In 1664 Shaista Khan, the brother of the empress Nur Jahan, became

viceroy of Bengal, and though a strong and just ruler from the native

point of view, was not favourable to the foreign traders. In 1677 the

president of Madras had to warn him that unless his exactions ceased,

the company would be obliged to withdraw from Bengal. In 1679 the

English obtained from the Mogul emperor a firman exempting them from

dues everywhere except at Surat; but Shaista Khan refused to recognize

the document, and on the 14th of January 1686 the court of directors

resolved to have recourse to arms to effect what they could not obtain

by treaty. This was the first formal repudiation of the doctrine of

unarmed traffic laid down by Sir Thomas Roe in 1616. An expedition was

despatched to India consisting of six companies of infantry and ten

ships under Captain Nicholson. Two of the ships with 308 soldiers

arrived at the Hugli river in the autumn of 1686. At this time Job

Charnock was the chief of the Bengal council, and, owing to an affray

with the Mogul troops at Hugli on the 28th of October 1686, he embarked

the company's goods and servants on board light vessels and dropped down

the river to Sutanati, the site of the modern Calcutta. At this place,

about 70 m. from the sea and accessible at high tide to heavily armed

ships, the stream had scooped for itself a long deep pool, now Calcutta

harbour, while the position was well chosen to make a stand against the

Bengal viceroy. On the 20th of December 1686 Charnock first settled at

Calcutta, but in the following February Shaista Khan despatched an army

against him, and he was forced to drop farther down the river to Hijili.

In June Charnock was obliged to make an honourable capitulation, and

returned to Ulubaria, 16 m. below Calcutta, thence moving in September

to Calcutta for the second time. On the 8th of November 1688 Captain

Heath arrived with orders from England, and took away Charnock against

his will; but after peace was restored between the Mogul emperor and the

company in February 1690, Charnock returned to Calcutta for the third

and last time on the 24th of August of that year. It was thus by his

courage and persistence that the modern capital of India was eventually

founded. As the result of the war with the Mogul empire, which lasted

from 1686 to 1690, the company perceived that a land war was beyond

their strength, but their sea-power could obtain them terms by

blockading the customs ports and threatening the pilgrim route to Mecca.

From this time onwards they saw that they could no longer trust to

defenceless factories. During this first period of their dealings with

India the aims of the British were purely those of traders, without any

aspirations to military power or territorial aggrandizement; but in the

period that followed, the gradual decay of the Mogul empire from within,

and the consequent anarchy, forced the English to take up arms in their

own defence, and triumphing over one enemy after another they found

themselves at last in the place of the Moguls.

_India under the Company._

The political history of the British in India begins in the 18th century

with the French wars in the Carnatic. The British at Fort St George and

the French at Pondicherry for many years traded side by side without

either active rivalry or territorial ambition. The British, especially,

appear to have been submissive to the native powers at Madras no less

than in Bengal. They paid their annual rent of 1200 pagodas (say £500)

to the deputies of the Mogul empire when Aurangzeb annexed the south,

and on two several occasions bought off a besieging army with a heavy

bribe.

On the death of Aurangzeb in 1707, the whole of southern India became

practically independent of Delhi. In the Deccan proper, the

Nizam-ul-Mulk founded an independent dynasty, with Hyderabad for its

capital, which exercised a nominal sovereignty over the entire south.

The Carnatic, or the lowland tract between the central plateau and the

eastern sea, was ruled by a deputy of the nizam, known as the nawab of

Arcot, who in his turn asserted claims to hereditary sovereignty.

Farther south, Trichinopoly was the capital of a Hindu raja, and Tanjore

formed another Hindu kingdom under a degenerate descendant of the line

of Sivaji. Inland, Mysore was gradually growing into a third Hindu

state, while everywhere local chieftains, called _palegars_ or _naiks_,

were in semi-independent possession of citadels or hill-forts.

French and British wars.

In that condition of affairs the flame of war was kindled between the

British and the French in Europe in 1745. Dupleix was at that time

governor of Pondicherry and Clive was a young writer at Madras. A

British fleet first appeared on the Coromandel coast, but Dupleix by a

judicious present induced the nawab of Arcot to interpose and prevent

hostilities. In 1746 a French squadron arrived, under the command of La

Bourdonnais. Madras surrendered almost without a blow, and the only

settlement left to the British was Fort St David, a few miles south of

Pondicherry, where Clive and a few other fugitives sought shelter. The

nawab, faithful to his policy of impartiality, marched with 10,000 men

to drive the French out of Madras, but he was signally defeated by a

French force of only four hundred men and two guns. In 1748 a British

fleet arrived under Admiral Boscawen and attempted the siege of

Pondicherry, while a land force co-operated under Major Stringer

Lawrence, whose name afterwards became associated with that of Clive.

The French successfully repulsed all attacks, and at last peace was

restored, by the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, which gave back Madras to

the British (1748).

Clive.

The first war with the French was merely an incident in the greater

contest in Europe. The second war had its origin in Indian politics,

while England and France were at peace. The easy success of the French

arms had inspired Dupleix with the ambition of founding a French empire

in India, under the shadow of the existing Mahommedan powers. Disputed

successions at Hyderabad and at Arcot supplied his opportunity. On both

thrones he placed nominees of his own, and for a short time posed as the

supreme arbiter of the entire south. In boldness of conception, and in

knowledge of Oriental diplomacy, Dupleix has had probably no rival. But

he was no soldier, and he was destined in that sphere to encounter the

"heaven-born genius" of Clive. For the British of Madras, under the

instinct of self-preservation, were compelled to maintain the cause of

another candidate to the throne of Arcot in opposition to the nominee of

Dupleix. This candidate was Mahommed Ali, afterwards known in history as

Wala-jah. The war that then ensued between the French and British, each

with their native allies, has been exhaustively described in the pages

of Orme. The one incident that stands out conspicuously is the capture

and subsequent defence of Arcot by Clive in 1751. This heroic feat, even

more than the battle of Plassey, established the reputation of the

British for valour throughout India. Shortly afterwards Clive returned

to England in ill-health, but the war continued fitfully for many years.

On the whole, British Influence predominated in the Carnatic, and their

candidate, Mahommed Ali, maintained his position at Arcot. But the

French were no less supreme in the Deccan, whence they were able to take

possession of the coast tract called "the Northern Circars." The final

struggle was postponed until 1760, when Colonel (afterwards Sir Eyre)

Coote won the decisive victory of Wandiwash over the French general

Lally, and proceeded to invest Pondicherry, which was starved into

capitulation in January 1761. A few months later the hill-fortress of

Gingee (Chenji) also surrendered. In the words of Orme, "That day

terminated the long hostilities between the two rival European powers in

Coromandel, and left not a single ensign of the French nation avowed by

the authority of its Government in any part of India."

Meanwhile the interest of history shifts with Clive to Bengal.

Black Hole of Calcutta.

At the time of Aurangzeb's death in 1707 the nawab or governor of Bengal

was Murshid Kuli Khan, known also as Jafar Khan. By birth a Brahman, and

brought up as a slave in Persia, he united the administrative ability of

a Hindu to the fanaticism of a renegade. Hitherto the capital of Bengal

had been at Dacca on the eastern frontier of the empire, whence the

piratical attacks of the Portuguese and of the Arakanese or Mughs could

be most easily checked. Murshid Kuli Khan transferred his residence to

Murshidabad, in the neighbourhood of Cossimbazar, the river port of all

the Ganges trade. The British, the French and the Dutch had each

factories at Cossimbazar, as well as at Dacca, Patna and Malda. But

Calcutta was the headquarters of the British, Chandernagore of the

French, and Chinsura of the Dutch, all three towns being situated close

to each other in the lower reaches of the Hugli, where the river is

navigable for large ships. Murshid Kuli Khan ruled over Bengal

prosperously for twenty-one years, and left his power to a son-in-law

and a grandson. The hereditary succession was broken in 1740 by Ali

Vardi Khan, who was the last of the great nawabs of Bengal. In his days

the Mahratta horsemen began to ravage the country, and the British at

Calcutta obtained permission to erect an earth-work, which is known to

the present day as the Mahratta ditch. Ali Vardi Khan died in 1756, and

was succeeded by his grandson, Suraj-ud-Dowlah, a youth of only nineteen

years, whose ungovernable temper led to a rupture with the British

within two months after his accession. In pursuit of one of his own

family who had escaped from his vengeance, he marched upon Calcutta with

a large army. Many of the British fled down the river in their ships.

The remainder surrendered after a feeble resistance, and were thrown as

prisoners into the "black hole" or military jail of Fort William, a room

18 ft. by 14 ft. 10 in. in size, with only two small windows barred with

iron. It was the month of June, in which the tropical heat of Calcutta

is most oppressive. When the door of the prison was opened in the

morning, only twenty-three persons out of one hundred and forty-six were

found alive.

Battle of Plassey.

The news of this disaster fortunately found Clive returned to Madras,

where also was a squadron of king's ships under Admiral Watson. Clive

and Watson promptly sailed to the mouth of the Ganges with all the

troops that could be got together. Calcutta was recovered with little

fighting, and the nawab consented to a peace which restored to the

company all their privileges, and gave them compensation for their

losses of property. It is possible that matters might have ended here if

a fresh cause of hostilities had not suddenly arisen. War had just been

declared between the British and French in Europe, and Clive, following

the traditions of his early warfare in the Carnatic, attacked and

captured Chandernagore. Suraj-ud-Dowlah, exasperated by this breach of

neutrality within his own dominions, took the side of the French. But

Clive, again acting upon the policy he had learned from Dupleix, had

provided himself with a rival candidate to the throne. Undaunted, he

marched out to the battlefield of Plassey (Palasi), at the head of about

900 Europeans and 2000 sepoys, with 8 pieces of artillery. The

Mahommedan army is said to have consisted of 35,000 foot, 15,000 horse

and 50 pieces of cannon. But there was a traitor in the Mahommedan camp

in the person of Mir Jafar, who had married a sister of the late nawab,

Ali Vardi Khan. The battle was short but decisive. After a few rounds of

artillery fire, Suraj-ud-Dowlah fled, and the road to Murshidabad was

left open.

The battle of Plassey was fought on the 23rd of June 1757, an

anniversary afterwards remembered when the mutiny was at its height in

1857. History has agreed to adopt this date as the beginning of the

British empire in the East; but the immediate results of the victory

were comparatively small, and several more hard-won fights were fought

before even the Bengalis would admit the superiority of the British

arms. For the moment, however, all opposition was at an end. Clive,

again following in the steps of Dupleix, placed his nominee, Mir Jafar,

upon the _masnad_ at Murshidabad, being careful to obtain a patent of

investiture from the Mogul court. Enormous sums were exacted from Mir

Jafar as the price of his elevation. The company claimed 10,000,000

rupees as compensation for losses; for the British, the Armenian and the

Indian inhabitants of Calcutta there were demanded the sums of

5,000,000, 2,000,000 and 1,000,000 rupees; for the squadron 2,500,000

rupees, and an equal sum for the army. The members of the council

received the following amounts: Mr Drake, the governor, and Colonel

Clive 280,000 rupees each; and Mr Becher, Mr Watts and Major Kilpatrick

240,000 rupees each. The whole amounted to £2,340,000. The British,

deluded by their avarice, still cherished extravagant ideas of Indian

wealth; nor would they listen to the unwelcome truth. But it was found

that there were no funds in the treasury to satisfy their inordinate

demands, and they were obliged to be contented with one-half the

stipulated sums, which, after many difficulties, were paid in specie and

in jewels, with the exception of 584,905 rupees. The shares of the

council were, however, paid in full. At the same time the nawab made a

grant to the company of the _zamindari_ rights over an extensive tract

of country round Calcutta, now known as the district of the Twenty-four

Parganas. The area of this tract was about 882 sq. m., and it paid a

revenue or quit rent of about £23,000. The gross rental at first payable

to the company was £53,000, but within a period of ten years it had

risen to £146,000. Originally the company possessed only the _zamindari_

rights, i.e. revenue jurisdiction. The superior lordship, or right to

receive the quit rent, remained with the nawab; but in 1759 this also

was parted with by the nawab in favour of Clive, who thus became the

landlord of his own masters, the company. At that time also Clive was

enrolled among the nobility of the Mogul empire, with the rank of

commander of 6000 foot and 5000 horse. Clive's _jagir_, as it was

called, subsequently became a matter of inquiry in England, and on his

death it passed to the company, thus merging the _zamindari_ in the

proprietary rights.

In 1758 Clive was appointed by the court of directors to be governor of

all the company's settlements in Bengal. From two quarters troubles

threatened, which perhaps Clive alone was capable of overcoming. On the

west the shahzada or imperial prince, known afterwards as the emperor

Shah Alam, with a mixed army of Afghans and Mahrattas, and supported by

the nawab wazir of Oudh, was advancing his own claims to the province of

Bengal. In the south the influence of the French under Lally and Bussy

was overshadowing the British at Madras. But the name of Clive exercised

a decisive effect in both directions. Mir Jafar was anxious to buy off

the shahzada, who had already invested Patna. But Clive in person

marched to the rescue, with an army of only 450 Europeans and 2500

sepoys, and the Mogul army dispersed without striking a blow. In the

same year Clive despatched a force southwards under Colonel Forde, which

captured Masulipatam from the French, and permanently established

British influence throughout the Northern Circars, and at the court of

Hyderabad. He next attacked the Dutch, the sole European nation that

might yet be a formidable rival to the English. He defeated them by both

land and water; and from that time their settlement at Chinsura existed

only on sufferance.

Massacre of Patna.

From 1760 to 1765, while Clive was at home, the history of the British

in Bengal contains little that is creditable. Clive had left behind him

no system of government, but merely the tradition that unlimited sums of

money might be extracted from the natives by the mere terror of the

British name. In 1761 it was found expedient and profitable to dethrone

Mir Jafar, the nawab of Murshidabad, and substitute his son-in-law, Mir

Kasim, in his place. On that occasion, besides private donations, the

British received a grant of the three districts of Burdwan, Midnapur and

Chittagong, estimated to yield a net revenue of half a million sterling.

But Mir Kasim proved to possess a will of his own, and to cherish dreams

of independence. He retired from Murshidabad to Monghyr, a strong

position on the Ganges, which commanded the only means of communication

with Upper India. There he proceeded to organize an army, drilled and

equipped after European models, and to carry on intrigues with the nawab

wazir of Oudh. The company's servants claimed the privilege of carrying

on private trade throughout Bengal, free from inland dues and all other

imposts. The assertion of this claim caused frequent affrays between the

customs' officers of the nawab and those traders who, whether falsely or

not, represented that they were acting on behalf of the servants of the

company. The nawab alleged that his civil authority was everywhere being

set at nought. The majority of the council at Calcutta would not listen

to his statements. The governor, Mr Vansittart, and Warren Hastings,

then a junior member of council, attempted to effect some compromise.

But the controversy had become too hot. The nawab's officers fired upon

a British boat, and forthwith all Bengal was in a blaze. A force of 2000

sepoys was cut to pieces at Patna, and about 200 Englishmen in various

parts of the province fell into the hands of the Mahommedans, and were

subsequently massacred. But as soon as regular warfare commenced Mir

Kasim met with no more successes. His trained regiments were defeated in

two pitched battles by Major Adams, at Gheria and at Udha-nala, and he

himself took refuge with the nawab wazir of Oudh, who refused to deliver

him up. This led to a prolongation of the war. Shah Alam, who had now

succeeded his father as emperor, and Shuja-ud-Daula, the nawab wazir of

Oudh, united their forces, and threatened Patna, which the British had

recovered. A more formidable danger appeared in the British camp, in

the form of the first sepoy mutiny. This was quelled by Major

(afterwards Sir Hector) Munro, who ordered twenty-four of the

ringleaders to be blown from guns, an old Mogul punishment. In 1764

Major Munro won the decisive battle of Buxar, which laid Oudh at the

feet of the conquerors, and brought the Mogul emperor as a suppliant to

the British camp.

Clive's reforms.

Meanwhile the council at Calcutta had twice found the opportunity they

desired of selling the government of Bengal to a new nawab. But in 1765

Clive (now Baron Clive of Plassey, in the peerage of Ireland) arrived at

Calcutta, as governor of Bengal for the second time, to settle the

entire system of relations with the native powers. Two objects stand out

conspicuously in his policy. First, he sought to acquire the substance,

though not the name, of territorial power, by using the authority of the

Mogul emperor for so much as he wished, and for no more; and, secondly,

he desired to purify the company's service by prohibiting illicit gains,

and at the same time guaranteeing a reasonable remuneration from honest

sources. In neither respect were the details of his plans carried out by

his successors. But the beginning of the British administration of India

dates from this second governorship of Clive, just as the origin of the

British empire in India dates from his victory at Plassey. Clive's first

step was to hurry up from Calcutta to Allahabad, and there settle in

person the fate of half northern India. Oudh was given back to the nawab

wazir, on condition of his paying half a million sterling towards the

expenses of the war. The provinces of Allahabad and Kora, forming the

lower part of the Doab, were handed over to Shah Alam himself, who in

his turn granted to the company the _diwani_ or financial administration

of Bengal, Behar and Orissa, together with the Northern Circars. A

puppet nawab was still maintained at Murshidabad, who received an annual

allowance of about half a million sterling; and half that amount was

paid to the emperor as tribute from Bengal. Thus was constituted the

dual system of government, by which the British received all the

revenues and undertook to maintain an army for the defence of the

frontier, while the criminal jurisdiction vested in the nawab. In Indian

phraseology, the company was _diwan_ and the nawab was _nazim_. As a

matter of general administration, the actual collection of the revenues

still remained for some years in the hands of native officials. In

attempting to reorganize and purify the company's service, Clive

undertook a task yet more difficult than to partition the valley of the

Ganges. The officers, civil and military alike, were all tainted with

the common corruption. Their legal salaries were absolutely

insignificant, but they had been permitted to augment them ten and a

hundredfold by means of private trade and gifts from the native powers.

Despite the united resistance of the civil servants, and an actual

mutiny of two hundred military officers, Clive carried through his

reforms. Both private trade and the receipt of presents were absolutely

prohibited for the future, while a substantial increase of pay was

provided out of the monopoly of salt.

Warren Hastings.

Lord Clive quitted India for the third and last time in 1767. Between

that date and the arrival of Warren Hastings in 1772 nothing of

importance occurred in Bengal beyond the terrible famine of 1770, which

is officially reported to have swept away one-third of the inhabitants.

The dual system of government, however, established by Clive, had proved

a failure. Warren Hastings, a tried servant of the company,

distinguished alike for intelligence, for probity and for knowledge of

oriental manners, was nominated governor by the court of directors, with

express instructions to carry out a predetermined series of reforms. In

their own words, the court had resolved to "stand forth as diwan, and to

take upon themselves, by the agency of their own servants, the entire

care and administration of the revenues." In the execution of this plan,

Hastings removed the exchequer from Murshidabad to Calcutta, and for the

first time appointed European officers, under the now familiar title of

collectors, to superintend the revenue collections and preside in the

civil courts. The urgency of foreign affairs, and subsequently internal

strife at the council table, hindered Hastings from developing farther

the system of civil administration, a task finally accomplished by Lord

Cornwallis.

First Governor-General.

Though Hastings always prided himself specially upon that reform, as

well as upon the improvements he introduced into the collection of the

revenues from salt and opium, his name will be remembered in history for

the boldness and success of his foreign policy. From 1772 to 1774 he was

governor of Bengal; from 1774 to 1785 he was the first titular

governor-general of India, presiding over a council nominated, like

himself, not by the company, but by an act of parliament, known as the

Regulating Act. In his domestic policy he was greatly hampered by the

opposition of Sir Philip Francis; but, so far as regards external

relations with Oudh, with the Mahrattas, and with Hyder Ali, he was

generally able to compel assent to his own measures. His treatment of

Oudh may here be passed over as not being material to the general

history of India, while the personal aspects of his rule are discussed

in a separate article (see HASTINGS, WARREN). To explain his Mahratta

policy, it will be necessary to give a short retrospective sketch of the

history of that people.

Rise of the Mahrattas.

Sivaji the Great, as already mentioned, died in 1680, while Aurangzeb

was still on the throne. The family of Sivaji produced no great names,

either among those who continued to be the nominal chiefs of the

Mahratta confederacy, with their capital at Satara, or among the rajas

of Kolhapur and Tanjore. All real power passed into the hands of the

peshwa, or Brahman minister, who founded in his turn an hereditary

dynasty at Poona, dating from the beginning of the 18th century. Next

rose several Mahratta generals, who, though recognizing the suzerainty

of the peshwa, carved out for themselves independent kingdoms in

different parts of India, sometimes far from the original home of the

Mahratta race. Chief among these generals were the gaikwar in Gujarat,

Sindhia and Holkar in Malwa, and the Bhonsla raja of Berar and Nagpur.

At one time it seemed probable that the Mahratta confederacy would expel

the Mahommedans even from northern India; but the decisive battle of

Panipat, won by the Afghans in 1761, gave a respite to the Delhi empire.

The Mahratta chiefs never again united heartily for a common purpose,

though they still continued to be the most formidable military power in

India. In especial, they dominated over the British settlement of Bombay

on the western coast, which was the last of the three presidencies to

feel the lust of territorial ambition. For more than a hundred years,

from its acquisition in 1661 to the outbreak of the first Mahratta war

in 1775, the British on the west coast possessed no territory outside

the island of Bombay and their fortified factory at Surat.

First Mahratta War.

The Bombay government was naturally emulous to follow the example of

Madras and Bengal, and to establish its influence at the court of Poona

by placing its own nominee upon the throne. The attempt took form in

1775 in the treaty of Surat, by which Raghunath Rao, one of the

claimants to the throne of the peshwa, agreed to cede Salsette and

Bassein to the British, in consideration of being himself restored to

Poona. The military operations that followed are known as the first

Mahratta War. Warren Hastings, who in his capacity of governor-general

claimed a right of control over the decisions of the Bombay government,

strongly disapproved of the treaty of Surat, but, when war once broke

out, he threw the whole force of the Bengal army into the scale. One of

his favourite officers, General Goddard, marched across the peninsula,

and conquered the rich province of Gujarat almost without a blow.

Another, Captain Popham, stormed the rock-fortress of Gwalior, which was

regarded as the key of Hindustan. These brilliant successes atoned for

the disgrace of the convention of Wargaon in 1779, when the Mahrattas

dictated terms to a Bombay force, but the war was protracted until 1782.

It was then closed by the treaty of Salbai, which practically restored

the _status quo_. Raghunath Rao, the English claimant, was set aside;

Gujarat was restored, and only Salsette and some other small islands

were retained by the English.

First Mysore War.

Meanwhile Warren Hastings had to deal with a more formidable enemy than

the Mahratta confederacy. The reckless conduct of the Madras government

had roused the hostility both of Hyder Ali of Mysore and of the nizam of

the Deccan, the two strongest Mussulman powers in India, who attempted

to draw the Mahrattas into an alliance against the British. The

diplomacy of Hastings won over the nizam and the Mahratta raja of

Nagpur, but the army of Hyder Ali fell like a thunderbolt upon the

British possessions in the Carnatic. A strong detachment under Colonel

Baillie was cut to pieces at Perambakam, and the Mysore cavalry ravaged

the country unchecked up to the walls of Madras. For the second time the

Bengal army, stimulated by the energy of Hastings, saved the honour of

the British name. Sir Eyre Coote, the victor of Wandiwash, was sent by

sea to relieve Madras with all the men and money available, while

Colonel Pearse marched south overland to overawe the raja of Berar and

the nizam. The war was hotly contested, for Sir Eyre Coote was now an

old man, and the Mysore army was well-disciplined and equipped, and also

skilfully handled by Hyder and his son Tippoo. Hyder died in 1782, and

peace was finally concluded with Tippoo in 1784, on the basis of a

mutual restitution of all conquests.

Permanent settlement of Bengal.

It was Warren Hastings's merit to organize the empire which Clive

founded. He was governor or governor-general for thirteen years, a

longer period than any of his successors. During that time the British

lost the American colonies, but in India their reputation steadily rose

to its highest pitch. Within a year Hastings was succeeded by Lord

Cornwallis, the first English nobleman of rank who undertook the office

of governor-general. His rule lasted from 1786 to 1793, and is

celebrated for two events--the introduction of the permanent settlement

into Bengal and the second Mysore war. If the foundations of the system

of civil administration were laid by Hastings, the superstructure was

erected by Cornwallis. It was he who first entrusted criminal

jurisdiction to Europeans, and established the Nizamat Sadr Adalat, or

appellate court of criminal judicature, at Calcutta; and it was he who

separated the functions of collector and judge. The system thus

organized in Bengal was afterwards extended to Madras and Bombay, when

those presidencies also acquired territorial sovereignty. But the

achievement most familiarly associated with the name of Cornwallis is

the permanent settlement of the land revenue of Bengal. Up to this time

the revenue had been collected pretty much according to the old Mogul

system. _Zamindars_, or government farmers, whose office always tended

to become hereditary, were recognized as having a right of some sort to

collect the revenue from the actual cultivators. But no principle of

assessment existed, and the amount actually realized varied greatly from

year to year. Hastings had the reputation of bearing hard upon the

_zamindars_, and was absorbed in other critical affairs of state or of

war. On the whole he seems to have looked to experience, as acquired

from a succession of quinquennial settlements, to furnish the standard

rate of the future. Francis, on the other hand, Hastings's great rival,

deserves the credit of being among the first to advocate a limitation of

the state demand in perpetuity. The same view recommended itself to the

authorities at home, partly because it would place their finances on a

more stable basis, partly because it seemed to identify the _zamindar_

with the more familiar landlord. Accordingly, Cornwallis took out with

him in 1787 instructions to introduce a permanent settlement. The

process of assessment began in 1789 and terminated in 1791. No attempt

was made to measure the fields or calculate the out-turn, as had been

done by Akbar, and is now done when occasion requires in the British

provinces; but the amount payable was fixed by reference to what had

been paid in the past. At first the settlement was called decennial, but

in 1793 it was declared permanent for ever. The total assessment

amounted to _sikka_ Rs. 26,800,989, or about 2¾ millions sterling.

Though Lord Cornwallis carried the scheme into execution, all praise or

blame, so far as details are concerned, must belong to Sir John Shore,

afterwards Lord Teignmouth, whose knowledge of the country was

unsurpassed by that of any civilian of his time. Shore would have

proceeded more cautiously than Cornwallis's preconceived idea of a

proprietary body and the court of directors' haste after fixity

permitted.

Second Mysore War.

The second Mysore War of 1790-92 is noteworthy on two accounts: Lord

Cornwallis, the governor-general, led the British army in person, with a

pomp and lavishness of supplies that recalled the campaigns of

Aurangzeb; and the two great native powers, the nizam of the Deccan and

the Mahratta confederacy, co-operated as allies of the British. In the

result, Tippoo Sultan submitted when Lord Cornwallis had commenced to

beleaguer his capital. He agreed to yield one-half of his dominions to

be divided among the allies, and to pay three millions sterling towards

the cost of the war. Those conditions he fulfilled, but ever afterwards

he burned to be revenged upon his conquerors.

Wellesley.

The period of Sir John Shore's rule as governor-general, from 1793 to

1798, was uneventful. In 1798 Lord Mornington, better known as the

marquis Wellesley, arrived in India, already inspired with imperial

projects that were destined to change the map of the country. Mornington

was the friend and favourite of Pitt, from whom he is thought to have

derived the comprehensiveness of his political vision and his antipathy

to the French name. From the first he laid down as his guiding principle

that the British must be the one paramount power in the peninsula, and

that the native princes could only retain the insignia of sovereignty by

surrendering the substance of independence. The subsequent political

history of India has been but the gradual development of this policy,

which received its finishing touch when Queen Victoria was proclaimed

empress of India in 1877.

The French Menace.

To frustrate the possibility of a French invasion of India, led by

Napoleon in person, was the governing idea of Wellesley's foreign

policy; for France at this time, and for many years later, filled the

place afterwards occupied by Russia in the imagination of British

statesmen. Nor was the possibility so remote as might now be thought.

French regiments guarded and overawed the nizam of Hyderabad. The

soldiers of Sindhia, the military head of the Mahratta confederacy, were

disciplined and led by French adventurers. Tippoo Sultan carried on a

secret correspondence with the French directorate, and allowed a tree of

liberty to be planted in his dominions. The islands of Mauritius and

Bourbon afforded a convenient half-way house both for French intrigue

and for the assembling of a hostile expedition. Above all, Napoleon

Buonaparte was then in Egypt, dreaming of the conquests of Alexander;

and no man knew in what direction he might turn his hitherto unconquered

legions. Wellesley first addressed himself to the nizam, where his

policy prevailed without serious opposition. The French battalions at

Hyderabad were disbanded and the nizam bound himself by treaty not to

take any European into his service without the consent of the British

government--a clause since inserted in every engagement entered into

with native powers. Next, the whole weight of Wellesley's resources was

turned against Tippoo, whom Cornwallis had defeated but not subdued. His

intrigues with the French were laid bare, and he was given an

opportunity of adhering to the new subsidiary system. On his refusal war

was declared, and Wellesley came down in state to Madras to organize the

expedition in person and watch over the course of events. One British

army marched into Mysore from Madras, accompanied by a contingent from

the nizam. Another advanced from the western coast. Tippoo, after

offering but a feeble resistance in the field, retired into

Seringapatam, and, when his capital was stormed, died fighting bravely

in the breach (1799). Since the battle of Plassey no event so greatly

impressed the native imagination as the capture of Seringapatam, which

won for General Harris a peerage and for Wellesley an Irish marquisate.

In dealing with the territories of Tippoo, Wellesley acted with

moderation. The central portion, forming the old state of Mysore, was

restored to an infant representative of the Hindu rajas, whom Hyder Ali

had dethroned, while the rest was partitioned between the nizam and the

British. At about the same time the province of the Carnatic, or all

that large portion of southern India ruled by the nawab of Arcot, and

also the principality of Tanjore, were placed under direct British

administration, thus constituting the Madras presidency almost as it has

existed to the present day.

Wars with Sindhia and Holkar.

The Mahrattas had been the nominal allies of the British in both their

wars with Tippoo, but they had never given active assistance, nor were

they secured to the British side as the nizam now was. The Mahratta

powers at this time were five in number. The recognized head of the

confederacy was the peshwa of Poona, who ruled the hill country of the

Western Ghats, the cradle of the Mahratta race. The fertile province of

Gujarat was annually harried by the horsemen of the gaekwar of Baroda.

In central India two military leaders, Sindhia of Gwalior and Holkar of

Indore, alternately held the pre-eminency. Towards the east the Bhonsla

raja of Nagpur reigned from Berar to the coast of Orissa. Wellesley

tried assiduously to bring these several Mahratta powers within the net

of his subsidiary system. At last, in 1802, the necessities of the

peshwa, who had been defeated by Holkar, and driven as a fugitive into

British territory, induced him to sign the treaty of Bassein, by which

he pledged himself to hold communications with no other power, European

or native, and ceded territory for the maintenance of a subsidiary

force. This greatly extended the British territorial influence in

western India, but led directly to the second Mahratta war, for neither

Sindhia nor the raja of Nagpur would tolerate this abandonment of

Mahratta independence. The campaigns that followed are perhaps the most

glorious in the history of the British arms in India. The general plan

and the adequate provision of resources were due to the marquis

Wellesley, as also the indomitable spirit that could not anticipate

defeat. The armies were led by General Arthur Wellesley (afterwards duke

of Wellington) and General (afterwards Lord) Lake. Wellesley operated in

the Deccan, where, in a few short months, he won the decisive victories

of Assaye and Argaum. Lake's campaign in Hindustan was no less

brilliant, though it has received less notice from historians. He won

pitched battles at Aligarh and Laswari, and captured the cities of Delhi

and Agra, thus scattering the French troops of Sindhia, and at the same

time coming forward as the champion of the Mogul emperor in his

hereditary capital. Before the year 1803 was out, both Sindhia and the

Bhonsla raja were glad to sue for peace. Sindhia ceded all claims to the

territory north of the Jumna, and left the blind old emperor Shah Alam

once more under British protection. The Bhonsla raja forfeited Orissa to

the English, who had already occupied it with a flying column, and Berar

to the nizam, who gained a fresh addition by every act of complaisance

to the British government. The freebooter, Jaswant Rao Holkar, alone

remained in the field, supporting his troops by ravages through Malwa

and Rajputana. The concluding years of Wellesley's rule were occupied

with a series of operations against Holkar, which brought no credit to

the British name. The disastrous retreat of Colonel Monson through

Central India (1804) recalled memories of the convention of Wargaum, and

of the destruction of Colonel Baillie's force by Hyder Ali. The repulse

of Lake in person at the siege of Bharatpur (Bhurtpore) (1805) is

memorable as an instance of a British army in India having to turn back

with its object unaccomplished.

Barlow.

The ambitious policy and the continuous wars of Lord Wellesley exhausted

the patience of the court of directors at home. In 1804 Lord Cornwallis

was sent out as governor-general a second time, with instructions to

bring about peace at any price, while Holkar was still unsubdued, and

Sindhia was threatening a fresh war. But Cornwallis was now an old man

and broken down in health. Travelling up to the north-west during the

rainy season, he sank and died at Ghazipur, before he had been ten weeks

in the country. His immediate successor was Sir George Barlow, a civil

servant of the company, who, as a _locum tenens_, had no alternative but

to carry out faithfully the orders of his employers. He is charged with

being, under these orders, the only governor-general who diminished the

area of British territory, and with violating engagements by abandoning

the Rajput chiefs to the tender mercies of Holkar and Sindhia. During

his administration also occurred the mutiny of the Madras sepoys at

Vellore, which, though promptly suppressed, sent a shock of insecurity

through the empire.

Lord Minto, governor-general from 1807 to 1813, consolidated the

conquests which Wellesley had acquired. His only military exploits were

the occupation of the island of Mauritius, and the conquest of Java by

an expedition which he accompanied in person. The condition of central

India continued to be disturbed, but Lord Minto succeeded in preventing

any violent outbreaks without himself having recourse to the sword. The

company had ordered him to follow a policy of non-intervention, and he

managed to obey his orders without injuring the prestige of the British

name. In his time the Indian government first opened relations with a

new set of foreign powers by sending embassies to the Punjab, to

Afghanistan and to Persia. The ambassadors were all trained in the

school of Wellesley, and formed perhaps the most illustrious trio of

"politicals" that the Indian service has produced. Sir Charles Metcalfe

was the envoy to the court of Ranjit Singh at Lahore; Mountstuart

Elphinstone met the shah of Afghanistan at Peshawar; and Sir John

Malcolm was despatched to Persia. If it cannot be said that any of these

missions were fruitful in permanent results, at least they introduced

the English to a new set of diplomatic relations, and widened the sphere

of their influence.

Gurkha War.

The successor of Lord Minto was Lord Moira, better known as the marquis

of Hastings, who governed India for the long period of nine years, from

1814 to 1823. This period was marked by two wars of the first magnitude,

the campaigns against the Gurkhas of Nepal, and the third and last

Mahratta War. The Gurkhas, the present ruling race in Nepal, are Hindu

immigrants who claim a Rajput origin. Their sovereignty dates only from

1767, in which year they overran the valley of Katmandu, and gradually

extended their power over all the hills and valleys of Nepal. Organized

upon a sort of military and feudal basis, they soon became a terror to

all their neighbours, marching east into Sikkim, west into Kumaon, and

south into the Gangetic plains. In the last quarter their victims were

British subjects, and at last it became imperatively necessary to check

their advance. Sir George Barlow and Lord Minto had remonstrated in

vain, and nothing was left to Lord Moira but to take up arms. The

campaign of 1814 was little short of disastrous. After overcoming the

natural difficulties of a malarious climate and precipitous hills, the

sepoys were on several occasions fairly worsted by the unexpected

bravery of the little Gurkhas, whose heavy knives or kukris dealt

terrible execution. But in 1815 General Ochterlony, who commanded the

army operating by way of the Sutlej, stormed one by one the hill forts

which still stud the Himalayan states now under the Punjab government,

and compelled the Nepal darbar to sue for peace. In the following year

the same general advanced from Patna into the valley of Katmandu, and

finally dictated the terms which had before been rejected, within a few

miles of the capital. By the treaty of Segauli, which defines the

English relations with Nepal to the present day, the Gurkhas withdrew on

the one hand from Sikkim, and on the other from those lower ranges of

the western Himalayas which have supplied the health-giving stations of

Naini Tal, Mussoorie and Simla.

Pindaris.

Meanwhile the condition of central India was every year becoming more

unsatisfactory. Though the great Mahratta chiefs were learning to live

rather as peaceful princes than as leaders of predatory bands, the

example of lawlessness they had set was being followed, and bettered in

the following, by a new set of freebooters, known as the Pindaris. As

opposed to the Mahrattas, who were at least a nationality bound by some

traditions of a united government, the Pindaris were merely irregular

soldiers, corresponding most nearly to the free companies of medieval

Europe. Of no common race and of no common religion, they welcomed to

their ranks the outlaws and broken tribes of all India--Afghans,

Mahrattas or Jats. Their headquarters were in Malwa, but their

depredations were not confined to central India. In bands, sometimes

numbering a few hundreds, sometimes many thousands, they rode out on

their forays as far as the Coromandel coast. The most powerful of the

Pindari captains, Amir Khan, had an organized army of many regiments,

and several batteries of cannon. Two other leaders, known as Chitu and

Karim, at one time paid a ransom to Sindhia of £100,000. To suppress the

Pindari hordes, who were supported by the sympathy, more or less open,

of all the Mahratta chiefs, Lord Hastings (1817) collected the strongest

British army that had been seen in India, numbering nearly 120,000 men,

half to operate from the north, half from the south. Sindhia was

overawed, and remained quiet. Amir Khan consented to disband his army,

on condition of being guaranteed the possession of what is now the

principality of Tonk. The remaining bodies of Pindaris were attacked in

their homes, surrounded, and cut to pieces. Karim threw himself upon the

mercy of the conquerors. Chitu fled to the jungles, and was killed by a

tiger.

Third Mahratta War.

In the same year (1817) as that in which the Pindaris were crushed, and

almost in the same month (November), the three great Mahratta powers at

Poona, Nagpur and Indore rose against the English. The peshwa, Baji Rao,

had long been chafing under the terms imposed by the treaty of Bassein

(1802), and the subsequent treaty of Poona (1817), which riveted yet

closer the chains of dependence upon the paramount power. Elphinstone,

then resident at his court, foresaw what was coming and ordered up a

European regiment from Bombay. The next day the residency was burned

down, and Kirkee was attacked by the whole army of the peshwa. The

attack was bravely repulsed, and the peshwa immediately fled from his

capital. Almost the same plot was enacted at Nagpur, where the honour of

the British name was saved by the sepoys who defended the hill of

Sitabaldi against enormous odds. The army of Holkar was defeated in the

following month at the pitched battle of Mehidpur. All open resistance

was now at an end. Nothing remained but to follow up the fugitives, and

determine the conditions of the general pacification. In both these

duties Sir John Malcolm played a prominent part. The peshwa himself

surrendered, and was permitted to reside at Bithur, near Cawnpore, on a

pension of £80,000 a year. His adopted son was the infamous Nana Sahib.

To fill the peshwa's place to some extent at the head of the Mahratta

confederacy, the lineal descendant of Sivaji was brought forth from

obscurity, and placed upon the throne of Satara. The greater part of the

peshwa's dominions was ultimately incorporated in the Bombay presidency,

while the nucleus of the Central Provinces was formed out of territory

taken from the peshwa and the raja of Nagpur. An infant was recognized

as the heir of Holkar, and a second infant was proclaimed raja of Nagpur

under British guardianship. At the same time the several states of

Rajputana accepted the position of feudatories of the paramount power.

The map of India, as thus drawn by Lord Hastings, remained substantially

unchanged until the time of Lord Dalhousie. But the proudest boast of

Lord Hastings and Sir John Malcolm was, not that they had advanced the

_pomoerium_, but that they had conferred the blessings of peace and good

government upon millions who had suffered unutterable things from

Mahratta and Pindari tyranny.

First Burmese War.

The marquis of Hastings was succeeded by Lord Amherst, after the

interval of a few months, during which Mr Adam, a civil servant, acted

as governor-general. Lord Amherst's administration lasted for five

years, from 1823 to 1828. It is known in history by two prominent

events, the first Burmese War and the capture of Bharatpur. For some

years past the north-east frontier had been disturbed by the

restlessness of the Burmese. The successors of Alompra, after having

subjugated all Burma, and overrun Assam, which was then an independent

kingdom, began a series of encroachments upon British territory in

Bengal. As all peaceful proposals were scornfully rejected, Lord

Amherst was compelled to declare war in 1824. Little military glory

could be gained by beating the Burmese, who were formidable only from

the pestilential character of their country. One expedition with

gunboats proceeded up the Brahmaputra into Assam; another marched by

land through Chittagong into Arakan, for the Bengal sepoys refused to go

by sea; a third, and the strongest, sailed from Madras direct to the

mouth of the Irrawaddy. The war was protracted over two years. At last,

after the loss of about 20,000 lives and an expenditure of £14,000,000,

the king of Ava consented to sign the treaty of Yandabu, by which he

abandoned all claim to Assam, and ceded the provinces of Arakan and

Tenasserim, which were already in the military occupation of the

British. He retained all the valley of the Irrawaddy, down to the sea at

Rangoon. The capture of Bharatpur in central India by Lord Combermere in

1826 wiped out the repulse which Lord Lake had received before that city

in January 1805. A disputed succession necessitated British

intervention. Artillery could make little impression upon the massive

walls of mud, but at last a breach was effected by mining, and the city

was taken by storm, thus losing its general reputation throughout India

for impregnability, which had threatened to become a political danger.

Bentinck.

The next governor-general was Lord William Bentinck, who had been

governor of Madras twenty years earlier at the time of the mutiny of

Vellore. His seven years' rule (from 1828 to 1835) is not signalized by

any of those victories or extensions of territory by which chroniclers

delight to measure the growth of empire. But it forms an epoch in

administrative reform, and in the benign process by which the hearts of

a subject population are won over to venerate as well as obey their

alien rulers. The modern history of the British in India, as benevolent

administrators ruling the country with an eye to the good of the

natives, may be said to begin with Lord William Bentinck. According to

the inscription upon his statue at Calcutta, from the pen of Macaulay:

"He abolished cruel rites; he effaced humiliating distinctions; he gave

liberty to the expression of public opinion; his constant study it was

to elevate the intellectual and moral character of the nations committed

to his charge." His first care on arrival in India was to restore

equilibrium to the finances, which were tottering under the burden

imposed upon them by the Burmese War. This he effected by reductions in

permanent expenditure, amounting in the aggregate to 1½ millions

sterling, as well as by augmenting the revenue from land that had

escaped assessment, and from the opium of Malwa. He also widened the

gates by which educated natives could enter the service of the company.

Some of these reforms were distasteful to the covenanted service and to

the officers of the army, but Lord William was always staunchly

supported by the court of directors and by the Whig ministry at home.

Suttee.

His two most memorable acts are the abolition of suttee and the

suppression of the Thugs. At this distance of time it is difficult to

realize the degree to which these two barbarous practices had corrupted

the social system of the Hindus. European research has clearly proved

that the text in the _Vedas_ adduced to authorize the immolation of

widows was a wilful mistranslation. But the practice had been engrained

in Hindu opinion by the authority of centuries, and had acquired the

sanctity of a religious rite. The emperor Akbar is said to have

prohibited it by law, but the early British rulers did not dare so far

to violate the religious customs of the people. In the year 1817 no

fewer than seven hundred widows are said to have been burned alive in

the Bengal presidency alone. To this day the most holy spots of Hindu

pilgrimage are thickly dotted with little white pillars, each

commemorating a suttee. In the teeth of strenuous opposition, from both

Europeans and natives, Lord William carried the regulation in council on

the 4th of December 1829, by which all who abetted suttee were declared

guilty of "culpable homicide." The honour of suppressing Thuggism must

be shared between Lord William and Captain Sleeman. Thuggism was an

abnormal excrescence upon Hinduism, in so far as the bands of secret

assassins were sworn together by an oath based on the rites of the

bloody goddess Kali. Between 1826 and 1835 as many as 1562 Thugs were

apprehended in different parts of British India, and by the evidence of

approvers the moral plague spot was gradually stamped out.

Two other historical events are connected with the administration of

Lord William Bentinck. In 1833 the charter of the East India Company was

renewed for twenty years, but only upon the terms that it should abandon

its trade and permit Europeans to settle freely in the country. At the

same time a legal or fourth member was added to the governor-general's

council, who might not be a servant of the company, and a commission was

appointed to revise and codify the law. Macaulay was the first legal

member of council, and the first president of the law commission. In

1830 it was found necessary to take the state of Mysore under British

administration, where it continued until 1881, when it was restored to

native rule; and in 1834 the frantic misrule of the raja of Coorg

brought on a short and sharp war. The raja was permitted to retire to

Benares, and the brave and proud inhabitants of that mountainous little

territory decided to place themselves under the rule of the company; so

that the only annexation effected by Lord William Bentinck was "in

consideration of the unanimous wish of the people."

Auckland.

Sir Charles (afterwards Lord) Metcalfe succeeded Lord William as senior

member of council. His short term of office is memorable for the measure

which his predecessor had initiated, but which he willingly carried into

execution, for giving entire liberty to the press. Public opinion in

India, as well as the express wish of the court of directors at home,

pointed to Metcalfe as the most fit person to carry out the policy of

Bentinck, not provisionally, but as governor-general for a full term.

Party exigencies, however, led to the appointment of Lord Auckland. From

that date commences a new era of war and conquest, which may be said to

have lasted for twenty years. All looked peaceful until Lord Auckland,

prompted by his evil genius, attempted by force to place Shah Shuja upon

the throne of Kabul, an attempt which ended in gross mismanagement and

the annihilation of the British garrison in that city. The disaster in

Afghanistan was quickly followed by the conquest of Sind, the two wars

in the Punjab, the second Burmese War, and last of all the Mutiny.

First Afghan War.

The attention of the British government had been directed to Afghan

affairs ever since the time of Sir John Shore, who feared that Zaman

Shah, then holding his court at Lahore, might follow in the path of

Ahmed Shah, and overrun Hindustan. The growth of the powerful Sikh

kingdom of Ranjit Singh effectually dispelled any such alarms for the

future. Subsequently, in 1809, while a French invasion of India was

still a possibility to be guarded against, Mountstuart Elphinstone was

sent by Lord Minto on a mission to Shah Shuja to form a defensive

alliance. Before the year was out Shah Shuja had been driven into exile,

and a third brother, Mahmud Shah, was on the throne. In 1837, when the

curtain rises upon the drama of British interference in Afghanistan, the

usurper, Dost Mahommed Barakzai, was firmly established at Kabul. His

great ambition was to recover Peshawar from the Sikhs; and when Captain

Alexander Burnes arrived on a mission from Lord Auckland, with the

ostensible object of opening trade, the Dost was willing to promise

everything, if only he could get Peshawar. But Lord Auckland had another

and more important object in view. At this time the Russians were

advancing rapidly in Central Asia, and a Persian army, not without

Russian support, was besieging Herat, the traditional bulwark of

Afghanistan on the east. A Russian envoy was at Kabul at the same time

as Burnes. The latter was unable to satisfy the demands of Dost Mahommed

in the matter of Peshawar, and returned to India unsuccessful. Lord

Auckland forthwith resolved upon the hazardous plan of placing a more

subservient ruler upon the throne of Kabul. Shah Shuja, now in exile at

Ludhiana, was selected for the purpose. At this time both the Punjab

and Sind were independent kingdoms. Sind was the less powerful of the

two, and, therefore, a British army escorting Shah Shuja made its way by

that route to enter Afghanistan through the Bolan Pass. Kandahar

surrendered, Ghazni was taken by storm, Dost Mahommed fled across the

Hindu Kush, and Shah Shuja was triumphantly led into the Bala Hissar at

Kabul in August 1839. During the two years that followed Afghanistan

remained in the military occupation of the British. The catastrophe

occurred in November 1841, when Sir Alexander Burnes was assassinated in

the city of Kabul. The troops in the cantonments were then under the

command of General Elphinstone (not to be confounded with the civilian

Mountstuart Elphinstone), with Sir William Macnaghten as chief political

adviser. Elphinstone was an old man, unequal to the responsibilities of

the position. Macnaghten was treacherously murdered at an interview with

the Afghan chief, Akbar Khan, eldest son of Dost Mahommed. After

lingering in their cantonments for two months, the British army set off

in the depth of winter to find its way back to India through the passes.

When they started they numbered 4000 fighting men, with 12,000 camp

followers. A single survivor, Dr Brydon, reached the friendly walls of

Jalalabad, where General Sale was gallantly holding out. The rest

perished in the defiles of Khurd Kabul and Jagdalak, either from the

knives and matchlocks of the Afghans or from the effects of cold. A few

prisoners, mostly women, children and officers, were considerately

treated by the orders of Akbar Khan. (See AFGHANISTAN.)

Within a month after the news reached Calcutta, Lord Auckland had been

superseded by Lord Ellenborough, whose first impulse was to be satisfied

with drawing off in safety the garrisons from Kandahar and Jalalabad.

But bolder counsels prevailed. General Pollock, who was marching

straight through the Punjab to relieve General Sale, was ordered to

penetrate to Kabul, while General Nott was only too glad not to be

forbidden to retire from Kandahar through Kabul. After a good deal of

fighting, the two British forces met at their common destination in

September 1842. The great _bazar_ at Kabul was blown up with gunpowder

to fix a stigma upon the city; the prisoners were recovered; and all

marched back to India, leaving Dost Mahommed to take undisputed

possession of his throne. The drama closed with a bombastic proclamation

from Lord Ellenborough, who had caused the gates from the tomb of Mahmud

of Ghazni to be carried back as a memorial of "Somnath revenged."

Annexation of Sind.

Lord Ellenborough, who loved military display, had his tastes gratified

by two more wars. In 1843 the Mahommedan rulers of Sind, known as the

"meers" or amirs, whose only fault was that they would not surrender

their independence, were crushed by Sir Charles Napier. The victory of

Meeanee, in which 3000 British troops defeated 20,000 Baluchis, is

perhaps the most brilliant feat of arms in Indian history; but an honest

excuse can scarcely be found for the annexation of the country. In the

same year a disputed succession at Gwalior, fomented by femimine

intrigue, resulted in an outbreak of the overgrown army which the

Sindhia family had been allowed to maintain. Peace was restored by the

battles of Maharajpur and Punniar, at the former of which Lord

Ellenborough was present in person.

First Sikh War.

In 1844 Lord Ellenborough was recalled by the court of directors, who

differed from him on many points of administration, and distrusted his

erratic genius. He was succeeded by Sir Henry (afterwards Lord)

Hardinge, who had served through the Peninsular War and had lost a hand

at Ligny. It was felt on all sides that a trial of strength between the

British and the Sikhs was at hand. (For the origin of the Sikh power see

PUNJAB.)

Ranjit Singh, the founder of the Sikh kingdom in the Punjab, had

faithfully fulfilled all his obligations towards the British. But on his

death in 1839 no successor was left to curb the ambition of the Sikh

nationality.

In 1845 the _khalsa_, or Sikh army, numbering 60,000 men with 150 guns,

crossed the Sutlej and invaded British territory. Sir Hugh Gough, the

commander-in-chief, together with the governor-general, hurried up to

the frontier. Within three weeks four pitched battles were fought, at

Mudki, Ferozeshah, Aliwal and Sobraon. The British loss on each occasion

was heavy; but by the last victory the Sikhs were fairly driven into and

across the Sutlej, and Lahore surrendered to the British. By the terms

of peace then dictated the infant son of Ranjit, Dhuleep Singh, was

recognized as raja; the Jullundur Doab, or tract between the Sutlej and

the Ravi, was annexed; the Sikh army was limited to a specified number;

Major Henry Lawrence was appointed to be resident at Lahore; and a

British force was detailed to garrison the Punjab for a period of eight

years.

Dalhousie.

Lord Dalhousie succeeded Lord Hardinge, and his eight years'

administration (from 1848 to 1856) was more pregnant of results than

that of any governor-general since Wellesley. Though professedly a man

of peace, he was compelled to fight two wars, in the Punjab and in

Burma. These both ended in large acquisitions of territory, while

Nagpur, Oudh and several minor states also came under British rule. But

Dalhousie's own special interest lay in the advancement of the moral and

material condition of the country. The system of administration carried

out in the conquered Punjab by the two Lawrences and their assistants is

probably the most successful piece of difficult work ever accomplished

by Englishmen. Lower Burma prospered under their rule scarcely less than

the Punjab. In both cases Lord Dalhousie deserves a large share of the

credit. No branch of the administration escaped his reforming hand. He

founded the public works department, to pay special attention to roads

and canals. He opened the Ganges canal, still the largest work of the

kind in the country, and he turned the sod of the first Indian railway.

He promoted steam communication with England via the Red Sea, and

introduced cheap postage and the electric telegraph. It is Lord

Dalhousie's misfortune that these benefits are too often forgotten in

the vivid recollections of the Mutiny, which avenged his policy of

annexation.

Second Sikh War.

Lord Dalhousie had not been six months in India before the second Sikh

war broke out. Two British officers were treacherously assassinated at

Multan. Unfortunately Henry Lawrence was at home on sick leave. The

British army was not ready to act in the hot season, and, despite the

single-handed exertions of Lieutenant (afterwards Sir Herbert) Edwardes,

this outbreak of fanaticism led to a general rising. The _khalsa_ army

again came together, and more than once fought on even terms with the

British. On the fatal field of Chillianwalla, which patriotism prefers

to call a drawn battle, the British lost 2400 officers and men, besides

four guns and the colours of three regiments. Before reinforcements

could come out from England, with Sir Charles Napier as

commander-in-chief, Lord Gough had restored his own reputation by the

crowning victory of Gujrat, which absolutely destroyed the Sikh army.

Multan had previously fallen; and the Afghan horse under Dost Mahommed,

who had forgotten their hereditary antipathy to the Sikhs in their

greater hatred of the British name, were chased back with ignominy to

their native hills. The Punjab henceforth became a British province,

supplying a virgin field for the administrative talents of Dalhousie and

the two Lawrences. Raja Dhuleep Singh received an allowance of £50,000 a

year, on which he retired as a country gentleman to Norfolk in England.

(See PUNJAB.)

Second Burmese War.

The second Burmese war of 1852 was caused by the ill-treatment of

European merchants at Rangoon, and the insolence offered to the captain

of a frigate who had been sent to remonstrate. The whole valley of the

Irrawaddy, from Rangoon to Prome, was occupied in a few months, and, as

the king of Ava refused to treat, it was annexed, under the name of

Pegu, to the provinces of Arakan and Tenasserim, which had been acquired

in 1826.

The doctrine of lapse.

Lord Dalhousie's dealings with the feudatory states of India, though

actuated by the highest motives, seem now to have proceeded upon

mistaken lines. His policy of annexing each native state on the death of

its ruler without natural heirs produced a general feeling of insecurity

of tenure among the princes, and gave offence to the people of India.

This policy was reversed when India was taken over by the crown after

the Mutiny; and its reversal has led to the native princes being amongst

the most loyal subjects of the British government. The first state to

escheat to the British government was Satara, which had been

reconstituted by Lord Hastings on the downfall of the peshwa Baji Rao in

1818. The last direct representative of Sivaji died without a male heir

in 1848, and his deathbed adoption was set aside. In the same year the

Rajput state of Karauli was saved by the interposition of the court of

directors, who drew a fine distinction between a dependent principality

and a protected ally. In 1853 Jhansi suffered the same fate as Satara.

But the most conspicuous application of the doctrine of lapse was the

case of Nagpur. The last of the Bhonslas, a dynasty older than the

British government itself, died without a son, natural or adopted, in

1853. That year also saw British administration extended to the Berars,

or the assigned districts which the nizam of Hyderabad was induced to

cede as a territorial guarantee for the subsidies which he perpetually

kept in arrear. Three more distinguished names likewise passed away in

1853, though without any attendant accretion to British territory. In

the extreme south the titular nawab of the Carnatic and the titular raja

of Tanjore both died without heirs. Their rank and their pensions died

with them, though compassionate allowances were continued to their

families. In the north of India, Baji Rao, the ex-peshwa who had been

dethroned in 1818, lived on till 1853 in the enjoyment of his annual

pension of £80,000. His adopted son, Nana Sahib, inherited his

accumulated savings, but could obtain no further recognition.

Annexation of Oudh.

The annexation of the province of Oudh was justifiable on the ground of

morals, though not on that of policy. Ever since the nawab wazir,

Shuja-ud-Dowlah, received back his forfeited territories from the hands

of Lord Clive in 1765, the very existence of Oudh as an independent

state had depended only upon the protection of British bayonets. Thus,

preserved alike from foreign invasion and from domestic rebellion, the

long line of subsequent nawabs had given way to that neglect of public

affairs and those private vices which naturally flow from irresponsible

power. Their only redeeming virtue was steady loyalty to the British

government. Warning after warning had been given to the nawabs, who had

assumed the title of king since 1819, to put their house in order; but

every warning was neglected, and Lord Dalhousie at last carried into

effect what both the previous governors-general had threatened. In 1856,

the last year of his rule, he issued orders to General (afterwards Sir

James) Outram, then resident at the court of Lucknow, to assume the

direct administration of Oudh, on the ground that "the British

government would be guilty in the sight of God and man, if it were any

longer to aid in sustaining by its countenance an administration fraught

with suffering to millions." The king, Wajid Ali, bowed to irresistible

force, though he ever refused to recognize the justice of his

deposition. After a mission to England, by way of protest and appeal, he

settled down in the pleasant suburb of Garden Reach near Calcutta, where

he lived in the enjoyment of a pension of £120,000 a year. Oudh was thus

annexed without a blow; but it may be doubted whether the one measure of

Lord Dalhousie upon which he looked back himself with the clearest

conscience was not the very one that most alarmed native public opinion.

The Mutiny.

Lord Dalhousie was succeeded by his friend, Lord Canning, who, at the

farewell banquet in England given to him by the court of directors,

uttered these prophetic words: "I wish for a peaceful term of office.

But I cannot forget that in the sky of India, serene as it is, a small

cloud may arise, no larger than a man's hand, but which, growing larger

and larger, may at last threaten to burst and overwhelm us with ruin."

In the following year the sepoys of the Bengal army mutinied, and all

the valley of the Ganges from Patna to Delhi rose in open rebellion.

The various motives assigned for the Mutiny appear inadequate to the

European mind. The truth seems to be that native opinion throughout

India was in a ferment, predisposing men to believe the wildest stories,

and to act precipitately upon their fears. The influence of panic in an

Oriental population is greater than might be readily believed. In the

first place, the policy of Lord Dalhousie, exactly in proportion as it

had been dictated by the most honourable considerations, was utterly

distasteful to the native mind. Repeated annexations, the spread of

education, the appearance of the steam engine and the telegraph wire,

all alike revealed a consistent determination to substitute an English

for an Indian civilization. The Bengal sepoys, especially, thought that

they could see into the future farther than the rest of their

countrymen. Nearly all men of high caste, and many of them recruited

from Oudh, they dreaded tendencies which they deemed to be

denationalizing, and they knew at first hand what annexation meant. They

believed it was by their prowess that the Punjab had been conquered, and

all India was held quiet. The numerous dethroned princes, their heirs

and their widows, were the first to take advantage of the spirit of

disaffection that was abroad. They had heard of the Crimean War, and

were told that Russia was the perpetual enemy of England. Owing to the

silladar system, under which the native cavalry provided their own

horses and accoutrements, many of the sowars were in debt, and were in

favour of a change which would wipe out the existing régime and with it

the money-lender.

But in addition to these general causes of unrest the condition of the

native army had long given cause for uneasiness to acute observers.

During the course of its history it had broken out into mutiny at

recurrent intervals, the latest occasion being the winter of 1843-1844,

when there were two separate mutinies in Sind and at Ferozepur. Moreover

the spirit of the sepoys during the Sikh wars was unsatisfactory, and

led to excessive casualties amongst the British officers and soldiers.

Both General Jacob and Sir Charles Napier had prophesied that the Mutiny

would take place. Sir Hugh Gough and other commanders-in-chief had

petitioned for the removal of India's chief arsenal from Delhi to

Umballa; and Lord Dalhousie himself had protested against the reduction

of the British element in the army. But all these warnings were

disregarded with a blindness as great as was the incapacity that allowed

the Mutiny to gather head unchecked after its first outbreak at Meerut.

Moreover the outbreak was immediately provoked by an unparalleled

instance of carelessness. It has recently been proved by Mr G. W.

Forrest's researches in the Government of India records that the sepoys'

belief that their cartridges were greased with the fat of cows and pigs

had some foundation in fact. Such a gross violation of their caste

prejudices would alone be sufficient to account for the outbreak that

followed. (For the military incidents of the Mutiny see INDIAN MUTINY.)

Transfer to the Crown.

The Mutiny sealed the fate of the East India company, after a life of

more than two and a half centuries. The Act for the Better Government of

India (1858), which finally transferred the entire administration from

the company to the crown, was not passed without an eloquent protest

from the directors, nor without acrimonious party discussion in

parliament. It enacts that India shall be governed by, and in the name

of, the sovereign of England through a principal secretary of state,

assisted by a council. The governor-general received the new title of

viceroy. The European troops of the company, numbering about 24,000

officers and men, were amalgamated with the royal service, and the

Indian navy was abolished. By the Indian Councils Act 1861 the

governor-general's council and also the councils at Madras and Bombay

were augmented by the addition of non-official members, either natives

or Europeans, for legislative purposes only; and by another act passed

in the same year high courts of judicature were constituted out of the

existing supreme courts and company's courts at the presidency towns.

_India under the Crown._

It fell to the lot of Lord Canning both to suppress the Mutiny and to

introduce the peaceful revolution that followed. As regards his

execution of the former part of his duties, it is sufficient to say that

he preserved his equanimity undisturbed in the darkest hours of peril,

and that the strict impartiality of his conduct incurred alternate

praise and blame from the fanatics on either side. The epithet then

scornfully applied to him of "Clemency" Canning is now remembered only

to his honour. On November 1, 1858, at a grand durbar held at Allahabad

the royal proclamation was published which announced that the queen had

assumed the government of India. This document, which has been called

the Magna Charta of the Indian people, went on to explain the policy of

political justice and religious toleration which it was her royal

pleasure to pursue, and granted an amnesty to all except those who had

directly taken part in the murder of British subjects. Peace was

proclaimed throughout India on the 8th of July 1859; and in the

following cold season Lord Canning made a viceregal progress through the

upper provinces, to receive the homage of loyal princes and chiefs, and

to guarantee to them the right of adoption. The suppression of the

Mutiny increased the debt of India by about 40 millions sterling, and

the military changes that ensued augmented the annual expenditure by

about 10 millions. To grapple with this deficit, James Wilson was sent

out from the treasury as financial member of council. He reorganized the

customs system, imposed an income tax and licence duty and created a

state paper currency. The penal code, originally drawn up by Macaulay in

1837, passed into law in 1860, together with codes of civil and criminal

procedure.

Lord Canning left India in March 1862, and died before he had been a

month in England. His successor, Lord Elgin, only lived till November

1863, when he too fell a victim to the excessive work of the

governor-generalship, dying at the Himalayan station of Dharmsala, where

he lies buried. He was succeeded by Sir John Lawrence, the saviour of

the Punjab. The chief incidents of his administration were the Bhutan

war and the terrible Orissa famine of 1866. Lord Mayo, who succeeded him

in 1869, carried on the permanent British policy of moral and material

progress with a special degree of personal energy. The Umballa durbar,

at which Shere Ali was recognized as amir of Afghanistan, though in one

sense the completion of what Lord Lawrence had begun, owed much of its

success to the personal influence of Lord Mayo himself. The same

quality, combined with sympathy and firmness, stood him in good stead in

all his dealings both with native chiefs and European officials. His

example of hard work stimulated all to their best. While engaged in

exploring with his own eyes the furthest corners of the empire, he fell

by the hand of an assassin in the convict settlement of the Andaman

islands in 1872. His successor was Lord Northbrook, whose ability showed

itself chiefly in the department of finance. During the time of his

administration a famine in Lower Bengal in 1874 was successfully

obviated by government relief and public works, though at an enormous

cost; the gaekwar of Baroda was dethroned in 1875 for misgovernment and

disloyalty, while his dominions were continued to a nominated child of

the family; and the prince of Wales (Edward VII.) visited the country in

the cold season of 1875-1876. Lord Lytton followed Lord Northbrook in

1876. On the 1st of January 1877 Queen Victoria was proclaimed empress

of India at a durbar of great magnificence, held on the historic "Ridge"

overlooking the Mogul capital Delhi. But, while the princes and high

officials of the country were flocking to this gorgeous scene, the

shadow of famine was already darkening over the south of India. Both the

monsoons of 1876 had failed to bring their due supply of rain, and the

season of 1877 was little better. The consequences of this prolonged

drought, which extended from Cape Comorin to the Deccan, and

subsequently invaded northern India, were more disastrous than any

similar calamity up to that time from the introduction of British rule.

Despite unparalleled importations of grain by sea and rail, despite the

most strenuous exertions of the government, which incurred a total

expenditure on this account of 11 millions sterling, the loss of life

from actual starvation and its attendant train of diseases was

lamentable. In the autumn of 1878 the affairs of Afghanistan again

forced themselves into notice. Shere Ali, the amir, who had been

hospitably entertained by Lord Mayo, was found to be favouring Russian

intrigues. A British envoy was refused admittance to the country, while

a Russian mission was received with honour. This led to a declaration of

war. British armies advanced by three routes--the Khyber, the Kurram and

the Bolan--and without much opposition occupied the inner entrances of

the passes. Shere Ali fled to Afghan Turkestan, and there died. A treaty

was entered into with his son, Yakub Khan, at Gandamak, by which the

British frontier was advanced to the crests or farther sides of the

passes and a British officer was admitted to reside at Kabul. Within a

few months the British resident, Sir Louis Cavagnari, was treacherously

attacked and massacred, together with his escort, and a second war

became necessary. Yakub Khan abdicated, and was deported to India, while

Kabul was occupied in force.

Lord Ripon.

At this crisis of affairs a general election in England resulted in a

change of government. Lord Lytton resigned with the Conservative

ministry, and the marquis of Ripon was nominated as his successor in

1880. Shortly afterwards a British brigade was defeated at Maiwand by

the Herati army of Ayub Khan, a defeat promptly and completely retrieved

by the brilliant march of General Sir Frederick Roberts from Kabul to

Kandahar, and by the total rout of Ayub Khan's army on the 1st of

September 1880. Abdur Rahman Khan, the eldest male representative of the

stock of Dost Mahommed, was then recognized as amir of Kabul. Lord Ripon

was sent out to India by the Liberal ministry of 1880 for the purpose of

reversing Lord Lytton's policy in Afghanistan, and of introducing a more

sympathetic system into the administration of India. The disaster at

Maiwand, and the Russian advance east of the Caspian, prevented the

proposed withdrawal from Quetta; but Kandahar was evacuated, Abdur

Rahman was left in complete control of his country and was given an

annual subsidy of twelve lakhs of rupees in 1883. In the second purpose

of his administration Lord Ripon's well-meant efforts only succeeded in

setting Europeans and natives against each other. His term of office was

chiefly notable for the agitation against the Ilbert Bill, which

proposed to subject European offenders to trial by native magistrates.

The measure aroused a storm of indignation amongst the European

community which finally resulted in the bill being shorn of its most

objectionable features. Lord Ripon's good intentions and personal

sympathy were recognized by the natives, and on leaving Bombay he

received the greatest ovation ever accorded to an Indian viceroy.

The Panjdeh scare.

After the arrival of Lord Dufferin as governor-general the incident

known as the Panjdeh Scare brought Britain to the verge of war with

Russia. During the preceding decades Russia had gradually advanced her

power from the Caspian across the Turkoman steppes to the border of

Afghanistan, and Russian intrigue was largely responsible for the second

Afghan war. In February 1884 Russia annexed Merv. This action led to an

arrangement in August of the same year for a joint Anglo-Russian

commission to delimit the Afghan frontier. In March 1885, while the

commission was at work, Lord Dufferin was entertaining the amir Abdur

Rahman at a durbar at Rawalpindi. The durbar was interrupted by the news

that a Russian general had attacked and routed the Afghan force holding

the bridge across the river Kushk, and the incident might possibly have

resulted in war between Britain and Russia but for the slight importance

that Abdur Rahman attributed to what he termed a border scuffle.

Increase in the Army.

The incident, however, led to military measures being taken by the

government of Lord Dufferin, which had far-reaching effects on Indian

finance. The total strength of the army was raised by 10,000 British and

20,000 native troops, at an annual cost of about two millions sterling;

and the frontier post of Quetta, in the neighbourhood of Kandahar, was

connected with the Indian railway system by a line that involved very

expensive tunnelling.

Imperial Service troops.

The Panjdeh incident was likewise the cause of the establishment of

Imperial Service troops in India. At the moment when war seemed

imminent, the leading native princes made offers of pecuniary aid. These

offers were declined, but it was intimated to them at a later date that,

if they would place a small military force in each state at the disposal

of the British government, to be commanded by state officers, but

drilled, disciplined and armed under the supervision of British officers

and on British lines, the government would undertake to find the

necessary supervising officer, arms and organization. The proposal was

widely accepted, and the Imperial Service troops, as they are called,

amount at present to some 20,000 cavalry, infantry and transport, whose

efficiency is very highly thought of. They have rendered good service in

the wars on the north-west frontier, and also in China and Somaliland.

Later in the same year (1885) occurred the third Burmese war. For the

causes of the dispute with King Thebaw, and a description of the

military operations which ensued before the country was finally

pacified, see BURMA.

From 1885 onwards the attention of the Indian government was

increasingly devoted to the north-west frontier. Between the years 1885

and 1895 there were delimited at various times by joint commissions the

Russo-Afghan frontier between the Oxus and Sarakhs on the Persian

frontier, the Russo-Afghan frontier from Lake Victoria to the frontier

of China and the Afghan-Indian frontier from the Kunar river to a point

in the neighbourhood of the Nawa Kotal. To the westward, after various

disagreements and two military expeditions, the territories comprising

the Zhob, Barhan and Bori valleys, occupied by Pathan tribes, were in

1890 finally incorporated in the general system of the Trans-Indus

protectorate. About the same time in the extreme north the post of

British resident in Gilgit was re-established, and the supremacy of

Kashmir over the adjoining petty chiefships of Hunza-Nagar was enforced

(1891-1892). In 1893 the frontiers of Afghanistan and British India were

defined by a joint agreement between the two governments, known as the

Durand agreement. There followed on the part of the British authorities,

interference in Chitral, ending in an expedition in 1895 and the

ejection of the local chiefs in favour of candidates amenable to British

influence. A more formidable hostile combination, however, awaited the

government of India. By the agreement of 1893 with the amir most of the

Waziri clan and also the Afridis had been left outside the limits of the

amir's influence and transferred to the British zone. Soon after that

date the establishment by the British military authorities of posts

within the Waziri country led to apprehension on the part of the local

tribesmen. In 1895 the occupation of points within the Swat territory

for the safety of the road from India to Chitral similarly roused the

suspicion of the Swatis. The Waziris and Swatis successively rose in

arms, in June and July 1897, and their example was followed by the

Mohmands. Finally, in August the powerful Afridi tribe joined the

combination and closed the Khyber Pass, which runs through their

territory, and which was held by them, on conditions, in trust for the

government of India. This led to the military operations known as the

Tirah campaign, which proved very costly both in men and money.

The currency.

Meanwhile considerable difficulties had been experienced with the Indian

currency, which was on a purely silver basis. Before 1873 the

fluctuations in the value of silver as compared with gold had been

comparatively small, and the exchange value of the rupee was rarely less

than two shillings. But after 1873, in consequence of changes in the

monetary systems of France and Germany, and the increased production of

silver, this stability of exchange no longer continued, and the rupee

sank steadily in value, till it was worth little more than half its

face value. This great shrinkage in exchange caused considerable loss to

the Indian government in remitting to Europe, and entailed hardship upon

Anglo-Indians who received pensions or other payments in rupees, while

on the other hand it supplied an artificial stimulus to the export trade

by increasing the purchasing power of gold. This advantage, however, was

outweighed by the uncertainty as to what the exchange value of the rupee

might be at any particular date, which imported a gambling element into

commerce. Accordingly in June 1893 an act was passed closing the Indian

mints to the free coinage of silver. Six years later, in 1899, the

change was completed by an act making gold legal tender at the rate of

£1 for Rs.15, or at the rate of is. 4d. per rupee, and both the

government and the individual now know exactly what their obligations

will be.

Lord Curzon's reforms.

When Lord Curzon became viceroy in 1898, he reversed the policy on the

north-west frontier which had given rise to the Tirah campaign, withdrew

outlying garrisons in tribal country, substituted for them tribal

militia, and created the new North-West Frontier province, for the

purpose of introducing consistency of policy and firmness of control

upon that disturbed border. In addition, after making careful inquiry

through various commissions, he reformed the systems of education and

police, laid down a comprehensive scheme of irrigation, improved the

leave rules and the excessive report-writing of the civil service,

encouraged the native princes by the formation of the Imperial Cadet

Corps and introduced many other reforms. His term of office was also

notable for the coronation durbar at Delhi in January 1903, the

expedition to Lhasa in 1904, which first unveiled that forbidden city to

European gaze, and the partition of Bengal in 1905. In December 1904

Lord Curzon entered upon a second term of office, which was

unfortunately marred by a controversy with Lord Kitchener, the

commander-in-chief, as to the position of the military member of

council. Lord Curzon, finding himself at variance with the secretary of

state, resigned before the end of the first year, and was succeeded by

Lord Minto.

Lord Minto. The unrest.

The new viceroy, who might have expected a tranquil time after the

energetic reforms of his predecessor, soon found himself face to face

with the most serious troubles, euphemistically called the "unrest,"

that British rule has had to encounter in India since the Mutiny. For

many years the educated class among the natives had been claiming for

themselves a larger share in the administration, and had organized a

political party under the name of the National Congress, which held

annual meetings at Christmas in one or ether of the large cities of the

peninsula. This class also exercised a wide influence through the press,

printed both in the vernacular languages and in English, especially

among young students. There is no doubt too that the adoption of Western

civilization by the Japanese and their victorious war with Russia set in

motion a current through all the peoples of the East. The occasion

though not the cause of trouble arose from the partition of Bengal,

which was represented by Bengali agitators as an insult to their mother

country. While the first riots occurred in the Punjab and Madras, it is

only in Bengal and eastern Bengal that the unrest has been bitter and

continuous. This is the centre of the _swadeshi_ movement for the

boycott of English goods, of the most seditious speeches and writings

and of conspiracies for the assassination of officials. At first the

government attempted to quell the disaffection by means of the ordinary

law, with fair success outside Bengal; but there, owing to the secret

ramifications of the conspiracy, it has been found necessary to adopt

special measures. Recourse has been had to a regulation of the year

1818, by which persons may be imprisoned or "deported" without reason

assigned; and three acts of the legislature have been passed for dealing

more directly with the prevalent classes of crime: (1) an Explosives

Act, containing provisions similar to those in force in England; (2) a

Prevention of Seditious Meetings Act, which can only be applied

specially by proclamation; and (3) a Criminal Law Amendment Act, of

which the two chief provisions are--a magisterial inquiry in private

(similar to the Scotch procedure) and a trial before three judges of the

High Court without a jury.

Reforms.

While the law was thus sternly enforced, important acts of conciliation

and measures of reform were carried out simultaneously. In 1907 two

natives, a Hindu and a Mahommedan, were appointed to the secretary of

state's council; and in 1909 another native, a Hindu barrister, was for

the first time appointed, as legal member, to the council of the

viceroy. Occasion was taken of the fiftieth anniversary of the

assumption by the crown of the government of India to address a message

(on November 2, 1908) by the king-emperor to the princes and peoples,

reviewing in stately language the later development, and containing

these memorable words:--

"From the first, the principle of representative institutions began to

be gradually introduced, and the time has come when, in the judgment

of my viceroy and governor-general and others of my counsellors, that

principle may be prudently extended. Important classes among you,

representing ideas that have been fostered and encouraged by British

rule, claim equality of citizenship, and a greater share in

legislation and government. The politic satisfaction of such a claim

will strengthen, not impair, existing authority and power.

Administration will be all the more efficient if the officers who

conduct it have greater opportunities of regular contact with those

whom it affects and with those who influence and reflect common

opinion about it."

The policy here adumbrated was (at least partly) carried into effect by

parliament in the Indian Councils Act 1909, which reconstituted all the

legislative councils by the addition of members directly elected, and

conferred upon these councils wider powers of discussion. It further

authorized the addition of two members to the executive councils at

Madras and Bombay, and the creation of an executive council in Bengal

and also (subject to conditions) in other provinces under a

lieutenant-governor. Regulations for bringing the act into operation

were issued by the governor-general in council, with the approval of the

secretary of state, in November 1909. They provided (_inter alia_) for a

non-official majority in all of the provincial councils, but not in that

of the governor-general; for an elaborate system of election of members

by organized constituencies; for nomination where direct election is not

appropriate; and for the separate representation of Mahommedans and

other special interests. They also contain provisions authorizing the

asking of supplementary questions, the moving and discussion of

resolutions on any matter of public interest and the annual

consideration of the contents of the budget. In brief, the legislative

councils were not only enlarged, but transformed into debating bodies,

with the power of criticizing the executive. The first elections took

place during December 1909, with results that showed widespread interest

and were generally accepted as satisfactory. The new council of the

governor-general met in the following month.

AUTHORITIES.--Vincent A. Smith, _The Early History of India_ (Oxford,

1904, 2nd ed., 1908); and _Asoka_ ("Rulers of India" series, Oxford,

1901); J. W. McCrindle, _Ancient India_ (1901); T. W. Rhys Davids,

_Buddhist India_ (1903); _Imperial Gazetteer of India_ (1907-1909);

Sir J. Campbell, _Gazetteer of Bombay_ (1896); Stanley Lane-Poole,

_Medieval India_ ("Story of the Nations" series, 1903); _The

Mohammedan Dynasties_ (1894) and _The Mogul Emperors_ (1892); H. C.

Fanshawe, _Delhi Past and Present_ (1902); Sir H. M. Elliot, _History

of India as told by its own Historians_ (1867). For the "unrest," its

causation and history, see the series of articles in _The Times_,

beginning July 16, 1910. (W. W. H.; J. S. Co.)