[1801-1808.]
France and Russia in the East—Death of Hadjee Khalil Khan—The Mission
of Condolence—Aga Nebee Khan—Extension of Russian Dominion in the
East—French Diplomacy in Persia—The pacification of Tilsit—Decline of
French influence in Teheran.
The intestine wars, which rent and convulsed the Afghan Empire, were a
source of acknowledged security to the British power in the East. From
the time when in the first year of the present century Captain Malcolm
dictated at the Court of Teheran the terms of that early treaty, which
French writers freely condemn, and Englishmen are slow to vindicate,
to the date of the romantic pacification of Tilsit, the politics of
Central Asia excited little interest or alarm in the Council-Chamber of
Calcutta. India had ceased to bestir itself about an Afghan invasion.
Instead of a shadowy enemy from beyond the Indus, the British had
now to face, on the banks of the Jumna, a real and formidable foe.
The genius of the two Wellesleys was called into action to curb the
insolence and crush the power of the Mahrattas; and whilst we were
alternately fighting and negotiating with Scindiah and Holkar, we
scarcely cared to ask who reigned in Afghanistan; or if accident made
us acquainted with the progress of events, viewed with philosophic
unconcern the vicissitudes of the Douranee Empire.
Engaged in the solution of more pressing political questions at
home, Lord Wellesley and his immediate successors bestowed little
thought upon the Persian alliance. Throughout the remaining years of
that nobleman’s administration, one event alone occurred to rouse
the Governor-General to a consideration of the temper of the Court
of Teheran. That event filled him with apprehensions of danger
preposterously incommensurate with its own importance, and ridiculously
falsified by the result. An accident, and a very untoward one, it
occurred at a time when the Indian Government had not yet recovered
from the inquietude engendered by their disturbing dreams of French
and Afghan invasion. The story may be briefly told. On the return of
Captain Malcolm from Persia, one Hadjee Khalil Khan had been despatched
to India to reciprocate assurances of friendship, and to ratify and
interchange the treaty. The mission cost the Hadjee his life. He had
not been long resident in Bombay,[26] when the Persian attendants of
the ambassador and the detachment of Company’s sepoys forming his
escort quarrelled with each other in the courtyard before his house,
and came into deadly collision. The Hadjee went out to quell the
riot, and was struck dead by a chance shot. The intelligence of this
unhappy disaster was brought round to Calcutta by a king’s frigate.
The sensation it created at the Presidency was intense. Every possible
demonstration of sorrow was made by the Supreme Government. Minute guns
were fired from the ramparts of Fort William. All levees and public
dinners at Government-House were suspended. Distant stations caught
the alarm from the Council-Chamber of Calcutta. The minor presidencies
were scarcely less convulsed. Bombay having previously thrown itself
into mourning, instructions for similar observances were sent round
to Madras; and two days after the arrival of the _Chiffone_ it was
announced in the Gazette that Major Malcolm, who was at that time
acting as private secretary to Lord Wellesley, had been directed to
proceed to Bombay, for the purpose of communicating with the relations
of the late Hadjee Khalil Khan, taking with him, as secretary, his
young friend and relative, Lieutenant Pasley, who had accompanied him
on his first mission to Persia. At the same time Mr. Lovett, a civilian
of no long standing, was ordered to proceed immediately to Bushire,
charged with an explanatory letter from Lord Wellesley to the Persian
king, and instructed to offer such verbal explanations as might be
called for by the outraged monarch. For some days nothing was thought
of in Calcutta beyond the circle of this calamitous affair. In other
directions a complete paralysis descended upon the Governor-General
and his advisers. The paramount emergency bewildered the strongest
understandings, and dismayed the stoutest hearts at the Presidency. And
yet it was said, not long afterwards, by the minister of Shiraz, that
“the English might kill ten ambassadors, if they would pay for them at
the same rate.”
Major Malcolm left Calcutta on the 30th of August, and beating down
the Bay of Bengal against the south-west monsoon, reached Masulipatam
on the 19th of September. Taking dawk across the country, he spent a
few days at Hyderabad in the Deccan, transacted some business there,
and then pushed on to Bombay. Reaching that Presidency on the 10th of
October, he flung himself into his work with characteristic energy
and self-reliance. Mr. Lovett, who had none of his activity, followed
slowly behind, and fell sick upon the road. Jonathan Duncan, the most
benevolent of men, was at that time Governor of Bombay, and some
members of the Persian embassy had presumed upon his good-nature to
assume an arrogance of demeanour which it now became Malcolm’s duty
to check. He soon reduced them to reason. Before the end of the month
every difficulty had vanished. Many of the Persians were personally
acquainted with the English diplomatist. All were acquainted with his
character. But above all, it was known that he was the bearer of the
public purse. He came to offer the mourners large presents and handsome
pensions from the Supreme Government, and it is no matter of surprise,
therefore, that he had soon, in his own words, “obtained from them a
confidence which enabled him to set aside all intermediate agents, and
consequently freed him from all intrigues.”[27]
It was arranged that the body of the deceased ambassador should be
put on board at the end of October, and that, a day or two later, the
vessel should set sail for the Persian Gulf. Mr. Pasley was directed
to attend the Hadjee’s remains, and was charged with the immediate
duties of the mission.[28] When the vessel reached Bushire, it was
found that the death of the Hadjee had created little sensation in the
Persian territories, and that before the intelligence was ten days old
it had been well-nigh forgotten. The Resident at Bushire, a Persian
of good family, naturalised in India, and employed by the Company—an
astute diplomatist and a great liar—had thought it necessary to testify
his zeal by circulating a false version of the circumstances attending
the death of the Hadjee, and calumniating the memory of the deceased.
There was no need, indeed, of this. The Persian Government seems to
have regarded the death of the Hadjee with exemplary unconcern; and
marvelled why the English should have made so great a stir about so
small a matter. If a costly British mission could have been extracted
out of the disaster, the Court would have been more than satisfied;
whilst they who were most deeply interested in the event, moved by the
same _sacra fames_, thought rather of turning it to profitable account
than of bewailing the death of their relative and friend.
The brother-in-law of the late envoy lost no time in offering his
services to fill the place of the deceased. The name of this man was
Aga Nebee Khan. He was the son, by a second connexion, of the mistress
of Mr. Douglas, chief of the Bussorah factory, and had been Mr. Jones’s
moonshee, on a monthly salary of thirty rupees. The Hadjee himself had
been a person of no consideration. Half-minister and half-merchant,
he had thought more of trading upon his appointment than of advancing
the interests of the state; and Nebee Khan, who had embarked with him
in his commercial speculations, now lusted to succeed his murdered
relative in his diplomatic office, as well as in the senior partnership
of the mercantile concern. And he succeeded at last. It cost him
time, and it cost him money to accomplish his purpose; but partly
by bribery, partly by cajolery, he eventually secured the object of
his ambition.[29] It was not, however, till three full years had
passed away since the death of the Hadjee, that his brother-in-law
reached Calcutta, “not exactly to fill his relative’s place, but to
exercise the triple functions of minister, merchant, and claimant of
blood-money, which he roundly assessed at twenty lakhs of rupees.”
And in those three years a great change had come over the Supreme
Government of India. A long war, prosecuted with extraordinary vigour,
had exhausted the financial resources of the state. The reign of
India’s most magnificent satrap—the “sultanised” Governor-General—was
at an end. A new ruler had been sent from England to carry out a new
policy; and that policy was fatal to the pretensions of such a man as
Nebee Khan.
He had fallen, indeed, upon evil times. Those were not days when
moneyed compensations were likely to be granted even to ambassadors,
or when there was any greater likelihood of an Indian statesman
embarrassing himself with distant engagements which might compel him
to advance an army into unknown regions, or send a fleet into foreign
seas. So there was nothing but disappointment in store for Nebee Khan.
In the month of October, 1805, the vessel bearing the ambassador sailed
into the harbour of Bombay. He was welcomed with all the formalities
befitting his station, and with every demonstration of respect. But a
series of untoward circumstances, like those which, in the reign of
our second James, delayed the public audience of Lord Castlemaine at
Rome, postponed, for the space of many months, the reception of Nebee
Khan at Calcutta. At length, on the 28th of April, 1806, the ceremony
of presentation took place. Sir George Barlow was then at the head of
the Indian Government. The Governor-General lined the public way with
soldiers, and sent the leading officers of the state to conduct the
merchant-minister to his presence. It was an imposing spectacle, and
a solemn farce. The Persian elchee knew that he had come to Calcutta
not to treat of politics, but of pice; and the English governor, while
publicly honouring the Persian, secretly despised him as a sordid
adventurer, and was bent upon baffling his schemes. At the private
interviews which took place between the British functionaries and Nebee
Khan, there was little mention of political affairs. There was a long
outstanding money account between the parties, and the settlement of
the account-current was the grand object of the mission. The Persian,
who thought that he had only to ask, found that times had changed since
the commencement of the century, and was overwhelmed with dismay when
the British secretary demonstrated to him that he was a debtor to our
government of more than a lakh of rupees. Satisfied with existing
relations of friendship between Persia and Great Britain, and never
at any time disposed to embarrass himself with unnecessary treaties,
Barlow declined to enter into new political negotiations, or to satisfy
the exorbitant personal claims of the representative of the Persian
Court. Nebee Khan left Calcutta a disappointed man. The speculation had
not answered. The investment had been a bad one. He had toiled for four
long years; he had wasted his time and wasted his money only to be told
at last, by an officious secretary, that he owed the British-Indian
Government a lakh and seven thousand rupees. In January, 1807, carrying
back a portfolio, not more full of political than his purse of
financial results, the ambassador left Calcutta. Neither the merchant
nor the minister had played a winning game. Compensation and treaties
were alike refused him; and he went back with empty hands.
In the mean while, the French had succeeded in establishing their
influence at the Court of Teheran.[30] They had long been pushing their
intrigues in that quarter, and now at last were beginning to overcome
the difficulties which had formerly beset them. The Malcolm treaty of
1800 bound the contracting parties to a defensive alliance against
France; but the terms of the treaty had been scarcely adjusted, when
French emissaries endeavoured to shake the fidelity of Persia by
large offers of assistance. The offers were rejected. The French were
told, in emphatic language, that “if Napoleon appeared in person at
Teheran, he would be denied admission to the centre of the universe.”
But, undaunted by these failures, they again returned to tempt the
embarrassed Persians. Every year increased the difficulties of the
Shah, and weakened his reliance on the British. He was beset with
danger, and he wanted aid. The British-Indian Government was either too
busy or too indifferent to aid him. The energetic liberality of the
French contrasted favourably with our supineness; and before the year
1805 had worn to a close, Persia had sought the very alliance and asked
the very aid, which before had been offered and rejected.
The assistance that was sought was assistance against Russia. In
1805, the Shah addressed a letter to Napoleon, then in the very
zenith of his triumphant career, seeking the aid of the great western
conqueror to stem the tide of Russian encroachment. For years had
that formidable northern power been extending its conquests to the
east-wards. Before the English trader had begun to organise armies in
Hindostan, and to swallow up ancient principalities, the grand idea
of founding an Eastern empire had been grasped by the capacious mind
of Peter the Great. Over the space of a century, under emperors and
empresses of varying shades of character, had the same undeviating
course of aggressive policy been pursued by Russia towards her eastern
neighbours. The country which lies between the Black Sea and the
Caspian was the especial object of Muscovite ambition. A portion of it,
occupied by a race of hardy, vigorous mountaineers, still defies the
tyranny of the Czar, and still from time to time, as new efforts are
made to subjugate it, new detachments of Russian troops are buried in
its formidable defiles. But Georgia, after a series of wars, notorious
for the magnitude of the atrocities which disgraced them, had been
wrested from the Persians before the close of the last century, and in
1800 was formally incorporated with the Russian Empire by the Autocrat
Paul.
These encroachments beyond the Caucasus brought Russia and Persia into
a proximity as tempting to the one as it was perilous to the other.
The first few years of the present century were years of incessant and
sanguinary strife. In the Russian Governor-General, Zizianoff, were
combined great personal energy and considerable military skill, with
a certain ferocity of character which seldom allowed him to display
much clemency towards the vanquished. A Georgian by extraction, and
connected by marriage with the princes of that country, he never forgot
the cruelties which had alienated for ever the hearts of the Georgian
people from their old Mahomedan masters. The restless aggressive spirit
of the great Muscovite power was fitly represented by this man. He was
soon actively at work. He entered Daghistan—defeated the Lesghees with
great slaughter—carried Ganja by assault, and massacred the garrison—a
second time defeated the Lesghees, after a sanguinary engagement;
and then returning to Tiflis, addressed the governors of Shamakhee,
Sheesha, and other fortresses to the north of the Aras, threatening
them with the fate of Ganja if they did not make instant submission in
compliance with the orders of the Russian monarch, who had instructed
him not to pause in his career of conquest until he had encamped his
army on the borders of that river.
In the spring of 1804, Abbas Mirza, the heir-apparent to the throne of
Persia, took the field at the head of a formidable army, and marched
down upon Erivan, the capital of Armenia. The governor refused to
abandon his charge, and when the prince prepared to attack him, called
the Russian general to his aid. The result was fatal to the Persian
cause. In the month of July, the army of the Crown-Prince of Persia
and the Russian and Georgian force under Zizianoff, twice encountered
each other, and twice the Persian army was driven back with terrible
loss. On the second occasion the rout was complete. Abbas Mirza lost
everything. Taking refuge in a small fort, he endeavoured to negotiate
terms with Zizianoff; but the Russian general told him haughtily, that
the orders of his sovereign were, that he should occupy all the country
along the Aras River, from Erivan to the borders of the Caspian, and
that he chafed under the instructions which confined his conquests to a
limit so far within the boundaries of his own ambition.
The disasters of the heir-apparent brought the king himself into the
field. Moving down with a large army to the succour of the prince,
he again encountered the Russian forces, but only to see his troops
sustain another defeat. Disheartened by these repeated failures, the
Persians then changed their tactics, and adopting a more predatory
style of warfare, harassed their northern enemy by cutting off his
supplies. The year being then far advanced, Zizianoff drew off his
forces, and prepared to prosecute the war with renewed energy in the
following spring. That spring was his last. An act of the blackest
treachery cut short his victorious career. He was conducting in
person the siege of Badkoo, when the garrison, making overtures of
capitulation, invited the Russian general to a conference for the
settlement of the terms. He went unattended to a tent that had been
pitched for his reception, and was deliberately set upon and slain by
a party of assassins stationed there for the bloody purpose. The King
of Persia, when the tidings reached him, grew wild with delight. In an
ecstasy of joy he published an inflated proclamation, setting forth
that he had achieved a great victory, and slain the celebrated Russian
commander. But other thoughts soon forced themselves upon the king and
his ministers. A black cloud was brooding over them—the retribution
of an outraged nation. A signal chastisement was expected. New armies
were looked for; new encroachments anticipated from the North; new
forfeitures of dominion seemed inevitable—the righteous result of an
act of such atrocious perfidy. Persia felt her weakness, and, in an
extremity which seemed to threaten her very existence, trusted to
foreign European aid to rescue her from the jaws of death.
It was at this time, when threatened with the vengeance of Russia,
that the Persian Court addressed a letter to Napoleon, then in the
full flush of unbroken success, seeking the aid of that powerful
chief. It was at this time, too, that Aga Nebee Khan commenced his
journey to India, and it is probable that if the Indian Government
had shown any disposition to aid the Persian monarch in his efforts
to repel the aggressions of the Muscovite, the French alliance would
have been quietly but effectually relinquished. But the supineness of
England was the opportunity of France. The Indian Government had left
the settlement of the Persian question to the Cabinet of St. James’s,
and the Cabinet had dawdled over it as a matter that might be left to
take care of itself. In this extremity, the Persian monarch forgot the
treaty with the British, or thought that the British, by deserting him
in his need, had absolved him from all obligations to observe it, and
openly flung himself into the arms of the very enemy which that treaty
so truculently proscribed.
In the autumn of 1805, an accredited French agent arrived at Teheran.
The result of the Indian mission was then unknown; and Colonel Romieu
was received with that barren courtesy which almost amounts to
discouragement. It would probably, too, have been so regarded by the
French envoy, had not death cut short his diplomatic career, after a
few days spent at Teheran, and a single audience of the king. But the
following spring beamed more favourably on the diplomacy of France. The
cold indifference of England had been ascertained beyond a doubt, and
the danger of Russian aggressiveness, now sharpened by revenge, was
becoming more and more imminent. All things conspired to favour the
machinations of the French; and they seized the opportunity with vigour
and address. Another envoy appeared upon the scene. Monsieur Jaubert
was received with marked attention and respect. He came to pave the
way for a splendid embassy, which Napoleon proposed to despatch to the
Persian Court. Overjoyed at these assurances of friendship, the king
eagerly grasped the proffered alliance. He was prepared to listen to
any proposal, so that his new allies undertook to co-operate against
his Russian enemies. He would join in an invasion of Hindostan, or,
in concert with the French, amputate any given limb from the body of
the Turkish Empire. There was much promise of aid on either side, and
for a time French counsels were dominant at the Persian capital. Two
years passed away, during which the emissaries of Napoleon, in spite
of accidental hindrances, contrived to gain the confidence of the
Court of Teheran. They declared that England was a fallen country—that
although protected for a time by its insular position, it must fall a
prey to the irresistible power of Napoleon—that, as nothing was to be
expected from its friendship, nothing was to be apprehended from its
enmity; and so, industriously propagating reports to our discredit,
they established themselves on the ruins of British influence, and for
a time their success was complete.
And so it happened, that when the British Governments in London and
Calcutta awoke almost simultaneously to the necessity of “doing
something,” they found a well-appointed French embassy established
at Teheran, under General Gardanne, an officer of high reputation,
whom even hostile diplomatists have delighted to commend; they found
a numerous staff of officers,[31] civil and military, with engineers
and artificers, prepared to instruct and drill the native troops, to
cast cannon, and to strengthen the defences of the Persian cities;
they found French agents, under the protection of duly constituted
_mehmendars_, visiting Gombroon, Bushire, and other places, surveying
the harbours of the gulf, and intriguing with the ambassadors of the
Ameers of Sindh. And it was pretty well ascertained that the invasion
of India by a French and Persian army was one of the objects of the
treaty, which, soon after the arrival of Gardanne at Teheran, was sent
home for the approval of Napoleon.
But a mighty change had, by this time, passed over the politics of
Europe. It was in July, 1807, that on a raft floating upon the bosom of
the River Niemen, near the city of Tilsit, in the kingdom of Prussia,
the Emperor Alexander and Napoleon Buonaparte, after a brief and bloody
campaign, embraced each other like brothers. In the short space of ten
days, fifty thousand of the best French and Russian troops had been
killed or disabled on the field of battle. Yet so little had been the
vantage gained by either party, that it is even to this day a moot
point in history, as it was in the contemporary records of the war,
whether the first peaceful overture was made by the Russian monarch
or the Corsican invader. Both powers eagerly embraced the opportunity
of repose; and in a few days the scene was changed, as by magic,
from one of sanguinary war and overwhelming misery to one of general
cordiality and rejoicing. The French and Russian soldiers, who a few
days before had broken each other’s ranks on the bloody plains of Eylau
and Friedland, now feasted each other with overflowing hospitality,
and toasted each other with noisy delight. Such, indeed, on both sides
was the paroxysm of friendship, that they exchanged uniforms one with
the other, and paraded the public streets of Tilsit in motley costume,
as though the reign of international fraternity had commenced in
that happy July. And whilst the followers of Alexander and Napoleon
were abandoning themselves to convivial pleasures, and the social
affections and kindly charities were in full play, those monarchs were
spending quiet evenings together, discussing their future plans, and
projecting joint schemes of conquest. It was then that they meditated
the invasion of Hindostan by a confederate army uniting on the plains
of Persia. Lucien Buonaparte, the brother of the newly-styled emperor,
was destined for the Teheran mission; and no secret was made of the
intention of the two great European potentates to commence, in the
following spring, a hostile demonstration “contre les possessions de la
Compagnie des Indes.”
But by this time both the British and the Indian Governments had
awakened from the slumbers of indifference in which they had so
long been lulled. They could no longer encourage theories of
non-interference whilst the most formidable powers in Europe were
pushing their conquests and insinuating their intrigues over the
countries and into the courts of Asia. Lord Minto had succeeded Sir
George Barlow as head of the Supreme Government of India. Naturally
inclined, as he was instructed, to carry out a moderate policy, and
to abstain as much as possible from entanglements with native rulers,
he would fain have devoted himself to the details of domestic policy,
and the replenishment of an exhausted exchequer. But the unsettled
state of our European relations compelled him to look beyond the
frontier. What he saw there roused him into action. It is observable
that statesmen trained in the cabinets and courts of Europe have ever
been more sensitively alive to the dangers of invasion from the North
than those whose experience has been gathered in the fields of Indian
diplomacy. Lord Wellesley and Lord Minto were ever tremulous with
intense apprehension of danger from without, whilst Sir John Shore and
Sir George Barlow possessed themselves in comparative confidence and
tranquillity, and, if they were not wholly blind to the peril, at all
events did not exaggerate it. There is a sense of security engendered
by long habit and familiarity with apparent danger, which renders a
man mistrustful of the reality of that which has so often been shown
to be a counterfeit. The inexperience of English statesmen suddenly
transplanted to a new sphere of action, often sees in the most ordinary
political phenomena strange and alarming portents. It is easy to be
wise after the event. We know now that India has never been in any
real danger from French intrigue or French aggressiveness; but Lord
Wellesley and Lord Minto saw with different eyes, and grappled the
shadowy danger as though it were a substantial fact. In those days such
extraordinary events were passing around us, that to assign the limits
of political probability was beyond the reach of human wisdom. The
attrition of great events had rubbed out the line which separates fact
from fiction, and the march of a grand army under one of Napoleon’s
marshals from the banks of the Seine to the banks of the Ganges did not
seem a feat much above the level of the Corsican’s towering career.
Rightly understood, the alliance between the two great continental
powers which seemed to threaten the destruction of the British Empire
in the East, was a source of security to the latter. But in 1807 it
was not so clearly seen that Persia was more easily to be conciliated
by the enemies, than by the friends, of the Russian Autocrat—that
the confederacy of Alexander and Napoleon was fatal to the Persian
monarch’s cherished hopes of the restitution of Georgia, and the
general retrogression of the Russian army; and that, therefore, there
was little prospect of the permanency of French influence at the Court
of Teheran. Forgetful as we were of this, the danger seemed imminent,
and only to be met by the most active measures of defence. To baffle
European intrigue, and to stem the tide of European invasion, it then
appeared to the British Indian Government expedient to enlace in one
great network of diplomacy all the states lying between the frontier
of India and the eastern points of the Russian Empire. Since India had
been threatened with invasion at the close of the last century, the
Afghan power had by disruption ceased to be formidable. We had formerly
endeavoured to protect ourselves against France on the one side, and
Afghanistan on the other, by cementing a friendly alliance with Persia.
It now became our policy, whilst endeavouring to re-establish our
influence in that country, to prepare ourselves for its hostility, and
to employ Afghanistan and Sindh as barriers against encroachments from
the West; and at the same time to increase our security by enlisting
against the French and Persian confederacy the friendly offices of
the Sikhs. That strange new race of men had by this time erected a
formidable power on the banks of the Sutlej, by the mutilation of the
Douranee Empire; and it was seen at once that the friendship of a
people occupying a tract of country so situated, and inspired with a
strong hatred of the Mahomedan faith, must, in such a crisis as had now
arrived, be an object of desirable attainment. Whilst, therefore, every
effort was to be made to wean the Court of Teheran from the French
alliance, preparations were commenced, in anticipation of the possible
failure of the Persian mission, for the despatch of British embassies
to the intervening countries.
The duty of negotiating with the Sikh ruler was entrusted to Mr.
Metcalfe, a civil servant of the Company, who subsequently rose to the
highest place in the government of India, and consummated a life of
public utility in a new sphere of action, as Governor-General of our
North American colonies. Mr. Elphinstone, another civil servant of the
Company, who still lives, amidst the fair hills of Surrey, to look back
with pride and contentment upon a career little less distinguished
than that of his contemporary, was selected to conduct the embassy to
the Court of the Douranee monarch. Captain Seton had been previously
despatched to Sindh; and Colonel Malcolm, who was at that time Resident
at Mysore, was now again ordered to proceed to the Persian Court,
charged with duties which had been rendered doubly difficult by our own
supineness, and the contrasted activity of our more restless Gallic
neighbours.