182-4,
186, 188-9, 191-
Clive, Robert, afterwards Lord,
1 01, 115 ; his relief of Arcot,
no, 117; sails to Bengal, 120;
sends Forde to the Northern
Circars, 121; procures imperial
decree for the Northern Circars,
123; services in southern India,
126, 128; Govemor of Fort St.
David, 134; recovers Bengal,
1757, 134-6; takes Chandarna-
gar,i36-7; deceives Aminchand,
138-9; wins battle of Plassey,
1757, 139-40; first governor
ship of Bengal, 141 ; takes
Chinsura, 141 ; Clive's work
and conduct, 142-8 ; departure
for Europe, 149-50 ; second
governorship of Bengal, 154-62 ;
acquires Diwani, 155, 158-9;
internal reforms and foreign
policy, 156-62; leaves India
for last time, 162 ; before Select
Committee, 163, 181 ; Clive and
Parliament, 164 ; his death and
character, 165-6 ; his letter to
Pitt, 179; his jagir, 146-7, 154,
155, 158, 161, 163, 181, 223;
later references to, 173, 218,
223, 243, 385-
Cochin, Portuguese factory at, 16.
Coen, Dutch Governor- General,
founds Batavia, 1619, 33.
Coimbatore, acquired by the
British, 1799, 246.
Colbert, and the French Company
of 1664, 92, 125.
Colebrook, helps to procure Ostend
Company's charter, 64.
Colebrook, Sir Edward, quoted, 1 44.

INDEX

393

Columbus, Christopher, discovers
West Indies and South America,
1492, 15.
Combermere, Lord, takes Bharat
pur, 1826, 299.
Condore, French defeated at, by
Forde, 1758, 121.
Constantinople, an emporium of
eastern trade, 14; Tipu Sultan
sends envoys to, 234, 244.
Coorg, sovereignty of, passes to
the British, 235; Raja of, de
posed, 305.
Coote, Sir Eyre, defeats Lally at
Wandiwash, 1760, 122; pursues
Law into Oudh, 137 note ; votes
for battle before Plassey, 139;
advocates march to Delhi, 161 ;
operations of in southern India,
1781-83, 197-9; dies, 1783,
199; criticizes Warren Hastings,
207.
Copenhagen, battle of, 1801,
272.
Comelis, Dutch defeated at, 274.
Cornwallis, Lord, Govemor-
General, 1786-93 and 1805,
referred to, 160; on Sir Elijah
Impey, 213-14; letter from
Dundas to, 217 ; first governor-
generalship, 220-36; internal
reforms and permanent settle
ment of Bengal, 162, 172, 222-
32 ; his foreign policy and war
with Tipu Sultan of Mysore, 225,
232-6; reappointed Governor-
General, 1797, but resigns, 242 ;
referred to, 247, 254 ; his second
govemor - generalship, 261-5;
later references to, 283, 289,
302, 385-
Cossimbazar, English factory at,
seized, 1686, 45 ; seized by
Siraj-ud-daula, 1756, 133 ; Jean
Law at, 137 ; cession of, de
manded by the Burmese, 295.
Cotton, Sydney, in the Punjab,
37°-
Cotton, Sir Willoughby, invades
Afghanistan, 318.
Council, functions of a, 88-9.
Court, General, European officer

of Ranjit Singh, 310; expelled,
333-
Courten, Sir William, 39.
Courten's Association,gains licence
for eastern trade, 39 ; settlement
of, at Assada, 40; united with
East India Company, 40.
Courthope, Nathaniel, defends
Pulo Run, 1616-20, 31.
Covelong (Coblon) Ostend Com
pany's settlement at, 67, 68.
Coveripak, battle of, no.
Covilham, Pedro de, reaches
Miilabar, 15.
Cromwell, Oliver, makes treaty
with Portugal, 1654, 30, 34;
his charter to the East India
Company, 1657, 40.
Cuddalore, captured by Haidar
Ali, 1782, 198.
Cultru, Prosper, quoted, 104, 113-
14, 116.
Cunningham, Sir H. S., quoted,
382.
Cunningham, Sir James, granted
licence for Indian trade, 16 17,
50-51-
Cuttack, acquired by the British,
1804, 259.
Daba, battle of, 1843, 329.
Dacca, cession of, demanded by
the Burmese, 295.
D'Ache, French admiral, quarrels
with Lally, 12 1-2.
Dalhousie, Lord, Governor -
General, 1848-56, compared
with Wellesley, 243 ; his period
of ofiice, 340-58 ; his criticism
of Cough's strategy, 343 ; his
Punjab policy, 344-6 ; his Bur
mese policy and the second
Burmese war, 347-9 ; his use
of doctrine of lapse, 350-4 ; his
annexation of Oudh, 1856, i6r,
354-6; his internal reforms,
300, 356 ; alleged responsibility
for the Mutiny, 357, 361 ; his
opponents, and controversy with
Sir Charles Napier, 358 ; later
references to, 359, 362, 365,
385.

394

INDEX

Daman, Portuguese factory at, i6.
Darien, Isthmus of, occupied by
the Scottish Company, 52.
Darius, subdues Indus valley, c.
500 B.C., 9.
Davenant, Charles, quoted, 48.
Davis, the explorer, 17.
Day, Francis, founds Fort St.
George, 1640, 37 ; prevents
abandonment of Bengal fac
tories, 38.
de Boigne, European officer in
service of Sindhia, 239, 258.
Deccan, the, meaning of the term,
2 and note ; description of, 6 ;
relation to Mughal emperors,
12.
de Kerjean, defeated by Lawrence
at Bahour, in.
de la Hay, French admiral, driven
from Trincomali, 1673, 92.
de Lally. See Lally.
Delhi, early dynasties of, 10 ; Sur
man's embassy at, 61-2 ; pro
posal that the British should
march to, 161; Marathas con
duct Shah Alam to, 1771, 173 ;
Sindhia loses and regains control
of, 240; battle of, 1803, 257;
taken under British protec
tion, 244, 257 ; seized by the
Mutineers, 1857, 3^8 ; siege of,
369-70; capture of, 372.
Delta of the Ganges, 3.
De Merveille, supposed to have
suggested Ostend Company, 64.
Deogaon, Treaty of, 258.
de Prie, Marquess, Governor ofthe
Netherlands, 65.
Derajat, subdued by Ranjit Singh,
310.
De Suffrein, French admiral, lands
French troops, 198 ; his naval
engagements with Hughes,
1782-3, 199.
Diaz, Bartholomew, rounds Cape
of Good Hope, i486, 15.
Dig, battle of, 1804, 261.
Dindigul, acquired by the British,
,1792, 235.
Dinkar Rao, Sir, minister of
Sindhia, 332, 378-9.

Diu, Portuguese factory at, 16.
Divi,. made over to the French,
108 ; to be surrendered condi
tionally to the English, 113.
Diwan, finance officer, I r ; Direc
tors determine ' to stand forth as
Diwan', 11.
Diwani of Bengal, acquired by
the Company, 1765, 155, 158,
159, 169, 179, 180, 194, 227,
248.
Donabew, Bandula killed at, 297.
Dost Ali, Nawab of Carnatic,
slain, 1740, 74.
Dost Muhammad, Amir of Afghan
istan, 311; eager for British
alliance, 313, 314; Lord Auck
land drives him into arms of
Russia, 315-16 ; British expedi
tion to depose him, 316-20;
re-establishes his power, 324 ;
Sikh alliance with, 342, 344;
British treaties with, 1855 and
1857, 360, 369, 370; remains
friendly in the Mutiny, 369,
378-
Downton, Captain Nicholas, his
victory over the Portuguese,
1614-15, 30, 36.
Drake, Sir Francis, his voyage
round the world, 1579, 18, 21,
31-
Drake, Governor of Calcutta, 133.
Dravidians, the, or tribes of the
south, 9.
Du Bois, John, treasurer of the
Old Company, 52, 54.
Dudley, Sir Robert, sends squadron
to India, 1596, 22.
Duelling in India prohibited, 78,
79-
Dnff, Grant, Resident at Satara,
289.
Dulip Singh, Sikh Maharaja, 333,
345-
Dumas, Govemor of Pondieherry,
96, 97.
Dundas, Henry, President of the
Board of Control, 217, 222, 22S,
236. 237, 242-3, 254.
Dupleix, Govemor of Chandar
nagar, 1731-41, 95-7; Cover-

INDEX

395

nor-General of Pondieherry,
1741-54, 100; quarrels with La
Bourdonnais, 101-5 ; his policy,
106 ; takes part in native poli
tics, 107 ; his overlordship of
southem India, 108; at height
of his power, 1751, log ; decline
of, I lo-l I ; recall of, 1 754, n 2 ;
his charges against Godeheu,
113-17 ; his over-sanguine tem
perament, 115; failure of his
policy, 116-18; treatment of, at
hands of the Company, 117;
character of, n 9 ; later references
to, 120, 124, 125, 127.
Dutch, their efforts to share in the
Indian trade, 1 8 ; prevail over
tbe English in the Far East, 19 ;
their restrictive colonial policy,
1 9 ; English model themselves
upon the Dutch pattern, 20 ;
rivalry of, with the English, 24,
26-7. 35. 37-8; their early
expeditions to the East, 24 ;
oppose Sir Henry Middleton,
25 ; relations of, with English
and Portuguese, 29-34; union
between the English and Dutch
companies, 1619, 32-3 ; Dutch
perpetrate the massacre of Am
boyna, 1623, 33-4; criticized
by Sir Thomas Roe, 36 ; wars
of, with England and France,
42 ; help to patrol the pilgrim
route to Mecca, 57 ; naval
supremacy of, 63; renegade
Dutch serve with the Ostenders,
63 ; opposed to Ostend Com
pany, 64-5, 67-9 ; capture St.
Thome, 1672, and Pondieherry,
1693, 92; considered strongest
European nation in India, 1718,
97; Dutch news-sheets, 118;
their settlement at Chinsura,
129, 132; attacked and dis
armed by Clive, 1759, 141-2 ;
intrigues of, with Mir Jafar,
146; war declared with, 1781,
198 ; in alliance with France,
251 ; attack on Dutch eastern
possessions by Lord Minto, 274,
275-

Duvelaer, Director of the French
Company, 112.
East India Company :
(i) The Old or London East
India Company, founded, 1600,
23 ; its task, 24 ; its first voyages,
25-6 ; its difiiculties under
Charles I, 38-40 ; dealings with
Cromwell, 40-41 ; its prosperity
at the Restoration, 41-2 ; its
struggle with the New Com
pany, 54-7; its union with the
New Company, 1702, 58 ; union
consummated by Godolphin's
award, 1708, 59.
(2) The New or London
East India Company, 47-59 ;
founded, i6g8, 52-3 ; its need
of capital, 54 ; its servants in
the East, 55-7 ; its fortunes in
India, 56 ; union with the Old
Company, 58-9.
(3) The United East India
Company, founded, 1708, 59;
protest of, against ills abolition,
380-2 ; its functions taken over
by the Crown, 382-3; its great
work, 385-6.
Edwardes, Sir Herbert, quoted,
317; in the Punjab, 1846, 339;
defeats Mulraj, 341-2 ; nego
tiates treaties with Dost Mu
hammad, 360; services in the
Mutiny, 370, 372, 379.
Egypt, Indian army sent to, by
Lord Wellesley, 251.
Elizabeth, Queen, contemporary
with Akbar, 1 1 ; makes war
with Spain, 18; declares the
ocean is free to all, 1580, 21;
leaves much to private enter
prise, 24.
Ellenborough, Lord, Governor-
General, 1842-4, quoted, 307 ;
President of Board of Control,
311 ; period of office as Governor-
General, 322-32; bombastic
proclamation of, 324; his deal
ings with Gwalior, 330-32 ; re
called by the Directors, 332 ;
I later references to, 334, 344.

396

INDEX

Elphinstone, General, commander
of troops in Kabul, 319-21.
Elphinstone, Mountstuart, sent to
Kabul, 273, 311; Resident at
Poona, 284, 289 ; defeats Mara
thas at Kirki, 1817, 285; his
services to Indian people, 301,
303 ; views on suttee, 303 ;
declines governor-generalship,
308 ; his opinion on the Afghan
war, 317.
England, General, defeated at
Hakalzai, 322.
England, the pirate, 71.
Eugene, Prince, and the Ostend
Company, 64.
Everest, Mount, i.
Farghana, 10.
Farruckhabad, battle of, 1S04, 261.
Farrukhsiyar, Mughal Emperor,
1 71 2-19, grants privileges to
Surman's embassy, 62.
Fenton, Edward, fails to round the
Cape, 21.
Ferozeshah, battle of, 1845, 336.
Fitch, travels in India, 1583-91,
21, 22, 23.
Fiume, 63, 67.
Flacourt, colonizes Madagascar,98.
Fleury, Cardinal, 98.
Forde, Colonel, storms Masuli
patam, 1759, 121 ; defeats the
Dutch, 1759, 141 ; his end, 181.
Forrest, Sir G. W. , on Chait Singh,
205 note ; on Begams of Oudh,
209-10.
Fort St. David, English at, appeal
to theFrench,69; taken by Lally,
120 ; Clive Governor of, 134.
Fort St. George. See Madras.
Fort William. See Calcutta.
Fox, C. J., 214; his India Bills,
215; manager of impeachment
of Warren Hastings, 217.
Foxcroft, imprisoned by Sir Ed
ward Winter, 77.
Francis, Sir Philip, venom of, 1 75 ;
appointed to Bengal council,
1773, 182 ; his prejudices, 183 ;
attacks on, and duel with. Wan en
Hastings, 184 ; his action in the

business of Nandkumar, 186,
188-90 ; his influence in foreign
affairs, 191-3; Hastings refers
to, 214 ; his part in the impeach
ment of Hastings, 216-17.
Frederick IV of Denmark, sets up
an India House at Altona, 67.
French, the, in India, observe neu
trality in the Spanish succession
war, 69 ; attempt to found
colonies in India, 75 ; waste
powder in salutes, 80; early
French Companies, 91 ; Col
bert's Company, early French
settlements, wars with Holland,
92 ; Perpetual Company of
the Indies, 1720, 94; position
of, in relation to the English,
94-5 ; French Company depen
dent on state patronage, 95—6 ;
commerce of, compared with
that of the English, 97-8 ; hos
tilities of, with the English to
1748, 98-104; relations of,
with English on the Coroman
del coa.st, 1748-54, 105-19;
their attack on English in
southem India, 1758, 120-1 ;
victory of English over, 122-3 !
French Company suspended,
1769, re-established, 1785, 123 ;
general reasons for French de
feat, 124-8 ; in Bengal, 129-30;
defeated by Clive, 1 36-7 ; in
correspondence with Siraj-ud-
daula, 139 ; French agent at
Poona, 1777, 193; declare war
on England, 1778, their settle
ments taken, 197; naval en
gagements of, with the English,
198-9 ; Tipu Sultan's intrigues
with, 235, 244; possessions of,
again occupied in the Revolu
tionary war, 1793, 236; dis
bandment ofthe Nizam's French
force, 245-6 ; Wellesley coun
teracts French designs, 250-1 :
possible Maratha-French alli
ance, 255 ; danger of French
attacking India through Persia,
270-1, 273-4.
Friedland, battle of, 1S07, 272.

INDEX

397

Frobisher, voyages of, 17.
FuUarton, campaign in Mysore,
1783, 199-
Fnlta, fugitives from Calcutta at,
133-5-
Fyzabad, servants of Begams of
Oudh coerced at, 209.
Gaikwars, of Baroda, Maratha
dynasty of, 195; dominions of,
238 ; relations of, with the
British, 239 ; stipulation as to,
in Treaty of Bassein, 255 ; the
Gaikwar holds aloof from
second Maratha war, 256; his
minister murdered, 284.
Gama, Vasco da, reaches Calicut,
1498 ; referred to, 16.
Gambling in India, 81, 82.
Gandak river, the, 3.
Ganges, the, 3.
Gardanne, General, sent by Napo
leon to Teheran, 272.
Garhwal, surrendered to the Brit
ish, 1816, 281.
Gawilgarh, captured by the Brit
ish, 1803, 257.
Gayer, Sir John, President of
Surat, imprisoned, 56.
General Service Enlistment Act,
the, 1856, 365-6.
General Society, the, founded,
1698, 52.
Genoa, an emporium of eastern
trade, 14.
George III, forces dissolution of
ParUament, 215, quoted, 237.
Ghats, Eastern and Western, 6, 7.
Ghazipur, CornwaUis dies at, 1805,
265.
Ghazni, taken by the Turks, A. D.
862, 10; stormed, 1839, 3^8;
fortifications of, destroyed, 323.
Gheria, capture of, 1756, 71, 147.
Ghilzais, Afghan tribe, 321.
Ghor, Muhammad of, his invasions
of India, 1X75-1206, 10.
GiUespie, General, defeats French
in Java, 274 ; killed in Gurkha
war, 280.
Goa, acquired by the Portuguese,
1 5 10, 16; blockaded by the

Dutch, 28 ; occupied by the
British, 274.
Goalundo, Brahmaputra joins the
Ganges at, 3.
Godavari river, the, 6.
Goddard, Colonel, his march
across India, 1780, 193; pre
mature advance on Poona, 1781,
194.
Godeheu, sent to supersede Du
pleix, his provisional treaty,
113, 115-16; charges of Du
pleix against him, 113-17.
Godolphin, Earl, his award, 1708,
59-
Godwin, General, Commander-in-
Chief in second Burmese war,
1852, 348.
Gogra, river, 3.
Gokla, General of the Peshwa,
286.
Golab Singh, Raja of Jammu, 339.
Golconda, Muhammadan king
dom of, 10 ; conquered by
Aurangzeb, 72.
Gombroon, English settle in, 30,
Gosfright, Captain, blockades
Ostend ships, 1730, 68.
Gough, Sir Hugh, afterwards Vis
count, victor of Maharajpur,
1843 ; at Mudki and Feroze
shah, 1845, 336 ; strategy of, in
first Sikh war, 338 ; cautious
advice of, 341 ; at Chilianwala,
1 849, 342 ; wins battle of Guj
rat, 343 ; strategy of, in second
Sikh war, 342-4.
Govindgar, Mutiny at, 1849, 365.
Grenville, Earl, on Charter Act of
1813, 278-9.
Grey, General, wins battle of
Paniar, 1843, 331.
Gujarat, conquered by Akbar, 1 1 .
Gujrat, battle of, 1849, 343-4.
Gurkhas, of Nepal, their encroach
ments, 275; their origin, 279-
80; Nepalese war, 18x4-16,
280-1.
Guru Govind Singh, the Sikh
prophet and martyr, 269.
Gwalior, escaladed by Popham,
1780, 194; Chait Singh flies to.

398

INDEX

204 ; disturbances and revolu
tions in, 306, 330 ; defeat of
army of, 1843, 331 ; becomes a
protected state, 331-2 ; mutin
ous contingent of, 375-6 ; re
captured by Sir Hugh Rose,
1858, 377-
Hafiz Rahmat Khan, Rohilla
chief, his treaty with Oudh,
1772, 174; defeated and killed,
¦774, 175 ; ™ild rule of, 178.
Haidar Ali of Mysore, relations
with British, 1765-8, 168-9;
dictates peace to British, 170;
war with, 1780-2, 192, 195-8 ;
ravages Camatic, 1780, 195;
dies, 1782, 198; treaty with,
1769, 233, 235.
Hakalzai, General England sur
renders at, 322.
Hakra, the vanished river, 6.
Hamilton, Alexander, quoted, 96.
Hamilton, William, procures
privileges for the Company, 62.
Hanseatic League, cities of, and
eastern trade, 14.
Hardinge, Sir Henry, afterwards
Viscount, Govemor - General,
1844-8, 333-40; takes office
of second-in-command under
Gough, 336 ; enters Lahore,
338 ; reduces military expendi
ture, 340 ; his warning to Nawab
of Oudh, 1847, 355 ; planned
first Indian railway, 356.
Harland, Sir Robert, plenipoten
tiary sent to Nawab of Carnatic,
194.
Harris, General, afterwards Lord,
conquers Tipu Sultan and takes
Seringapatam, 1799, 245-6.
Harrison, Edward, Governor of
Madras, 90.
Harsha of Kanauj, his empire, 9.
Hastings, Warren, noble conduct
of, 152 ; compared with Clive,
166, 167; administration of,
170-219 ; controversy on his
career, 170-1 ; internal reforms
of, 171-2 ; his settlement with
the Mughal Emperor and Oudh,

173-4 ; witholds tribute hither
to paid to emperor, 173 ; Hast
ings and the Rohilla war, 174-
8 ; position altered by Regulat
ing Act, 1773, 179; his rela
tions with his Council, 180-4;
quarrel with Clavering as to his
resignation, 1777, 184; dis
ables Francis in a duel, 1780,
184 ; Council attack him for Ro
hilla war, 185; Hastings and
Nandkumar, 185-90; his wars
in western and southem India,
191-200; his limited control
over Madras and Bombay, 191 ;
terrible position of, in 1780-1,
197 ; vigorous action of, 197 ;
disapproves of Treaty of Manga
lore, 1784, 200; his dealings
with Chait Singh and the Begams
of Oudh, 201-1 2 ; in peril, flies
to Chunar, 204; his conduct
considered, 204-12 ; makes Sir
Elijah Impey President of Sadr
Diwani Adalat, 2 1 2.-3 ; leaves
India, 214; impeachment of,
214-ig ; financial administra
tion of, 222-3, 224; gives evi
dence before Parliament, 1814;
later references to, 231, 243, 247,
262, 385, 386.
Hastings, Marquess of, formerly
Earl of Moira, Governor-
General, 1814-23, modifies
judicial reforms of Cornwallis,
231 ; completes Lord Welles
ley's work, 244; his period
of office, 276-91 ; his war
with Nepal, 279-82 ; war with
Pindaris, and third Maratha
war, 282-8 ; moderation of his
policy, 288 ; civil reforms of,
288-90 ; his transactions with
Palmer c& Co., 290 ; compared
with Lord Wellesley, 290, 291 ;
later references to, 295, 308,
352, 354-
Havelock, Sir Henry, campaigns
of, in the Mutiny, 364, 373-5 ;
enters Cawnpore, and relieves
Lncknow, 374 ; dies at Luck
now, 1857,375; his services, 379.

INDEX

399

Hawkins, Captain, at Court of
Jahangir, 25-6 ; failure to settle
in Surat, 26, 35.
Heath, Captain, rescues the Eng
lish in Bengal, 1688, 45.
Heathcote, Gilbert, interloper, 50.
Hubert, Governor of Pondieherry,
69.
Hedges, WiUiam, Governor of
Bengal factories, 1681-4, 77 j
diary of, 78.
Henry, Prince, the Navigator, 15.
Henry IV of France, charters
French companies, 91.
Herat, 311 ; siege of, 1837, 312 ;
importance of, 314 ; siege
raised, 317 ; Macnaghten's
schemes against, 320 ; occupied
by Persian forces but evacuated,
1856, 360.
Heytesbury, Lord, appointment
as Governor-General cancelled,
1836, 308.
Himalayas, i, 2.
Hinduism. See Brahmanical Hin
duism.
Hindu Kush Mountains, i.
Hindustan, meaning of the term,
2, and tiote ; great plains of, 3.
Hippon, Captain, founds a fac
tory at Masulipatam, 1611, 37.
Hislop, Sir Thomas, commands in
Deccan against the Pindaris,
283.
Hobhouse, Sir John, President of
Board of Control, 316, 329.
Hodson, Major, in Punjab, 339 ;
shoots the Delhi princes, 372.
Holdernesse, Earl of, 112.
Holdich, Sir T. H., quoted, 314.
Holkar, Maratha dynasty of, at
Indore, general of Maratha con
federacy, 236; dominions of,
238 ; relations of with Peshwa
and Sindhia, 239-40 ; part of
Jaswant Rao Holkar in the
second Maratha war, 254-6,
258-61, 264-5, 266 ; relations
of, with Amir Khan, 268-9,
with Ranjit Singh, 270; part of
Holkar's government in third
Maratha war, 284-6; territory

of, curtailed, 286-8; loyal in
the Mutiny, 378.
Holland. See Dutch, the.
Holmes, T. R. E., quoted, 229,
379-
Holwell, in Black Hole of Cal
cutta, 1856, 133; advises de
position of Mir Jafar, 150, 151.
Hore, voyage of, 1 7.
Houtman, Cornelius, voyage of,
1596, 22.
Hughes, Sir Edward, his sea-fights
with de Suffrein, 198-9.
Hughli, river, the, 71 ; European
settlements on, 129, 135.
Hughli, town, English factory at,
1650, 38; bombarded by the
English, 1686, 45 ; surrendered
to the British, 1757, 135.
Humayun, Mughal Emperor,
1530-40, 1555-6, 10, n.
Hume, Alexander, of the Ostend
Company, 66, 68.
Hunter, Sir W. W., quoted, 31,
39, 49, 172.
Huskisson, attacks the Company's
privileges, 306.
Hyderabad. See Nizam of.
Hyderabad (Sind), Amir of, 325 ;
British Resident at, 326 ; Resi
dency at, attacked, 1842, 329.

Ibrahim, Sultan, defeated by
Babar, 10.
Imangarh, seized by Sir Charles
Napier, 1842, 328.
Impey, Sir Elijah, appointed Chief
Justice in Bengal, 1773, 182 ;
his part in the trial of Nand
kumar, 187-90; made President
of the Sadr Diwani Adalat ;
unpopularity of, 213-14.
Inam Commission, the, 363.
Indian Councils Act, 1861, 384.
Indus, river, 3.
Inglis, his defence of Lucknow,
374-
Innes, A. D., quoted, 329, 351.
Isle of Bourbon. See Bourbon.
Isle of France. See Mauritius.
Ives, Edward, quoted, 114.

400

INDEX

Jackson, Coverly, Chief Com
missioner of Oudh, 1856, 364.
Jagdalak, rear-guard action at,
321 ; Afghans defeated by Pol
lock at, 1842, 323.
Jahandar Shah, Mughal Emperor,
1712, 62.
Jahangir, Mugh al Emperor, 1605-
27, n, 12; his Court visited
by Captain Hawkins, 25-6 ; his
Court visited by Roe, 36.
Jainism, rise and decline of, 8, 9.
Jaipur, Raja of, his territory plun
dered by Holkar, 260; given
up to Holkar, 266 ; treaty con
cluded with, 285.
Jaitpur, passes to British by lapse,
1849, 352-
Jalalabad, Sir Robert Sale at,
320; defence of, 321; relief of,
322-3.
James I of England, compared
with Jahangir, 1 1 ; puts pressure
upon the Company, 32 ; fails
to get reparation firom the Dutch,
34 ; grants licence for Indian
trade to Sir James Cunningham,
1617, 50.
Jang 13ahadur, Minister of Nepal,
376-
Jansens, General, French com
mander in Java, 274-5.
Java, conquered from the Dutch,
i8n, 274; restored to Holland,
1816, 275.
Jeff^reys, Judge, decides for the
Company in the Sandys case,
1683, 49.
Jhansi, passes to British by lapse,
1853, 352; Rani of, massacres
English, 369, dies, 377 ; her
ability as a leader, 378-9.
Jinji, Raja of, 69 ; taken by the
French, 108.
Jodhpur, treaty with, 285.
John IV of Portugal, makes treaty
with Charles I, 1642, 30.
Johnstone, member of Council in
Bengal, 223.
Jones, Sir Harford, sent to Persia
by the Home Government, 1799,
273-

Julius II, Pope, BuU of, 1506, 15.
JuUundur Doab, given up to
British, 1846, 338.
Jumna, the, 3.
Kabul, taken by Babar, 10; Tipu
Sultan sends envoys to, 244 ;
geographical situation of. Dost
Muhammad established at, 311 ;
Bumes sent to, 315 ; Burnes
leaves, 316; Russia recalls her
agents from, 317; Shah Shuja
enters, 1839, 318 ; English
troops in, 319 ; the retreat from
Kabul, 1841-2, 320-1 ; reoccu
pied by the British, 323 ; finally
evacuated, 324.
Kali, the goddess, 303.
Kalinjar, captured by the British,
268.
Kanara, acquired by the British,
1799, 246.
Kanarese, ancient Dravidian lan
guage, 9-
Kandahar, recovered by Akbar, 1 1 ;
its situation, 311; occupied by
the British, 1839, 318; Nott
ordered to abandon, 322.
Karachi, seaport of Sind, i, 7.
Karakoram Mountains, i.
Karauli, Dalhousie's proposal to
annex, by lapse, overruled,
351-3-
Karical, acquired by the French,
1739, 94-
Kamal, Anson dies at, 370.
Karrack, British expedition to,
1838, 317-
Kashmir, conquered by Akbar, 1 1 ;
conquered by Ranjit Singh, 1 8 1 9,
310 ; ceded to Golab Singh, 338.
Kashmir Gate, the, at Delhi,
blown in, 372.
Katmandu, British attack on, re
pelled, 280.
Kaveri river, the, 6.
Kaye, quoted, 159.
Keane, Sir John, Commander-in-
Chief in Afghan war, 318.
Keigwin, rebellion of, 1683-4, 43,
90.
Khaipur, Amir of, 325.

INDEX

401

Khalsa, or military theocracy of
the Sikhs, 269.
Khandesh conquered by Akbar,
n.
Kharda, battle of, 1795, 241, 244.
Khiva, failure of Russian expedi
tion to, 1839, 318.
Khurram , Prince. See Shah Jahan.
Khyber Pass, 2.
Kilpatrick, Major, sent to Fulta,
1756, 134-
Kitki, battle of, 1817, 285.
Kirkpatrick, Major, helps to dis
band the Nizam's French force,
245-
Kirtha range, i.
Kistna, river, 6.
Kolaba, Angria's son at, 71.
Kolhapur, mutiny at, 378.
Kora, given up by Oudh, 1765,
160; made over to emperor,
161 ; given by the emperor to
the Marathas, 173; restored to
Oudh, 173-4.
Koregaon, battle of, 286.
Kumaon surrendered to the Brit
ish, 1816, 281.
Kunch, battle of, 1858, 376.
Kurram Pass, 2.
Knshans, early invaders of India,
9-

La Bourdonnais, Mahe de, opinion
of, on Madras, 95 ; early career
of, 99 ; governor of the Isles of
France and Bourbon, 1734,99;
his plans against the English,
1741, 99-100; fights with Peyton
and takes Madras, 1746, 100;
quarrels with Dupleix, 101-2 ;
driven by storms back to the
Isles, 1 03 ; effect of the quarrel,
104; memoirs of, 112, 118.
Lahore entered by Hardinge, 338.
Lake, General, afterwards Lord,
commands in Hindustan in
second Maratha war, 256 ; wins
battles of Delhi and Laswari,
1803, 257 ; his victory at Far
ruckhabad, 1 804, and failures at
Bharatpur, 261, 299; protests

against Cornwallis's policy, and
pursues Holkar, 265 ; protests
against Barlow's policy, 266.
Lall Singh, Sikh minister, 334 ;
at Ferozeshah, 1845, 336; dis
missed, 339.
Lally, Count de, lands in India,
1758, his character, 120; takes
Fort St. David, 1 20 ; recalls
Bussy from Hyderabad, 121;
fails to take Madras, defeated
at Wandiwash, his end, 122.
Lancaster, James, voyage of, 1591,
22 ; commands the Company's
first voyage, 1601-3, 25.
Lantor, English expelled from, 33,
Lapse, doctrine of, 350-4 ; policy
of, renounced, 384.
Laswari, battle of, 1803, 257.
Lauderdale, Earl of, candidate for
governor-generalship, 267.
Law, Jacques-Franfois, capitulates
at 'Trichinopoly, 1 752, 1 10, 115;
on Dupleix, 112.
Law, Jean, in Bengal, 137 and
note.
Law, John, of Lauriston, French
financier, 94, 96, 97, no.
Lawrence, George, in Punjab, 339;
services of, in Rajputana, 378.
Lawrence, Sir Henry, ruler of the
Punjab, 339 ; returns to England,
340, 341 ; opposed to annexa
tion of Punjab, 344 ; President
of Punjab Board, 345 ; removed
to Rajputana, 1853, 346 ; his
opposition to Dalhousie, 358;
his services in Oudh, 364 ; his
defence of Residency at Luck
now, 369 ; death of, 374.
Lawrence, Sir John, afterwards.
Lord, referred to, 237 ; in Pun
jab. 339, 345 ; disputes with his
brother Henry, made Chief
Commissioner, 346 ; on Burmese
quarrel, 347 ; signs treaties with
Dost Muhammad, 360 ; on origin
of the Mutiny, 360 ; his services
in the Mutiny, 369, 370, 379 ;
his proposal to surrender Pe
shawar to the Afghans, 370-2 ;
on errors of the mutineers, 379 ;
d

402

INDEX

against indiscriminate vengeance,
380.
Lawrence, Major Stringer, defends
Fort St. David, 103 ; joins Mu
hammad Ali, 107 ; relieves Tri
chinopoly, no; defeats de Ker
jean, in; good services of, in
war ofthe Camatic, 126.
Lecky, quoted, 148.
Leedes, travels overland to India,
21 ; enters the service of the
Mughals, 22.
Leeds, Duke of, receives bribes
from the East India Company,
50.
Lee- Warner, Sir W., quoted, 349,
364-
Leghorn, Ostend Company's ships
fitted out at, 63.
Lenoir, governor of Pondieherry,
96.
Leo X, Pope, Bull of, 1514, 15.
Levant Company, 2 2 ; some mem
bers of, found the East India
Company, 23.
Lindsay, Sir John, British plenipo
tentiary to court of the Nawab
of the Camatic, 194.
Linschoten, Dutch traveller, 24.
Lisbon, an emporium for eastern
trade, 1 8 ; Ostend Company's
ships fitted out at, 63.
Littler, Sir John, British com
mander in Sikh war, 336.
Littleton, Sir Edward, sent to
Bengal by the New Company,
55 > opposed by John Beard,
56.
Lodi kings of Delhi, the, 10.
Louis XIV of France, 92, 125.
Louis XV of France, 125.
Louisbourg exchanged for Ma
dras in 1748, 103.
Low, opponent of Dalhousie,
358-
Lucknow, entered by the British,
1764, '53 ; mutiny at, 369, 372 ;
siege of Residency at, 373 ;
Havelock's march to relief of,
373 ; first relief of, 374-5. 38o ;
second relief of, by Sir Colin
Campbell, 375.

Lumsden, frontier officer in the
Punjab, 339.
Lyall, Sir Alfred, quoted, 149,
178, 195, 197, 207, 209, 250,
255. 306.
Macao seized bythe British, 1899,
274.
Macartney, Lord, Govemor of
Madras, 1 781, 199; concludes
Treaty of Mangalore, 1784,
200 ; passed over for governor-
generalship, 221-2.
Macaulay, Lord, quoted or referred
to, 108, no, 143, 152, 166, 171,
'75, '77; li's inscription on
Bentinck's statue, 301 ; his mi
nute on education, 304 ; legal
member of Governor-General's
council, 307 ; disparages Hindu
mythology, 364.
Maclagan, E. D., quoted, 231.
Macnaghten, Sir William, sent to
Lahore, 1838, 316; minister to
Shah Shuja's court, 318 ; errors
of, 320; murdered, 1841, 321.
Macpherson, John, acting Gover
nor-General, 1785-6, character
of, 220 ; negotiations with
Poona, 220, 232.
Macrae, James, Govemor of Ma
dras, 1725-30, 74.
Madagascar, pirates of, 7 1 ; slaves
from, 83 ; colonized, 91, 92.
Madras, or Fort St. George,
founded, 1640, 38 ; becomes an
independent agency, 38 ; affected
by Aurangzeb's campaigns, 72 ;
relations of, with native powers,
' 713-40, 73; fortifications and
governors of, 74, 77 ; Winter's
rebellion at, 1665, 76-7 ; muni
cipal government at, 1688, 78 ;
gambling at, 81 ; slaves at, 83;
library at, 85-6 ; instructions to
council at, 89 ; compared with
Pondieherry, 95 ; captured by
the French, 1746, 69, 100, 104 ;
Dupleix and La Bourdonnais
quarrel over, 101-3"; restored
to the English, 1748, 103; be
sieged by Lally, 1758, 121, 122 ;

INDEX

403

siege raised, 122 ; consiiltations
at, on loss of Calcutta, 1756,
134 ; relations of, with Mu
hammad Ali, and the Nizam,
168-70, 194; as affected by the
Regulating Act, 1773, 191 ;
folly of Presidency of, 193-4,
199, 232 ; pestilential moral at
mosphere of, 195 ; govemment
of, oppose Wellesley, 245 ; evil
reputation of Company's ser
vants at, 247 ; settlement of land
revenues at, 289.
Madrid, Treaty of, 1630, 30.
Magellan, Ferdinand, his great
voyage, 17.
Mahan, Captain, quoted, 127-8.
Mahanadi, river, 3, 6.
Maharajpur, battle of, 1843, 331.
Maharashtra, home of the Mara
thas, 12.
Mahmud of Ghazni, his invasions
of India, A.D. 997-1026, 10.
Malabar acquired by the British,
1792. 235-
Malacca, Portuguese factory at,
16 ; seized by the Dutch, 1641,
28.
MalavalU, battle of, 1799, 245.
Malayalam, ancient Dravidian
language, 9.
Malcolm, Sir John, quoted, 148,
223, 237, 240; disbands the
Nizam's French force, 245 ; his
mission to Persia, 1800, 253,
272; second mission to Persia,
273 ; opposes abolition of com
mercial monopoly, 277 ; grants
pension to Baji Rao, 286, 354,
362 ; his brilliant services, 289.
Malleson, Colonel, quoted, 118.
Malwa conquered by Akbar, n.
Mangalore captured by Tipu
Sultan, 200.
Mangalore, Treaty of, 1784, 200,
233, 235.
Manipur, Burmese recognize in
dependence of, 297, 298.
Mansel, Charles, in the Punjab,
345.
Marathas, the, rise of, 12; outline
of their history, 13; Aurang

zeb's campaign against, 56, 72;
growing power of, 60-1 ; at
tacks of, on English and Portu
guese settlements, 70-1 ; invade
Carnatic, 73 ; plunder Bengal,
74, 130; take part in the war
of the Carnatic, no; support
Dupleix, III ; power of the
Peshwa, 149; Maratha threat to
Bengal, 162; British relations
with, 168-70; relations of, with
Oudh and Rohilkhand, 172-4;
Warren Hastings's Maratha wars,
192-4, 195-8, 202 ; Macpher
son's overtures to, 2 20 ; Corn
wallis's alliance with, 234-6,
238; dominions and powers of
the Maratha confederacy, 238-
40 ; defeat the Nizam, 1795,
241 ; Lord Wellesley's treaties
and wars with, 244-6, 252-
61 ; dealings of Cornwallis and
Barlow with, 263-6 ; power of,
weakened, 268; power of, over
.Sirhind, 270 ; Lord Hastings's
war with, 282-9; Maratha states
and the doctrine of lapse, 352-4,
362; effect of mutiny on, 361,
363-
Maria Theresa, 66.
Marlborough, Duke 01, compared
with Clive, 143, 148.
Marshman, J. C, quoted, 171,
228-9, 385-
Martaban captured, 1852, 348.
Martin, Franyois, founds Pondi
eherry, 1674, 92 ; dies, 1706,
96.
Martin, Matthew, Captain, 88.
Martindale, General, checked at
Jytak, 280.
Master, Sir .Streynsham, President
of Madras, 1677-81, 77.
Masulipatam, factory at, l6n, 37;
seized by the natives, 1680, 45 ;
French factory at, 92 ; captured
by the French, 108 ; proposed
cession of, to the English, 113;
stormed by Forde, and ceded to
the English, 1759, 121 ; treaty
of, 1768, 169, 232-3.
Mauritius (Isleof France),acquired
d 2

404

INDEX

by the French, 1721, 94; value
of, 95 ; work of La Bourdonnais
in, 99; Bussy detained at, 198 ;
relations of Tipu Sultan with
Governor of, 244; Wellesley's
projected expedition against,
251; captured by the British,
1810, 274.
M°Neill, British minister to Persia,
1836, 313.
Medows, General, his campaign
against Tipu Sultan, 1790, 334.
Meemt, disaffection at, 366-7 ;
outbreak of Mutiny at, 1857,
368.
Mehidpur, battle of, 1817, 286.
Melinde, Portuguese factory at,
16.
Metcalfe, Sir C. T., afterwards
Lord, on policy of non-interven
tion, 263; his embassy to Ranjit
Singh, 1809, 270-1 ; makes
treaties with Rajput states, 285 ;
his minute on Bharatpur, 299 ;
acting Governor-General, 1835-
6, 307-9 ; later career of, 309 ;
great services of, 289, 385.
Methwold signs convention with
Portuguese, 1634, 30.
Mhow, Sir Hugh Rose's base of
operations, 1858, 376.
Miani, battle of, 1843, 329.
Middleton, Resident at Lucknow,
185, 210.
Middleton, Sir Henry, commander
of second voyage, 25 ; impeded
by the Portuguese, 28.
Midnall, John, or Mildenhall,
reaches India overland, 1599,
22.
Midnapur acquired by the British,
151.
Mill, Colonel, on Indian armies,
142.
Mill, James, quoted or referred
to, 143, 171, 175, 177, 205.
Mill, John Stuart, his works used
as text-books in Indian educa
tion, 304 ; draws up the Com
pany's petition, 1858, 380.
Minchin, commander of Calcutta
garrison, 1756, 133.

Minto, Lord, Govemor-General,
1807-13,266-75; formerly Pre
sident of Board of Control, 266 ;
former views, 267 ; divergences
from policy of non-intervention,
268 ; checks Amir Khan, 268-9;
sends embassies to Ranjit Singh,
270, to Persia, 273, to Kabul,
273 ; his expeditions to Mauri
tius and Java, 34, 274-5.
Miranpur Katra, battle of, 1774,
175-
Mirepoix, Due de, French ambas
sador, 112.
Mir Jafar, Nawab of Bengal, Brit
ish treaty with, 138; his doubt
ful conduct at Plassey, 139-
40; enthroned at Murshidabad,
140; defended by Clive, 141 ;
financial transactions of, with
Clive and the Company's ser
vants, 143-7 ; deposed in favour
of Mir Kasim, 150-1 ; his re
storation and death, 153 ; grants
' double batta ' to the army,
158 ; his widow said by Nand-
kuma to have bribed Hastings,
186.
Mir Kasim, Nawab of Bengal, set
up by the British, his conces
sions, 151 ; rebels agamst his
bad treatment by the British,
152; is deposed, 153; flies to
Oudh and is defeated at Baxar,
1764, 153; later references to,
155, 160.
Mirpiir, Amir of, 325.
Mirza Muhammad, 130. iVif Siraj-
ud-daula.
Moira, Earl of. See Hastings,
Marquess of.
Mombassa, Portuguese factory at,
16.
Monson, member of Bengal Coun
cil, 1773-6, 182-4; dies, 1776,
184; referred to, 186, 188-9,
191.
Monson, Colonel, his disastrous
retreat through Rajputana, 1804,
260.
Montagu, Chancellor of the Ex
chequer, 52.

INDEX

405

Montgomery, Robert, a commis
sioner in the Punjab, 1851,
345-
Morellet, I'abbe, on French Com
pany, 123-6.
Mornington, Earl of. 6V« Welles
ley, Lord.
Morse, Nicholas, Govemor of
Madras, surrenders Madras to
the French, 1746, loo-i.
Mozaffar Jang, claimant to suba-
darship of the Deccan, sup
ported by French troops defeats
and kills An-waru-din, 1749,
107 ; taken prisoner by Nasir
Jang, but installed as subadar,
108 ; his gifts to the French,
108 ; killed, 1 751, 109.
Mudki, battle of, 1845, 336-
Muhammad Ali, son of An-waru-
din, 107 ; supported by the
British, 107-n ; Nawab of Car
natic, in, 112, 123; his rela
tions with the government of
Madras, 168, 194-5 ; his son,
248.
Muhammad of Ghor, his invasions
of India, A. D. 1175-1206, 10.
Muhammad Raza Khan, deputy
Nawab of Bengal, 153-4.
Mulraj, Sikh chieftain, rebellion of,
1848, 341-2, 344.
Multan, taken by Ranjit Singh,
18 1 8, 310; besieged by Sikh
rebels, 1848-9, 341-2, 344.
Munro, victor of Baxar, 1764, 153,
160; shameful retreat to Madras,
1780, 196.
Mtmro, Sir Thomas, on Maratha
army, 258; opposed to abolition
of the Company's monopoly,
277 ; suggests Company should
become Peshwa, 287 ; his ryot
wari settlement of Madras, 289;
services of in the first Burmese
war, 298 ; humanitarian ad
ministration of, 301, 385.
Munster, Treaty of, 1648, 65.
Murshidabad, Marathas plunder
outskirts of, 74 ; Mir Jafar en
throned at, 140; treasury at,
145 ; treasury at, transferred to

Calcutta, 171, 217; claimed by
the Burmese, 295.
Murshid Kuli Khan, Nawab of
Bengal, 1713-25, 70.
Muscovy, or Russia Company,
the, 17.
Mutiny, the. Lord Dalhousie's re
sponsibility for, 357; partly
foreseen by Sir Charles Napier,
358; causes of. 360-7 ; outbreak
of, 368; CO se of, 369-77;
area affected by, 378 ; reasons
for failure of, 378-81.
Mysore, first war with, 1780-4,
195-200; second war with,
1790-i!, 234-5; third war with,
1799, 244-7 ; Raja of, set up by
Lord Wellesley, 1799, 246, de
posed by Bentinck, 1831, 305.
See also Haidar Ali, and Tipu
Sultan.
'Nabobs', the, name given to
wealthy retired servants of the
Company, 179-80.
Nadir Shah of Persia, his invasion
of India, 1739, 269; Sind sub
mits to, 325.
Nagpur, capital of the Bhonsla
Raja of Berar, q. v. ; passes to
British by lapse, 1854, 352-3,
362.
Nana Farnavis, minister of the
Peshwa, 239 ; relations with
Sindhia, 240 ; with the Nizam,
241 ; dies, 1800, 254.
Nana Sahib, adopted son of Baji
Rao II, 287; not allowed to
draw his father's pension, 354,
362-3; his intrigues, 363;
besieges British at Cawnpore,
369 ; massacres British women
and children, 374; proclaimed
Peshwa, his end, 377.
Nanak, Sikh prophet, 1469-1538,
269.
Nandkumar, charges of, against
Hastings, 185-6; charged vrith
forgery, 186; condemned and
executed, 187 ; case of, con
sidered, 187-90.
Napier, Sir Charles, his conduct

4o6

INDEX

compared with that of Warren
Hastings, 204; sent to Sind,
his character and high-handed
actions, 328 ; conquers Sind,
329 ; policy condemned, his
cynicism, 329-30; sent to super
sede Gough, 343 ; his contro
versy with Dalhousie, 358 ; diary
of, quoted, 330, 362.
Napoleon Bon- parte, letter of,
intercepted, 24J ; in Egypt, 251;
his schemes of eastern conquest,
271-2, 273; his warning to
Jansens, 274.
Narbada river, the, 2, 3.
Nasir Jang, claims subadarship
of the Deccan, 107 ; defeats
Mozaffar Jang, but is assassi
nated, 1750, 108.
Nasirabad, Mutiny at, 369.
A^awab, meaning of title, 1 1 .
Nazim, meaning of title, n.
Negapatam taken by the British,
1781, 198.
Neill, secures Allahabad in the
Mutiny, 373 ; at Cawnpore,
374 ; killed at Lucknow, 374-5 ;
his services to England, 379.
Nepal, description of, 279 ; war
with,i8i4-i5, 280-81. See also
Gurkhas.
Newbery travels overland to India,
1583, 21-2.
Newcastle, Duke of, 112.
Nicholson, Captain, sent to capture
Chittagong, 1686, 44-5.
Nicholson, John, frontier officer,
339 ; his movable column in the
Punjab, 369 ; efforts to send
forces to Delhi, 370 ; at capture
of Delhi, 372 ; on reprisals, 380 ;
other references to, 374, 379.
Nilgiri Hills, the, 7.
Nimach, Mutiny at, 369.
Nizam, the, of Hyderabad, rela
tions of, with British Marathas
and Mysore, 168 ; makes Treaty
of Masulipatam, 1768, with
the British; forms confederacy
against the British, 1780, 195;
complications between British,
Mysore, and, 232-3; part in

second war with Mysore and
share of conquests, 234-5 ! weak
ness of, 237; employs the French
man Raymond, 238, 251, 255;
threatened by the Marathas, 238;
appeals to Sir John Shore for
support against Marathas, 1794,
240; defeated by Marathas at
Kharda, 1795, 241, 244; first
subsidiary alliance with, 1798,
and disbandment of his French
force, 245 ; gains from third
Mysore war, 1 799, 246 ; second
subsidiary treaty with, 1780,
249,254; receives districts from
Raja of Berar, 1804, 259; repri
manded by Sir George Barlow,
266; protected from the Pin
daris by Lord Minto, 269 ; plun
dered by the Pindaris, 1815-16,
283; loans to, 290; his capital
during the Mutiny, 378, 379.
Nizam, Ali, Snbadar ofthe Deccan,
deposes and murders Salabat
Jang, 123.
Nizamat, meaning of the term,
159-
Nizam-ul-Mulk, from 1723 be
comes an independent ruler in
the Deccan, 73 ; regains control
of the Carnatic, 74 ; dies, 1 748,
107.
Norris, Sir William, New Com
pany's ambassador to the Mughal
Emperor, 55 ; quoted, 55-6; his
merits, gains audience with
Aurangzeb, 56 ; failure of his
mission, 57.
North, Lord, directors ask for loan
from, 1772, 181; his coalition
with Fox, 1783, 215.
North American States in revolt,
197, 214.
Northem Circars, the, ceded to the
French, 1753, m ! partly occu
pied by the British, 113; defi
nitely ceded to the Company,
1765, 123; Bussy in, 136;
tribute paid to Nizam for, 168 ;
Court of Directors on, 169;
plundered by the Pindaris,
1815-16, 283.

INDEX

407

Nott, General, Commander at
Kandahar, 319; finds it im
possible to march to Kabul,
1841, 330; ordered to abandon
Kandahar, 322; destroys Ghazni
and reaches Kabul, 323.
Nugent, Member of Parliament,
180.
Ochterlony, Sir David, defends
Delhi from Holkar, 260 ; success
in Gurkha war, 1814-15, 281;
dies, 299.
Orme, quoted, on Surman's em
bassy, 62 ; on Dupleix, 115 ; on
Ali Vardi Khan, 13 J ; suggests
Clive should be sent to Bengal,
1756, 134; Clive's letter to,
1757, 142.
Ormuz, Portuguese factory at, 16 ;
captured by the British, 1622,
30-
Orry, French Minister of Finance,
98.
OstendCompany,62-9 ; chartered,
1722,63-5; opposition of Eng
land and Holland to, 64-5 ;
suspended, 1727, suppressed,
1 73 1, 66; later fate of, and
settlements in India, 67, 68;
Pitt on the abolition of, 69.
Oudh, Nawab Wazir of, 153 ;
a ' buffer ' state, 161 ; treaty of,
with RohiUas, 1772, 174; suc
cession question in, 1797, 241 ;
territory of, ceded to Lord
Wellesley, 249 ; Wellesley's
high-handed treatment of, 248,
249-50 ; Nawab of, granted title
of king, 1819, 354; annexation
of, 1856, 354-6, 362. See also
Shuja-ud-daula, Asaf-ud-daula,
Begams of Oudh.
Outram, Sir James, quoted, 322;
Resident at Hyderabad in Sind,
1S42, 3:8; driven from Resi
dency, his view of the Sind busi
ness, 329 ; on government of
Oudh, 355-8 ; tries to make
king of Oudh abdicate, 356 ; on
origin of the Mutiny, 360 ; his
work in Oudh, 363 ; with Have

lock relieves Lucknow, 374;
has himself to be relieved, 375 ;
his services, 379.
Oxenden, Sir George, President of
Surat and Governor of Bombay,
1662-9, 77.

Pagan, British defeat Burmese at,
1825, 297.
Palghat, 7 ; captured by FuUarton,
17S3, 199.
Palmer, surrenders at Ghazni, 322.
Palmer & Co., transactions of, \vith
Lord Hastings, 290.
Palpa, British repulsed at, 380.
Panchayats, committees of five in
Sikh army, 333.
Paniar, battle of, 1843, 331.
Panipat, battles of, 1526,10; 1761,
13-
Papillon, Thomas, opponent of
Sir Josia Child, 49.
Paris, Peace of, 1763, 123.
Parmentier, Jean, 91.
Parmentier, Raoul, 91.
Paterson, William, one of foimders
ofthe Scottish Company, 51.
Patiala, Raja of, loyal in the
Mutiny, 378.
Patna, English factory at, seized,
1686,45; Mir Kasim enthroned
at, 151.
Pearce, marches from Bengal to
Madras, 17S1, 197 ; effects jimc-
tion witih Coote, 198.
Pegu, conquered by the Burmese,
394; annexed by the British,
1852, 34S-9.
Perkins, William, works of, sent
to India, Sj.
Permanent settlement of Bengal,
tbe, 1793, 168, 172, 225, 227-
31, 289.
Perron, French officer in Sindhia's
service, 251, 257.
Persia, John Malcolm sent to,
1799, 252, 272,273; attacks of,
on Afghanistan, 311, 312; at
war with Russia, 313; British
pay indemnity to, 313; fruit
lessly besiege Herat, 314-17;

4o8

INDEX

British expedition against, 317;
Sind submits to, 325; British
war with, 1856, 359-60.
Peshawar, acquired by Ranjit
Singh, 310, 312; Dost Mu
hammad eager that the British
should help him to regain it,
313 ; an important post in the
first Afghan war, 322 ; surren
dered by the Sikhs to Dost
Muhammad, 1848, 342.
Peshwa, Maratha dynasty of, at
Poona, the rise of the Peshwas,
13, 70, 149; first British treaty
with, 1739, 72, 74; English sup
port candidate for the Peshwa
ship, 192-4; Macpherson's
agreement with, 2 20, 232 ; Corn
wallis's alliance with, 234 ; con
duct of, in Comwallis's war with
Mysore, 235-6 ; territories of,
238 ; power of, in Maratha con
federacy, 239, 240; change in
succession to Peshwaship, 241 ;
becomes dependent on British
support, 244 ; conduct of, in
Wellesley's war with Mysore,
245-6 ; Treaty of Bassein with,
1802,254-6,268; rebellion and
defeat of, under Lord Hastings,
284-6 ; Peshwaship abolished,
288 ; attempt to establish office
of, in the Mutiny, 361.
Peyton, fights drawn battle with
La Bourdonnais, 1746, 100; in
the Bay of Bengal, 104.
Phayre, Major Arthur, his adminis
tration of Burma, 349.
Philip II of Spain, 18, 21, 65.
Physiocrats, the, school of French
economists, 123.
Pigot, Lord, Governor of Madras,
deposed, and dies in prison,
195 ; cashiers Macpherson, 220.
Pindaris, the, invade Berar, 1809,
268; ravages of, 275, 283; origin
and history of, 282 ; Lord
Hastings's campaign against
them, 1817, 285-6, 288.
Pitt, John, sent to Madras by the
New Company, 55, 56.
Pitt, Thomas, interloper, 49 ;

Governor of Madras, opposes
John Pitt, 56.
Pitt, William, the elder, Eari of
Chatham, on the Ostend Com
pany, 69 ; his opinion of Clive,
165 ; Clive's letter to him, 179.
Pitt, William, the younger, his
view of Nandkumar's case, 187 ;
his India Act, 1784, 214-16,
232, 233, 267 ; votes against
Hastings in Parliament, 216;
his reasons for so doing, 217;
friend of Cornwallis, 322; studies
question of Permanent Settle
ment, 228; supports Wellesley,
243, 251 ; withdraws that sup
port, 261-2.
Plantain the pirate, 71.
Plassey, battle of, 1757, 139-40;
compared with Baxar, 153.
Plataea, Indian archers fight at,
479 B.C., 9.
Pocock, Admiral, his view of peace
of 1 754, 115; fights with
D'Ache, 1759, 122.
Pollilore, battle of, 1781, 198.
Pollock, General, his services in
the first Afghan war, 322-3.
Polo, Marco, travels of, in India,
1294-5, 14-
Pondicherry, founded, 1674, cap
tured by the Dutch, 1693, its
growth, &c., 92; compared with
Madras, 95 ; development of,
96 ; threatened by Barnet, 1 00 ;
besieged in vain by the English,
103 ; taken by the English,
1761, 122; restored, 123; re
captured, 197.
Poona, Holkar defeats Baji Rao II
and Sindhia at, 254. See also
Peshwas, the.
Popham takes Gwalior, 1780,
193-4-
Porter, Endymion, of Courten's
Association, 39.
Porto Novo, battle of, 1781, 198.
Portugal annexed by Spain, 1580,
18.
Portuguese, the, discover sea route
to India, 1 5 ; granted monopoly
of eastern trade, 15 ; period of

INDEX

409

their supremacy and decline,
16-17 ; attacked by the English
and Dutch, 18 ; English attempt
to break down monopoly, 21 ;
arrest and imprison English tra
vellers, 2 1 ; achievements of,
24 ; British naval victories over,
26, 30 ; British straggles with,
2 7 ; struggle between English,
Portuguese, and Dutch, 28-30.
Pottinger, Eldred, his defence of
Herat, 315; in the retreat from
Kabul, 321.
Pragmatic Sanction, the, 66.
Prome occupied by the British,
1852, 348.
Promis, French pioneer in Mada
gascar, 91.
Public Works Department, 356.
Pulo Run, Courthope's defence
of, 31 ; English expelled from,
1621-2,33; restored to the Eng
lish, 1654, 34 ; given back to the
Dutch for New York, 1667, 42.
Punjab, settlement of, 339-40,
345-6 ; annexed by the British,
1849, 344-
Purandhar, Treaty of, 1776, 192,
194.
Purchas's Pilgrims sent to the
East, 85.
Quiloa, Portuguese factory at, 16.
RafHes, Sir Stamford, his adminis
tration of Java, 275.
Raghunath Rao (Raghoba), preten
der to the Peshwaship, 1775,
192; pensioned off by the
Peshwa, 194; English alliance
with, 195, 197.
Rainier, Admiral, refuses to co
operate with Wellesley, 251.
Rait, R. S., quoted, 343.
Rajputana conquered by Akbar, n.
Ramnagar, battle of, 1848, 342.
Rampur surrendered to Holkar,
266.
Ramu, Burmese defeat British at,
1824, 296.
Rangoon, Governor of, oppresses
British merchants, 347 ; great
pagoda at, stormed, 348.

Ranjit Singh, Holkar appeals to,
265, 270; early career of, 369-
70 ; confined by Minto to the line
west of the Sutlaj , 2 70 ; his treaty
with the British, 1809, 271; cha
racter of, 271, 314 ; the Gurkhas
appeal to, 282; gives asylum to
Apa Sahib, 287 ; commercial
treaty with, 306 ; extends his
power and acquires Peshawar,
310-12 ; question of his restor
ing Peshawar, 313-14 ; Dost
Muhammad appeals to British
for aid against, 315 ; British
treaty with, against Dost Mu
hammad, 1838, 316 ; dies, 1839,
318, 333 ; his proposals to t:he
British to partition Sind, 325-6;
later references to, 338, 378.
Ratgarh captured by Sir Hugh
Rose, 1858, 376.
Raworth, Robert, rebels against
Governor of Madras, 1713, 90.
Raymond, French officer in service
ofthe Nizam, 238.
Raymond, George, lost on voyage
to the East, 1591, 22.
Reed, General, British commander
in the Mutiny, 372.
Regulating Act, the, 1773, 170,
179, 182; defects of, 182-3; as
affecting relations of Bombay
and Madras to Calcutta, 191-2 ;
as affecting relations of Council
to Supreme Court, 213 ; referred
to, 214.
Richelieu founds Societe de
I'Orient, 1642, 91.
Ripon, Marquessof, compared with
Lord William Bentinck, 301.
Rockingham's ministry, fall of,
saves Hastings, 215.
Roe, Sir Thomas, ambassador to
Jahangir, 1615-19, 12, 36, 37;
his views on Portuguese and
Dutch policy, 36-7 ; leaves
India, 37 ; his advice departed
from, 43.
Rohilkhand, description of, 174;
ceded to the British, 180T, 249.
See also RohiUas.
RohiUas, war with, 174-8, 185;

4IO

INDEX

treaty of, with Oudh, 174; con
quered by Oudh helped by the
British, 175 ; controversy as to
Rohilla war, 175-7 ; responsi
bility of Hastings considered,
177-8; attitude of the Bengal
Council to, 185 ; Parliament
acquits Hastings on charge con
ceming Rohilla war, 216.
Rose, Sir Hugh, afterwards Lord
Strathnairn, his campaign in
central India, 1858, 375-7, 379,
380.
Rous, Director, partisan of Clive,
155-
Russia, relations of, with France,
Great Britain, and Persia, 272,
273; advance of, to Indian fron
tier, 306, 313; Russian officers
at Herat, 312, 314, 315; Rus
sian embassy at Kabul, 315,316,
recalled, 317; Russian expedi
tion to Khiva fails, 318.
Russia, or Muscovy Company, 17.
Ryotwari settlement of Madras,
289.
Ryswick, Peace of, 1697, restores
Pondieherry to the French, 92.
Sadr Diwani Adalat, Civil, Court
of Appeal, established by War
ren Hastings, 172 ; Presidency
of, given to Impey, 213; re
organized by CornwaUis, 231.
Sculr Nizamat Adalat, Criminal
Court of Appeal, established
by Warren Hastings, 172 ; re
organized by Cornwallis, 231.
Sadras, conference at, 1753, in.
Sagauli, Treaty of, 1816, 281.
St. Helena, when acquired, rising
in, 43-
St. Malo, merchants of, 94.
St. Thome captured by the Dutch,
1674, 92.
Sakas, early invaders of India, 9.
Salabat Jang, Subadar of the
Deccan, enthroned by Bussy,
log ; cedes Northern Circars to
the French, 1 1 1 ; cedes Masuli
patam to the British, 1758, 121 ;
murdered, 123.

Salar Jang, Sir, of Hyderabad,
keeps Hyderabad loyal in the
Mutiny, 378-9.
Salbai, Treaty of, 1782, 194, 198.
Sale, Sir Robert, withdraws from
Gandamak to Jalalabad, 320 ;
his defence of Jalalabad, 321-3 ;
killed at Mudki, 1845, 336.
Salsette, Nicholson ordered to cap
ture, 1686, 45; surrenderedtothe
British, 1775, 192 ; retained by
Treaty of Purandhar, 1776, 192,
and Treaty of Salbai, 1782, 194.
Sambalpur passes to the British
by lapse, 1849, 352.
Sambhaji, the Maratha, his war
with Aurangzeb, 72.
Samudragupta, A.D. 400, his em
pire, 9.
Sandys, Thomas, trial of, 1683,
49-
Sarguja, Raja of, 353.
Satara passes to the British by
lapse, 1848, 352, 362.
Satara, Raja of, a descendant of
Siraji, and roi fainiant, 70, 149,
2 39 ; seized by Baji Rao II,
1817, 285 ; re-established in
power by the British, 181 8,
287-8, 352-
Sctti, or suttee, abolished in Ben
gal, 303, 364, in the Punjab,
340.
Satpura mountains, the, 2.
Saugor relieved, 1858, 376.
Saunders, President of Madras, 112.
Scotland, Company of, 1695, 51.
Scrafton appointed supervisor, but
lost at sea, 1769, 181.
Secretary of State for India estab
lished, 383.
Seignelay, official of French Com
pany, 1684, 96.
Seleucus Nikator, his invasion of
India, 14.
Sepoy army, condition of, in 1857,
365-6.
Serampore, missionaries of, 290.
Seringapatam, spoils of, offered to
Lord Wellesley, X48 ; threatened
by FuUarton, 1783, 199; out
works of captured, 1792, 234;

INDEX

411

carried by assault, 1799, 245,
248 ; surrendered to the British,
1799, 246-
Seven Years' War, the, 115-6,
120, 127.
Sevendrug, Angria's son at, 71.
Shah Alam, Mughal Emperor,
1 761-1805, invades Bengal, 150 ;
grants viceroyalty of Bengal to
Mir Kasim, 151 ; defeated at
Baxar, 1764, 153; confers
Diwani upon the Company,
1765, 158; Clive's settlement
with, 160-1 ; restored to Delhi
by the Marathas, 1771, 173;
Hastings withholds tribute from,
173-4; Company a zamindar
for, 180 ; son of, 232 ; under
Sindhia's protection, 23g ; de
posed, blinded, and restored,
240; passes under British pro
tection, 1803, 257.
Shah Jahan, Mughal Emperor,
1627-58, 12; as Prince Khur
ram favours the Portuguese, 36.
Shah Shuja, Amir of Afghanistan,
driven from his throne, 273 ;
a pensioner of the British, 311;
attempt to recover his throne,
1833, 312 ; British attempt to
restore him in the first Afghan
War, 316-20 ; character of, 317 ;
assassinated, 1842, 323 ; sur
renders claims over Amirs of
Sind, 1833, 327.
Shahpuri attacked by the Bur
mese, 1823, 2g5.
Shaista Khan, Nawab of Bengal,
oppresses the English, 42.
Sher Singh, Maharaja of thePunjab ,
implores help of Lord Auckland,
333-
Sher Singh, Sikh leader, deserts
from the British, fights at Ram
nagar, 1848, 342 ; surrenders,
344-
Sheridan, one of the managers of
the impeachment of Hastings,
217.
Shore, Sir John, afterwards Lord
Teignmouth, Govemor-General,
1793-8, his part in the perman

ent settlement 1793, 228; his
period of office, 236-42 ; non
interference policy of, 237, 241 ;
his action in regard to Oudh,
241 ; his dealings with the
Nizam, 241, 244 ; later refer
ences to, 254, 277.
Shuja-ud-daula, Nawab of Oudh,
defeated at Baxar, 1764, 153;
Clive's settlement with, 160-1 ;
receives British aid against the
RohiUas, 174-8; dies, 1775,
185 ; widow of, 208.
Siam, King of. Company ordered
to go to war with, 1686, 45.
Sidi, the, or Mughal admiral, 72.
Sikhs, their origin, 269 ; their
progress under Ranjit Singh,
270-1, 288; leagued with the
British to restore Shah Shuja,
316-18; first Sikh war, 1845,
331-8; their great fighting
qualities, 338 ; interval of un
easy peace, 338-42; second
Sikh war, 1848-g, 342-4 ; under
British rule, 345-6.
Sikkim, Treaty with, 281.
Silhouette, French official, 112.
Simla acquired by the British,
1816, 281.
Sind, conquered by Akbar, 1 1 ;
treaties with Amirs of, 273, 326,
327, 328; Bentinck's agreement
with Amirs of, 306, 326 ; Eng
lish march through, to attack
Afghanistan, 1839, 318, 326 ;
history of British connexion
with, 325-6 ; Amirs of, harshly
treated by the British, 326-7;
Sir Charles Napier coerces
Amirs of, 328-9; conquest
and annexation of, 1843, 328-9 ;
Sir Charles Napier's policy in,
considered, 329-30.
Sindhia, Maratha dynasty of at
Gwalior, (i) Mahadji Sindhia,
escorts Shah Alam to Delhi,
1 771, 173; Hastings concludes
peace with, 1781, 194, 197;
expedition against, 202 ; wars
with Holkar, 236, 239 ; extent
of his power, 239, 240 ; his con-

412

INDEX

trol of the Peshwa, and death,
1794, 240; (2) Daulat Rao
Sindhia, succeeds, 1794, 240;
his influence at Poona, 245 ; his
French-trained troops, 251 ; de
feated byHolkaratPoona, 1802,
254; his dislike of Treaty of
Bassein, 255 ; at war with the
British, 1803, 256 ; defeated at
Assaye, 257 ; makes Treaty of
Surji-arjangaon, 258, 259 ; for
feits his possessions in the Dec-
can, 259 ; again in revolt, 360,
263-4; new treaty with, 1805,
365, 266 ; referred to, 270-1 ;
his patronage of the Pindaris,
282 ; forced to sign new treaty
by Lord Hastings, 1817, 385,
288; died, 1837, 330; (3) later
members of the house, defeated
at Maharajpur, 1843, 331 ; loyal
in the Mutiny, 332, 333, 377-9-
Siraj-ud-daula, Nawab of Bengal,
character of, his quarrel with the
English, 130, 131 ; captures Cal
cutta, 1756,' 120, 133; question
of responsibility for the Black
Hole atrocity, 133-4 ; defeated
by Clive, and forced to make a
treaty, 1757, 135; suspected of
tuming to the French, 136; his
difiiculties, 137 ; English join
plot to depose him, 1 38-g ; de
feated at Plassey, 1757, 140;
put to death, 140-1.
Sitabaldi HiUs, battle of, 1817,
286, 287.
Sivaji, the Maratha chief, 1627-80,
12, 13; attacks English factory
at Surat, 42 ; descendants of,
70 ; connexion with the Pindaris,
282.
Slaves, the Company's employ
ment of, 82-5.
Sleeman, Colonel, puts down the
Thugs, 1830, 303; condemns
the govemment of Oudh, 355,
358 ; on native states, 362.
Smith, Adam, teaching of, appre
ciated by Wellesley, 252.
Smith, Sir Harry, wins battle of
AUwal, 1846, 337.

Smythe, Thomas, first Govemor
of the East India Company,
23-
Sobraon, battle of, 1846, 337.
Solingar, battle of, 1781, 198.
Somnath, the gates of, and Lord
Ellenborough, 323-4.
Spain, new world divided be
tween, and Portugal, 1493, 15 ;
annexes Portugal, 1580, 18 ;
Elizabeth's policy towards, 21,
22 ; England makes peace with,
1604, 24, 28; union of, with
Portugal, 28; makes truce with
Dutch, 31.
Spanish Armada, defeat of, 15S8,
20.
Spanish succession, war of, 63, 6g,
91-
Spencer, Governor of Bengal,
156-7-
Stephen, Sir James F., quoted,
- 153, 1.59, 186, 188, i8g, 213.
Stephens, Thomas, first English
man in India, 21, 23.
Stephenson, Edward, his embassy
to Delhi, 1715, 6i-'2.
Story, a painter, journeys overland
to India, 1583, 21 ; becomes a
monk, 22.
Strachey, Sir John, quoted, 174,
178.
Stuart, General, invests Cuddalore,
1783, 199.
Subadar, meaning of title, n.
Sulaiman range, i.
Sulivan, the Director, 154, 157,
202.
Sumner, member of Clive's Select
Committee, 155.
Supervisors, appointed in Bengal,
1769, 159; appointed in England
but lost at sea, 181.
Supreme Court in Bengal, ap
pointed by Regulating Act,
1773, 182 ; jurisdiction not pro
perly defined, 183, 187, 188;
responsible for death sentence
on Nandkumar, 188 ; error of
judgement of, 189; quarrel of,
with the Council, 212-13.
Surat, Captain Hawkins lands

INDEX

413

there, 1608, 25 ; English granted
permission to settle there, 26,
35 ; chief English settlement
till 1687, 37 ; French factory
at, 1668, 92; Treaty of, 1775,
192 ; native govemment of,
taken over by Wellesley, 244,
247, 249.
Surji-arjangaon, Treaty of, 1803,
258 ; modified in 1805, 265, and
in 1817, 285.
Surman, John, his embassy to
Delhi, 1715, 61-2, 72, 74.
Sutanati, site of Calcutta, 45.
Swedish East India Company,
1731,67.
Sykes, member of Clive's Select
Committee, 155.

Talpura tribe, the, 325.
Talukdars, the, or landowners of
Oudh, oppress the peasantry,
355 ; their attitude in the Mu
tiny, 364 ; Canning's proclama
tion as to, 376.
Tamil, a language of southern
India, 9.
Tanjore, English support claimant
to throne of, 106 ; attacked by
Chanda Sahib, 107 ; Raja of,
takes part in Carnatic war, no;
failure of Lally's attack on,
1 20-1 ; Raja of, deposed by
Madras Government, 1773, 194 ;
restored, 195; administration of,
taken over by Wellesley, 1799,
244, 347 ; regal title of Raja of,
abolished, 1855, 354.
Tantia Topi, repulses Windham,
376 ; defeated at Betwa, 376 ;
defeated, captured, and hanged,
1859, 377-
Tapti, river, the, 6.
Tarai, or Duars, 2 .
Tata, factory at, abandoned, 325.
Taylor, the pirate, 71.
Teheran, Treaty of, i8og, 273, 312 ;
British minister at, driven away,
359-60.
Tej Singh, Sikh general, at Fero
zeshah, 1845, 337-

Telugu, language of southern
India, 9.
Temple, Sir Richard, quoted, 357.
Tenasserira, conquered by the
Burmese from Siam, 1766, 294 ;
subdued by the British, 1824,
297 ; ceded to the British, 1826,
297-8.
Ternate, chief of, makes a treaty
with Drake, 1579, '8-
Tezin, Pollock defeats Afghans at,
1842, 323.
Thar, the Indian desert, 6.
Thomason, Indian administrator,
385-
Thornton, E., quoted, 148, 171,
195-
Thugs, the, suppressed, 1830,
303, 345.
Tilsit, Treaty of, 1807, 272.
Tipu Sultan, of Mysore, defeats
Braithwaite, 198 ; on Malabar
coast, 199 ; concludes Treaty of
Mangalore, 1784, 200; Corn
wallis's war with, 1790-2, 225,
233-5 ; attacks "Travancore,
1789, 234; forced to cede half
his dominions to the British,
1792, 235; referred to, 238;
his alliance with the French Re
public, 244; Lord Wellesley's
war with, 1799, 245-7; death
of, 246 ; character of, 247.
Todar Mall, Akbar's finance min
ister, n.
Tonk surrendered to Holkar, 266.
Tordesillas, Treaty of, 1494, 15.
Towerson, English agent at Am
boyna, 33,
Travancore attacked by Tipu
Sultan, 234, 241.
Trichinopoly, besieged by the Ma
rathas, 174 1, 74; Dupleix wishes
to attack, 107 ; English rein
forcements at, 108, 109 ; relieved
by Lawrence and Clive, no;
Law surrenders at, no, 118.
Trieste, 63, 67.
Trimbakji, minister of the Peshwa,
murders minister of the Gaik
war, 284 ; imprisoned at Chunar,
2S7.

414

INDEX

Trincomali, taken by the English,
1782, 198; recaptured by the
French, 1782, 199.
Trinomali, battle of, 1767, 169.
Tripartite, Treaty, the, of 1790,
with the Peshwa and Nizam,
1790, 234, 245; of 1838, with
the Sikhs and Shah Shuja, 316,
322.
Trivadi captured by the French,
108.
Tsanpo, Tibetan name for the
Brahmaputra, 3.
Tulu, ancient language of southern
India, 9.
Tungabhadra river, the, 6.
Turkey Company, the, renamed
Levant Company, 22.
Tyre an emporium of eastern
trade, 14.
Udaipur, treaty concluded with,
1 81 7, 285; passes to the Brit
ish by lapse, 1852, 352, 353.
United Dutch Company founded,
1602, 24, 25.
Utrecht, Peace of, 1713, 63.
Valdavur assigned to Dupleix,
108, 117.
Vansittart, Govemor of Bengal,
150; deposes Mir Jafar, 151;
resists unjust policy of his
Council, 152 ; perishes at sea,
181.
Van Speult, Dutch Governor of
Amboyna, 33, 34.
Vedic literature, 8.
Vellore, mutiny of sepoys at,
1807, 266, 300.
Venice an emporium of eastern
trade, 14.
Ventura, French officer in service
of Ranjit Singh, 310.
Verelst, quoted, 152, 154, 160;
GoveinorofBengal, 1767-9,167;
one of Clive's Select Comraittee,
155 ; his emoluraents, 156 note.
Victoria, Queen, proclamation of,
1858,383-4; referred to, 386.
Vienna, Treaty of, 1725, 66.
Vijayanagar, Hindu State of, 10.

Vindhya range, the, 2.
Vizagapatam, English factory at,
seized, 1686, 45.
Voltaire quoted, 91, 105, 118.
Waite, Sir Nicholas, sent to Bom
bay as representative of the
New Company, 55.
Walpole, Horace, quoted, 139,
166.
Wandiwash, battle of, 1760, 133.
Wargaon, Convention of, 1779.
193- . ,
Watson, Admiral, 114, arrives in
India, 115; commands fleet in
Bengal, 1756-7, 135 ; his rela
tions with Clive, 136, 137;
Clive counterfeits his signature,
138.
Weber, Henry, quoted, 116, 133.
Wellesley, Sir Arthur, afterwards
Duke of Wellington, commands
Nizam's contingent, 1 799, 345 ;
quoted, 246, 256 ; victor of
Assaye, and Argaon, 1803, 357 ;
his treaties, 258 ; his view on
Lord Williara Bentinck, 300 ;
his opinion on first Afghan war,
317; warns Lord Ellenborough,
322; advises appointment ot
Hardinge, 333.
Wellesley, Henry, appointed com
missioner to settle the Oudh
ceded districts, 249 ; criticism
on his appointment, 253.
Wellesley, Marquess of, and Earl
of Mornington, Govemor-Gene
ral 1798-1805, refuses share of
the spoils of Seringapatam, 148 ;
compared with Warren Hast
ings, 204 ; completes work of
Cornwallis, 234; his wars and
annexations, 237 ; appointed
governor - general, 242 ; his
period of office, 243-62 ; his
character, 243-4 ; war with My
sore, 1799, 344-7 ; given a mar
quisate, 246 ; his acquisitions of
territory and subsidiary treaties
with Tanjore, Hyderabad, and
Oudh, 247-9 ; his policy to
native States considered, 249-

INDEX

415

50 ; his policy against the
French, 250-r ; his activities
alienate the Directors, 252 ;
establishes college of Fort Wil
liam, 252; his Maratha war,
252-62 ; makes Treaty of Bas
sein, 1802, 255 ; his view of
Peace of 1804 proves false, 259-
60 ; his attitucie to the Direc
tors, 261; treatment of, com
pared with that of Warren Hast
ings, 262 ; general policy of,
263-4, 268 ; opposes abolition
of the Company's monopoly,
277 ; his work completed by
Lord Hastings, 279 ; compari
son of, withLord Hastings, 288,
290-1 ; Press regulations of,
308 ; later references 10, 340,
354, 385, 386.
Westminster, Treaty of, 1386, 18.
Westminster, Treaty of, 1654, 34.
Whish, General, besieges Multan,
342.
White Huns, the, early invaders
of India, 9.
Whiteway, R. S., quoted, 16.
William III and the Scottish
Company, 51-2.
Willoughby, Sir Hugh, discovers
Nova Zembla, 17.

Wilson, Sir Archdale, Comman
der-in-Chief at siege of Delhi,
370, 372.
Wilson, Sir Charles, quoted, 165.
Wilson, H. H., on Chait Singh,
205; opponent of Macaulay,
304; quoted, 305.
Windham, General, defeated at
Cawnpore, 332, 376.
Winter, Sir Edward, Governor of
Fort St. George, rebels against
the Company, 76, 77, go.
Wood, Benjamin, lost at sea, 1596,
22.
Wyld commands relief force in
Afghan war, 322.
Yale, Elihu, President of Madras,
1687-92, 77-
Yandaboo, Peace of, 1826, 297,
305-
Yorktown, Comwallis's surrender
to Washington at, 222.
Yule, Colonel, his Diary of Wil
liam Hedges referred to, 43,
78-
Zamindars, position of, in Bengal,
227-31.
Zeman Shah, of Kabul, his inva
sion of India, 1796, 241.

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