After I had written these observations on the late disturbances at
Madras, I perused a very able and ingenious article in the ninth
number of the Quarterly Review, upon that subject. The first part of
that article explains the progress of the violent proceedings of the
Company's officers engaged in those disturbances, and enters into very
full discussions to prove and establish the fact of their guilt. In
almost all this part my sentiments differ little from those of the
reviewer. I do not, however, agree with the opinions he has stated on
the case of Lieutenant-Colonel Munro. He conceives, that if Government
had allowed that officer to have been tried by a court martial, it
would have been a base desertion, and a sacrifice of a public servant.
I trust I have shown, that although Government had a _full legal right_
to act as they did, a contrary conduct might have been adopted without
any such desertion or sacrifice, and with every prospect of advantage
to the public interests.
The reviewer dwells throughout the article upon the crude and violent
Memorial to Lord Minto, and assumes, with great advantage to his
argument, that it may be taken as a fair specimen of the sentiments of
all the discontented officers at Madras. He is probably ignorant of
the comparatively small number of those officers who approved of this
intemperate production. He cannot, I think, be aware, that many of
those whom he has blended in his general censure, merely because they
were blended in the undistinguishing proscription of the Government of
Fort St. George, never saw that document till it was published.
I have, in my observations on the disturbances at Madras, said little
on the question of the suspension of Colonel Capper and Major Boles;
but I conceive all that the reviewer has said upon that subject will be
deemed by those who consider it attentively, as more ingenious than
solid. The whole of that discussion would appear to resolve itself into
a very short question. The act of disobedience to his superior, in a
military officer or soldier, can alone be justified in a case where the
civil law would punish his obedience. A great deal must of course be
decided by the circumstances of the moment. "To your tents, O Israel!"
would, in the present state of Great Britain, be an unobjectionable
text. It certainly was not so in the reign of Charles the First. But
we have only to suppose Major Boles on his trial before a civil court,
for publishing, or aiding in the publication, of a seditious libel.
Among the circumstances to be considered in such a case, that prompt
and undeliberate obedience which it is the habit of an officer to give
to the orders of his superiors, would assuredly be one of the most
prominent; and an English jury would, I imagine, be slow in condemning
an officer situated as Major Boles was. They would probably think,
that the great and vital principle of prompt obedience, on which
the existence of that armed force which guarded the civil community
depended, was of too important and sacred a nature to have its plain
meaning frittered away by casuists and lawyers. These reflections
would certainly lead plain men to decide, that we ought not to refine
too much upon such delicate points, and that no military order should
be disobeyed, the illegality of which was not of so obvious a nature
as to be clear to the most common understanding. But, after all, the
justice or injustice of this act of authority is but a small part of a
very large question. The wisdom and policy of the measure, (which is
the point on which the character of the Government of Fort St. George
is chiefly concerned,) appear, however, to be given up even by those
who are the warm advocates of many other parts of that system which was
pursued.
The writer of the review traces what he deems an exact similarity of
character between Sir George Barlow's measures and those adopted by
Lord Clive, in 1766, to quell a sedition among the officers of the
Bengal army; and infers, from a general and sweeping conclusion, that
the reputation of these two Governors must stand or fall by the same
arguments. To those who are satisfied with the superficial and general
facts,--that both Lord Clive and Sir George Barlow exercised power in
India, that there were discontents and combinations among a part of
the European officers of the native troops during their respective
administrations, which terminated, on both occasions, in submission to
authority,--the observations made in the Quarterly Review on this part
of the subject will be satisfactory, and conclusive: but to such as
examine the particulars of these two important events, and trace to its
true cause the defection of the officers of the Bengal army in 1766,
and then observe the open, military, and manly conduct of Lord Clive,
there will appear much more grounds for a contrast than a comparison.
The conduct of the officers of the Bengal army, their limited number,
and the actual constitution of the native army[34] at that period of
our dominion in India, make a still wider difference in all those
considerations, that render the late measures of the Government of
Madras, as they affect the personal attachment and fidelity of the
sepoys to their European officers, dangerous to our future security.
But supposing the difference in this respect did not exist, Lord
Clive, when actually engaged in war, might have been compelled, by the
conduct of officers, which the situation of affairs rendered doubly
disgraceful, to adopt a measure that was most deeply injurious to
those principles upon which our empire is founded. We have escaped
this danger; but is that any reason for incurring a similar hazard?
It has never been stated that the danger from weakening the respect
and attachment of the sepoy for his officer was inevitable, and must
be destructive to our power within a specific period. Its alarming
tendency has been shown: and it is this which must be disproved, and
the _absolute necessity_ of having had resort to it established, before
the course pursued in this instance by the Government of Fort St.
George can be efficiently defended.
The reviewer appears resolved to deny every fact that can even palliate
the guilt of the officers of the Madras army. He terms their desire to
submit to Lord Minto a difference in point of form, "a saving to their
pride, not to their consciences;" and he is amused with the assertion,
that the love of their country had a decided operation in defeating
their guilty proceedings. The man who reasons thus coolly upon such
events, has probably never witnessed a scene at all resembling that
of which he treats; or he would have discovered, that when passion
seizes that ground which reason has abandoned, men act more under
the influence of feelings than forms; and with minds deluded, but
not debased, they make a vain attempt to reconcile the most opposite
principles of conduct, and fall, _self-subdued_, by those virtues which
are implanted too deeply in their hearts to be eradicated by the sudden
action, however violent, of a guilty but transient impulse.
The able writer in the review conceives that he has at once discovered
the chief cause of the late disturbances, and the best apology for
the Company's officers concerned in them, in the constitution of the
Company's service, and the habits of those that belong to it. The
atmosphere they imbibe is calculated, in his opinion, to relax all just
ideas of subordination; and they are, he infers, predisposed, from
such causes, to an opposition to the authority placed over them. Some
disposition to resistance may no doubt be found in every community,
civil as well as military, that ever existed; and to the existence of
this universal and natural feeling every excellence of human government
may be traced. But let us suppose that this disposition had, from
local circumstances and other causes, attained such a degree among the
Company's officers in India, as to threaten the public tranquillity;
what does this prove? It is, _if true to the extent stated in the
review_, not an excuse for those who produced that crisis which has
been described; but an eulogium, and a very high one, upon the wisdom
and vigour of those rulers of our Indian possessions, who have not
only repressed this disposition to opposition, but have rendered
those to whom it is ascribed the instruments of the advancement of
the interests and glory of their country: and a reflecting man would
probably find much more to admire, than condemn, even in that case[35]
which is triumphantly brought forward to prove this assertion. When
events led a wise and moderate Governor-General[36], and an able and
politic Indian minister[37], to prefer a course which certainly made
many and important sacrifices of ordinary maxims of rule, but which led
to a quiet and just settlement of all complaints; to the pursuit of a
severe, inflexible system, which (anxious only for its own character)
defends a principle at the hazard of a state: most persons, when they
contemplated the great end, would at least pardon the means by which
it was obtained, and perhaps see more of wisdom and generosity, than
of "short-sightedness and absurdity," in the measures of those who
exercised their powers with such temper, forbearance, and indulgence,
upon that memorable occasion. Those who endeavour to heap obloquy upon
their names, in order to exalt a contrary course of proceeding, will
find no support to their arguments from the conduct of the officers
of the Bengal army subsequent to that occurrence: that has been
exactly the reverse of what it ought to have been, agreeable to the
conclusions of the writer of the review; and the great progress made in
the discipline of that army, their strict adherence to every principle
of order and subordination, (particularly on the occasion of the late
agitations at Madras,) affords a most convincing proof of the wide
difference between a spirit of discontent carried even to the extreme
of opposition to authority, among a body of officers, (who, however
lost to reason and duty for the moment, must soon return, instructed
by their deviation, to that order on which their condition depends,)
and a mutiny of common soldiers. Men solely educated in civil life are
too apt to confound this great distinction: and to that ignorance of
the different shades of military feeling which varies from the proud
but rational submission of a cultivated mind, to the mere habit of
mechanical obedience in one of a more vulgar mould, a great part of the
evils which occurred at Madras may be ascribed.
It has always been discovered, on a near view of human affairs, that
smaller causes than the self-importance of man is willing to believe,
produce the greatest changes in society. The difference between a
general view of a subject, and a minute observation of all its parts,
is immense: and to this difference, more than to any other cause, I am
disposed to ascribe the opposite opinions I entertain, on many points
of this large question, from the able writer of the review. He has,
with a full sense of the advantage, dwelt upon those general principles
that regulated the conduct of Sir George Barlow; and has enlarged,
with great force and effect, upon their importance to good order and
government. While he maintains this ground he is unassailable; and he
seldom quits it: but if truth be the object of our search, we must go
deeper. There perhaps never was an administration which exhibited,
during the period of which we treat, so extraordinary a mixture of good
principles, and a bad application of them; of an inflexible regard to
form, and a total neglect of feeling, as that of the Governor of Fort
St. George. It is from this reason, that every man of impartiality, who
peruses a general statement of the late transactions at Madras, will
give Sir George Barlow the highest praise: but if he looks further, and
examines with a minute attention, not only his measures, but the season
and mode of their execution; his admiration will infallibly diminish.
He will be compelled (though perhaps reluctantly,) to abandon some
abstract ideas regarding the beauty of general principles, which he
may have long and fondly cherished, and to confess the force of that
observation which experience taught Mr. Burke to make, upon all such
general questions--"I have lost," said that great orator and statesman,
"all confidence in your swaggering majors, having always found that the
truth lurked in the little minor of _circumstances_."
In the conclusion of the article of the review the writer animadverts
on the description given by Mr. Petrie of the cold and repulsive
manners of Sir George Barlow; and in observing upon this "deficiency
in the charm of demeanour," though he admits it must subtract from
the influence of a statesman, he makes an allusive comparison (on the
ground of common defects) between his character and that of some
of the greatest names in history[38], who, notwithstanding their
defective manners, have, by the force of their superior genius, been
able to command the support of mankind: and, to give more effect to
this allusion, the reviewer quotes a public dispatch from Lord Minto,
in which that nobleman ascribes the great unpopularity of Sir George
Barlow to "a pure and inflexible discharge of ungrateful, but sacred
and indispensable duties." Self-defence has alone compelled me to
discuss the acts of Sir George Barlow. On his character my opinion
was long ago formed. It will be seen, that at the commencement of
these disturbances I confidentially stated that opinion[39]. I then
represented him as a man of excellent talent, of unsullied integrity,
of indefatigable industry, and distinguished by long and meritorious
services to the Company. I still retain that opinion; and no injustice
of which he may be guilty towards me, shall ever prevent me from
expressing it. I then foresaw that the defects of his character would,
in his situation, probably produce very pernicious consequences. My
opinion has been confirmed by the event. Experience seems to me to
have most fully proved, that the very qualities which eminently fit
a man for subordinate situations, may unfit him for the supreme; and
that the rules which are necessary to the good order of many of the
inferior departments, may, in their undistinguishing application, prove
destructive in the general administration of a great state.