Company was chiefly directed to the exclusion of interlopers, or free
traders, who interfered with their monopoly. Their chief factories were
Surat, near Bombay, which brought them into immediate conflict with the
Portuguese, against whom they assisted the native princes, and Bantam,
in Java, which placed them in conflict with the Dutch, at whose hands,
in 1623, they suffered the famous outrage known as the Massacre of
Amboyna, where ten Englishmen were put to death upon their confession of
conspiracy against the Dutch extorted by torture. Both these positions
were obviously inconvenient, and tended to permanent hostilities. Some
more secure situation was desirable, and in 1640 the Rajah of the
Carnatic allowed the Company to purchase ground close to the deserted
Portuguese settlement of St. Thomé; and the Fort of St. George and the
town of Madras rapidly rose to importance. This town took the place of
Bantam. The marriage-treaty of Charles II. with Catherine of Braganza
gave the town and island of Bombay to the English, and it took the place
of Surat. In Bengal all three rival powers had factories upon the
Hooghly, a branch of the Ganges. Not long after the transference of
their business from Surat to Bombay the English became involved in some
petty hostilities in Bengal, and were compelled to resign their factory,
and found a home lower down the river at a village called Chutternuttee.
They were in fact in great danger of being driven from the country, but
they managed to mollify the anger of Aurungzebe, who was at that time on
the throne of the Moguls, and in 1698 obtained a lease of the village,
there built Fort William, and founded the town of Calcutta. The
Revolution in England threatened for a time to destroy the India
Company. A great rival company, called the New India Company, was
formed, and was supported by the majority of the Commons. But finally,
in 1708, the quarrels were adjusted, and the Companies coalesced to
prevent the destruction of both, which threatened to follow their eager
competition. Their whole capital was made to consist of £3,200,000, lent
to Government at five per cent.; and they had the right of borrowing one
million and a half more. Repeated prolongations of their privileges were
made; in 1712 to 1736, in 1730 to 1769, in 1743 to 1783. Their three
settlements formed separate presidencies or seats of government,
unconnected one with the other, each governed by a president and
council. Events in Europe had practically destroyed the rivalry of
Portugal, which had lost its energy, and moreover, in its dislike of
Spain, had become the close ally of the English. The stress even of the
Dutch competition was very greatly slackened. That country also, in its
dread of France, was generally friendly to England, and from the
position of its settlements its commercial importance was rather in the
islands than in the mainland of India.
[Sidenote: Decline of the Mogul Empire. 1707.]
Aurungzebe had died in 1707, after a very long and glorious reign. He
was the most successful of that line of Indian Emperors generally spoken
of as Great Moguls, and the inheritor of a vast empire founded by Baber,
a descendant of Timor the Tartar, who died in 1530, but whose work was
carried on by his successors, notably by the great Emperor Akbar, whose
reign ended in 1605. Aurungzebe carried the arms of this victorious
empire, now stationed at Delhi, over nearly all the mainland and
peninsula of India. His chief opponent was Sivajee, the founder of the
Mahratta dynasty. This chief, who was never conquered, died young in
1680. On his death for a time the glories of the Mahratta dynasty
declined. The head of this people, the Rajah of Satara, like other
Eastern monarchs, became merely a nominal ruler, his Peishwa or Prime
Minister, whose abode was Poona, became the real head of the race, but
like by far the greater part of the Hindoo rulers of India, the Peishwa
acknowledged the supremacy of the Mogul Empire. Wherever the Mahommedan
arms had been really victorious, the provinces were in the charge of
Subahdars, or Viceroys of the Emperor; the great bulk of the Peninsula,
known as the Deccan, being in the hands of the greatest of their
Viceroys, called the Nizam. The death of Aurungzebe was the signal for
the dissolution of this great power.
[Sidenote: Competition with the French Company.]
[Sidenote: Grandeur of Dupleix's schemes.]
[Sidenote: Success of Dupleix.]
In the midst of the prevalent dissolution a new and most dangerous rival
of the English Company arose. This was the French Company which had been
established under Louis XIV., and which, like the English and Dutch, had
an establishment upon the Hooghly called Chandernagore; a settlement
eighty miles south of Madras called Pondicherry; and to represent our
settlement on the Malabar coast, the two islands of the Mauritius or
Isle of France, and the Isle of Bourbon, won respectively from the Dutch
and Portuguese. In 1744, when the Companies first came into active
competition, two men of great genius were at the head of the French
Presidencies; Labourdonnais at the Mauritius, and Dupleix at
Pondicherry. The dissolution of the Mogul Empire has been not inaptly
compared to the break-up of the Western Empire of Charles the Great. All
the provincial governors who were at all in a position to do so, while
keeping up for a time their nominal dependence upon the central court of
Delhi, rendered themselves practically independent. It was of this state
of dissolution that Dupleix, with singular ability, took advantage. As
he gazed upon the shattered fragments of the decaying empire, on the
rising independence of Hindoo rajah, mogul and nabob, and observed the
constantly increasing power of the Mahrattas from the Western Ghauts,
Dupleix formed the opinion that India was not for the natives, but for
European conquerors, and as Dutch enterprise had sought another
direction, and Portugal was a failing power, the only countries that
could compete for the high position were France and England. Having
settled upon his opponents, he settled also upon his means of offence.
The French Company and its officers must become at once the nominal
feudatories of the Mogul Empire, and without present conquest must so
mingle in all the affairs of the native princes, and so assist them by
means of native levies drilled in the European fashion, as virtually to
master them all. In other words, he invented that system by the
application of which the English power has subsequently been formed. The
war of the Austrian Succession, which broke out in 1744, supplied him
with his opportunity. A network of alliances was formed around the
English settlement, and kept together by the skill of Dupleix and of his
wife, a woman of Portuguese extraction and of extraordinary talents. But
Dupleix's activity was crossed by the equal energy of Labourdonnais,
who, with a fleet hastily gathered, captured Madras. The English
inhabitants surrendered upon terms, the town was to be repurchased for
£440,000. This was in strict accordance with the views of the French
Government, but not in accordance with the views of Dupleix, who wished
to drive the English from the Peninsula. A hot dispute arose between the
two governors. Dupleix induced Labourdonnais to withdraw upon a false
promise of surrendering Madras; and Labourdonnais returning to France,
was there, with the ingratitude the French always showed to their
colonial governors, subjected to several years of imprisonment and a
trial, which was the immediate cause of his death. Retaining Madras, and
with the aid of the Nabob of Arcot, Dupleix was proceeding, in 1747, to
complete his conquest by the capture of Fort St. David. The approach of
the English fleet saved the fortress, and even enabled the English to
make a counter attack upon Pondicherry. It failed, and the fame of
Dupleix and the French was at its height among the natives when the
Peace of 1748 compelled the restitution of conquests. But the plans of
Dupleix were such that no war between the nations was necessary to
enable him to carry them on. It was native quarrels he desired, and such
quarrels arose at the death of the old Nizam El Mulk of the Deccan. His
throne was disputed by his son Nazir Jung and his grandson Mirzapha
Jung. At the same time Chunda Sahib appeared as a claimant for the
viceroyalty of the Carnatic. Both the pretenders found their cause
adopted by Dupleix, who understood well how secure his position would be
did he succeed in establishing by his own power a Nizam of the Deccan
and a Nabob of the Carnatic. Aided by the Marquis de Bussy, as great as
a soldier as Dupleix was as a diplomatist, in 1749 the pretenders and
the French won a victory at Amboor, in which the reigning nabob was
killed. His son, Mahomet Ali, took the title of Nabob of Arcot, but was
obliged to retire to Trichinopoly, while the whole country was in the
hands of his rival. Thus successful in arms in the Carnatic, Dupleix was
equally so by intrigue in the Deccan. In 1750, as the French approached
Nazir Jung's army, a conspiracy which Dupleix had hatched broke out, and
Nazir was murdered. Mirzapha acknowledged his debt of gratitude to the
French, and it was at Pondicherry that he entered upon his rank,
rewarding his European allies with the government of the whole country
from Cape Comorin to the Kistna. Dupleix appeared to have gained his
object. The Company of which he was the governor was accepted as a
ruling power in India; the great princes of the neighbourhood both owed
him their crowns. The only place still holding out against his authority
was Trichinopoly, and thither he directed all his efforts.
[Sidenote: Defeated by Clive.]
It was then that England at last found a champion in Robert Clive.
Unable to summon troops sufficient to relieve Trichinopoly, he
determined to attack Arcot as a diversion. The plan succeeded. Arcot
fell almost without a struggle. 10,000 men were detached from the armies
of Dupleix and Chunda Sahib at Pondicherry, but their attempt to
recapture Arcot was a signal failure; and when Clive secured the
assistance of a band of Mahratta horse under Morari Row, the siege was
raised, and was followed by a victory over Rajah Sahib, son of Chunda
Sahib. Taking the Pagoda of Conjeveram on the way, Clive, in 1752,
turned towards Fort St. David, but was recalled to fight Rajah Sahib,
whom he again conquered in the battle of Coverpauk. He was then at
leisure, in conjunction with Major Lawrence, who had come to assume the
command, to raise the siege of Trichinopoly; and when the besiegers were
themselves besieged in the islands of Seringham in the river Cauvery,
and when Chunda Sahib was there killed, the failure of Dupleix's
measures was complete. The war indeed continued some time longer. Bussy
upheld the French nominee, Salabat Jung, in the Deccan; Dupleix still
kept up hostilities in the Carnatic. But as his fortunes failed, his
employers deserted him. In 1754 he was recalled. A treaty was made
between the Companies, and Dupleix died in poverty and misery a few
years afterwards in Paris.
[Sidenote: The Black Hole of Calcutta. June 1756.]
[Sidenote: Clive's treaty with Meer Jaffier.]
[Sidenote: Battle of Plassey. June 23, 1757.]
In 1753 ill health had compelled Clive to go to England. In 1755 he
returned to India as Governor of Fort St. David, of which he took
possession on the 20th June 1756, having on his way assisted in the
destruction of Gheriah, the sea-girt stronghold of the pirate Angria,
who had long been the terror of the Bombay merchants. On the very day of
Clive's arrival at Madras, Surajah Dowlah, the Nabob of Bengal, a young
man of about nineteen years of age, cruel, effeminate, and debauched,
had captured Fort William and Calcutta. Shelter afforded to a defaulting
revenue officer of his, and the increase of the fortifications of Fort
William, roused a quarrel between him and the English. He advanced upon
Calcutta and captured it, and the world was horrified by the tragedy of
the Black Hole. The prisoners, 146 in number, were thrust into a narrow
chamber some twenty feet square, whence, after a night of unspeakable
horrors, but twenty-three wretched survivors were dragged the following
morning before Surajah Dowlah and sent as prisoners to his capital at
Moorshedabad. The horrors of the Black Hole of Calcutta were beyond
expression terrible; the heat of the night was intense, and as the
agonies of thirst and suffocation came upon them, the prisoners
struggled to the windows for a mouthful of fresh air, careless that they
trod to death their fallen comrades; they insulted the guards in hopes
that they would fire upon them; many died in raving madness. Mr.
Holwell, the chief of those who survived, was so broken that he was
unable to walk from the prison. When the news of this fearful event
reached Madras, it was at once determined to take vengeance upon the
Nabob. After some difficulties Clive was appointed to the command, and
though four months were wasted, partly by contrary winds, partly by the
jealousy of the various English commanders, by the middle of January
1757 Calcutta was regained. This success and a night attack upon his
army excited in the mind of the Nabob such a dread of the English that
he consented to enter into an alliance with them. The temporary
cessation of hostilities with the natives and the arrival of
reinforcements gave Clive an opportunity to destroy the French
settlement of Chandernagore, although the Nabob, to whom the presence
of the French as a counterpoise to the English was of great importance,
had taken it under his protection. This act of open contempt for his
authority excited Surajah Dowlah's anger anew, and afraid to oppose the
English openly he entered into secret negotiations with the French, and
intreated M. Bussy to march from the Deccan to his assistance. His
intrigues became known, and were met by counter intrigues: it was
determined to depose him, and to place Meer Jaffier, his general, on the
throne; and in order to deceive one of his agents named Omichund, who
threatened to betray the conspiracy unless bribed by an enormous sum of
money, Clive was guilty of forging the name of Admiral Watson. The
treaty to which the false signature was appended promised the bribe, but
was a sham treaty. On the real treaty which Admiral Watson had signed
Omichund received nothing. The plot being ripe, Clive openly advanced
towards Moorshedabad, the Nabob's capital, and on the 23rd June 1757 won
with his troops, numbering in all some 3000 men, the great victory of
Plassey over 30,000 of the Nabob's troops. That battle secured the power
of England in Bengal. Surajah Dowlah fled; Meer Jaffier was placed upon
the throne. A sum of nearly £3,000,000 was paid to the Company, to which
was given the entire property of Calcutta itself as far as 600 yards
beyond the Mahratta ditch, and the zemindary or feudal tenure on payment
of rent of all the country between Calcutta and the sea. The English
thus had firm footing in Bengal, and before 1760, when Clive was again
compelled to seek England, he had made two other steps in advance. In
support of Meer Jaffier, he had advanced against and conquered Shah
Allum, the Great Mogul, and for ever freed himself from competition of
the Dutch by capturing the whole of a large squadron which they had sent
to the assistance of their factory at Chinsurah in opposing the advance
of the English.
[Sidenote: Final overthrow of the French power in India. 1761.]
The following year saw the final fall of the French power in India.
While Clive was securing Bengal, the breaking out of the Seven Years'
War had renewed the hostilities in the Carnatic. On this occasion Lally
was the champion of the French. But able and vigorous as a soldier, his
ill-usage of the natives, his eager temper and satirical tongue,
surrounded him with disaffection both among the Indians and his own
troops. At first his advent was marked with success. In the course of
1758 he captured and destroyed Fort St. David and retook Arcot. But,
early in the following year, the disaffection of his troops and the
arrival of Admiral Pocock prevented him from bringing to a successful
issue an assault on Madras, and from this time onwards the English
retained constant superiority. Colonel Coote, a soldier of Clive's
training, took the command; and on the morning of the 22nd January 1760,
won over the French the great battle of Wandewash. The European troops
alone were engaged. It differed from other Indian battles in this
respect, and was a national victory won upon Indian soil. Coote's
sepoys, on congratulating him on his victory, thanked him for having
shown them a battle such as they had never yet seen. The battle of
Wandewash did for Madras what Plassey did for Bengal. The troops of the
English and their allies gradually closed in round Pondicherry, and in
spite of a firm and splendid resistance, that sole remaining stronghold
of the French power surrendered in January 1761; and Lally, like his
predecessors, returned to France only to meet with persecution from his
employers, and finally death upon the scaffold. The Portuguese, Dutch,
and French had thus all disappeared from the political world of India,
though they still kept up trading stations at Pondicherry,
Chandernagore, and Chinsurah. England had secured a sovereign position
in its three Presidencies.
[Sidenote: Contest with native states.]
[Sidenote: Massacre of Patna. 1763.]
[Sidenote: Battle of Buxar. Oct. 1764.]
The further growth of the Empire was at the expense of native tribes,
and carried on in the midst of strange domestic mismanagement. The
English Government at Calcutta, left without the guiding hand of Clive,
soon drifted into fresh quarrels with the natives. Mr. Vansittart was
left as governor, and already, in 1760, he had thought it desirable to
remove Meer Jaffier, the Company's creature, from the throne of
Moorshedabad, and replace him by Meer Cossim, his son-in-law. The step
was an unwise one. The new viceroy was of less malleable materials than
his predecessor, and speedily came to look with great anger at the
constant breaches of the revenue laws perpetrated by the English
traders. He quarrelled especially with a gentleman who occupied the
advanced factory of Patna high up the Ganges. To be out of the influence
of Calcutta, he withdrew his capital from Moorshedabad to Monghir, and
all seemed tending towards war. It was in vain that Mr. Vansittart went
himself to Monghir, arranged for the payment of inland duties, and
received as a sign of peace a present of £70,000. An embassy sent from
Calcutta to complete the pacification was fallen on and murdered at
Moorshedabad, and under the circumstances war became inevitable. The
advance of the English was rapid and triumphant; Moorshedabad fell, and
after a nine days' siege Monghir itself was taken. The Nabob found it
necessary to fly, but before he fled, with the assistance of a renegade
Frenchman called Sombre, he committed a crime similar to that of the
Black Hole of Calcutta. On the 5th October 1763 the whole of the English
residents of the Patna factory (150 in number), enclosed within their
prison walls, were shot down or cut to pieces, and their mangled remains
thrown into two wells. One alone escaped. The Rajah and his instrument
Sombre fled into the district of a neighbouring nabob, Sujah Dowlah of
Oude, at whose court was tarrying, in a condition between exile and
prisoner, the Mogul Shah Allum, who had been driven from his throne at
Delhi by the advance of the Mahrattas. Sujah Dowlah had been appointed
vizier, and virtually wielded all the power that was left to the
descendants of the Moguls. With these allies Sujah Dowlah advanced to
meet the English, and suffered, on the 23rd of October, at Buxar, higher
up the river than Patna, a terrible defeat at the hands of Major Munro.
The fruit of the victory was the person of Shah Allum himself, and
backed now by his authority, the English pressing on in their victorious
course, the following year entered Allahabad, the chief city of Oude.
[Sidenote: Maladministration of the Company.]
[Sidenote: Clive returns to India. May 1765.]
Victory in war and increased dominion had only increased the
maladministration of the India Company, which reached such a pitch, that
in 1765 it became necessary again to despatch Clive to the scene of
action. This was not done without the most vigorous opposition. Two
great parties had long divided the India House in London. Mr. Sullivan
had for some time exercised a paramount authority there. Clive had
appeared as his rival. Both parties lavished their wealth in creating
votes, and a factious struggle arose in the heart of the Company. At
length the general voice seemed to declare that Clive alone could
restore order in the mismanaged Presidency. Clive saw his opportunity.
He publicly refused to go out as long as Sullivan occupied the place of
chairman of the Court of Directors. The proprietors were so frightened
by this threat, that when the day of election of directors arrived,
Sullivan found himself unable to carry more than half of his list of
directors, and Clive's friends were triumphant. He was sent out with
full powers, and authorized to override the opinion of the Council,
although usually the governor was entitled to only one vote. The
struggle for bribes and ill-gotten gain was carried on to the moment of
his arrival. Only a few days before he landed the viceroyalty of Bengal
had been sold, contrary to all justice, to the illegitimate son of Meer
Jaffier for £140,000. But the scene was speedily changed. In two days
Clive and the Committee who accompanied him had mastered the state of
affairs and declared their dictatorial authority. At the dread of his
name alone Sujah Dowlah sought peace. He compelled Meer Cossim and his
agent Sombre, who had organized the massacre of Patna, to leave his
dominions, and a treaty was made in accordance with Clive's view, that
for the present it was better to strengthen than increase our dominions.
By this treaty Sujah Dowlah retained his provinces, surrendering only
the districts of Corah and Allahabad, which were given as an imperial
dominion to Shah Allum. In return the provinces of Bengal, Orissa, and
Bahar, were granted for all administrative purposes to the Company, who
thus became nominal as well as real princes of India. The Nabob of
Bengal was pensioned with a yearly income. This was the beginning of a
system which played a great part in our Indian history. By this means
the Company were secured a revenue of two millions. But even yet Clive
thought it imprudent to place the administration in European hands, and
selected as native Prime Minister a Mahommedan, Mahomed Reza Khan. This
choice was made deliberately, in spite of the claims of Nuncomar, the
chief of the Bengal Brahmins. The rivalry between these two chiefs bore
notable fruit afterwards. Having settled our difficulties with the
natives, Clive turned to domestic reforms; he deprived the military of a
large allowance, called "double batta," which they had received from
Meer Jaffier, and quelled, with incomparable vigour and sagacity, a
mutiny which arose in consequence; he forbade civilians to receive
presents from the native princes, and restrained officials from engaging
in private trading, while he himself set an admirable example of
disinterestedness. Unfortunately he was unable to superintend the
execution of his plans, but was compelled by ill health to return to
England (Jan. 1767).
[Sidenote: Affairs in Madras; rise of Hyder Ali.]