Company's interference in the revenues, and the vengeance denounced
against those who, contrary to the mandate of the Durbar, should be
connected with them, as reported by Mr. Sullivan, may, as much as the
former exactions and oppressions of the Nabob in the revenue, as
reported by the commander-in-chief, have deterred some of the fittest
men from offering to be concerned in it.
The timid disposition of the Hindoo natives of this country was not
likely to be insensible to the specimen of that vengeance given by his
Excellency the Amir, who, upon the mere rumor, that a Bramin, of the
name of Appagee Row, had given proposals to the Company for the
rentership of Vellore, had the temerity to send for him, and to put him
in confinement.
A man thus seized by the Nabob's sepoys within the walls of Madras gave
a general alarm, and government found it necessary to promise the
protection of the Company, in order to calm the apprehensions of the
people.
* * * * *
No. 6.
Referred to from pp. 101 and 105.
_Extract of a Letter from the Council and Select Committee at Fort St.
George, to the Governor-General and Council, dated 25th May, 1783._
In the prosecution of our duty, we beseech you to consider, as an act of
strict and necessary justice, previous to reiteration of your orders for
the surrender of the assignment, how far it would be likely to affect
third persons who do not appear to have committed any breach of their
engagements. You command us to compel our aumils to deliver over their
respective charges as shall be appointed by the Nabob, or to retain
their trust under his sole authority, if he shall choose to confirm
them. These aumils are really renters; they were appointed in the room
of the Nabob's aumils, and contrary to his wishes; they have already
been rejected by him, and are therefore not likely to be confirmed by
him. They applied to this government, in consequence of public
advertisements in our name, as possessing in this instance the joint
authority of the Nabob and the Company, and have entered into mutual and
strict covenants with us, and we with them, relative to the certain
districts not actually in the possession of the enemy; by which
covenants, as they are bound to the punctual payment of their rents and
due management of the country, so we, and our constituents, and the
public faith, are in like manner bound to maintain them in the enjoyment
of their leases, during the continuance of the term. That term was for
five years, agreeably to the words of the assignment, which declare that
the time of renting shall be for three or five years, as the Governor
shall settle with the renters.--Their leases cannot be legally torn from
them. Nothing but their previous breach of a part could justify our
breach of the whole. Such a stretch and abuse of power would, indeed,
not only savor of the assumption of sovereignty, but of arbitrary and
oppressive despotism. In the present contest, whether the Nabob be
guilty, or we be guilty, the renters are not guilty. Whichever of the
contending parties has broken the condition of the assignment, the
renters have not broken the condition of their leases. These men, in
conducting the business of the assignment, have acted in opposition to
the designs of the Nabob, in despite of the menaces denounced against
all who should dare to oppose the mandates of the Durbar justice.
Gratitude and humanity require that provision should be made by you,
before you set the Nabob's ministers loose on the country, for the
protection of the victims devoted to their vengeance.
Mr. Benfield, to secure the permanency of his power, and the perfection
of his schemes, thought it necessary to render the Nabob an absolute
stranger to the state of his affairs. He assured his Highness that full
justice was not done to the strength of his sentiments and the keenness
of his attacks, in the translations that were made by the Company's
servants from the original Persian of his letters. He therefore proposed
to him that they should for the future be transmitted in English.--Of
the English language or writing his Highness or the Amir cannot read one
word, though the latter can converse in it with sufficient fluency. The
Persian language, as the language of the Mahomedan conquerors, and of
the court of Delhi, as an appendage or signal of authority, was at all
times particularly affected by the Nabob. It is the language of all acts
of state, and all public transactions, among the Mussulman chiefs of
Hindostan. The Nabob thought to have gained no inconsiderable point, in
procuring the correspondence from our predecessors to the Rajah of
Tanjore to be changed from the Mahratta language, which that Hindoo
prince understands, to the Persian, which he disclaims understanding. To
force the Rajah to the Nabob's language was gratifying the latter with a
new species of subserviency. He had formerly contended with considerable
anxiety, and, it was thought, no inconsiderable cost, for particular
forms of address to be used towards him in that language. But all of a
sudden, in favor of Mr. Benfield, he quits his former affections, his
habits, his knowledge, his curiosity, the increasing mistrust of age, to
throw himself upon the generous candor, the faithful interpretation, the
grateful return, and eloquent organ of Mr. Benfield!--_Mr. Benfield
relates and reads what he pleases to his Excellency the Amir-ul-Omrah;
his Excellency communicates with the Nabob, his father, in the language
the latter understands. Through two channels so pure, the truth must
arrive at the Nabob in perfect refinement; through this double trust,
his Highness receives whatever impression it may be convenient to make
on him: he abandons his signature to whatever paper they tell him
contains, in the English language, the sentiments with which they had
inspired him. He thus is surrounded on every side. He is totally at
their mercy, to believe what is not true, and to subscribe to what he
does not mean. There is no system so new, so foreign to his intentions,
that they may not pursue in his name, without possibility of detection:
for they are cautious of who approach him, and have thought prudent to
decline, for him, the visits of the Governor_, even upon the usual
solemn and acceptable occasion of delivering to his Highness the
Company's letters. _Such is the complete ascendency gained by Mr.
Benfield._ It may be partly explained by the facts observed already,
some years ago, by Mr. Benfield himself, in regard to the Nabob, of the
infirmities natural to his advanced age, joined to the decays of his
constitution. To this ascendency, in proportion as it grew, must chiefly
be ascribed, if not the origin, at least the continuance and increase,
of the Nabob's disunion with this Presidency: a disunion which creates
the importance and subserves the resentments of Mr. Benfield; _and an
ascendency which, if you effect the surrender of the assignment, will
entirely leave the exercise of power and accumulation of fortune at his
boundless discretion: to him, and to the Amir-ul-Omrah, and to Seyd
Assam Cawn, the assignment would in fact be surrendered. HE WILL (IF
ANY) BE THE SOUCAR SECURITY; and security in this country is
counter-secured by possession. You would not choose to take the
assignment from the Company, to give it to individuals_. Of the
impropriety of its returning to the Nabob, Mr. Benfield would now again
argue from his former observations, that, under his Highness's
management, his country declined, his people emigrated, his revenues
decreased, and his country was rapidly approaching to a state of
political insolvency. Of Seyd Assam Cawn we judge only from the
observations this letter already contains. But of the other two persons
[Amir-ul-Omrah and Mr. Benfield] we undertake to declare, not as parties
in a cause, or even as voluntary witnesses, but as executive officers,
reporting to you, in the discharge of our duty, and under the impression
of the sacred obligation which binds us to truth, as well as to justice,
that, from every observation of their principles and dispositions, and
every information of their character and conduct, they have prosecuted
projects to the injury and danger of the Company and individuals; _that
it would be improper to trust, and dangerous to employ them, in any
public or important situation; that the tranquillity of the Carnatic
requires a restraint to the power of the Amir; and that the Company,
whose service and protection Mr. Benfield has repeatedly and recently
forfeited, would be more secure against danger and confusion, if he
were removed from their several Presidencies._
[After the above solemn declaration from so weighty an authority, the
principal object of that awful and deliberate warning, instead of being
"removed from the several Presidencies," is licensed to return to one of
the principal of those Presidencies, and the grand theatre of the
operations on account of which the Presidency recommends his total
removal. The reason given is, for the accommodation of that very debt
which has been the chief instrument of his dangerous practices, and the
main cause of all the confusions in the Company's government.]
* * * * *
No. 7.
Referred to from pp. 82, 88, and 89.
_Extracts from the Evidence of Mr. Petrie, late Resident for the Company
at Tanjore, given to the Select Committee, relative to the Revenues and
State of the Country, &c., &c._
9th May, 1782.
William Petrie, Esq., attending according to order, was asked, In what
station he was in the Company's service? he said, He went to India in
the year 1765, a writer upon the Madras establishment: he was employed,
during the former war with Hyder Ali, in the capacity of paymaster and
commissary to part of the army, and was afterwards paymaster and
commissary to the army in the first siege of Tanjore, and the
subsequent campaigns; then secretary to the Secret Department from 1772
to 1775; he came to England in 1775, and returned again to Madras the
beginning of 1778; he was resident at the durbar of the Rajah of Tanjore
from that time to the month of May; and from that time to January, 1780,
was chief of Nagore and Carrical, the first of which was received from
the Rajah of Tanjore, and the second was taken from the French.--Being
asked, Who sent him to Tanjore? he said, Sir Thomas Rumbold, and the
Secret Committee.--Being then asked, Upon what errand? he said, He went
first up with a letter from the Company to the Rajah of Tanjore: he was
directed to give the Rajah the strongest assurances that he should be
kept in possession of his country, and every privilege to which he had
been restored; he was likewise directed to negotiate with the Rajah of
Tanjore for the cession of the seaport and district of Nagore in lieu of
the town and district of Devicotta, which he had promised to Lord Pigot:
these were the principal, and, to the best of his recollection at
present, the only objects in view, when he was first sent up to Tanjore.
In the course of his stay at Tanjore, other matters of business occurred
between the Company and the Rajah, which came under his management as
resident at that durbar.--Being asked, Whether the Rajah did deliver up
to him the town and the annexed districts of Nagore voluntarily, or
whether he was forced to it? he said, When he made the first proposition
to the Rajah, agreeable to the directions he had received from the
Secret Committee at Madras, in the most free, open, and liberal manner,
the Rajah told him the seaport of Nagore was entirely at the service of
his benefactors, the Company, and that he was happy in having that
opportunity of testifying his gratitude to them. These may be supposed
to be words of course; but, from every experience which he had of the
Rajah's mind and conduct, whilst he was at Tanjore, he has reason to
believe that his declarations of gratitude to the Company were perfectly
sincere. He speaks to the town of Nagore at present, and a certain
district,--not of the districts to the amount of which they afterwards
received. The Rajah asked him, To what amount he expected a jaghire to
the Company? And the witness further said, That he acknowledged to the
committee that he was not instructed upon that head; that he wrote for
orders to Madras, and was directed to ask the Rajah for a jaghire to a
certain amount; that this gave rise to a long negotiation, the Rajah
representing to him his inability to make such a gift to the Company as
the Secret Committee at Madras seemed to expect; while he (the witness)
on the other hand, was directed to make as good a bargain as he could
for the Company. From the view that he then took of the Rajah's
finances, from the situation of his country, and from the load of debt
which pressed hard upon him, he believes he at different times, in his
correspondence with the government, represented the necessity of their
being moderate in their demands, and it was at last agreed to accept of
the town of Nagore, valued at a certain annual revenue, and a jaghire
annexed to the town, the whole amounting to 250,000 rupees.--Being
asked, Whether it did turn out so valuable? he said, He had not a doubt
but it would turn out more, as it was let for more than that to farmers
at Madras, if they had managed the districts properly; _but they were
strangers to the manners and customs of the people; when they came
down, they oppressed the inhabitants, and threw the whole district into
confusion; the inhabitants, many of them, left the country, and deserted
the cultivation of their lands; of course the farmers were disappointed
of their collections, and they have since failed, and the Company have
lost a considerable part of what the farmers were to pay for the
jaghire_.--Being asked, Who these farmers were? he said, One of them was
the renter of the St. Thomé district, near Madras, and the other, and
the most responsible, was a Madras dubash.--Being asked, Whom he was
dubash to? he said, To Mr. Cass-major.
Being asked, Whether the lease was made upon higher terms than the
district was rated to him by the Rajah? he said, It was.--Being then
asked, What reason was assigned why the district was not kept under the
former management by aumildars, or let to persons in the Tanjore country
acquainted with the district? he said, No reasons were assigned: he was
directed from Madras to advertise them to be let to persons of the
country; but before he received any proposal, he received accounts that
they were let at Madras, in consequence of public advertisements which
had been made there: he believes, indeed, there were very few men in
those districts responsible enough to have been intrusted with the
management of those lands.--Being asked, Whether, at the time he was
authorized to negotiate for Nagore in the place of Devicotta, Devicotta
was given up to the Rajah? he said, No.--Being asked, Whether the Rajah
of Tanjore did not frequently desire that the districts of Arnee and
Hanamantagoody should be restored to him, agreeable to treaty, and the
Company's orders to Lord Pigot? he said, Many a time; and he
transmitted his representations regularly to Madras.--Being then asked,
Whether those places were restored to him? he said, Not while he was in
India.
Being asked, Whether he was not authorized and required by the
Presidency at Madras to demand a large sum of money over and above the
four lacs of pagodas that were to be annually paid by a grant of the
Rajah, made in the time of Lord Pigot? he said, He was: to the amount,
he believes, of four lacs of pagodas, commonly known by the name of
deposit-money.--Being asked, Whether the Rajah did not frequently plead
his inability to pay that money? he said, He did every time he mentioned
it, and complained loudly of the demand.--Being asked, Whether he thinks
those complaints were well founded? he says, He thinks the Rajah of
Tanjore was not only not in a state of ability to pay the deposit-money,
but that the annual payment of four lacs of pagodas was more than his
revenues could afford.--Being asked, Whether he was not frequently
obliged to borrow money, in order to pay the instalments of the annual
payments, and such parts as he paid of the deposit? he said, Yes, he
was.--Being asked, Where he borrowed the money? he said, He believes
principally from soucars or native bankers, and some at Madras, as he
told him.--Being asked, Whether he told him that his credit was very
good, and that he borrowed upon moderate interest? he said, That he told
him he found great difficulties in raising money, and was obliged to
borrow at a most exorbitant interest, even some of it at forty-eight per
cent, and he believes not a great deal under it. _He desired him (the
witness) to speak to one of the soucars or bankers at Tanjore to
accommodate him with a loan of money: that man showed him an account
between him and the Rajah, from which it appeared that he charged
forty-eight per cent, besides compound interest_.--Being asked, Whether
the sums duo were large? he said, Yes, they were considerable; though he
does not recollect the amount.--Being asked, Whether the banker lent the
money? he said, He would not, unless the witness could procure him
payment of his old arrears.
Being asked, What notice did the government of Madras take of the king
of Tanjore's representations of the state of his affairs, and his
inability to pay? he said, He does not recollect, that, in their
correspondence with him, there was any reasoning upon the subject; and
in his correspondence with Sir Thomas Rumbold, upon the amount of the
jaghire, he seemed very desirous of adapting the demand of government to
the Rajah's circumstances; but, whilst he stayed at Tanjore, the Rajah
was not exonerated from any part of his burdens.--Being asked, Whether
they ever desired the Rajah to make up a statement of his accounts,
disbursements, debts, and payments to the Company, in order to ascertain
whether the country was able to pay the increasing demands upon it? he
said, Through him he is certain they never did.--Being then asked, If he
ever heard whether they did through any one else? he said, He never did.
Being asked, Whether the Rajah is not bound to furnish the cultivators
of land with seed for their crops, according to the custom of the
country? he said, _The king of Tanjore, as proprietor of the land,
always makes advances of money for seed for the cultivation of the
land._--Being then asked, If money beyond his power of furnishing should
be extorted from him, might it not prevent, in the first instance, the
means of cultivating the country? he said, It certainly does; _he knows
it for a fact; and he knows, that, when he left the country, there were
several districts which were uncultivated from that cause_.--Being
asked, Whether it is not necessary to be at a considerable expense in
order to keep up the mounds and watercourses? he said, _A very
considerable one annually_.--Being asked, What would be the consequence,
if money should fail for that? he said, _In the first instance, the
country would be partially supplied with water, some districts would be
overflowed, and others would be parched_.--Being asked, Whether there is
not a considerable dam called the Anicut, on the keeping up of which the
prosperity of the country greatly depends, and which requires a great
expense? he said, Yes, there is: the whole of the Tanjore country is
admirably well supplied with water, nor can he conceive any method could
be fallen upon more happily adapted to the cultivation and prosperity of
the country; but, as the Anicut is the source of that prosperity, any
injury done to that must essentially affect all the other works in the
country: it is a most stupendous piece of masonry, but, from the very
great floods, frequently requiring repairs, which if neglected, not only
the expense of repairing must be greatly increased, but a general injury
done to the whole country.--Being asked, Whether that dam has been kept
in as good preservation since the prevalence of the English government
as before? he said, From his own knowledge he cannot tell, but from
everything he has read or heard of the former prosperity and opulence of
the kings of Tanjore, he should suppose not.--Being asked, Whether he
does not know of several attempts that have been made to prevent the
repair, and even to damage the work? he said, The Rajah himself
frequently complained of that to him, and he has likewise heard it from
others at Tanjore.--Being asked, Who it was that attempted those acts of
violence? he said, He was told it was the inhabitants of the Nabob's
country adjoining to the Anicut.--Being asked, Whether they were not set
on or instigated by the Nabob? he answered, The Rajah said so.--And
being asked, What steps the President and Council took to punish the
authors and prevent those violences? he said, To the best of his
recollection, the Governor told him he would make inquiries into it, but
he does not know that any inquiries were made; that Sir Thomas Rumbold,
the Governor, informed him that he had laid his representations with
respect to the Anicut before the Nabob, who denied that his people had
given any interruption to the repairs of that work.
* * * * *
10th May.