BRITISH INDIA.
When Pitt resigned office in 1801, the Marquis Wellesley had already
reached the climax, though by no means the close, of his brilliant
proconsulate. This remarkable man, whose fame has been unduly eclipsed
by that of his younger brother, may justly be considered the second
founder of our Indian Empire. This empire, recognised at last, in the
vote of thanks passed by the house of commons on the fall of
Seringapatam, was soon to be aggrandised by three important accessions
of dominion. The first of these was the annexation of the Karnátik on
the well-founded plea that its nabob was too weak even for the semblance
of independence, that he was incapable of governing tolerably, and that
he had been in correspondence with Tipú. The effect of this and two
minor annexations was to place the entire south-western and
south-eastern coasts of the Indian peninsula under the British rule. The
next step was the system of subsidiary treaties, whereby the British
government assumed a protectorate over native states, providing a fixed
number of troops for their defence and receiving an equivalent in
subsidies. The Nizám of Haidarábád was already in a condition little
removed from vassalage, and now surrendered considerable districts in
lieu of a pecuniary tribute.
A similar course was taken with the Nawáb Wazír of Oudh whose territory
was threatened on one side by the Afghán king, Zemán Sháh, and on
another by the Maráthá lord, Daulat Ráo Sindhia, who had gained
possession of Delhi. By forcible negotiations Wellesley obtained from
him the cession of all his frontier provinces, including Rohilkhand, and
consolidated the power of the Indian government along the whole line of
the Jumna and Ganges. The last and greatest object of the
governor-general's ambition was the conquest of the confederate Maráthá
states, and for this a pretext was not long wanting. His forward policy,
it is true, had already excited alarm and criticism at home, while the
peace of Amiens had ostensibly removed the chief justification of
it--the necessity of combating the aggressive designs of France. But, in
the case of India, far more than of the American colonies, "months
passed and seas rolled between the order and the execution"; for in
those days ships conveying despatches occupied at least four or five
months on their voyage, and decisions taken in Leadenhall Street might
be utterly stultified by accomplished facts before they could be read in
Calcutta.
[Pageheading: _WELLESLEY AND LAKE._]
The Peshwá, at Poona, still maintained a show of independent authority
over the other great Maráthá chieftains, Sindhia, Holkar, and the Rájá
of Nágpur or Berár. But the real military power of the Maráthás rested
with these leaders, and their predatory troops of horsemen terrorised
all Central India. Happily for Wellesley's purpose, they were often at
feud with each other, and the Peshwá, though aided by Sindhia, was
utterly defeated by Jaswant Ráo Holkar. He fled to Bassein near Bombay,
where, on December 31, 1802, a treaty was signed by which not only the
Peshwá but the Nizám of Haidarábád was placed under British protection.
The Peshwá was conducted back to Poona by a British force under Arthur
Wellesley in May, 1803, but the other Maráthá chiefs naturally resented
this fresh encroachment on their independence, and a league was shortly
formed between the Rájá of Nágpur and Sindhia, which it was hoped that
Holkar would ultimately join. By this time, a rupture of the peace with
France was known to be impending, and Lord Wellesley eagerly seized the
opportunity to crush Sindhia, while he urged the home government to
seize the Cape of Good Hope and the Mauritius. Two expeditions were
directed against Sindhia's territory, the one under Arthur Wellesley,
moving from Poona in the west towards the Nizám's frontier; the other,
under General Lake, operating on the north-west against the highly
trained forces, under French officers, assembled before Delhi. Both
campaigns were eminently successful. Wellesley captured Ahmadnagar on
August 11, encountered the combined armies of Sindhia and the Rájá of
Nágpur at Assaye on September 23, and, after a desperate conflict,
obtained a decisive victory. Twelve hundred of the Maráthás were left
dead on the field and 102 guns were captured. He then advanced into
Berár and completely defeated the army of the Nágpur Rájá at Argáum.
Lake marched from Cawnpur, took Delhi and Agra, assuming custody of the
Mughal emperor, and inflicted a final defeat on a powerful Maráthá army,
no longer under French officers, at Laswári. Large cessions of territory
followed. The treaty of Bassein was recognised by Sindhia and the Rájá
of Nágpur. Gujrát, Cuttack, and the districts along the Jumna passed
into British possession, and the East India Company became the visible
successor, though nominally the guardian, of the Mughal emperor.
Meanwhile, Holkar remained a passive spectator of the contest. Jealous
as he was of Sindhia, he was by no means prepared to acquiesce in the
subjection of the great Maráthá power. Having taken up a threatening
position in Rájputána, and defied Lake's summons to retire, he was
treated as an enemy, and proved a very formidable enemy. Instead of
relying, like Sindhia, on disciplined battalions, he fell back on the
old Maráthá tactics, and swept the country with hordes of irregular
cavalry who lived by pillage. In 1804 a British force of 1,200 troops
under Colonel Monson was lured away from its base of supplies by a
feigned retreat and incurred a very serious reverse; scarcely a tenth of
them, utterly broken, "straggled, a mere rabble, into Agra". This
disaster was soon afterwards retrieved by other divisions of Lake's
army, but three attempts to storm the strong fortress of Bhartpur were
repulsed by the rájá, Ranjít Singh, an ally of Holkar. Though Holkar's
bands were at last dispersed, a new dispute arose with Sindhia about the
ownership of Gwalior and Gohad, which remained unsettled when Lord
Wellesley resigned early in 1805, not so much because his policy was
disapproved by the court of directors, for whom he always professed a
sovereign contempt, as because he was no longer cordially supported by
the home government.
In his despatch to the secret committee of the East India Company after
the conclusion of the war with Sindhia, Wellesley describes the
consolidation of the British empire and the pacification of all India,
as the supreme result of his beneficent rule.[138] That rule was
followed by ten years of comparative repose, if not of reaction, but two
events, occurring within this period, threw a significant light on the
inherent danger of relying too much on a native army under British
officers. Sepoy regiments had been raised and had served loyally on both
sides in the struggles between the French and English during the
eighteenth century. The Bengal sepoys were mostly Rájputs and showed the
highest military qualities in many a wearisome march and hard fought
field, from the days of Clive to those of Lake and Arthur Wellesley. But
outbreaks bordering upon mutiny had occasionally taken place in the
native armies of all the presidencies, and on July 10, 1806, a most
formidable mutiny, ending in a massacre at Vellore, west of Madras,
produced a sense of insecurity throughout all India. It was instigated
by the family of Tipú who had been quartered in that fortress, and its
immediate origin was the issue of certain vexatious regulations about
uniform which offended native prejudices of caste. The European force,
numbering some 370, was surprised and surrounded by a much larger body
of sepoys, half of them were killed or wounded, and Tipú's standard was
hoisted. Within a few hours, however, cavalry and artillery arrived from
Arcot, the mutineers were slaughtered by hundreds, and the disaffected
regiments were broken up. Three years later, a serious mutiny broke out
among the company's own officers at Madras, caused by a petty grievance
affecting their profits on tent-contracts. It was appeased rather than
suppressed, and, notwithstanding these discouraging symptoms of
insecurity, the Company's army retained its separate organisation for
half a century longer.
[Pageheading: _MINTO'S PACIFIC POLICY._]
Lord Cornwallis, the successor of Lord Wellesley, was opposed by
conviction to a progressive expansion of British territory, and
represented not only the cautious views of the home government, but the
financial anxieties of the East India Company, which always valued a
steady revenue more highly than imperial supremacy. Wellesley had
virtually reconstructed the map of India on lines destined to endure
until a fresh period of annexation set in some forty years later. These
lines were not disturbed by Cornwallis, who died on October 5, 1805,
three months after his arrival, but he clearly indicated his desire to
let the system of protectorates and subsidiary treaties fall gradually
into abeyance. His correspondence with Lake, whose victories had won him
the rank of baron, contains a somewhat peremptory warning against fresh
engagements contemplated by that enterprising officer, whose vigorous
remonstrance he did not live to receive.[139] Sir George Barlow, who
became acting governor-general for two years, adopted the same passive
attitude, and forebore to carry out a projected alliance with Sindhia,
though he would not allow any interference with our paramount influence
at Poona and Haidarábád. Lord Minto, father of the Earl of Minto who
presided at the admiralty under Melbourne, arrived as governor-general
in 1807. He was imbued with similar ideas, and was fortunate in finding
the Maráthás too much weakened to be dangerous neighbours. His rule was,
therefore, essentially pacific, but he did good service in maintaining
internal order, and especially in putting down the organised brigandage,
known as "dakáiti," which had been the curse of rural districts. The
distinctive feature of his career, however, was a permanent enlargement
of the horizon of Indian statesmanship to a sphere beyond the confines
of India and even of Asia, a change due to new movements in the vast
international conflict then engrossing the energies of Europe.
However chimerical the designs of Napoleon against British India may now
appear, there is no doubt that such designs were seriously entertained
by him, nor is it self-evident that what Alexander the Great found
possible would have proved impossible to one who combined with
Alexander's superhuman audacity the command of resources beyond anything
known in the ancient world. At all events, after the battle of Friedland
and the peace of Tilsit, an expedition to be launched from Russian
territory upon the north-west frontier of India, with the support of
Persia on the flank, became a contingency which an Indian
governor-general could not afford to neglect. It is, indeed, strange
that a march across Europe and half of Asia should have appeared to
Napoleon more practicable than a voyage across the English Channel, and
it is highly improbable that he would have cherished the idea of it, if
he could have foreseen the perils of the Russian expedition. But his
conversations at St. Helena prove that it was not a mere vision but a
half-formed design, and, even after it had been discouraged by Russia,
he sent a preliminary mission to Persia. Minto lost no time in sending
counter-missions, not only to Tihran, but to Lahore, Afghánistán, and
Sind.
The Persian court was already in diplomatic relations with the Indian
government. Colonel Malcolm, afterwards Sir John Malcolm, had been sent
by Wellesley as envoy to the sháh at the end of 1800, and in January,
1801, a treaty had been signed, establishing free trade between India
and Persia, and binding the sháh to exclude the French from his
dominions, while the company undertook to provide ships, troops, and
stores, in case of French invasion. This treaty, however, neither was
nor could have been actively carried out on either side. Early in 1806
the sháh, who had become embroiled with Russia, appealed to Calcutta for
aid, regardless of the fact that hostilities with Russia were not a
_casus foederis_. Failing to obtain it, he appealed to France.
Napoleon despatched General Gardane, who arrived in December, 1807. He
obtained a treaty under which the sháh engaged to banish all Englishmen
on demand of the French emperor. Thereupon Malcolm was entrusted by
Minto with a fresh mission, but never reached the Persian capital, where
French influence was still paramount, and the peremptory tone of
Malcolm's letters was resented. Meanwhile, Sir Harford Jones had been
sent out by the British foreign office, and was received at Tihran in
February, 1809, the peace of Tilsit having destroyed the Persian hope of
French support against Russia. For a while, the right of negotiating
with the sháh was in dispute between the Indian government and the
foreign office, and Sir John Malcolm reappeared at Tihran in the spring
of 1810, as the representative of the former. In the end, however, he
co-operated loyally with Jones, and a fresh treaty was signed, though
both these rival emissaries were soon afterwards superseded by Sir Gore
Ouseley as permanent ambassador.
[Pageheading: _ELPHINSTONE IN AFGHÁNISTÁN._]
Two other envoys selected by Minto left names which are famous in
Anglo-Indian history, and one achieved an important success. Charles
Metcalfe, Minto's envoy to Lahore, succeeded with the advantage of an
armed force within easy reach of the Sikh frontier, in converting into
an ally the redoubtable Ranjít Singh (not to be confounded with Ranjít
Singh of Bhartpur), who had gathered into his own hands the Sikh
confederacy and acquired sovereignty over the whole Punjab. He was now
induced not only to accept the Sutlej river as the boundary line of his
dominion, but to conclude a treaty of perpetual amity with the British
government. This treaty remained unbroken until his death, and stood us
in good stead during the perilous crisis of the first Afghán war. The
embassy of Mountstuart Elphinstone to Afghánistán was comparatively
fruitless, chiefly owing to the unsettled state of that mysterious
country. Sháh Shujá, its titular amír, so far from being in a condition
to resist French invasion, had lost possession of Kábul and Kandahár,
and was only anxious to obtain British aid against his elder brother
Mahmúd. Elphinstone, of course, had no authority to entangle the Company
in a civil war far beyond the Indian frontier and was obliged to content
himself with a worthless treaty empowering Great Britain to defend
Afghánistán against France. This treaty had scarcely been ratified when
Sháh Shujá himself was driven into exile, to play an ignoble part thirty
years later in the great tragedy of the first Afghán war.
However pacific Minto's policy was, he did not shut his eyes to the
necessity of guarding the coasts and commerce of India against the enemy
who still dominated Europe, and had not wholly abandoned his visions of
eastern conquest. We have seen already that the "half way" naval station
at the Cape of Good Hope had been retaken from the Dutch in 1806, the
year in which the Berlin decree was issued. In 1810 the French were
expelled from Java by an expedition despatched under Minto's orders,
though it was soon to be restored to Holland. In the same year the
islands of Mauritius and Bourbon were captured from the French and the
sea route to India was finally secured. Lord Minto, who was recalled in
1813 and raised to the dignity of an earl, left India after six years of
peaceful government in a state of tranquillity such as it had never
before enjoyed, and the settlement of the country under British
suzerainty appeared to have been assured. Yet the seeds of fresh trouble
were already working, and his successor was to prove himself a second
Wellesley, and add new territories of great extent to British India.
Lord Moira, better known by his later title as Marquis of Hastings,
displayed qualities as governor-general of which his previous career had
given no indication. He had already proved himself a good soldier, but
he was a court favourite as well as a somewhat impracticable politician,
and owed his appointment to other influences than his own merit. His
arrival in India nearly coincided with the charter of 1813, which threw
open the India trade, and virtually ushered in a new social era. He was
at once confronted with an empty treasury, on the one hand, and, on the
other, with alarming reports both from the northern frontier and from
the central provinces, still under independent princes of doubtful
fidelity. The earlier part of his nine years' residence in India was
engrossed by most harassing operations against the Nepálís and the
Pindárís, but these operations resulted in perfect success, and Hastings
was able to show before he left India that he was eminent alike in civil
and in military administration.
The mountainous region of Nepál, lying on the slopes of the Himálayas
north of Bengal and Oudh, had been occupied by the warlike nation, still
known as the Gúrkhas, whose capital was at Khátmándu. Like the Maráthás,
they had been in the habit of pillaging British territory as well as
Oudh, and when part of Oudh was annexed by Wellesley, frontier disputes
were added to former grounds of hostility. Minto remonstrated with them
sharply but in vain, and Moira lost no time in declaring war against
them. The first campaign of 1814, which followed, though skilfully
conceived by Moira, who held the office of commander-in-chief, was
carried out with little generalship, and was marked by disasters highly
damaging to British prestige. Three out of four armies launched against
the hill-tribes met with serious reverses, chiefly due to a contempt for
the enemy, and a persistence in making frontal assaults on strong
positions without practicable breaches, which have proved so fatal in
many a later conflict between British troops and undisciplined foes.
During the cold season, however, on the extreme north-west, the cautious
but irresistible advance of General Ochterlony penetrated the hill
ranges which had baffled all the other commanders, and retrieved the
fortunes of the war. The Gúrkhas were far, indeed, from being subdued,
but Ochterlony's success among their strongest fastnesses, aided by
that of Colonels Gardner and Nicholls in the district of Kumáun,
induced them to sue for peace, and offer territorial cessions. The loss
of the Tarái, or belt of forest interspersed with pastures at the foot
of the Himálayas, was the most onerous of the conditions imposed upon
them by the treaty of Almora, signed in 1815. Rather than submit to it,
the Gúrkha chiefs refused to ratify the treaty, and resumed their arms.
After two defeats, however, in February, 1816, they abandoned further
resistance, and Moira afterwards wisely consented to a modification of
the frontier-line. Retaining but a remnant of their dominions in the
lowlands, the Gúrkhas have ever since preserved their independence with
their military training in the highlands, and have contributed some of
the best fighting material to the British army in India.
[Pageheading: _THE PINDÁRÍS._]
While the war in Nepál was still undecided, fresh troubles broke out in
Central India, where Wellesley's settlement had left no permanent
security for peace. The very submission of the great Maráthá powers had
set free large bands of irregular troops, with no livelihood but
pillage, and ever ready, like the Italian _condottieri_ of the later
middle ages, to enlist in the service of any aggressive state. These
mounted freebooters, now called the Pindárís, were secretly encouraged
by the Maráthá chiefs, who looked upon them as useful auxiliaries in the
future, either against the government of India or against other native
princes. Several of these still remained in a more or less dependent but
restless condition, and the great leaders of the Maráthá confederacy,
Sindhia, Malhár Ráo Holkar, son and successor of Jaswant Ráo, the
Peshwá, and the Rájá of Nágpur, retained a large share of their former
sovereignty. Of these subject-allies, the one most directly under
British guidance and protection was the Peshwá, but even he took
advantage of hostile movements among his neighbours to join in a
combination against British rule, supported by the predatory raids of
the Pindárís. He had long been discontented with the subordinate
position which he had occupied since the treaty of Bassein. The
assassination in 1815 of an envoy of the Gáekwár of Baroda, who had been
sent to Poona on a special mission under British guarantees, nearly
provoked hostilities. But in June, 1817, a treaty was concluded, by
which the Peshwá accepted an increased subsidiary force, ceded part of
his territory, renounced his suzerainty over the Gáekwár and undertook
to submit all further disputes to the decision of the British
government. In November, however, chafing under the restrictions imposed
by this treaty, he broke out into hostility, burnt the British
residency, and after vainly attacking the British troops, fled from
Poona. Almost simultaneously Holkar and the Rájá of Nágpur rose. Holkar
was defeated in a pitched battle at Mehidpur in Málwá, while the sepoys
successfully held their own against the Rájá's troops at Nágpur. The
fugitive Peshwá was energetically pursued, and captured, and was
stripped of his dominions. The greater part of these was annexed by the
East India Company, but a portion was reserved for the heir of the old
Maráthá kings who was established at Sátára. The Rájá of Nágpur was also
compelled to cede a large portion of his dominions, and at the same time
the Company acquired the overlordship of Rájputána. Henceforth, the
British government claimed a control over all the foreign relations of
native Indian states, whose internal government was to be carefully
watched by a British resident, and whose military forces were to be
practically under the supreme command of the paramount power.
[Pageheading: _THE END OF THE PINDÁRÍS._]
Lord Moira, created Marquis of Hastings in 1816, was at last free to
hunt down the Pindárís, with the sullen acquiescence of the Maráthá
governments, and he executed his task with extraordinary vigour. He
would have undertaken it, at the instigation of Metcalfe, then resident
at Delhi, a year earlier, but for the peremptory orders of Canning, at
that time president of the board of control, who positively forbade him
to embark on a new war. These orders were greatly relaxed after the
bloodthirsty raid of Chítu, the famous Pindárí leader, who in 1816
desolated vast tracts of Central India. Still no effective action
against the Pindárís was possible until the Maráthá lords who harboured
and encouraged them had been crippled and overawed. With their
connivance, a second Pindárí raid, accompanied by shocking cruelties,
was made in the same year, but in 1817, when Holkar's followers were
severely defeated at Mehidpur, the secret coalition between these
bandits and our nominal allies was thoroughly broken up. Even then it
proved a most difficult enterprise to root out the Pindárís, who were
not a race, or a tribe, or a sect, but bands of lawless men of all
faiths; for they met and vanished like birds of the air, outstripping
regular cavalry by the length and rapidity of their marches, and
carrying off their booty almost under the eyes of their pursuers. But
the resolute tactics of Hastings prevailed in the end. Amír Khán, their
most powerful leader, disbanded his troops; and hemmed in on all sides,
cut off from every place of shelter, and chased by successive
detachments of horsemen almost as fleet as his own, Chítu became a
hopeless fugitive, with a handful of faithful adherents, who shared his
desperate efforts to escape, but advised him to surrender. He could not
bring himself to do so, possessed, it is said, with an unspeakable
horror of being transported across "the black sea," and he actually
remained at large or in hiding for a year after his lair was discovered.
Nor was he ever captured, for, by a strange fate, this ruthless scourge
of the Deccan, after baffling human vengeance, found his last refuge in
a jungle and died, a tiger's prey. By this time, all the wild bands
which sprung into existence out of the Maráthá war had been extirpated
or dispersed, and after the year 1818 the dreaded name of Pindárí was
heard no more in history.
The suppression of civil war and anarchy in Central India, which
completed the work of Wellesley, was the greatest achievement of
Hastings. One remarkable incident of it was a portentous outbreak of
cholera in 1817, during a campaign in Gwalior conducted by Hastings in
person. There had been several minor visitations of this disease in
India. But it now first established itself as an endemic disease, and it
has ever since infested the valley of the Ganges. So virulent was its
onslaught, and so fearful the mortality in Hastings' army, that it was
only saved by shifting its quarters, and the governor-general himself
made preparations for his own secret burial, in case he should be among
the victims. As we have seen already,[140] it was propagated from this
centre through other regions of Asia, until it spread to Western Europe,
and the "Asiatic cholera" of 1831-32 may be lineally traced back to the
last Maráthá war.
The position of Hastings in Indian history closely resembles that of
Wellesley. Disregarding the instructions of the board of control, as
well as of the board of directors, he forced upon them, like Wellesley,
a large extension of their empire. But it cannot be doubted that his
policy, dictated by exigencies beyond the ken of authorities sitting in
London, was eminently successful and beneficent in its results. It went
far to establish a "Pax Britannica" in the Indian Peninsula, and, if it
took little account of dynastic rights, it broke the rod of oppression,
and relieved millions upon millions from tyranny and intimidation which
overshadowed their whole lives. He retired in 1823, after seven years'
tenure of office, and died in 1826 as governor of Malta. Canning had
been designated as his successor, and, having accepted the post, was on
the eve of starting for Calcutta, when the tragical death of Castlereagh
recalled him to the foreign office, and opened to him the most brilliant
stage in his career. Thereupon Lord Amherst was appointed
governor-general, with every prospect of a pacific vice-royalty, whereas
it is now chiefly remembered for the annexation of new provinces on the
south-east of Bengal, and the capture of Bhartpur.
[Pageheading: _THE FIRST BURMESE WAR._]
The first Burmese war arose out of persistent aggressions by the new
kingdom of Ava or Burma on what is now the British province of Assam,
but was then an independent, though feeble, state. There had been
earlier frontier disputes between the Indian government and Burma about
the districts lying eastward of Chittagong along the Bay of Bengal, but
it was not until Burma conquered Arakan, invaded Assam, and occupied
passes on the north-east overlooking the plains of Bengal, that serious
action was felt to be necessary. Indeed, while Hastings was engaged with
the war in Nepál and the suppression of the Pindárís, even he was in no
mood to embark on a fresh campaign beyond the borders of India. The
incursions of the Burmese, however, became more and more threatening
both on the coast line and on the mountains above the Brahmaputra river,
and in February, 1824, Amherst resolved to check the extension of their
dominion. Notwithstanding the experience recently gained in Nepál, the
first operations of the Anglo-Indian troops were conducted with little
knowledge of the country, and met with very doubtful success. Rangoon
was easily captured, but the expedition was disabled from advancing up
the river Irawadi by the want of adequate supplies and the deadliness of
the climate. Part of the Tenasserim coast was subdued, but a British
force was defeated in Arakan. These reverses were retrieved in the
following year, 1825, when one army under Sir Archibald Campbell made
its way up the river to Prome, while another army conquered Arakan, and
a third, moving along the valley of the Brahmaputra, established itself
in Assam. The Burmese now abandoned further resistance. Assam, Arakan,
and the Tenasserim provinces were ceded to the company, whose
protectorate was also recognised over other territories upon the course
of the Brahmaputra. It was not until February, 1826, that the King of
Ava could be induced to sign the treaty embodying these cessions, and
many years were to elapse before the port of Rangoon was opened to
British commerce.
The strong fortress of Bhartpur, in the east of Rájputána, and near to
Agra, had acquired an unique importance, in the eyes of all India by its
successful resistance to Lake's assaults during the Maráthá war of 1805.
It was still held until 1825 by its own petty rájá, the son of Ranjít
Singh, who remained on terms of respectful amity with the Indian
government, though his little principality was a notorious focus of
native disaffection. In that year he died, and his child, after being
acknowledged by the Indian government as his successor, was forcibly
ousted by a usurper. Sir David Ochterlony, the hero of the Nepálese war,
then resident in Málwá and Rájputána, undertook to support the
legitimate heir, but was overruled by orders from Amherst. On his
resignation he was succeeded by Metcalfe, who had become Sir Charles
Metcalfe by his brother's death in 1822, and who now obtained authority
to carry out Ochterlony's policy, if necessary, by armed intervention.
As negotiation failed, Lord Combermere, as commander-in-chief, proceeded
to reduce the virgin fortress, not by the slow process of siege, but by
a well-organised assault. Having cut off the water supply, and mined the
mud walls, he poured in a storming party and overpowered the garrison.
The feat was probably not so great, from a military point of view, as
many that have left no record, but its effect on the superstitious
native mind was prodigious, especially as it nearly coincided with the
victorious issue of the Burmese war. Nevertheless, Amherst was shortly
afterwards recalled, and left India in 1828. His annexation of Burmese
territory and the increase of expenditure under his rule displeased both
the Company and the home government, so often foiled in the attempt to
enforce a pacific and economical policy. His successor was Lord William
Bentinck, who had been compelled to retire from the governorship of
Madras after the mutiny of Vellore.
Like Hastings, Bentinck showed a firmness and wisdom in his Indian
administration strongly contrasting with the restless self-assertion of
his earlier career. His lot was cast in an interval of tranquillity
after a long period of warfare, and his name is associated with internal
reforms and social progress in India, not unconnected with a like
movement in England. The measure upon which his fame chiefly rests was
the abolition of "satí," that is, the practice of Hindoo widows
sacrificing themselves by being burned alive on the funeral pile of
their husbands. This practice, which specially prevailed in Bengal, has
been explained by a false interpretation of certain texts in sacred
books of the Hindus, by the selfish eagerness of the husband's family to
monopolise all his property, and by the utterly desolate condition of a
childless widow in native communities. At all events, it was deeply
rooted in Hindu traditions, and no previous governor had dared to go
beyond issuing regulations to secure that the widow should be a willing
victim. Bentinck had the courage to act on the conviction that
inhumanity, however consecrated by superstition and priestcraft, has no
permanent basis in popular sentiment. With the consent of his council,
he prohibited "satí" absolutely, declaring that all who took any part in
it should be held guilty of culpable homicide; and the native population
acquiesced in its suppression.
But this was only one of Bentinck's reforms. Armed with peremptory
instructions from the home government, he effected large retrenchments
in the growing expenditure of the Indian services, both civil and
military, and a considerable increase in the Indian revenue. It may be
doubted whether one of these retrenchments, involving a strict revision
of officers' allowances known as "batta," was considerable enough to be
worth the almost mutinous discontent which it provoked. Another,
affecting the salaries of civilians, was aggravated, in their eyes, by
the admission of natives to "primary jurisdiction," in other words, by
enabling native judges to sit in courts of first instance. This
important change had been gradually introduced before the arrival of
Bentinck, but it was he who most boldly adopted the idea of governing
India in the interest and by the agency of the natives. On the other
hand, it was he who, supported by Macaulay's famous minute, but contrary
to official opinion in Leadenhall Street, issued the ordinance
constituting English the official language of India. In a like spirit,
he promoted the work of native education, partly for the purpose of
developing the political and judicial capacity of the higher orders
among the Hindus, but partly also for the purpose of making the English
language and literature the instrument of their elevation. He earnestly
desired to raise the standard of Indian civilisation, but he equally
desired to fashion it in an English mould.
[Pageheading: _THE EXTIRPATION OF "THAGÍ"._]
Under the rule of Bentinck, the revenue was largely augmented by a
reassessment of land in the north-western provinces, where an increasing
number of zamíndárs had fraudulently evaded the payment of rent, and by
the imposition of licence-duties on the growers of opium in Málwá, who
had carried on a profitable but illicit trade through foreign ports. But
the social benefit of the people was ever his first concern, and not the
least of his claims to their gratitude was the final extirpation of
"thagí". This institution was a secret association of highway robbers
and murderers who had plagued Central India almost as widely as the
roving troops of Pindárís. Their victims were travellers whom they
decoyed into their haunts, plundered, strangled, and buried on the spot.
For years they carried on their infamous trade with impunity, and no
member of the conspiracy had turned informer. At last, however, a clue
was found by a skilful and resolute agent of the government, and the
spell of mutual dread which held together the murderous confederacy was
effectually broken in India. Meanwhile, the same period of peaceful
development witnessed the execution of important public works, the
relaxation of restrictions on the liberty of the press, and a general
advance towards a more paternal despotism, coincident with the progress
of liberal ideas at home. These benign influences were favoured by the
continuance of peace and the maintenance of non-intervention, disturbed
only by the minor annexations of Cachar and Coorg, to which may be added
the assumption of direct control over Mysore.
When the charter of 1833 transformed the "company of British merchants
trading to the east" into the "East India Company," with administrative
powers only, Bentinck was in failing health, and he soon afterwards
returned home. On his resignation in 1835, Metcalfe became provisional
governor-general, but his liberal policy displeased the court of
directors, and Lord Heytesbury was selected by the short-lived
government of Peel as Bentinck's successor. Palmerston, however, on
resuming the foreign office, was believed to have used his influence to
set aside this nomination, and to procure the appointment of Lord
Auckland, then first lord of the admiralty. The supposed objection to
Heytesbury was his known sympathy with Russia, at a moment when distrust
of Russia's designs on the north-west frontier was about to become the
keynote of Anglo-Indian statesmanship. During the interregnum between
Bentinck's retirement and Auckland's accession, three more remedial
measures were carried into effect, the wisdom of which is not even yet
beyond dispute. These were the complete liberation of the Indian press,
the abolition of the exclusive privilege whereby British residents could
appeal in civil suits to the supreme court at Calcutta, and the definite
introduction of English text-books into schools for the people. For all
these reforms Macaulay was largely responsible, but the impulse had been
given by Bentinck, and was accelerated by Metcalfe.
During the years 1835-37 domestic affairs occupied much less space in
the counsels of Indian statesmen than schemes for counteracting the
growth of Russian influence at Tihran, and securing the predominance of
British influence in Afghánistán. For a time their anxiety was
concentrated on Herat, which the Sháh of Persia was besieging, with the
intention of penetrating into the heart of Afghán territory, while the
Afghán rulers themselves were suspected of secretly conspiring with
Persia against our ally, Ranjít Singh. Since Persia, having again lost
faith in British support, was drifting more and more into reliance on
Russia, this forward movement was regarded as the first step of the
Russian advance-guard towards India. The fate of India was felt to
depend on the defence of Herat under Pottinger, a young British officer,
who volunteered his services without instructions from home. The siege,
conducted under Russian officers, lasted ten months, and its ultimate
failure was hailed as a triumph of British policy, for Herat was
recognised, since the days of Alexander the Great, as the western gate
of India.
[Pageheading: _COMMUNICATION WITH INDIA._]
About the same time the question of a shorter route to India attracted
much attention both in Russia and in England. The first project was
that, ultimately adopted, of a sea passage by Malta to Alexandria, a
land transit across Egypt to Suez, and a second voyage by the Red Sea to
Indian ports. The alternative line was more properly described as an
"overland route," since it was proposed to make the journey from some
port in the eastern Levant across Syria and by the Euphrates to the
Persian Gulf. Colonel Chesney was sent out in 1835 as the pioneer of an
expedition by this route, and parliament twice voted money for its
development, but it was vigorously opposed by Russia, and abandoned as
impracticable owing to physical difficulties in navigating the
Euphrates, then considered as a necessary channel of communication with
the sea. The scheme has since been revived on a much grander scale in
the form of a projected railway traversing Asia Minor to Baghdad, and
running down the valley of the Tigris. In the meantime, the Red Sea
route, at first discredited, has far more than justified the hopes of
its promoters. With the aid of steam-vessels, since 1845, and of the
Suez Canal, since 1869, it has reduced the journey to India from a
period of four months to one of three weeks, and profoundly affected its
relations with Great Britain.
It would be well if the premature, but not unfounded, fear of Russian
invasion had produced no further effects on Anglo-Indian policy.
Unhappily, those who justly perceived the importance of Afghánistán, as
lying between Persia and the Punjab, were possessed with the delusion
that it would prove a more solid buffer as a British dependency than as
an independent state. In their ignorance of its internal condition and
the sentiments of its unruly tribes, the Indian government despatched
Sir Alexander Burnes to Kábul, nominally as a commercial emissary, but
not without ulterior objects. They could not have chosen a more capable
agent, for he added to a knowledge of several languages a minute
geographical acquaintance with Central Asia and an insight into the
character of its inhabitants which probably no other Englishman
possessed. He was to proceed by way of Sind to Pesháwar, and in passing
through Sind he received news of the siege of Herat, the significance
of which he was not slow to appreciate. Thenceforward his mission
inevitably assumed a political complexion, since the future of
Afghánistán became a practical question. His rash negotiations with Dost
Muhammad, the Amír of Kábul, and his brother at Kandahár, his return to
India, his second mission to Afghánistán in support of a policy which he
had deprecated, and his tragical death in the Kábul insurrection,--these
are events which belong to a later chapter of history. But, though
Burnes cannot be held responsible for the first Afghán war, there can be
no doubt that his travels in disguise through Central Asia, and
confidential reports on the border countries between the Russian and
British spheres of influence, were the immediate prelude to a campaign
the most ill-advised and the most disastrous ever organised by the
Indian government and sanctioned by that of Great Britain.
FOOTNOTES:
[138] Despatch of July 13, 1804, _Selection from Wellesley's
Despatches_, ed. Owen, pp. 436-41. See Sir A. Lyall, _British Dominion
in India_, p. 260.
[139] Cornwallis to Lake, Sept. 19, 1805, _Cornwallis Correspondence_,
iii., 547-55.
[140] See p. 310 above.