SOUTHERN INDIA IN 1744
It will contribute to the better understanding of the narrative of
the events which plunged the English into war in 1745, if we take a
bird's-eye view of the peninsula generally, particularly of the
southern portion, as it appeared in the year preceding.
Of India generally it is sufficient to say that from the year 1707,
when the Emperor Aurangzeb died, authority had been relaxing to an
extent which was rapidly bringing about the disruption of the bonds
that held society together. The invasion of Nadir Shah followed by
the sack of Delhi in 1739 had given the Mughal dynasty a blow from
which it never rallied. Thenceforward until 1761, when the third
battle of Panipat completed the catastrophe, the anarchy was almost
universal. Authority was to the strongest. The Sallustian motto,
'Alieni appetens sui profusus,' was the rule of almost every noble;
the agriculturists had everywhere abundant reason to realize 'that
the buffalo was to the man who held the bludgeon.'[1]
[Footnote 1: The late Lord Lawrence used to tell me that when he was
Acting Magistrate and Collector of Panipat in 1836, the natives were
in the habit of describing the lawlessness of the period which ceased
in 1818 by using the expressive phrase I have quoted.]
{17}The disorder had extended to the part of India south of the
Vindhyan range which was then known under the comprehensive term of
the Deccan. When Aurangzeb had conquered many Subahs, or provinces,
of Southern India, he had placed them under one officer, to be
nominated by the Court of Delhi, and to be called Subahdar, or chief
of the province. As disorder spread after his death the Subahdars and
inferior chiefs generally began to secure themselves in the provinces
they administered. The invasion of Nadir Shah made the task generally
easy. In the Deccan especially, Chin Kilich Khan, the chief of a
family which had served with consideration under Akbar and his
successors, whose father had been a favourite of Aurangzeb, who had
himself served under that sovereign, and who had obtained from the
successors of Aurangzeb the titles of Nizam-ul-Mulk and Asaf Jah,
took steps to make the Subahdarship of Southern India hereditary in
his family. The territories comprehended under the term 'Deccan' did
not, it must be understood, include the whole of Southern India.
Mysore, Travancore, Cochin were independent. But they comprehended
the whole of the territories known now as appertaining to the Nizam,
with some additions; the country known as the 'Northern Circars'; and
the Karnatik.
But the Karnatik was not immediately under the government of the
Subahdar. It was a subordinate territory, entrusted to a Nawab,
bounded to the north by the river Gundlakamma; on the west by the
chain {18}of mountains which separate it from Mysore; to the south by
the possessions of the same kingdom (as it then was) and by Tanjore;
to the east by the sea. I have not mentioned the kingdom of
Trichinopoli to the south, for the Nawabs of the Karnatik claimed
that as their own, and, as we shall see, had occupied the fortress of
that name during the period, prior to 1744, of which I am writing.
It will be seen then, that, at this period, whilst the nominal ruler
of the Deccan was Chin Kilich Khan, better known as Nizam-ul-Mulk, as
I shall hereafter style him, the Nawab of the Karnatik, who ruled the
lands bordering on the sea, including the English settlement of
Madras and the French settlement of Pondicherry, was a very powerful
subordinate. The office he held had likewise come to be regarded as
hereditary. And it was through the failure of the hereditary line,
that the troubles came, which gave to Robert Clive the opportunity to
develop the qualities which lay dormant within him.
Before I proceed to describe those events, it seems advisable to say
a few words regarding the two settlements to which I have just
referred; of the principles which actuated their chiefs; and of the
causes which brought them into collision.
The English had made a first settlement on the Coromandel coast in
the year 1625 at a small place, some thirty-six miles to the south of
Madras, known now as Armagon. Seven years later they obtained from
the Raja of Bisnagar a small grant of land, called {19}by the natives
Chennapatanam from the village contained thereon. They re-named the
place Madras, and built there a fort round their storehouses which
they named Fort St. George. In 1653 the Company in London raised the
agency at Madras to the position and rank of a Presidency. Towards
the end of the seventeenth century the establishment there counted a
population of 300,000 souls. In 1744 the town consisted of three
divisions: that to the south (the White Town) extending about four
hundred yards in length from north to south, and about one hundred
yards in breadth. There resided the Europeans, mainly English. They
had there about fifty houses, two churches, one of them Catholic;
likewise the residence of the chief of the factory. All these were
within the enclosure called Fort St. George. That somewhat pompous
title represented merely a slender wall, defended by four bastions
and as many batteries, very slight and defective in their
construction, and with no outworks to defend them. This division was
generally known as the 'White Town.' To the north of it, and
contiguous, was another division, much larger and worse fortified,
principally tenanted by Armenian and Indian merchants, called the
Black Town. Beyond this, again to the north, was a suburb, where the
poorer natives resided. These three divisions formed Madras. There
were likewise to the south, about a mile distant from the White Town,
two other large villages, inhabited solely by natives; but these were
not included within that term. The English at this period did not
exceed {20}three hundred in number, and of these two-thirds were
soldiers, but few of whom had seen a shot fired.[2]
[Footnote 2: Vide Orme's _History of Indostan_ (Edition 1773), vol.
i. p. 65.]
The English colony in Madras was a trading colony. Not one of its
members, up to this period, had the smallest thought of embroiling
their presidency in the disputes which were frequent amongst the
native chieftains. They wished to be let alone; to remain at peace;
to conciliate friendship and goodwill. They were content to
acknowledge the lords of the soil as their masters; to pay for the
protection they enjoyed at their hands by a willing obedience; to
ward off their anger by apologies and presents.
But there was a French colony also on the same coast, and in that a
different policy had begun to prevail. In the year 1672 the King of
Bijapur had sold to some French traders, led by a very remarkable
man, Francis Martin, a tract of land on the Coromandel coast,
eighty-six miles to the south-south-west of Madras. On this tract,
close to the sea, was a little village called by the natives
Puducheri. This the French settlers enlarged and beautified, and made
their chief place of residence and trade. By degrees the name was
corrupted to Pondicherry, a title under which it became famous, and
under which it is still known.
So long as M. Martin lived, the policy of the French settlers was
similar to that of the English at Madras. Nor did it immediately
change when Martin died (December 30, 1706). Up to 1735, when M.
Benoit {21}Dumas was appointed Governor-General of the French
possessions in India (for they had besides possessions on the Malabar
coast and at Chandranagar, on the Hugli, in Bengal) it was in no way
departed from. M. Dumas, however, almost immediately after his
assumption of office, adopted the policy of allying himself closely
with native princes; of taking part in their wars; with the view of
reaping therefrom territorial and pecuniary advantage. This policy,
of which he was the inventor, was, we shall see, carried to the most
extreme length by his successor, M. Dupleix.
It will clear the ground for the reader if we add that the prosperity
of the rival settlements was greatly affected by the action of their
respective principals in Europe. On this point all the advantages lay
with the English. For, whilst the Company of the Indies at Paris,
and, it must be added, the French Government likewise, starved their
dependency in India, and supplied them with inefficient and often
ill-timed assistance, the East India Company, and the Government of
the King of England, made a far better provision for the necessities
of Madras.
It must, however, in candour be admitted that at the outset the
French were better supplied with men and money than the English.
Until the importance of the quarrel was recognized in Europe it
became then a contest between the natural qualities of the men on the
spot--a test of the capabilities of the races they represented.
{22}I turn now, after this brief explanation of the position in
Southern India in 1744, to describe the causes which led to the
catastrophe which supervened very shortly after the arrival in India
of the hero of this history.
{23}