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INDIA UNDER BRITISH RULE
by
J. TALBOYS WHEELER
* * * * * *
BY THE SAME AUTHOR.
MADRAS IN THE OLDEN TIME, 1639-1748. 3 vols. sm. 8vo. Madras,
1861-62.
EARLY TRAVELS IN INDIA. First Series, comprising Purchas's
"Pilgrimage" and the "Travels of Van Linschoten." 8vo. Calcutta,
1864.
EARLY TRAVELS IN INDIA. Second Series, comprising Sir Thomas Roe's
"Embassy to the Great Mogul" and Fryer's "Travels in India." 8vo.
London, 1873.
HISTORY OF INDIA FROM THE EARLIEST AGES. 5 vols. 8vo.
Vol. I. The Mahá Bhárata and the Vedic Period. Thick 8vo. Map. 1867.
II. The Rámáyana and the Brahmanic Period. Thick 8vo. Map. 1869.
III. Hindu, Buddhist, and Brahmanic Revival. 8vo. Map. 1874.
IV. and V. Mohammedan Rule. 2 vols. 8vo. 1876-82.
SHORT HISTORY OF INDIA, and of the Frontier States of Afghanistan,
Nipal, and Burma. Thick-crown 8vo, with Maps and Tables. Macmillan
and Co. 12_s._ 1880.
HISTORY OF THE IMPERIAL ASSEMBLAGE AT DELHI, held on the 1st of
January, 1877, to celebrate the assumption by Her Majesty Queen
Victoria of the Title of Empress of India; with Historical
Sketches of India and her Princes. Royal 4to, with 13 Portraits,
Map, and 17 Illustrations, chiefly by Photographs. 1877.
EARLY RECORDS OF BRITISH INDIA; a History of the English
Settlements in India. 8vo. Calcutta, 1878.
JOURNAL OF A VOYAGE UP THE IRRAWADDY TO MANDALAY AND BHAMO. 8vo.
Rangoon, 1871.
TALES FROM INDIAN HISTORY. 12mo. 1881.
* * *
GEOGRAPHY OF HERODOTUS, Developed, Explained, and Illustrated from
Modern Researches and Discoveries. Thick 8vo, with Maps and Plans.
1854.
LIFE AND TRAVELS OF HERODOTUS. 2 vols. post 8vo. 1855.
ANALYSIS AND SUMMARY OF HERODOTUS. Post 8vo. Bohn's Philological
Library. 1852.
ANALYSIS AND SUMMARY OF THUCYDIDES. Post 8vo. Bohn's Philological
Library. 1852.
* * * * * *
INDIA UNDER BRITISH RULE
From the Foundation of the East India Company
by
J. TALBOYS WHEELER
Late Assistant-Secretary to the Government of India, Foreign Department,
and Late Secretary to the Government of British Burma.
Author of "History of India from the Earliest Ages,"
Including the "Maha Bharata" and "Ramayana,"
"A Short History Of India,"
etc., etc.
London
Macmillan and Co.
1886
The Right of Translation and Reproduction is Reserved.
Richard Clay & Sons,
Bread Street Hill, London,
Bungay, Suffolk.
TO
SIR CHARLES TREVELYAN, BART.,
WHO OPENED
THE OLD MADRAS RECORDS TO THE AUTHOR
IN 1860,
This book is Dedicated.
PREFACE.
A hundred years ago, when the lively Miss Frances Burney was weeping
over the wrongs of Warren Hastings, and the learned and portly Gibbon
was still lamenting that he had not entered on an Indian career, there
were people in the British Isles who knew something of Indian history.
They had picked up information respecting Indian affairs from the
speeches of the grave Edmund Burke, the eloquent Charles James Fox, and
the impassioned Richard Brinsley Sheridan. The facts may have come
second hand, and been more or less distorted by the jealous and bitter
fancies of Sir Philip Francis, the reputed author of the _Letters of
Junius_; but facts or fables, they served to enlighten the British
public on the Indian questions of the day.
During the present century, the march of intellect has turned away from
India, except as regards an outlet for cotton goods, a field for
speculation in railways and teas, or a provision for younger sons in the
"Indian civil." Within the last few years, however, there has been a
change for the better. The British public has been alarmed at the fall
in silver. It has been cheered by the proposal to place British-born
subjects under the magisterial jurisdiction of Hindus and Mohammedans.
It has been aroused by the prospect of a war with Russia in Central
Asia; but it has been comforted by the restoration of the fortress of
Gwalior to Maharaja Sindia. Moreover, Burma is no longer confounded with
Bermuda, and no one groans over the annexation of the country, or the
destruction of brigandage by the new rulers. Still there is room for
more knowledge. The author, however, has before him a letter from an old
friend in high position in India, who tells him plainly that the British
government does not want history. Accordingly, the present work is not
called a _History of India_, but _India under British Rule_.
More than one British ruler in India has, however, sinned against
history, and might well like to shut it up with confidential minutes and
secret negotiations. Within the present century, India has been
desolated by wars as cruel as those of the Heptarchy, and as unmeaning
as those of the White and Red Roses. Within the present generation, it
has been distracted and tortured by a military revolt, created by a
scare about greased cartridges, but leading to crimes more horrible than
those of the French Revolution. Yet Anglo-Indian statesmen have been
known to ignore the past, and to propound schemes for India that would
be too advanced for any European nation excepting Great Britain. They
have blinded themselves against history, like ostriches burying their
faces in the sand. They have dealt with India, as the German philosopher
dealt with the "camel," not by the facts before them, but out of the
sublime depths of their moral consciousness, stirred up by a political
caucus, or a philanthropic gathering in Exeter Hall.
Controversy and fault-finding are to be deprecated. But reform is only
possible after a due consideration of what has been accomplished up to
date by British rule in India, and of the flaws and faults in the
existing constitution.
It will be seen from the first chapter, that the British traders of the
seventeenth century, who established factories, built fortresses, and
created manufacturing towns, also attempted to introduce representative
and municipal government into the East India Company's once famous city
of Madras. The second chapter reveals the fact that the acquisition of
Bengal in the eighteenth century was not the work of ambition, but an
act of self-preservation. The third chapter shows that the peace of
India could not have been maintained in any possible way except by the
establishment of British supremacy as the paramount power. The fourth
chapter proves that the first Afghan war, needless as it turned out to
be at the time, was the outcome of Russian ambition which dates back to
the times of Peter the Great and Nadir Shah.
The story of the sepoy mutinies of 1857 occupies a considerable space in
the present volume. It is not a mere narrative of military revolt, but a
revelation of Asiatic nature; a lesson which every Anglo-Indian
statesman must study, if he would avoid defeat or failure. The masses in
the British Isles may read Biblical accounts of rebellion and massacre,
or the story in Josephus of the atrocities of Herod the Great; but very
few seem to realise the fact that they are reading Asiatic history,
which has no reflex in Europe, nor in any country under European rule
except British India. The horrible intrigues and murders in the
household of Herod; his frantic passion for the fair Mariamne; the
malicious lies of Salome; the assassination of Mariamne by her jealous
and infuriated husband; the alternations in the mind of Herod as regards
Cleopatra, whether to accept her love or murder her;--find no parallels
in European history, excepting perhaps in Turkey, or in the Russian
court of the last century.
The last chapter in the present volume is devoted to the constitutional
changes in the government of India, and in the local governments, since
the mutinies. The author has not indulged in the hope of raising
Asiatics to the level of Europeans by the premature introduction of
representative government. He considers that such a scheme would for the
present be as much out of place in Asia as a republic of boys for the
control of schoolmasters. British India is treated as a political school
for Asiatics, in which Europeans are the teachers; and so long as that
theory of government is upheld, constitutional reforms in India are
practical and possible.
In conclusion, the author has to express his obligations to Professor
Terrien de Lacouperie of the London University College, and to his own
son, Owen E. Wheeler of the Leicestershire Regiment, for revising the
proofs of the present work, and for many valuable suggestions.
FULHAM,
_12th May, 1886_.
CONTENTS.
PART I.
_EAST INDIA COMPANY._
CHAPTER I.
FIRST PERIOD: FACTORIES, FORTRESSES, TOWNS.
1600-1756.
§1. India in 1600. §2. British at Surat and Masulipatam: Commercial
and Social Life, 1612-1638. §3. Rise and Growth of Madras, 1639-1680:
Portuguese and Dutch Neighbours. §4. British Rule and
Representative Government, 1686. §5. Mixed Corporation of Europeans
and Natives, 1688. §6. Slavery and the Slave Trade in India.
§7. Madras, Surat, Bombay, and Hughly. §8. Collision with the Great
Mogul, 1686-1700. §9. Domestic Administration, 1700-1746. §10.
Wars against France in Southern India, 1746-1756. §11. The Black
Hole at Calcutta, June 1756 _Pages_ 1-39
CHAPTER II.
SECOND PERIOD: BENGAL PROVINCES.
1756-1798.
§1. From Calcutta to Plassy, 1757-58. §2. Nawab Rule under British
Protection. §3. British Arrogance: Massacre at Patna. §4. Lord
Clive's Double Government, 1765-67. §5. Warren Hastings, 1772-85:
Life and Career. §6. British Rule: Treatment of Bengal Zemindars.
§7. British Collectors and Magistrates: Circuit Courts and Sudder.
§8. Innovations of Parliament. §9. Collisions in Calcutta Council:
Trial and Execution of Nundcomar. §10. Clashing of Supreme Court
and Sudder. §11. Mahratta war: Goddard and Popham. §12. Triple
Alliance against the British: the Mahrattas, the Nizam, and Hyder Ali.
§13. Parliamentary Interference: the Two India Bills. §14. Charges
against Warren Hastings. §15. Lord Cornwallis, 1786-93: Perpetual
Settlement and Judicial Reforms. §16. Sir John Shore, 1793-98:
Non-Intervention. _Pages_ 40-82
CHAPTER III.
THIRD PERIOD: IMPERIAL GOVERNMENT.
1798-1836.
§1. Lord Mornington (Marquis of Wellesley), 1798-1805: last war against
Tippu, 1799. §2. Carnatic confiscated and annexed to Madras Presidency.
§3. Wellesley's scheme of a paramount power. §4. Second
Mahratta war: successes of Arthur Wellesley and Lake. §5. Disastrous
war with Holkar. §6. Return to non-intervention. §7. Sepoy mutiny
in Madras army. §8. Lord Minto, 1807-13: wars and alliances against
France. §9. Evils of non-intervention in Rajputana: troubles in Nipal.
§10. Lord Moira (Marquis of Hastings), 1813-23: war with Nipal,
1814-15. §11. Revival of the paramount power: Pindhari and Mahratta
wars, 1817-18. §12. Lord Amherst, 1823-28: wars with Burma
and Bhurtpore. §13. Lord William Bentinck, 1828-35; abolition of
Suttee. §14. Suppression of Thugs. §15. Administrative reforms.
§16. North-West Provinces: Joint Village Proprietors. §17. Madras
and Bombay Presidencies: Ryotwari Settlements. §18. Changes under
the Charter of 1833. §19. Sir Charles Metcalfe, 1835-36.
_Pages_ 83-140
CHAPTER IV.
FOURTH PERIOD: RISE TO ASIATIC POWER.
1836-56.
§1. Russian advance checked by Nadir Shah, 1722-38. §2. First Cabul
war under Lord Auckland, 1838-42. §3. Lord Ellenborough, 1842-44:
return from Cabul and conquest of Sind. §4. War in Gwalior: reduction
of Sindia's army. §5. Lord Hardinge, 1845-48: Sikh rule in the
Punjab. §6. First Sikh war: Moodki, Ferozshahar, Aliwal, and
Sobraon. §7. Lord Dalhousie, 1848-56: Second Sikh war: Chillianwalla
and Goojerat: annexation of the Punjab. §8. British rule: patriarchal
government. §9. Second Burmese war, 1852: annexation of Pegu.
§10. Lord Dalhousie as an administrator: no roads in India. §11.
Trunk road, trunk railway, telegraphs, Ganges canal. §12. Annexations
of Nagpore, Satara, Jhansi, and Oudh. §13. India Bill of 1853:
new competitive Civil Service. §14. New Legislative Council: Lord
Macaulay and the Penal Code. §15. Departure of Lord Dalhousie, 1856.
§16. Lord Canning, 1856-62: expedition to the Persian Gulf. §17.
Mogul family at Delhi. §18. Condition of Oudh. _Pages_ 141-184
CHAPTER V.
SEPOY REVOLT: BENGAL, DELHI, PUNJAB.
1857.
§1. European soldiers and Asiatic sepoys. §2. Three British armies in
India: Bengal, Bombay, and Madras. §3. Sepoy army of Bengal:
Brahmans and Rajputs. §4. Enfield cartridges: general horror of
pork: Hindu worship of the cow. §5. Agitation of the sepoys at
Barrackpore. §6. First mutiny against the cartridges: Berhampore.
§7. Second mutiny: Barrackpore. §8. Oudh: mutiny at Lucknow:
suppressed. §9. Mutiny and massacre at Meerut. §10. Mohammedan
revolt and massacre at Delhi: general excitement. §11. British advance
from the Punjab to Delhi. §12. Siege of Delhi by Europeans, Sikhs,
and Ghorkas. §13. Punjab and John Lawrence: antagonism between
Sikhs and Mohammedans. §14. Sepoy plots at Lahore and Mian Mir;
quashed. §15. Peshawar and frontier mountain tribes. §16. Execution
of sepoy mutineers at Peshawar. §17. Brigadier John Nicholson:
worshipped by a Sikh brotherhood. §18. Proposed withdrawal from
Peshawar. §19. Mutiny at Sealkote: wholesale executions. §20. Siege
and storm of Delhi, September 1857: peace in the North-West.
_Pages_ 185-231
CHAPTER VI.
SEPOY REVOLT: NORTH WEST, CAWNPORE, LUCKNOW.
1857-58.
§1. Bengal and Lord Canning: General Neill's advance from Calcutta.
§2. Sacred city of Benares: Hindu population overawed. §3. Fortress
at Allahabad: treachery and massacre. §4. Cawnpore: extreme peril.
§5. Story of Nana Sahib. §6. European refuge in the barracks. §7.
Nana Sahib at Cawnpore: aspirations after Hindu sovereignty:
delusion of General Wheeler. §8. Mutiny and treachery: barracks
beleaguered by Nana Sahib. §9. First massacre at Cawnpore: massacre
at Jhansi. §10. Advance of General Havelock. §11. Second massacre
of women and children: the well. §12. Lucknow and Sir Henry
Lawrence: May and June. §13. Siege of British Residency at Lucknow:
July to September: death of Sir Henry Lawrence. §14. Havelock's
advance and retreat. §15. Advance of Havelock and Outram. §16.
Relief of Lucknow. §17. Sir Colin Campbell's advance: deliverance
of the garrison. §18. Mutiny of the Gwalior contingent: defeated.
§19. End of the mutiny and rebellion: causes. _Pages_ 232-274
PART II.
_BRITISH CROWN._
CHAPTER THE LAST.
CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT.
1858-1886.
§1. Awakening of the British nation. §2. Government Education in India:
Toleration. §3. British Rule after the Mutiny: Legislative Council of
1854 and Executive Council: Wrongs of Non-Official Europeans.
§4. Mr. James Wilson and his Income-Tax. §5. New Legislative
Council of 1861-62. §6. New High Court: proposed District Courts.
§7. Lord Canning leaves India. §8. Lord Elgin, 1862-63. §9. Sir John
Lawrence, 1864-69: Governments of Madras and Bombay: Migrations to
Simla: Foreign Affairs. §10. Lord Lawrence leaves India. §11. Lord
Mayo, 1869-72. §12. Lord Northbrook, 1872-76: Royal visits to
India. §13. Lord Lytton, 1876-80: Empress Proclaimed. §14. Second
Afghan War. §15. Political and Judicial Schools. §16. Constitution
of British India: proposed Reforms. _Pages_ 275-302
INDEX _Pages_ 303-312
INDIA UNDER BRITISH RULE.
PART I.
_EAST INDIA COMPANY._
CHAPTER I.
FIRST PERIOD: FACTORIES, FORTRESSES, TOWNS.
1600-1756.
§1. India in 1600. §2. British at Surat and Masulipatam: Commercial
and Social Life, 1612-1638. §3. Rise and Growth of Madras,
1639-1680: Portuguese and Dutch Neighbours. §4. British Rule and
Representative Government, 1686. §5. Mixed Corporation of Europeans
and Natives, 1688. §6. Slavery and the Slave Trade in India. §7.
Madras, Surat, Bombay, and Hughly. §8. Collision with the Great
Mogul, 1686-1700. §9. Domestic Administration, 1700-1746. §10. Wars
against France in Southern India, 1746-1756. §11. The Black Hole at
Calcutta, June, 1756.
[Sidenote: Rise of British rule.]
The rise of British rule in India is a problem in history. A single
association of British traders established factories which grew into
fortresses, and governed native towns which became the capitals of a
British empire. The march of events is without a parallel in the annals
of the world. In 1600 the East India Company obtained from Queen
Elizabeth a charter of exclusive rights to trade in the Eastern seas. In
1612 it established its first factory at Surat. In 1639 it began to
build a fortified factory at Madras, whilst a Hindu population of
weavers and other manufacturers grew up by its side. Before the
beginning of the eighteenth century, before Queen Anne ascended the
throne of Great Britain, the British settlements at Madras, Bombay, and
Calcutta had each a fortress and a town. How Hindu and Mohammedan
populations were ruled by British traders will be told in the present
chapter. How the British traders acquired provinces and established an
empire belongs to the after chapters.
[Sidenote: NORTHERN INDIA: the Great Mogul.]
§1. In 1600 the whole of Northern India was under the dominion of a
Mohammedan sovereign, known as the Great Mogul. His revenues and armies
were the marvel of Europe. His empire extended from the mountains of
Cashmere to the Bay of Bengal, from the slopes of the Himalayas to the
tableland of the Deccan. It covered large Hindu populations and many
Hindu principalities, for throughout this vast area the Great Mogul was
sovereign lord of all, the emperor, the Padishah.
[Sidenote: SOUTHERN INDIA: Mohammedan Sultans and Hindu Rajas.]
South of the Mogul empire was the Deccan or "south." The country was a
_terra incognita_ to Europeans. The interior had been conquered by
Mohammedan invaders from the north, and distributed into kingdoms under
Sultans, who formed a barrier against the Moguls. East and west were
hills and jungles stretching to the sea, mostly held by Hindu Rajas who
were hostile alike to the Sultans and the Great Mogul. Mohammedan rule,
however, had never as yet extended further south than the river Kistna.
The whole region from the Kistna to Cape Comorin--sometimes known as the
"Peninsula"--was under the dominion of Hindu Rajas.
[Sidenote: Portuguese fortresses.]
The western coast of the Deccan and Peninsula was dotted with Portuguese
fortresses, mounted with cannon and garrisoned by Portuguese soldiers.
The Portuguese had made their way to India round the Cape of Good Hope
about the end of the fifteenth century, and for a hundred years had been
building factories in the territories of Hindu Rajas, and converting
them into fortresses. Nothing of the kind would have been allowed by the
Great Mogul, or by the Sultans of the Deccan, but the Portuguese had
persuaded the Hindu Rajas that they would help and protect them, and the
Rajas never saw the danger until the fortresses were bristling with
cannon and opposition was useless. The Portuguese capital was seated on
the island of Goa, about half-way between Surat and Comorin, and was a
centre of the Catholic religion as well as of Portuguese trade.[1]
[Sidenote: British traders at Surat.]
§2. British merchants in the service of the East India Company would
gladly have traded on the same sea-board, which was known as the coast
of Malabar, but they were shut out by the Portuguese fortresses.
Accordingly they sailed further northward, and tried to get a footing in
the Mogul port of Surat. This port was a centre of the Mohammedan
religion and an emporium of Mogul trade. It was the starting-point for
all pilgrims going to Mecca, and the point to which they returned when
their pilgrimage was over. It was the rendezvous of Mogul merchants who
despatched ships to the Persian Gulf and Red Sea, and sent goods
overland to the great capitals of the Mogul empire--Agra, Delhi, and
Lahore.
[Sidenote: British defeat the Portuguese.]
At Surat, however, the British were thwarted by the Portuguese. The
Nawab of Surat was told that the British were pirates. The merchants of
Surat were threatened with the capture of their ships if they had any
dealings with the British. Fighting was the only way of meeting the
difficulty. Accordingly the British attacked a Portuguese fleet outside
the bar of Surat. The news of battle and the roar of cannon brought the
Nawab, the merchants, and half the population of Surat to the sea-shore.
The British sunk or burnt several Portuguese ships until the residue of
the fleet steered back to Goa. The Moguls were fascinated by the
victory. They saw that the British had not only superior strength on
their side, but Allah and kismet. The Nawab of Surat feasted the
conquerors in his tents on the sands, and the Surat merchants eagerly
bought British cargoes and supplied Indian commodities to the brave men
who had beaten the Portuguese.
[Sidenote: British factory at Surat, 1612.]
In 1612 the British set up a factory at Surat in a large Indian house,
with warehouses and offices below and chambers and refection-rooms
above. It was a London establishment transferred to a Mohammedan
seaport. The British merchants, factors, and writers lodged and boarded
together like members of one family. Native brokers or banyans were
employed to buy cotton goods, silks, indigo, and other Indian
commodities; whilst public auctions were held in the factory for the
sale of British broadcloths, glass and cutlery, especially sword-blades,
and also for the sale of lead, copper, quicksilver, and other European
commodities. The spirit of enterprise was as busy amongst the British
as in after years. One factor urged the Company to send ships up the
river Indus and open up a trade with Central Asia; whilst another tried
to persuade the Great Mogul to lay down leaden pipes from the river
Jumna to the city of Ajmere, a distance of more than two hundred miles,
in order to convey drinking-water to the imperial palace in the heart of
Rajputana.
[Sidenote: Factory life.]
In those early days no British ladies were allowed to reside in India.
If a servant of the Company happened to be married he was obliged to
leave his wife in England. The "English House," as it was called, was
thus a bachelor establishment, without ladies, but not without Surat
punch or Persian wine. An English chaplain read prayers every morning
and evening, and preached two sermons on Sundays. An English surgeon
attended the sick factors, and the Mogul authorities and other grandees
often applied for his services, and thus enabled him to promote the
Company's interests on more than one important occasion. The chief of
the factory was known as the President, but all business was transacted
by the President with the help of four or five senior merchants, who met
twice a week in council. This management of affairs by a President in
Council has survived the lapse of nearly three centuries. To this day
the government of presidencies and the vice-royalty of India are in each
case carried on by a President in Council.
[Sidenote: Foreign guests.]
Within a few years the "English House" at Surat was well known to all
European sea-captains and voyagers. Not only British travellers, but
Italians, Germans, and Frenchmen, were heartily welcomed by the honest
factors at Surat. All were impressed with the order and regularity of
the establishment, in which decorum and discipline were as strictly
maintained as in Leadenhall Street or the Cheape. But when working hours
were over the grave men of business proved to be convivial Britons of
the old-fashioned type, and on Friday evenings especially, all the
married men met together to drink the health of their absent wives to
the detriment of their own. Foreign guests who could not speak the
English tongue were in no want of amusement. In 1638 a young gentleman
from Holstein, named Mandelslo, spent some months in the "English
House," and passed the time very pleasantly, visiting the ships at
anchor outside the bar of the river Tapty, and hearing the latest news
of Europe from sea-captains versed in many languages, or wandering down
the row of banyans' shops, which often contained as much wealth, hidden
under dirt and squalor, as the houses of London merchants and
goldsmiths. On Sundays, after sermon, the factors carried off their
guest to their gardens outside Surat, where they all shot at butts, and
were regaled with fruit and conserves.
[Sidenote: British and Moguls.]
The European gentlemen at Surat were always polite to Mohammedan
grandees, and were generally politely treated in return, excepting
perhaps at the custom-house. British sailors and ill-mannered Englishmen
would, however, occasionally show a contempt for Asiatics, which the
President could not always restrain. British interlopers on the high
seas set the Company's charter at defiance, and carried on a lawless
trade, plundering the Mohammedan pilgrim ships and ill-treating the
passengers. The Mogul authorities insisted that the Company's servants
were to blame, and would listen to no explanation, but sent large bodies
of Mogul soldiery to environ the "English House," and stop all trade,
cutting off all food and water, until a sufficient fine or ransom had
been paid.
[Sidenote: Trade on the eastern coast.]
About 1620 the East India Company established another factory at
Masulipatam on the eastern side of India. The Hindus along the coast of
Coromandel were famous for painting muslins and calicoes, and there was
a growing demand for such goods amongst the eastern islands, whilst
valuable cargoes of nutmegs and other spices could be obtained in
exchange. But Masulipatam was seated in Mohammedan territory. A Sultan
of the Deccan, reigning at Golconda, had extended his dominion eastward
to the coast of Coromandel, and established the port of Masulipatam for
the importation of horses from the Persian Gulf. The traders at the
British factory were therefore cramped and worried by the Mohammedan
authorities, and yearned to effect a settlement on the territories of
some Hindu Raja further south, where they could fortify a factory and
mount it with British cannon without the interference of local
authorities.
[Sidenote: British territory and fortress at Madras, 1639.]
§3. In 1639 a British merchant named Day bought a strip of territory on
the Coromandel coast, about 300 miles to the south of Masulipatam. It
was within the dominions of a Hindu Raja, and was about six miles long
and one mile inland. It included a small island, which faced the sea and
was defended on the land side by a river. Mr. Day agreed to pay the Raja
a rent of 500_l._ a year in native coin known as pagodas, and the
transaction was duly engraved on a plate of gold. A factory of brick
was built upon the island, and mounted with cannon, and called Fort St.
George. The Raja was perfectly content. He was too glad to get a rent of
500_l._ a year to raise any difficulty as regards fortifications or
cannon.
[Sidenote: Fort St. George and Black Town.]
This factory was the germ of the city of Madras, on the coast of
Coromandel. Weavers, washers, painters, and hosts of other Hindu
artisans, flocked to the spot and eagerly entered the service of the
British, and began to set up their looms and to weave, wash, and paint
their cotton goods in the open air beneath the trees. Villages of little
huts of mud and bamboo soon grew up on the sandy soil to the north of
the island and factory. Each avocation formed a caste, which generally
had its own quarters and its own headman. In this manner a Hindu
settlement grew up by the side of Fort St. George and was known as Black
Town; and the whole locality, including Fort St. George and Black Town,
was called Madras, and was the first territory acquired by the East
India Company in India.
[Sidenote: Despotic rule.]
The transition of the British traders from a factory under Mohammedan
control to an independent settlement of their own must have been a
grateful change. The President and Council at Fort St. George were _de
facto_ rulers of the whole settlement, native as well as European, with
all the powers of despotic princes and with no interference from
without. They acted as a supreme court of judicature for Englishmen in
all cases civil and criminal; no Englishman, however, could be condemned
to death unless convicted of piracy, which was regarded as the most
heinous of crimes. On all other capital charges the Englishman was sent
to England for trial.[2]
[Sidenote: Portuguese and Dutch neighbours.]
Four miles to the south of Fort St. George was the Portuguese town of
St. Thomé; but the Portuguese were now friends with the English. Their
power was being overshadowed by that of the Dutch, who had founded a
town and fortress at Pulicat, nearly thirty miles to the northward of
Fort St. George.
[Sidenote: Dutch trade in India.]
The Dutch settlements in India were the outcome of the hostility of
Spain. For centuries the Dutch had been the carriers of Europe, from the
Mediterranean to the Baltic. In the period which preceded the sixteenth
century they had bought Indian commodities at Genoa, Naples and Venice.
After the Portuguese established a trade in India, the Dutch went every
year to Lisbon to buy Indian commodities for the European markets. In
1580 they threw off the yoke of Spain, and founded the United Provinces.
That same year Spain and Portugal were formed into one kingdom under
Philip II. In an evil hour for Portuguese interests in India, Philip
thought to punish the Dutch by shutting them out of Lisbon. The Dutch
revenged themselves by sailing round the Cape and buying what they
wanted in the islands of the Eastern Archipelago. In 1600 they built a
factory in Java, which grew into the city of Batavia. In 1610 they built
a square fort on the Pulicat Lake, which grew into the town of Pulicat
and threatened to become the capital of Dutch ascendency in India.
[Sidenote: Right and Left Hands.]
The Indian quarter at Madras was almost entirely Hindu. Scarcely a
Mohammedan took up his abode within the Company's bounds. Accordingly
one of the earliest acts of the President and Council was to divide the
streets of Black Town into those of the right and left hand. All over
Southern India, the lower castes of Hindus are divided into Right and
Left Hands, and yet no one can account for the distinction, or
satisfactorily define the respective rights of each Hand.
The so-called Hands are, however, intensely jealous of each other. For
generations each Hand in the towns of Southern India has had its own
streets and its own pagoda. At Madras, if one Hand passed in religious
procession along the streets of the other Hand, or if the members of one
Hand chanted Hindu hymns or mantras before the pagoda of the other, a
fray would break out in Black Town, which could only be suppressed by
British soldiers, and then would be followed by a strike of weavers or
painters, or the flight of all the members of one Hand to the Portuguese
settlement at St. Thomé. These conflicts, which more than once brought
the settlement to the brink of ruin, reached a climax in Governor Pitt's
time, as will appear hereafter.
[Sidenote: Mohammedan invasion.]
Meanwhile, the country round about Madras was in a state of turmoil. The
Mohammedan army of the Sultan of Golconda was advancing against the
Hindu Rajas of the south, and formed a camp in the neighbourhood. The
Raja who had sold the territory to the East India Company fled away to
the interior, and was never heard of more. The Mohammedan army captured
the Portuguese town of St. Thomé, dismantled the walls of the fortress,
and carried off the cannon to Golconda; and they would have treated Fort
St. George in like fashion, had not the British stoutly resisted, and
quieted the Sultan by engaging to pay him the rent which they had
previously paid to the Raja.
[Sidenote: Troubles with Dutch and French, 1670.]
About 1670, or some thirty years after the foundation of Madras, the
state of affairs was complicated by Charles II.'s unholy alliance with
France against the Dutch. A French fleet attacked St. Thomé and drove
out the Mohammedans. A Dutch fleet from Pulicat recaptured St. Thomé,
drove out the French, and restored the place to the Sultan of Golconda.
The British settlement was in sore peril; but in 1674 there was peace
between Great Britain and Holland, and the danger was over.
[Sidenote: Increase of population.]
These troubles brought many strangers to Madras, and the population,
white and black, was largely increased. Many Portuguese families from
St. Thomé took refuge in Madras, and added to the strength of the
European settlement, known as White Town, by building houses under the
protection of the factory guns. The British factors and soldiers of the
garrison married the daughters of the Portuguese, much to the horror of
the English chaplain of Fort St. George, as the marriages were
accompanied by numerous conversions of bridegrooms to the Catholic
faith. At the same time wealthy Hindu traders and bankers began to build
substantial houses in Black Town for the sake of British protection.
Many invested their money in trading voyages; some acted as brokers or
banyans for the supply of Indian commodities to the Company's servants;
others bought European goods at the public auctions, and supplied the
native dealers up country.
[Sidenote: Fort St. George, 1670-86.]
§4. Within forty years of the building of the British factory, Madras
was the pride and glory of the East India Company. Fort St. George, or
White Town, was a European city in miniature. The primitive factory in
the centre was replaced by a stately mansion with a dome, which was
known as the Governor's House, but included a town-hall, a
council-chamber, and sundry offices. It was seated in an open square,
having a strong wall along each of its four sides, guards' houses, and
bastions at each corner mounted with cannon. Outside the fortification
were little streets, paved with pebbles, containing about fifty European
houses. There was also a Protestant church for the English inhabitants,
and a Catholic chapel for the Portuguese residents. The whole of White
Town was environed by an outer wall, sufficiently fortified to keep off
an Indian army. None but Britons, or Europeans under British protection,
were permitted to reside in White Town. The garrison consisted of two
companies of European soldiers, and a large number of native guards, who
were known as peons.
[Sidenote: Hindu town under British rule.]
At this time the population of the native town was estimated at 300,000
souls, but was probably half that number, and an attempt was made to
introduce something like a representative government. Whenever the
Governor and Council desired to know the wishes of the people generally,
or to act with their consent, they summoned the headmen of castes, and
consulted them accordingly. Justice, however, was administered by two
English gentlemen, who sat twice a week in Black Town in a building
known as the Choultry. The Justices of the Choultry tried all offences
and disputes amongst the Hindus, and fined, flogged, or imprisoned at
discretion. The old English punishments of the stocks, the pillory, and
the gallows were also in full force in Black Town, but no Hindu was
executed without the confirmation of the Governor and Council. The
Justices of the Choultry were bound by no code of laws; they were simply
instructed by the Directors of the Company in England to decide all
cases, civil and criminal, according to "equity and good conscience,"
guided by English law and their own experiences of Hindu customs and
usages.[3] A Hindu superintendent of police was appointed under the
title of "Pedda Naik," or "elder chief;" and he was bound to maintain a
certain number of constables known as peons, and keep the peace of the
town. He was expected to prevent theft and burglary, and either to
recover stolen property, or to pay the value to the owner. In return,
the Pedda Naik was allowed to cultivate a few fields rent free, and to
levy a small octroi duty, or toll, on articles of Hindu consumption.
[Sidenote: Protection of Hindus.]
The main difficulty at Madras was to keep the peace between the European
soldiers of the garrison and the Hindu population. Any European soldier
who remained outside the Fort at night time was set publicly in the
stocks for a whole day. Any European who attempted to get over the Fort
walls, was imprisoned in irons for one entire month, and kept on rice
and water. Any soldier who threatened to strike a Hindu was whipped. Any
European who took an article out of a shop or bazaar, under pretence of
buying it at his own price, was sentenced to pay treble the value to the
party aggrieved.
[Sidenote: Question of taxation.]
Another difficulty was to keep the streets of Black Town clean and
wholesome. The Governor and Council summoned the heads of castes, and
proposed to levy a small tax on every house. The heads assented to the
measure, but offered to carry out the work themselves, and to raise the
necessary funds in the same way that they levied contributions from
their respective castes for defraying the cost of public festivals. All
this, however, was a blind on their part to delude the British Governor
and Council. Nothing was done by the heads of castes, no money was
collected, and the streets were dirtier than ever.
[Sidenote: Contumacy of heads of
castes.]
Meanwhile Madras was threatened by the Sultan of Golconda, and the
Directors in England instructed the Governor and Council at Madras to
build a wall round Black Town, and meet the cost by levying a small
ground-rent from each householder. In this case no difficulty was
anticipated. The Hindus might ignore the importance of sanitation, but
they could scarcely refuse to contribute towards the defence of their
lives and property, to say nothing of their wives and families. The
heads of castes, however, raised strong objections, but found that the
Governor was bent on carrying out the orders of the Court of Directors.
The heads of castes were told that the rents must be paid, and that
those who refused to pay must be prepared to sell their houses and leave
the British settlement. At this threat they all promised to pay, but
secretly prepared for a general uprising.
[Sidenote: Hindu rebellion, 1686.]
Suddenly, one Sunday morning, the 3rd of January, 1686, it was known in
Fort St. George that the Hindu population of Black Town were rebelling
in Asiatic fashion. Under the orders of the heads of castes, the Hindu
servants of the Company had thrown up their duties, bazaar dealers had
shut up their shops, and provisions and grain were kept out of the town.
The Governor in Fort St. George sent a detachment of the British
garrison to guard the entrances to Black Town and suppress the tumult.
Proclamation was made by beat of drum that unless the heads submitted
before sunset, their houses would be pulled down on the following
morning, the sites sold by auction, and the rebels and their families
banished for ever. Hindus who failed to return to their duties would be
discharged from the Company's service; dealers who kept their shops
closed would be heavily fined and all their goods confiscated. These
peremptory orders had the desired effect. The heads of castes seemed to
be completely cowed. Before sunset they appeared at the Fort and begged
pardon for their rebellion, and were told to put an end to the tumult in
Black Town.
[Sidenote: Wholesome despotism.]
Next morning the heads of castes returned to the Fort and presented a
petition, begging to be relieved from the payment of the ground-rent.
Each man was asked in turn whether he would leave the town, and each in
turn said that he would submit, and then the whole body declared with
one voice that they would not pay the tax. Proclamation was at once made
by beat of drum that the orders of Sunday would be immediately put in
execution. The Hindus bent to the storm. They saw that they were at the
mercy of their British rulers. The shops were opened, provisions were
brought into the town, and all the artisans and servants of the Company
returned to their duties. The ground-rents were collected without demur,
and later on the scavenger-tax was raised without difficulty.
[Sidenote: Mayor, aldermen, and burgesses, 1688.]
§5. When the news of these disturbances reached England, the Directors
in Leadenhall Street, or rather their once celebrated chairman, the
great Sir Josiah Child, devised a scheme for rendering municipal
taxation acceptable to the native population. A charter was obtained
from James II. for founding a corporation in Madras, consisting of a
mayor, twelve aldermen, and sixty burgesses; but it was suggested by the
Court of Directors that the heads of Hindu castes, as well as Britons,
might be appointed aldermen and burgesses, and it was hoped that the
corporation would be willing to tax themselves and the inhabitants
generally, for keeping the town clean, improving the public health,
building a guild-hall and hospitals, and establishing schools for
teaching the English tongue to Hindus, Mohammedans, and other Indian
children. Before the Governor and Council at Madras could offer a single
suggestion, they received instructions cut and dried. The mayor and
three senior aldermen were always to be covenanted British servants of
the East India Company, and they alone were to be Justices of the Peace.
The remaining nine might belong to any nationality, and included
Portuguese, Hindu, and Jewish merchants having dealings with the Company
at Madras. Thirty burgesses were named in the charter, but they were all
Englishmen; and the remainder were to include the heads of all the
castes, so as to induce the whole of the Hindu inhabitants to contribute
cheerfully to the public works already specified. The mayor and aldermen
were to wear red silk gowns, and the burgesses white silk gowns, and
maces were to be carried before the mayor. In a word, all the
paraphernalia of an English municipality in the seventeenth century were
sent to Madras to be adopted by the new corporation.
[Sidenote: Corporation festivities.]
The new municipality was inaugurated with much pomp and ceremony in
1688, the year of the glorious Revolution. The Governor of Madras was
outside the corporation, but the mayor and three senior aldermen were
members of council. On Saturday, the 29th of September, 1688, the
Governor received the mayor, aldermen, and burgesses in the
council-chamber at Fort St. George. The members of the new corporation
then took the oaths and sat down to a corporation dinner; and after a
while they all marched to the town-hall in their several robes, with the
maces before the mayor. Nothing, however, is said about the heads of
castes, and nothing more about the burgesses.
[Sidenote: Failure of municipal rule.]
The mayor and aldermen were to be a Court of Record, with power to try
all causes, criminal and civil, in a summary way, according to "equity
and good conscience," and such laws and orders as might be made by the
Company. The corporation were authorised to levy taxes for building a
guild-hall, a public jail, and a school-house for teaching English,
arithmetic, and merchants' accounts to Indian children, and for payment
of the necessary salaries. Henceforth, two aldermen sat as justices of
the Choultry; but the corporation raised no tax and founded no
institution, and eventually died out from sheer want of vitality.
[Sidenote: Slavery under Hindu rule.]
§6. All this while the slave trade was an institution in Madras, and
indeed, throughout Southern India. In most of the Hindu kingdoms of the
Peninsula, the farm-labourers were slaves or serfs attached to the soil;
they were probably aboriginal populations who had been reduced to
slavery by their conquerors. Prisoners of war, male and female, were
also compelled to serve the conquerors as domestic servants, and treated
as slaves of the family.
[Sidenote: Mohammedan slavery.]
When Turks and Afghans introduced Mohammedan rule, slavery was
recognised, but Hindu slaves might raise their condition by embracing
Islam, and the converts might become important personages in the
household, and marry female members of the family. The favourites of a
grandee or Sultan might even marry a daughter, and rise to the rank of
steward of the household or minister of state, like Joseph in the court
of the Pharaohs.
[Sidenote: Mogul restrictions.]
When the Moguls established their dominion over Northern India there was
a change for the better. It was a fundamental law of the Moguls that no
subject should be enslaved, but only captives taken in war. This law was
still enforced when the Moguls became Mohammedans, for they always
looked upon the slavery of subjects with horror, whatever might be their
race or religion. Foreign slaves, male and female, provided they were
not Mohammedans, were sold by private dealers, or in the public
bazaar.[4]
[Sidenote: Portuguese slave trade.]
Unfortunately, the Portuguese and other nations of Europe had not as yet
awakened to the iniquity of slavery and the slave trade. During the
Portuguese wars in Africa, Moors and Negroes were carried off as
prisoners of war and sold as slaves in Lisbon. In India the Portuguese
established depôts for the purchase of slaves. At Goa female slaves were
to be found in every Portuguese household, and sometimes were sent into
the streets to sell sweetmeats and confectionary, and earn money for
their masters in other ways.
[Sidenote: Kidnapping from Bengal.]
For many years large numbers of Hindu slaves were brought from Bengal.
The Portuguese had been permitted to build a factory at Hughly, on the
river Hughly, about 120 miles from the sea. During an interval of civil
war they fortified this settlement and landed numerous cannon, whilst a
native town grew up in the neighbourhood. Meanwhile, the scum of Goa and
other Portuguese towns, chiefly military deserters and apostate monks,
had established themselves on the islands near the mouths of the Ganges,
built a fleet of galleys, and led the lives of pirates, brigands, and
kidnappers. These men were the pest of the Sunderbunds. They scoured the
waterways of the delta of the Ganges, carried off whole villages into
slavery, and especially delighted in capturing marriage processions,
with the bride and bridegroom and all their kinsfolk and acquaintance in
the bravery of silks and jewels. The Portuguese at Hughly were base
enough to deal with these villains, to buy the poor wretches who had
been kidnapped, and to ship them to Goa, where they were sold as slaves
at the daily auctions on the Exchange, together with other commodities
from all parts of the world. The rascally kidnappers at the mouths of
the Ganges, and the pious traders at Hughly, alike quieted their
consciences by baptising their victims, and boasting of having saved
their souls from hell.
[Sidenote: Vengeance of the Great Mogul.]
Such a state of things aroused the Great Mogul to take action. The very
existence of a Portuguese fortress and cannon within his dominions had
given mortal offence, and this unholy slave trade sealed the fate of the
Portuguese at Hughly. The settlement was environed by a Mogul army.
There was a rush of ladies and children to the shipping, but the river
was low and the vessels ran aground. There was absolutely no way of
escape; all provisions were cut off, and the Portuguese were starved
into surrender. Five or six hundred prisoners, many of noble birth, were
sent to Agra. Some saved their lives by turning Mohammedans; others,
mostly priests, perished as martyrs; the choicest of the lads and
maidens were sent to the palace of the Great Mogul, and the remainder
were distributed amongst the mansions of the Mohammedan grandees. For
generations afterwards the doom of the Portuguese at Hughly was likened
to the Babylonian captivity of the Hebrews.
[Sidenote: Slave trade at Madras.]
Hughly was captured in 1632. Seven years later the British built their
factory at Madras, on the coast of Coromandel. At every Portuguese
settlement in Southern India the slave trade was still in full swing,
for the sway of the Great Mogul had only been extended over the northern
part of the Deccan, and was as yet far away from the Peninsula.
Accordingly the British traders at Madras connived at the exportation of
slaves by sea. Some restraints, however, were placed upon kidnapping by
insisting on the registration of every slave bought or sold in Madras,
together with the names of the seller and purchaser, in order that the
information might be given in the event of any inquiry by kinsfolk or
acquaintance, and also that a fee might be levied on the registration of
every slave.
[Sidenote: Great Mogul conquers the Deccan.]
In 1688 the British rulers of Madras abolished the slave trade by public
proclamation. The Great Mogul, the once famous Aurangzeb, was engaged in
conquering the Sultans of the Deccan. Unlike his predecessors, Aurangzeb
was a bigoted Sunni, or a zealous believer in the four Caliphs who
succeeded Mohammed. The Sultans of the Deccan were Shiahs who damned
the first three Caliphs as usurpers, and swore that Ali, and Ali only,
the son-in-law of the Prophet, the husband of Fatima and the father of
Hassan and Hosein, was the rightful successor of Mohammed. Under such
circumstances Aurangzeb was impelled by pious zeal for the interest of
the Sunni religion to conquer and slay the heretic Sultans of the Deccan
and annex their dominions to the Mogul empire. He next prepared to march
his army further south into the Peninsula, with the view of conquering
the Hindu Rajas and compelling their idolatrous subjects to accept the
religion of the Koran.
[Sidenote: Stoppage of the slave trade.]
The British at Madras were greatly alarmed at the threatened approach of
the Great Mogul. They were naturally afraid of sharing the fate of the
Portuguese at Hughly. Accordingly they abolished the slave trade by
proclamation, and sent numerous petitions to Aurangzeb, tendering their
submission to the Great Mogul, praising his imperial majesty to the
skies, imploring his protection as though he had been another Cyrus or
Darius, and engaging to pay the old rent of 500_l._ per annum in
pagodas. Matters were finally arranged, but it is grievous to add that
the pious Aurangzeb was not so careful of the welfare of the Hindus as
his liberal and tolerant predecessors. He preferred the laws of Mohammed
to those of his Mogul ancestor, Chenghiz Khan; and within a few years
the slave trade at Madras was as brisk as ever.
[Sidenote: British toleration.]
§7. The Mogul conquest of the Sultans of the Deccan drove many
Mohammedans to settle at Madras. The British traders protected the lives
and property of Hindus and Mohammedans, and permitted them to worship
as they pleased. In early days, the Directors had repeatedly pressed
their servants at Madras to convert the Hindu worshippers of idols to
the truths of Christianity, and no one in the British Isles seems to
have doubted the possibility or expediency of the work. The British
traders at Madras, however, deprecated any interference whatever. They
described a terrible riot that broke out at St. Thomé because of some
interference with a Hindu procession, and they urged that the frays
between the Right and Left Hands were sufficient proof that it was best
to leave the Hindus alone. As for Mohammedans, they were the subjects of
the Great Mogul, and interference with the dominant religion in India
was out of the question.
[Sidenote: Flourishing private trade.]
During the latter years of the seventeenth century, the British
settlement at Madras had grown into a principality, independent, and
self-contained. At the same time it presented rare attractions to
traders, Asiatic as well as European. The Company's servants were paid
very small salaries, but were allowed the privilege of private trade in
the eastern seas, so long as they paid customs and did not interfere
with the European trade. Every Company's servant in Madras, from the
Governor to the youngest writer, engaged more or less in trading
ventures. The number of traders was swelled by private individuals who
came from England, under the licence of the Court of Directors; as well
as by Hindu, Mohammedan, and Armenian merchants, who often took shares
with the Company's servants. Moreover, this private trade increased the
demand for European commodities which were sold by public auction in
Fort St. George, and swelled the revenue of the East India Company which
was derived from the sea customs.
[Sidenote: Decay of Surat.]
Meanwhile the British situation at the Mogul port of Surat had become
intolerable. The religious fanaticism of Aurangzeb had stirred up hatred
and discontent amongst Christians and Hindus. The factors at the English
House were more oppressed than ever. On the north their trade was cut
off by the Rajput princes of Western Hindustan, who were revolting
against the Great Mogul and stopping the caravans between Surat and
Agra. On the south they were exposed to the Mahrattas of the Western
Deccan, who attacked and plundered Surat, and would have plundered the
English House had not the factors surreptitiously landed some cannon,
and called in the British sailors from the shipping, and manfully beaten
off their assailants.
[Sidenote: Bombay, 1661-85.]
Fortunately, the British had taken possession of the island of Bombay,
which Charles the Second had obtained from the King of Portugal as part
of the dowry of the Infanta Catharine, and made over to the East India
Company. Bombay was nearly two hundred miles to the south of Surat, and
hedged around by the Mahrattas, but being an island it was well
protected, and included both a fortress and a town. Moreover, it had a
magnificent harbour, and the valuable trade with the Persian Gulf, the
Red Sea, and the Mozambique could be better carried on from this harbour
than over the bar of Surat at the mouth of the river Tapty. Accordingly
the East India Company secretly resolved on leaving Surat for ever, and
removing the British factors and their trade to the island of Bombay.
[Sidenote: Bengal trade, 1640-85.]
In Bengal the East India Company had established a factory at Hughly, hard
by the dismantled Portuguese fortress; but were exposed to so much
insolence and extortion from the Mogul authorities that they were
prepared to leave Bengal rather than tamely submit to further
oppression. The trade was enormously profitable, and had helped to
defray the cost of the fortifications at Madras and Bombay. Saltpetre
had been in large demand ever since the breaking out of the civil war
between Charles the First and his parliament. Raw silk and opium were
equally marketable, and all three products could be brought from Patna
to Hughly by the river Ganges. At Dacca, the old capital of Bengal to
the eastward of the Ganges, muslins were manufactured of so fine a
texture that a piece sufficient for a dress might be passed through a
wedding ring; and every young lady in the British Isles who aspired to
be a bride was equally anxious to be led to the altar in a cloud of
Dacca muslin. Aurangzeb, however, stopped the supply of saltpetre,
because the Sultan of Turkey complained that it was used by Christians
in their wars against true believers; whilst the Nawab of Bengal, who
resided at Dacca, was most overbearing, and on one occasion ordered that
Mr. Job Charnock, the chief of the Hughly factory, should be imprisoned
and scourged, and his orders were literally obeyed by the Hughly
officials.
[Sidenote: Plans of Sir Josiah Child, 1685.]
§8. Sir Josiah Child, the chairman of the Court of Directors, was
endowed with real political genius, but he was imperious and headstrong.
He resolved to make war upon the Great Mogul, and compel him to make
reparation for the misdeeds of the Nawab of Bengal, and to cede
sufficient territory for the establishment of a fortress and a town
corresponding to the settlements at Madras and Bombay. He proposed to
coerce the Great Mogul by sending out the Company's cruisers from Bombay
to capture the Mogul ships going to Mecca, until Aurangzeb came to
terms. He also persuaded James II. to send a Royal fleet to Bengal to
ensure the success of his scheme. Should his plans fail, should
Aurangzeb prove obstinate and impracticable, it was intended to form an
alliance with the Raja of Arakan, on the eastern side of the Bay of
Bengal, and promise to help him in his wars against the Great Mogul,
provided he ceded the required territory at Chittagong. In short, Sir
Josiah Child proposed to overawe the Mogul and establish British trade
with India on a lasting basis for the future by means of three great
fortresses--one at Madras, a second at Bombay, and a third in Bengal or
at Chittagong.
[Sidenote: Elements of mischief.]
Unfortunately Sir Josiah Child was unable to cope with the craft and
capacity of Aurangzeb. That keen-witted sovereign had spies in all
directions, and was gifted with such a power of divining what was going
on that he was often suspected of employing supernatural agency.
Meanwhile, Sir Josiah Child was maintaining such profound secrecy that
no Englishman on the Bengal side knew what was going on at Surat or
Bombay, and no Englishman on the Bombay side knew what was going on in
the Bay of Bengal, whilst the British at Madras knew nothing whatever of
the plans in operation.
[Sidenote: Blunders and disasters.]
The blundering that followed was most disastrous. Whilst the Company's
cruisers were capturing Mogul ships as lawful prize, Aurangzeb drew the
Surat factors into his clutches, and threatened to put them to death
unless the prizes were restored and vast sums paid by way of ransom.
Meanwhile, the Royal fleet arrived in Bengal, and made its way up the
river Hughly, under the command of a certain Captain Heath, who would
listen to no advice and regarded Asiatics with contempt, whilst he was
ready to make war on anybody. He brought away Mr. Job Charnock and the
British factors from Hughly, with all their goods and records. He
captured all the Mogul ships he encountered in the Hughly river. He
bombarded a Mogul town at the mouth of the river. Meanwhile, the Nawab
of Bengal was in a panic of fear at Dacca, willing to make any terms
provided only that the terrible admiral would leave Bengal and solemnly
promise never to return.
[Sidenote: A hot-headed admiral.]
The Royal fleet sailed to Arakan and frightened the Raja into a state of
utter bewilderment. The Raja could make nothing of the offer of the
admiral to help him against the Great Mogul, nor of the demand for the
cession of Chittagong, and he naturally vacillated, prevaricated, and
procrastinated. The admiral was blind with rage and mortification, and
would have captured Chittagong by force of arms; but the place was too
strong for him. Accordingly, he sailed away to Madras in a towering
fury, and landed Mr. Charnock and the British factors at Madras,
swearing that he had heard nothing but deceit and lies since he first
entered the Bay of Bengal.
[Sidenote: Humiliation.]
The East India Company submitted to the Great Mogul, but the great
Josiah Child must have found it a bitter pill. The prizes were restored,
a vast fine was paid, and pardon was humbly implored before the Surat
factors were restored to liberty.
[Sidenote: Calcutta founded, 1690.]
Meanwhile, the Moguls had learned to respect the British. The fugitives
from Hughly were invited to return to Bengal, and permitted to purchase
a strip of land on the eastern bank of the Hughly river, about twenty
miles nearer the sea than their old factory. It was three miles long and
one mile inland, and included the three native villages of Chutanutti,
Govindpore, and Kali Ghat, which grew into a native town resembling that
of Madras. Later on, the Hindus round about revolted against Mogul
oppression, and the British took advantage of the general alarm to
convert their factory into a fortress and to give it the name of Fort
William, in honour of the Prince of Orange. The native settlement was
known by the name of Calcutta, after the village of Kali Ghat, or the
"landing place of the goddess Kali." Thus the dream of Josiah Child was
realised, and British trade in India was protected by three fortresses
and three towns--Madras, Bombay, and Calcutta.
[Sidenote: Indian calm, 1700-40.]
From the end of the seventeenth century to the middle of the eighteenth
the Company's settlements were for the most part shut out from the
Indian world. The British had learned their lesson and kept quiet, and
the Moguls were busy fighting the Mahrattas, and left them very much
alone. The Mogul conquests in the Deccan were made over to a Mogul
Viceroy known as the Nizam, whilst those in the eastern Peninsula round
about Madras were placed in charge of a Nawab who was known as the Nawab
of the Carnatic. Meanwhile, the Moguls kept the Mahrattas quiet by the
payment of a yearly black-mail known as chout, or "_chauth_," which was
reckoned at one-fourth of the land revenue, but was often commuted for a
lump sum. Thus India was to all outward appearance in a state of calm,
but it was the calm that precedes a storm.
[Sidenote: Typical Madras Governors.]
§9. Although the administration of Madras was carried on by a Governor
and Council yet each Governor had a strong personal influence and
individuality. Two of these Governors, an Englishman and a Scotchman,
may be brought under notice as types of all.
[Sidenote: Governor Pitt, 1698-1709.]
THOMAS PITT, grandfather of the Earl of Chatham, was Governor of Madras
from 1698 to 1709. In 1702 the Nawab of the Carnatic was staying at St.
Thomé, trying to squeeze some 50,000_l_. out of the British at Madras.
He boasted loudly of his friendship for the British whilst his troops
were plundering their outlying villages. He was entertained at dinner
with great pomp at Fort St. George, and gratified with presents; but
shortly afterwards he environed the whole settlement with his army. Pitt
held out for months, getting his supplies by sea. At last Pitt offered
two or three thousand pounds in rupees, and a peace was patched up, and
the Nawab went away.
[Sidenote: Imperious rule.]
Governor Pitt was as lofty and mysterious in his way as his illustrious
grandson. He was much irritated by a protracted quarrel between the
Right and Left Hands. He set up stones to mark the boundaries between
the streets, but they were carried away at night time. The bulk of the
Right Hands fled to St. Thomé, and the Hindu populations in all the
country round about were in great commotion. Pitt threatened to send a
body of European soldiers to St. Thomé, and put the deserters to the
sword. At this crisis, the Mogul officer at St. Thomé turned the
malcontents out of the town. They went back to Madras submissive and
crestfallen, and begged to be forgiven. From this time, however, the
distinction between the Right and Left Hands was abolished as far as the
streets were concerned, and all streets were opened to both Hands. But
the old strife is still burning in the hearts of the Hindus of Southern
India. They can be prevented from fighting with swords and clubs, but
they carry the battle into the law-courts, where disputes are frequently
brought to a decision as regards the right of either Hand to worship at
a particular shrine and in a particular way.[5]
[Sidenote: Hasty tempter.]
Pitt was severe on native offenders. Some thieves went off with
boat-loads of cotton goods, and the gunner at Fort St. George was
ordered to fire upon them. The thieves escaped, but two peons who
connived at the robbery were whipped and put in the pillory, whilst
Governor Pitt thrashed the native overseer with his own hands.
[Sidenote: Pitt diamond.]
During the siege of Madras Pitt managed to buy a wonderful diamond from
a Golconda jeweller at a small price. In after years he sold it to the
Regent of France for 135,000_l._, and it was known as the Pitt diamond.
The matter created some scandal at the time, but is now only remembered
in connection with Pope's lines:--
"Asleep and naked as an Indian lay,
An honest factor stole his gem away."
[Sidenote: Governor Macrae, 1725-30.]
JAMES MACRAE, a Scotch celebrity, was Governor of Madras from 1725 to
1731. He carried out a general survey of Madras and its suburbs for the
better collection of the quit-rents and scavenger-tax. The population of
Madras numbered 200,000. The expenses of Fort St. George amounted to
20,000_l_. a year, whilst the revenue from the sea customs was under
5,000_l._
[Sidenote: Mayor's Court.]
The Mayor's Court was re-organised in Governor Macrae's time under the
charter of 1726. It was to consist of a mayor and nine aldermen for the
trial of all civil causes. Seven of the aldermen were to be Englishmen,
and the remaining two of any nation, provided they were Protestant. The
new court was inaugurated in a style which seems inexpressibly absurd in
the present day. The new mayor and aldermen were sworn in with much
ceremony, and then left Fort St. George in a grand procession of
soldiers with kettledrums and trumpets, dancing girls with the country
music, court attorneys with all the chief gentry on horseback, and
passed through Black Town to the Company's garden in the suburbs, where
they were received by the Governor and Council and duly _fêted_.
[Sidenote: Breaking up of the Mogul empire.]
Meanwhile, the Mogul empire was breaking up. Aurangzeb died in 1707.
Within thirty years after his death the power of the Great Moguls had
died out; the name and prestige remained, but very little more. The
successors of Aurangzeb were _Roisfainéants_ shut up in palaces with
wives and concubines, whilst all real power was exercised by the
Ministers of State and the Viceroys of the provinces. In 1738-39 the
British at the three Presidencies were startled by the news that Nadir
Shah had invaded India with a large Persian army from the north-west,
and had plundered the city and palaces of Delhi and carried away the
spoil of Northern India. The payment of the Mahratta "chout" was stopped
at the Mogul treasury, and armies of Mahratta horsemen were making up
the loss by the plunder of the Carnatic and Bengal.
[Sidenote: War with France, 1745.]
§10. In 1745 news reached India that war had been declared between Great
Britain and France. This was alarming news for the British traders at
Madras, as the French had established a flourishing town and settlement
at Pondicherry, on the coast of Coromandel, about a hundred miles to the
south of Madras, and a collision might be expected at any moment between
the two settlements. Moreover, the Governor of Pondicherry was a certain
M. Dupleix, a Frenchman of large capacity and restless ambition, who
hated the British with all the ardour of the typical Frenchman of the
eighteenth century. The same year a British fleet appeared off the coast
of Coromandel and threatened Pondicherry; but the Nawab of the Carnatic
declared that he would have no wars between European nations within his
territories, and the British fleet sailed away.
[Sidenote: Madras captured, 1746.]
In 1746 a French fleet appeared off Madras, but the Nawab was not
inclined to interfere; he had, in fact, been bought over by M. Dupleix,
the French Governor of Pondicherry. The French bombarded Fort St.
George; the native inhabitants fled from Madras; and the British
inhabitants were carried in triumph to Pondicherry as prisoners of war.
[Sidenote: French defeat the Mogul army.]
The Nawab of the Carnatic affected to be very angry at this bombardment
of Madras. He demanded that the settlement should be transferred to his
authority, and sent an army of 10,000 Moguls to take possession of the
town and fortress. To his utter amazement the army of 10,000 Moguls was
utterly routed by a battalion of 800 Frenchmen. From that day it was
felt throughout Southern India that no Mogul army could stand against
the rapid firing of disciplined Europeans. In 1748 the war between Great
Britain and France was over for a while, and Madras was restored to the
British.
[Sidenote: Brilliant success of Dupleix.]
Later on, the death of the Nizam of the Deccan threw the whole country
into confusion. Rival kinsmen began to fight for the throne of the
province without any reference to the Great Mogul. Dupleix plunged at
once into the fray. He saw that a French force might turn the scale of
victory, and he moved a French army, under the command of Bussy, to help
a victorious candidate as occasion served, without the slightest regard
to the rightness or wrongness of his claim. In 1751 he had realised his
dream of ambition. He had placed a Nizam on the throne at Hyderabad, and
he was rewarded with the cession of a territory stretching 600 miles
along the coast, for the maintenance of a French standing army. To crown
all, he induced the Nizam to appoint him Nawab of the Carnatic; and, in
spite of Dupleix being a Frenchman and a Catholic, the appointment was
actually made under the seal of the Great Mogul. Meanwhile, the British
had supported the claim of a Mogul prince named Mohammed Ali to the
throne of the Carnatic, but had been circumvented at every turn, and
were now called upon to acknowledge the superior authority of their
bitter enemy Dupleix.
[Sidenote: Triumph of Robert Clive.]
British rule in Southern India was at its last gasp. If Dupleix could
only have got hold of Mohammed Ali, he might have been master of the
Carnatic; Madras might have been a French settlement, and a French
Governor and Council might have taken the place of the British in Fort
St. George. As it was, Mohammed Ali was very nearly surrendering. He had
fled away to seek the help of the Hindu Rajas of the south, and was
being closely besieged by the French in the city of Trichinopoly, 180
miles to the south of Arcot. At this crisis Robert Clive saved the East
India Company. He left Madras with a small force, and after a march of
seventy miles into the interior, threw himself into the city of Arcot,
the capital of the Carnatic, where the Nawabs of the Carnatic had held
their court for more than half a century. The native garrison fled at
his approach, and the inhabitants, numbering 100,000, offered no
resistance. The French were aghast at hearing that the capital of the
Carnatic was in the hands of the British. They despatched a large force
from Trichinopoly, but failed to recover Arcot. In the end they raised
the siege of Trichinopoly, and Mohammed Ali was delivered out of their
hands and placed by the British in possession of the Carnatic, to the
exclusion of Dupleix and ruin of his ambitious schemes.
[Sidenote: Tragedy at Calcutta, 1756.]
British and French were now anxious for peace, and agreed to make
Dupleix their scapegoat. They threw the whole blame of the war upon the
unfortunate Frenchman, who returned to France and died in poverty. In
1755 a treaty was patched up at Pondicherry, but was never executed. In
1756, on the eve of the Seven Years' War, terrible news arrived from
Bengal. The Nawab had captured the settlement at Calcutta; and a hundred
and twenty-three English prisoners had been thrust into a barrack cell,
and perished most miserably of heat and suffocation.
[Sidenote: Threats of the Nawab of Bengal.]
§11. The tragedy was appalling, but the causes were intelligible. About
the beginning of the eighteenth century, a Nawab of Bengal, Behar, and
Orissa, territories considerably larger than the United Kingdom, had
removed his capital from Dacca to Murshedabad, about a hundred miles due
north of Calcutta. Here he founded a dynasty, which reigned in peace for
some forty years. About 1742 a usurper seized the throne of Murshedabad,
and reigned as Nawab. He died of extreme old age in April, 1756, and was
succeeded by a grandson, a young man timid and suspicious, surrounded by
foes eager to take his life and throne. The new Nawab heard that
Governor Drake was sheltering one of his enemies at Calcutta, and
strengthening the fortifications; and he ordered the British to
surrender the refugee and stop further defences. Governor Drake replied
that he knew nothing of any enemies of the Nawab; that he was ready to
obey the Nawab in all things; and that he was repairing the defences on
the river to prevent being surprised by the French, as Madras had been
surprised ten years before. The Nawab was in a fury at this message, and
set off for Calcutta in the heats of June with an army of fifty thousand
men.
[Sidenote: Defences at Calcutta.]
For half a century the British had paid little or no attention to their
defences. Fort William had been deemed a sufficient protection on the
side of the river, and on the land side the native inhabitants had
begun to dig a ditch as a defence against the Mahratta horsemen; but the
Mahrattas were paid chout to go away, and the ditch was never finished.
The Europeans dwelt in houses and gardens along the bank of the river
Hughly, on either side of Fort William; and an English Church, the
Mayor's Court and some other buildings, covered Fort William on the land
side. The native quarter, including a large bazaar, adjoined the
Mahratta ditch, and avenues of trees led from the native quarter to Fort
William and the European buildings.
[Sidenote: Neglected precautions.]
Had Governor Drake or any member of his Council possessed a spark of
military genius, they might have held Fort William against the Nawab in
spite of his superior numbers. There was a garrison of two hundred
European soldiers in the Fort. The European residents should have
abandoned their houses on the river, and repaired to the Fort with their
wives and children. The neighbouring buildings should have been
demolished to prevent the Nawab's troops from approaching under cover.
The enemy should have been harassed with shells all day and sallies all
night, until the Nawab raised the siege. Moreover, the beginning of the
south-west monsoon was daily expected. With it would come the ships of
the season from Europe. Could the besieged have held out for ten days,
they might have been rescued by the ships, just as Charnock and the
factors were carried away from Hughly some seventy years before.
[Sidenote: Weak preparations.]
Whilst the Nawab's army was approaching Calcutta, the native population
were flying _en masse_ to the neighbouring villages. There was also a
large population of Portuguese half-castes, which should have been left
to do the same, as they would have been in no manner of danger.
Unfortunately, two thousand of these black women and children were
admitted into the Fort, and the overcrowding and confusion were fatal.
Meanwhile, batteries and breastworks were constructed in the avenues
leading to the Fort, in the wild hope of protecting the whole European
quarter; but they were too far away to be supported by reinforcements
from the European garrison.
[Sidenote: Siege of Fort William.]
At noon on Wednesday, the 16th of June, the Nawab's army poured into the
settlement through the unfinished portion of the Mahratta ditch. They
set fire to the native bazaar, and, after meeting obstinate resistance,
they captured the batteries and breastworks in the avenues. The European
gunners spiked their cannon and fell back upon the Fort; but the Nawab's
artillerymen drilled the cannon and turned them round towards the Fort;
whilst bodies of the Nawab's matchlockmen occupied the buildings outside
the Fort which ought to have been demolished, and opened fire upon the
ramparts and bastions.
[Sidenote: Escape of women and children.]
The fighting lasted all Thursday and Friday. On Friday night the English
ladies and children were placed on board the single ship which lay
before the Fort. On Saturday the firing was hotter than ever. Hopeless
efforts were made to place the Portuguese women and children on board
the ship, but they would have been safer in the neighbouring villages,
for the overcrowding was such that many boats were sunk and numbers were
drowned. Governor Drake, however, got on board, and the ship moved
slowly down the river, leaving the British soldiers and others to their
fate.
[Sidenote: Loss of Fort William.]
Throughout Saturday night the garrison fired rockets for recalling the
ship. At sunrise they waved flags, but without effect. A Mr. Holwell, a
member of Council, was elected Governor in the room of Drake. But
resistance was useless. The British soldiers broke into the arrack-room
and got hopelessly intoxicated. Late in the afternoon a mob of the
Nawab's troops advanced to the Fort with ladders. In a few moments they
were swarming over the walls, whilst the drunken European soldiers ran
to the back of the Fort and broke down the gates leading to the river.
But the Fort was closely environed by the Nawab's troops, and whilst
some of the fugitives may have escaped to the boats or been drowned in
the river, the bulk were brought back into the Fort as prisoners of war.
[Sidenote: Black Hole tragedy.]
By this time the Nawab had taken possession of Fort William, but was
terribly disappointed at finding very little money and only a poor stock
of merchandise. The season ships to Europe had carried off all the
Indian exports to escape the south-west monsoon, and the ships from
England were waiting for the monsoon to carry their European cargoes up
the river. There were 146 prisoners, and no place of security except the
barrack cell, known as the Black Hole, which rarely held more than two
or three prisoners, and was only eighteen feet square. In this horrid
hole they were driven with clubs and swords, and next morning only
twenty three were taken out alive.
[Sidenote: End of the first period.]
Such was the close of the first act of the East India Company's rule.
Within a very brief space of time the British traders entered upon a new
era of conquest and dominion; but the tragedy at Calcutta in June,
1756, has never been forgotten, and to this day there is not an English
man or woman in India who does not occasionally call up a painful memory
of the Black Hole.[6]
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The island of Goa, and the fortress of Diu in Guzerat, were
nominally within Mohammedan dominion, but they were really independent
and were held by force of arms.
[2] The authorities for the present chapter, which deals with the rise
and early development of British rule in India, are somewhat numerous.
The most important are the Government records at Madras, in which the
weekly transactions of the Governor and Council are entered at full
length in a series known as "Consultations." Every year a copy of the
"Consultations" was sent to the Court of Directors, together with a
summary of the affairs of the year as a "General Letter;" and every
year a "General Letter" was received from the Court of Directors,
reviewing the "Consultations," and conveying instructions and orders
thereon. The Madras records have been closely investigated by the
author from 1670 to 1748; and printed extracts were published at
Madras in 1860-62, in three volumes small quarto, under the title of
_Madras in the Olden Time_. To them may be added Bruce's _Annals of
the East India Company_; Sir Thomas Roe's _Journal of a Mission to the
Great Mogul_ in 1616-18; and the travels of Pietro della Valle,
Tavernier, Thevenot and Fryer; as well as Orme's _History of
Hindustan_, Stewart's _History of Bengal_, Faria y Souza's _History of
Portuguese Asia_, and Shaw's _Predecessors of the High Court at
Madras_. Further authorities will be found cited in the author's
_History of India from the Earliest Ages_, and in his _Early Records
of British India_.
[3] The Mofussil Courts, and the High Court in Appeals from the
Mofussil Courts, are still required to decide, according to "equity
and good conscience." See the "High Court amended Charters" granted in
1866.
[4] This was notoriously the case at Surat, where female slaves might
be purchased by Europeans. There was a Dutch factory at Surat of the
same stamp as the British factory, and its married inmates were in
like manner forbidden to bring their wives from Holland. But when the
Dutch got possession of Java, they offered grants of land to married
Dutchmen, and, according to Pietro della Valle, there was a sudden
change in domestic arrangements. Dutch bachelors were in such a hurry
to go to Java, that they married Armenian Christians, or went off to
the bazaar and bought female slaves and baptised them and married them
without loss of time.
[5] Abbé Dubois, who lived many years in Southern India, could not
account for the distinction between the two Hands; Dr. Fryer was told
about 1676 that the antagonism was planned by the Brahmans to keep the
lower castes in subjection.
[6] Since the foregoing chapter was in type, Professor Terrien de
Lacouperie has kindly pointed out that a division between right and
left hands has existed from a remote period in Central and Eastern
Asia. Among the Turkish Hiung-nu on the north-west of China, the
officers were arranged into two divisions, a left and a right-hand
side, both before and after the Christian era. The Burut-Kirghiz are
still divided into two wings, viz., _on_ of the right and _sol_ of the
left.
In China the task of keeping a daily chronicle of "words" and "facts"
was entrusted to two officers, one on the left-hand of the emperor and
the other on his right. The officer on the left recorded all speeches
and addresses, whilst that on the right recorded all facts and events.
This last division, however, is a mere title in Chinese
administration; the left-hand being more honourable than the right,
and taking the precedence.
The distinction between the right and left hands in Southern India,
is, as already seen, a caste antagonism, and it is impossible to say
whether it has or has not any connection, however remote, with that in
Central Asia or China. The Dravidian populations of Southern India
certainly immigrated from the region beyond the Himalayas in some
unknown period, but all historical links are wanting save the evidence
of language. Professor Terrien de Lacouperie, in his lectures on
"Indo-Chinese Philology," has pointed out that the Dravidian group
forms the fourth division of the Kueonlunic branch of Turanian
languages.