CHAPTER XV.

THE ENGLISH IN INDIA.—SYSTEM OF TERRITORIAL ACQUISITION.

“And Ahab came into his house, heavy and displeased,

because of the word which Naboth the Jezreelite had

spoken to him; for he had said, I will not give thee

the inheritance of my fathers. And he laid him down

upon his bed, and turned away his face, and would eat

no bread. But Jezebel his wife came to him and said

unto him, Why is thy spirit so sad that thou eatest no

bread? And he said unto her, Because I spoke unto Naboth

the Jezreelite, and said unto him, give me thy vineyard

for money; or else if it please thee, I will give thee

_another_ vineyard for it; and he answered I will not

give thee my vineyard.

“And Jezebel, his wife, said unto him, Dost thou now

govern the kingdom of Israel? Arise, and eat bread, and

let thine heart be merry; I will give thee the vineyard

of Naboth the Jezreelite.

* * * * *

“And the word of the Lord came to Elijah the Tishbite,

saying, Arise, go down to meet Ahab king of Israel, which

is in Samaria; behold he is in the vineyard of Naboth,

whither he is gone down to possess it. And thou shalt

speak unto him, saying, Thus saith the Lord, Hast thou

killed, and also taken possession?” _1 Kings_ xxi. 4-19.

The appearance of the Europeans in India, if the inhabitants could have

had the Bible put into their hands, and been told that that was the law

which these strangers professed to follow, must have been a curious

spectacle. They who professed to believe the commands that they

should not steal, covet their neighbour’s goods, kill, or injure—must

have been seen with wonder to be the most covetous, murderous, and

tyrannical of men. But if the natives could have read the declaration

of Christ—“By this shall men know that ye are my disciples, that

ye love one another,”—the wonder must have been tenfold; for never

did men exhibit such an intensity of hatred, jealousy, and vengeance

towards each other. Portuguese, Dutch, French, English, and Danes,

coming together, or one after the other, fell on each other’s forts,

factories, and ships with the most vindictive fury. They attacked each

other at sea or at land; they propagated the most infamous characters

of each other wherever they came, in order to supersede each other in

the good graces of the people who had valuable trading stations, or

were in possession of gold or pearls, nutmegs or cinnamon, coffee, or

cotton cloth. They loved one another to that degree that they were

ready to join the natives any where in the most murderous attempts

to massacre and drive away each other. What must have seemed most

extraordinary of all, was the English expelling with rigour those

of their own countrymen who ventured there without the sanction of

the particular trading company which claimed a monopoly of Indian

commerce. The rancour and pertinacity with which Englishmen attacked

and expelled Englishmen, was even more violent than that which they

shewed to foreigners. The history of European intriguers, especially

of the Dutch, Portuguese, English, and French, in the East, in which

every species of cruelty and bad faith have been exhibited, is one

of the most melancholy and humiliating nature. Those of the English

and French did not cease till the very last peace. At every outbreak

of war between these nations in Europe, the forts and factories and

islands which had been again and again seized upon, and again and again

restored by treaties of peace in India, became immediately the scene

of fresh aggressions, bickerings, and enormities. The hate which burnt

in Europe was felt hotly, even to that distance; and men of another

climate, who had no real interest in the question, and to whom Europe

was but the name of a distant region which had for generations sent out

swarms of powerful oppressors, were called upon to spill their blood

and waste their resources in these strange deeds of their tyrants.

It is to be hoped that the bulk of this evil is now past. In the

peninsula of India, to which I am intending in the following chapters

to confine my attention, the French now retain only the factories of

Chandernagore, Caricall, Mahee, and Pondicherry; the Portuguese Goa,

Damaun, and Diu; the Dutch, Serampore and Tranquebar; while the English

power had triumphed over the bulk of the continent—over the vast

regions of Bengal, Madras, Bombay, the Deccan and the Carnatic—over

a surface of upwards of five hundred thousand square miles, and a

population of nearly a hundred millions of people! These states are

either directly and avowedly in British possession, or are as entirely

so under the name of allies. We may well, therefore, leave the history

of the squabbles and contests of the European Christians with each

other for this enormous power, disgraceful as that history is to the

name of Christianity—to inquire how we, whose ascendency has so

wonderfully prevailed there, have gained this dominion and how we have

used it.

When Europe sought your subject-realms to gain,

And stretched her giant sceptre o’er the main,

Taught her proud barks the winding way to shape,

And braved the stormy spirit of the Cape;

Children of Brama! then was Mercy nigh,

To wash the stain of blood’s eternal dye?

Did Peace descend to triumph and to save,

When free-born Britons crossed the Indian wave?

Ah no!—to more than Rome’s ambition true,

The muse of Freedom gave it not to you!

She the bold route of Europe’s guilt began,

And, in the march of nations, led the van!

_Pleasures of Hope._

We are here to witness a new scene of conquest. The Indian natives

were too powerful and populous to permit the Europeans to march at

once into the heart of their territories, as they had done into

South America, to massacre the people, or to subject them to instant

slavery and death. The old inhabitants of the empire, the Hindoos,

were indeed, in general, a comparatively feeble and gentle race, but

there were numerous and striking exceptions; the mountaineers were,

as mountaineers in other countries, of a hardy, active, and martial

character. The Mahrattas, the Rohillas, the Seiks, the Rajpoots, and

others, were fierce and formidable tribes. But besides this, the ruling

princes of the country, whether Moguls or Hindoos, had for centuries

maintained their sway by the same power by which they had gained it,

that of arms. They could bring into the field immense bodies of troops,

which though found eventually unable to compete with European power

and discipline, were too formidable to be rashly attacked, and have

cost oceans of blood and treasure finally to reduce them to subjection.

Moreover, the odium which the Spaniards and Portuguese had everywhere

excited by their unceremonious atrocities, may be supposed to have had

their effect on the English, who are a reflecting people; and it is

to be hoped also that the progress of sound policy and of Christian

knowledge, however slow, may be taken into the account in some

degree. They went out too under different circumstances—not as mere

adventurers, but as sober traders, aiming at establishing a permanent

and enriching commerce with these countries; and if Christianity, if

the laws of justice and of humanity were to be violated, it must be

under a guise of policy, and a form of law.

We shall not enter into a minute notice of the earliest proceedings

of the English in India, because for upwards of a century from the

formation of their first trading association, those proceedings are

comparatively insignificant. During that period Bombay had been

ceded as part of a marriage-portion by the Portuguese to Charles

II.; factories had been established at Surat, Madras, Masulipatam,

Visigapatam, Calcutta, and other places; but it was not till the

different chartered companies were consolidated into one grand company

in 1708, styled “The United Company of Merchants trading to the East

Indies,” that the English affairs in the east assumed an imposing

aspect. From that period the East India Company commenced that career

of steady grasping at dominion over the Indian territories, which has

never been relaxed for a moment, but, while it has for ever worn the

grave air of moderation, and has assumed the language of right, has

gone on adding field to field and house to house—swallowing up state

after state, and prince after prince, till it has finally found itself

the sovereign of this vast and splendid empire, as it would fain

persuade itself and the world, by the clearest claims, and the most

undoubted justice. By the laws and principles of modern policy, it may

be so; but by the eternal principles of Christianity, there never was

a more thorough repetition of the hankering after Naboth’s vineyards,

of the “slaying and taking possession” exhibited to the world. It is

true that, as the panegyrists of our Indian policy contend, it may

be the design of Providence that the swarming millions of Indostan

should be placed under our care, that they may enjoy the blessings of

English rule, and of English knowledge: but Providence had no need

that we should violate all his most righteous injunctions to enable

him to bring about his designs. Providence, the Scriptures tell us,

intended that Jacob should supersede Esau in the heritage of Israel:

but Providence had no need of the deception which Rebecca and Jacob

practised,—had no need of the mess of pottage and the kid-skins, to

enable Him to effect his object. We are much too ready to run the

wilful career of our own lusts and passions, and lay the charge at

the door of Providence. It is true that English dominion is, or will

become, far better to the Hindoos than that of the cruel and exacting

Moguls; but who made us the judge and the ruler over these people?

If the real object of our policy and exertions in India has been the

achievement of wealth and power, as it undoubtedly has, it is pitiful

and hypocritical to endeavour to clothe it with the pretence of working

the will of Providence, and seeking the good of the natives. We shall

soon see which objects have been most zealously and undeviatingly

pursued, and by what means. If our desires have been, not to enrich

and aggrandize ourselves, but to benefit the people and rescue them

from the tyranny of bad rulers, heaven knows what wide realms are yet

open to our benevolent exertions; what despots there are to pull down;

what miserable millions to relieve from their oppressions;—and when we

behold Englishmen levelling their vengeance against such tyrants, and

visiting such unhappy people with their protective power, where neither

gold nor precious merchandise are to be won at the same time, we may

safely give the amplest credence and the profoundest admiration to

their claims of disinterested philanthropy. If they present themselves

as the champions of freedom, and the apostles of social amelioration,

we shall soon have opportunities of asking how far they have maintained

these characters.

Mr. Auber, in his “History of the British Power in India,” has quoted

largely from letters of the Board of Directors of the Company, passages

to shew how sincerely the representatives of the East India Company at

home have desired to arrest encroachment on the rights of the natives;

to avoid oppressive exactions; to resist the spirit of military and

political aggression. They have from year to year proclaimed their

wishes for the comfort of the people; they have disclaimed all lust of

territorial acquisition; have declared that they were a mercantile,

rather than a political body; and have rebuked the thirst of conquest

in their agents, and endeavoured to restrain the avidity of extortion

in them. Seen in Mr. Auber’s pages, the Directors present themselves

as a body of grave and honorable merchants, full of the most admirable

spirit of moderation, integrity, and benevolence; and we may give

them the utmost credit for sincerity in their professions and desires.

But unfortunately, we all know what human nature is. Unfortunately the

power, the wealth, and the patronage brought home to them by the very

violation of their own wishes and maxims were of such an overwhelming

and seducing nature, that it was in vain to resist them. Nay, in such

colours does the modern philosophy of conquest and diplomacy disguise

the worst transactions between one state and another, that it is not

for plain men very readily to penetrate to the naked enormity beneath.

When all the world was applauding the success of Indian affairs,—the

extension of territory, the ability of their governors, the valour

of their troops; and when they felt the flattering growth of their

greatness, it required qualities far higher than mere mercantile

probity and good intentions, to enable them to strip away the false

glitter of their official transactions, and sternly assure themselves

of the unholiness of their nature. We may therefore concede to the

Directors of the East India Company, and to their governors and

officers in general, the very best intentions, knowing as we do, the

force of influences such as we have already alluded to, and the force

also of modern diplomatic and military education, by which a policy

and practices of the most dismal character become gradually to be

regarded not merely unexceptionable, but highly honorable. We may

allow all this, and yet pronounce the mode by which the East India

Company has possessed itself of Hindostan, as the most revolting and

unchristian that can possibly be conceived. The most masterly policy,

regarded independent of its _morale_, and a valour more than Roman

have been exhibited by our governors-generals and armies on the plains

of Hindostan: but if there ever was one system more Machiavelian—more

appropriative of the shew of justice where the basest injustice was

attempted—more cold, cruel, haughty and unrelenting than another,—it

is the system by which the government of the different states of

India has been wrested from the hands of their respective princes and

collected into the grasp of the British power. Incalculable gainers

as we have been by this system, it is impossible to review it without

feelings of the most poignant shame and the highest indignation.

Whenever we talk to other nations of British faith and integrity, they

may well point to India in derisive scorn. The system which, for more

than a century, was steadily at work to strip the native princes of

their dominions, and that too under the most sacred pleas of right

and expediency, is a system of torture more exquisite than regal or

spiritual tyranny ever before discovered; such as the world has nothing

similar to shew.

Spite of the repeated instructions sent out by the Court of Directors

to their servants in India, to avoid territorial acquisitions, and to

cultivate only honest and honorable commerce; there is evidence that

from the earliest period the desire of conquest was entertained, and

was, spite of better desires, always too welcome to be abandoned. In

the instructions forwarded in 1689, the Directors expounded themselves

in the following words: “The increase of our revenue is the subject

of our care, as much as our trade:—’tis that must maintain our force

when twenty accidents may interrupt our trade;—’tis that must make

us a nation in India. Without that, we are but as a great number of

interlopers, united by his Majesty’s royal charter, fit only to trade

where nobody of power thinks fit only to prevent us; and upon this

account it is that the wise Dutch, in all their general advices which

we have seen, write ten paragraphs concerning their government, their

civil and military policy, warfare, and the increase of their revenue,

for one paragraph they write concerning trade.”[13]

Spite of all pretences to the contrary—spite of all advices and

exhortations from the government at home of a more unambitious

character, this was the spirit that never ceased to actuate the

Company, and was so clearly felt to be it, that its highest servants,

in the face of more peaceful injunctions, and in the face of the Act

of Parliament strictly prohibiting territorial extension, went on

perpetually to add conquest to conquest, under the shew of necessity

or civil treaty; and they who offended most against the letter of the

law, gratified most entirely the spirit of the company and the nation.

Who have been looked upon as so eminently the benefactors and honourers

of the nation by Indian acquisition as Lord Clive, Warren Hastings,

and the Marquess Wellesley? It is for the determined and successful

opposition to the ostensible principles and annually reiterated

advices of the Company, that that very Company has heaped wealth and

distinctions upon these and other persons, and for which it has just

recently voted an additional pension to the latter nobleman.

What then is this system of torture by which the possessions of the

Indian princes have been wrung from them? It is this—the skilful

application of the process by which cunning men create debtors, and

then force them at once to submit to their most exorbitant demands.

From the moment that the English felt that they had the power in India

to “divide and conquer,” they adopted the plan of doing it rather by

plausible manœuvres than by a bold avowal of their designs, and a

more honest plea of the right of conquest—the ancient doctrine of

the strong, which they began to perceive was not quite so much in

esteem as formerly. Had they said at once, these Mahomedan princes are

arbitrary, cruel, and perfidious—we will depose them, and assume the

government ourselves—we pretend to no other authority for our act

than our ability to do it, and no other excuse for our conduct than

our determination to redress the evils of the people: that would have

been a candid behaviour. It would have been so far in accordance with

the ancient doctrine of nations that little would have been thought of

it; and though as Christians we could not have applauded the “doing

evil that good might come of it,” yet had the promised benefit to more

than eighty millions of people followed, that glorious penance would

have gone far in the most scrupulous mind to have justified the crime

of usurpation. But the mischief has been, that while the exactions

and extortions on the people have been continued, and in many cases

exaggerated, the means of usurpation have been those glozing and

hypocritical arts, which are more dangerous from their subtlety than

naked violence, and more detestable because wearing the face, and using

the language, of friendship and justice. A fatal friendship, indeed,

has that of the English been to all those princes that were allured by

it. It has pulled them every one from their thrones, or has left them

there the contemptible puppets of a power that works its arbitrary will

through them. But friendship or enmity, the result has been eventually

the same to them. If they resisted alliance with the encroaching

English, they were soon charged with evil intentions, fallen upon,

and conquered; if they acquiesced in the proffered alliance, they

soon became ensnared in those webs of diplomacy from which they never

escaped, without the loss of all honour and hereditary dominion—of

every thing, indeed, but the lot of prisoners where they had been

kings. The first step in the English friendship with the native

princes, has generally been to assist them against their neighbours

with troops, or to locate troops with them to protect them from

aggression. For these services such enormous recompense was stipulated

for, that the unwary princes, entrapped by their fears of their native

foes rather than of their pretended friends, soon found that they were

utterly unable to discharge them. Dreadful exactions were made on their

subjects, but in vain. Whole provinces, or the revenues of them, were

soon obliged to be made over to their grasping _friends_; but they did

not suffice for their demands. In order to pay them their debts or

their interest, the princes were obliged to borrow large sums at an

extravagant rate. These sums were eagerly advanced by the English in

their private and individual capacities, and securities again taken on

lands or revenues. At every step the unhappy princes became more and

more embarrassed, and as the embarrassment increased, the claims of the

Company became proportionably pressing. In the technical phraseology

of money-lenders, “the screw was then turned,” till there was no longer

any enduring it. The unfortunate princes felt themselves, instead of

being relieved by their artful friends, actually introduced by them into

Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace

And rest can never dwell; hope never comes

That comes to all; but torture without end

Still urges.

To escape it, there became no alternative but to throw themselves

entirely upon the mercy of their inexorable creditors, or to break out

into armed resistance. In the one case they found themselves speedily

stripped of every vestige of their power—their revenues and management

of their territories given over to these creditors, which still never

were enough to liquidate their monstrous and growing demands; so

that the next proposition was that they should entirely cede their

territories, and become pensioners on their usurpers. In the other

case, they were at once declared perfidious and swindling,—no faith

was to be kept with them,—they were assaulted by the irresistible arms

of their oppressors, and inevitably destroyed or deposed.

If they sought aid from another state, that became a fortunate plea

to attack that state too; and the English were not contented to

chastise the state thus aiding its ancient neighbour, it was deemed

quite sufficient ground to seize and subjugate it also. There was no

province that was for a moment safe from this most convenient system

of policy, which feared public opinion sufficiently to seek arguments

to make a case before it, but resolved still to seize, by hook or by

crook, all that it coveted. It did not suffice that a province merely

refused an alliance, if the proper time was deemed to be arrived for

its seizure—some plea of danger or suspicion was set up against it.

It was called good policy not to wait for attack, but to charge it

with hostile designs, though not a hostile indication was given—it

was assailed with all the forces in the empire. Those princes that

were once subjected to the British power or the British _friendship_,

were set up or pulled down just as it suited their pleasure. If

necessary, the most odious stigmas were fixed on them to get rid of

them—they were declared weak, dissolute, or illegitimate. If a prince

or princess was suspected of having wealth, some villainous scheme

was hatched to plunder him or her of it. For more than a century this

shocking system was in operation, every day growing more daring in

its action, and more wide in its extent. Power both gave security and

augmented audacity—for every British subject who was not belonging to

the Company, and therefore interested in its operations, was rigidly

excluded from the country, and none could therefore complain of the

evil deeds that were there done under the sun. It is almost incredible

that so abominable an influence could be for a century exercised over

a great realm, by British subjects, many of whom were in all other

respects worthy and most honourable men; and, what is more, that it

could be sanctioned by the British parliament, and admired by the

British nation. But we have yet the proofs to adduce, and unfortunately

they are only too abundant and conclusive. Let us see them.

We will for the present pass the operations of Clive in the Carnatic

at once to destroy the French influence there, and to set up Mahomet

Ali, a creature of the English. We shall anon see the result of that:

we will observe in the first place the manner of obtaining Bengal, as

it became the head of the English empire in India, and the centre of

all future transactions.

In 1756, Suraja Dowla, the Subahdar of Bengal, demanded an officer

belonging to him who, according to the custom amongst the colonists

there, had taken refuge at Calcutta. The English refused to give him

up. The Subahdar attacked and took the place. One hundred and forty-six

of the English fell into the conqueror’s hands, and were shut up for

the night in the celebrated _Black-hole_, whence only twenty-three

were taken out alive in the morning. It may be said in vindication of

the Subahdar, that the act of immuring these unfortunate people in

this horrible den was not his, but that of the guards to whom they

were entrusted for the night, and who put them there as in a place of

the greatest security; and it may be added, not to the credit of the

English, that this very _black-hole_ was the _English_ prison, where

they were in the habit of confining _their_ prisoners. As Mr. Mills

very justly asks—“What had they to do with a _black-hole_? Had no

_black-hole_ existed, as none ought to exist anywhere, least of all in

the sultry and unwholesome climate of Bengal, those who perished in the

_black-hole_ of Calcutta would have experienced a different fate.”

On the news of the capture of Calcutta arriving at Madras, a body of

troops was dispatched under Admiral Watson and Colonel Clive, for

its recovery; which was soon effected, and Hoogly, a considerable

city about twenty-three miles further up the river, was also attacked

and reduced. A treaty was now entered into with Suraja Dowla, the

Subahdar, which was not of long continuance; for, lest the Subahdar,

who was not at bottom friendly to the English, as he had in reality

no cause, should form an alliance with the French at Chandernagore,

they resolved to depose him! This bold and unwarrantable scheme of

deposing a prince in his own undoubted territories, and that by

mere strangers and traders on the coast, is the beginning of that

extraordinary and unexampled assumption which has always marked the

conduct of the English in India. Scarcely had they entered into the

treaty with this Subahdar than they resolved to depose him because he

would protect the French, who were also permitted to hold a factory

in his territory as well as they. This audacious scheme was Clive’s.

Admiral Watson, on the contrary, declared it an extraordinary thing

to depose a man they had so lately made a solemn treaty with. But

Clive, as he afterwards avowed, when examined before the House of

Commons, declared that “they must now go further; they could not stop

there. _Having established themselves by force and not by consent of

the Nabob_, he would endeavour to drive them out again.” This is the

robber’s doctrine;—having committed one outrage, a second, or a series

of outrages must be committed, to prevent punishment, and secure the

booty. But having once entertained the idea of pulling the Subahdar

from his throne, they did not scruple to add treason and rebellion

to the crime of invading the rights of the sovereign. They began by

debauching his own officers. They found out one Meer Jaffier Khan,

a man of known traitorous mind, who had been paymaster-general under

the former Subahdar, and yet retained great power in the army. This

wretch, on condition of being placed on the throne, agreed to betray

his master, and seduce as many of the influential of his officers

as possible. The terms of this diabolical confederacy between this

base traitor and the baser _Christian English_, as they stand in the

first parliamentary report on Indian affairs, and as related by Orme

in his History of India (ii. 153), and by Mills (ii. 110), are very

instructive.

The English had got an idea which wonderfully sharpened their desire to

depose Suraja Dowla, that he had an enormous treasure. The committee

(of the council of Calcutta) really believed, says Mr. Orme, the wealth

of Suraja Dowla much greater than it possibly could be, even if the

whole life of the late Nabob Aliverdi had not been spent in defending

his dominions against the invasions of ruinous enemies; and even if

Suraja Dowla had reigned many, instead of one year. They resolved,

accordingly, not to be sparing in their commands; and the situation

of Meer Jaffier, and the manners and customs of the country, made him

ready to promise whatever they desired. In the name of compensation for

losses by the capture of Calcutta, 10,000,000 rupees were promised to

the English Company; 5,000,000 rupees to English inhabitants; 2,000,000

to the Indians, and 700,000 to the Armenian merchants. These sums were

specified in the formal treaty. Besides this, the Committee resolved

to ask 2,500,000 rupees for the squadron, and the same amount for the

army. “When this was settled,” says Lord Clive, “Mr. Becher (a member)

suggested to the committee, that he thought that committee, who managed

the great machine of government, was entitled to some consideration,

as well as the army and navy.” Such a proposition in such an assembly

could not fail to appear eminently reasonable. It met with a suitable

approbation. Mr. Becher informs us, that the sums received were 280,000

rupees by Mr. Drake the governor; 280,000 by Col. Clive; and 240,000

each by himself, Mr. Watts, and Major Kilpatrick, the inferior members

of the committee. The terms obtained by favour of the Company were,

that all the French factories and effects should be given up; that the

French should be for ever excluded from Bengal; that the territory

surrounding Calcutta to the distance of 600 yards beyond the Mahratta

ditch, and all the land lying south of Calcutta as far as Culpee,

should be granted them on Zemindary tenure, the Company paying the rent

in the same manner as the other Zemindars.

Thus did these Englishmen bargain with a traitor to betray his prince

and country,—the traitor, for the bribe of being himself made prince,

not merely sell his master, but give two millions three hundred and

ninety-eight thousand pounds sterling,[14] with valuable privileges and

property of the state,—while these dealers in treason and rebellion

pocketed each, from two hundred and forty to two hundred and eighty

thousand pounds sterling! A more infamous transaction is not on record.

To carry this wicked conspiracy into effect, the English took the

field against their victim Suraja Dowla; and Meer Jaffier, the

traitor, in the midst of of the engagement moved off, and went over

to the English with his troops—thus determining the fate of a great

kingdom, and of thirty millions of people, with the loss of twenty

Europeans killed and wounded, of sixteen Sepoys killed, and only

thirty-six wounded. The unfortunate prince was soon afterwards seized

and assassinated by the son of this traitor Meer Jaffier. The vices

and inefficiency of this bad man soon compelled the English to pull

him down from the throne into which they had so criminally raised him.

They then set up in his stead his son-in-law, Meer Causim. This man

for a time served their purpose, by the activity with which he raised

money to pay their claims upon him. He resorted to every species

of cruelty and injustice to extort the necessary funds from his

unfortunate subjects. But about three years, nearly the same period

as their former puppet-nabob had reigned, sufficed to weary them of

him. He was rigorous enough to raise money to pay them, but he was not

tool enough, when that was done, to humour every scheme of rapacity

which they dictated to him. They complained of his not allowing

their goods to pass duty-free through his territories; he therefore

abolished all duties, and thus laid open the trade to everybody. This

enraged them, and they determined to depose him. Meer Causim, however,

was not so readily dismissed as Meer Jaffier had been. He resisted

vigorously; massacred such of their troops as fell into his hands, and

fleeing into Oude, brought them into war with its nabob. What is most

remarkable, they again set up old Meer Jaffier, whom they had before

deposed for his crimes and his imbecility. But probably, from their

experience of Meer Causim, they now preferred an easy tool to one with

more self-will. In their treaty with him they made a claim upon him

for ten lacs of rupees; which demand speedily grew to twenty, thirty,

forty, and finally to fifty-three lacs of rupees. All delicacy was laid

aside in soliciting the payment, and one half of it was soon extorted

from him. The Subahdar, in fact, was now become the merest puppet in

their hands. They were the real lords of Bengal, and in direct receipt

of more than half the revenues. Within less than ten years from the

disgraceful bargain with the traitor Meer Jaffier, they had made

Bengal their own, though they still hesitated to avow themselves as

its sovereigns; they had got possession of Benares; they had acquired

that power over the Nabob of Oude, in consequence of the successful war

brought upon him by his alliance with the deposed nabob Meer Causim,

that would at any time make them entirely his masters; the Mogul

himself was ready and anxious to obtain their friendship; they were, in

short, become the far greatest power in India.

Here then is an opening instance of the means by which we acquired our

territories in India; and the language of Lord Clive, when he returned

thither as governor of Bengal in 1765, may shew what other scenes were

likely to ensue. “We have at last arrived at that critical period which

I have long foreseen; I mean that period which renders it necessary for

us to determine whether we can or shall take the whole to ourselves.

Jaffier Ali Khan is dead. His natural son is a minor; but I know not

whether he is yet declared successor. Sujah Dowla is beat from his

dominions. We are in possession of it; and it is scarcely hyperbole to

say—to-morrow the whole Mogul empire is in our power. The inhabitants

of the country, we know by long experience, have no attachment to any

obligation. Their forces are neither disciplined, commanded, nor paid

like ours. Can it then be doubtful that a large army of Europeans will

effectually preserve us sovereigns?”

The scene of aggression and aggrandizement here indicated, soon grew

so wide and busy, that it would far exceed the whole space of this

volume to trace even rapidly its great outlines. The Great Mogul, the

territories of Oude and Arcot, Mysore, Travancore, Benares, Tanjore,

the Mahrattas, the whole peninsula in fact, speedily felt the effect of

these views, in diplomatic or military subjection. We can point out no

fortunate exception, and must therefore content ourselves with briefly

touching upon some of the more prominent cases.

The first thing that deserves attention, is the treatment of the Mogul

himself. This is the statement of it by the French historian: “The

Mogul having been driven out of Delhi by the Pattans, by whom his son

had been set up in his room, was wandering from one province to another

in search of a place of refuge in his own territories, and requesting

succour from his own vassals, but without success. Abandoned by his

subjects, betrayed by his allies, without support and without an

army, he was allured by the power of the English, and implored their

protection. They promised to conduct him to Delhi, and re-establish

him on his throne; but they insisted that he should previously cede

to them the absolute sovereignty over Bengal. This cession was made by

an authentic act, attended by all the formalities usually practised

throughout the Mogul empire. The English, possessed of this title,

which was to give a kind of legitimacy to their usurpation, at least

in the eyes of the vulgar, soon forgot the promises they had made.

They gave the Mogul to understand, that particular circumstances

would not suffer them to be concerned in such an enterprise; but some

better opportunity was to be hoped for; and to make up for his losses,

they assigned him a pension of six millions of rupees, (262,500_l._),

with the revenue of Allahabad, and Sha Ichanabad, or Delhi, upon

which that unfortunate prince was reduced to subsist himself, in

one of the principal towns of Benares, where he had taken up his

residence.”—_Raynal._

Hastings, in fact, made it a reason for depriving him again even of

this pension, that he had sought the aid of the Mahrattas, to do

that which he had vainly hoped from the English—to restore him to

his throne. This is Mills’s relation of this fact, founded on the

fifth Parliamentary Report.—“Upon receiving from him the grant of

the duannee, or the receipt and management of the revenues of Bengal,

Bahar, and Orissa, it was agreed that, as the royal share of these

revenues, twenty-six lacs of rupees should be annually paid to him by

the Company. His having accepted of the assistance of the Mahrattas

to place him on the throne of his ancestors, was now made use of as a

reason for telling him, that the tribute of these provinces should be

paid to him no more. Of the honour, or the discredit, however, of this

transaction, the principal share belongs not to the governor, but to

the Directors themselves; who, in their letter to Bengal, of the 11th

of November 1768, had said, ‘If the emperor flings himself into the

hands of the Mahrattas, or any other power, we are disengaged from him,

_and it may open a fair opportunity of withholding_ the twenty-six lacs

we now pay him.’” Upon the whole, indeed, of the measure dealt out to

this unhappy sovereign,—depriving him of the territories of Corah

and Allahabad; depriving him of the tribute which was due to him from

these provinces of his which they possessed—the Directors bestowed

unqualified approbation; and though they condemned the use which had

been made of their troops in subduing the country of the Rohillas,

they frankly declare, “We, upon the maturest deliberation, confirm

the treaty of Benares.” “Thus,” adds Mills, “they had plundered the

unhappy emperor of twenty-six lacs per annum, and the two provinces of

Corah and Allahabad, which they had sold to the Vizir for fifty lacs of

rupees, on the plea that he had forfeited them by his alliance with the

Mahrattas;” though he was not free, if one party would not assist him

to regain his rights, to seek that assistance from another.

Passing over the crooked policy of the English, in seizing upon the

isles of Salsette and Bassein, near Bombay, and treating for them

afterwards, and all the perfidies of the war for the restoration of

Ragabah, the Peshwa of the Mahrattas, the fate of the Nabob of Arcot,

one of their earliest allies, is deserving of particular notice, as

strikingly exemplifying their policy. They began by obtaining a grant

of land in 1750, surrounding Madras. They then were only too happy to

assist the Nabob against the French. For these military aids, in which

Clive distinguished himself, the English took good care to stipulate

for their usually monstrous payments. Mahomed Ali, the nabob, soon

found that he was unable to satisfy the demands of his allies. They

urged upon him the maintenance of large bodies of troops for the

defence of his territories against these French and other enemies.

This threw him still more inextricably into debt, and therefore more

inextricably into their power. He became an unresisting tool in

their hands. In his name the most savage exactions were practised

on his subjects. The whole revenues of his kingdom, however, proved

totally inadequate to the perpetually accumulating demands upon them.

He borrowed money where he could, and at whatever interest, of the

English themselves. When this interest could not be paid, he made over

to them, under the name of _tuncaus_, the revenues of some portion

of his domains. These assignments directly decreasing his resources,

only raised the demands of his other creditors more violently, and

the fleecing of his subjects became more and more dreadful. In this

situation, he began to cast his eyes on the neighbouring states, and

to incite his allies, by the assertion of various claims upon them,

to join him in falling upon them, and thus to give him an opportunity

of paying them. This exactly suited their views. It gave them a

prospect of money, and of conquest too, under the plausible colour

of assisting their ally in urging his just claims. They first joined

him in falling on the Rajah of Tanjore, whom the Nabob claimed as a

tributary, and indebted to him in a large amount of revenue. The Rajah

was soon reduced to submission, and agreed to pay thirty lacs and

fifty thousand rupees, and to aid the Nabob in all his wars. Scarcely,

however, was this treaty signed, than they repented of it; thought they

had not got enough; hoped the Rajah would not be exact to a day in

his payment, in which case they would fall on him again for breach of

treaty. It so happened;—they rushed out of their camp, seized on part

of Vellum, and the districts of Coiladdy and Elangad, to the retention

of which the poor Rajah was obliged to submit.

This affair being so fortunately adjusted, the Nabob called on his

willing allies to attack the Marawars. They too, he said, owed him

money; and money was what the English were always in want of. They

readily assented, though they declared that they believed the Nabob to

have no real claim on the Marawars whatever. But then, they said, the

Nabob has made them his enemies, and it is necessary for his security

that they should be reduced. They did not pretend it was just—but

then, it was politic. The particulars of this war are barbarous and

disgraceful to the English. The Nabob thirsted for the destruction of

these states: he and his Christian-allies soon reduced Ramnadaporam,

the capital of the great Marawar, seized the Polygar, a minor of twelve

years old, his mother, and the Duan; they came suddenly upon the

Polygar of the lesser Marawar while he was trusting to a treaty just

made, and killed him; and pursued the inhabitants of the country with

severities that can only be represented by the language of one of the

English officers addressed to the Council. Speaking of the animosity of

the people against them, and their attacking the baggage, he says, “I

can only determine it by reprisals, which will oblige me to plunder

and burn the villages; kill every man in them; and take prisoners the

women and children. These are actions which the nature of this war will

require.”[15]

Such were the unholy deeds into which the Nabob and the great scheme

of acquisition of territory had led our countrymen in 1773; but this

was only the beginning of these affairs. This bloody campaign ended,

and large sums of money levied, the Nabob proposed _another_ war on the

Rajah of Tanjore! There was not the remotest plea of injury from the

Rajah, or breach of treaty. He had paid the enormous sum demanded of

him before, by active levies on his subjects, and by mortgaging lands

and jewels; but the Nabob had now made him a very dangerous enemy—he

_might_ ally himself with Hyder Ali, or the French, or some power or

other—therefore it was better that he should be utterly destroyed,

and his country put into the power of the Nabob! “Never,” exclaims Mr.

Mills, “I suppose, was the resolution taken to make war upon a lawful

sovereign, with the view of reducing him entirely, that is, stripping

him of his dominions, and either putting him and his family to death,

or making them prisoners for life, upon a more accommodating reason!

We have done the Rajah great injury—we have no intention of doing him

right—this is a sufficient reason for going on to his destruction.”

But it was not only thought, but done; and this was the bargain: The

Nabob was to advance money and all due necessaries for the war, and

to pay 10,000 instead of 7,000 sepoys. The unhappy Rajah was speedily

defeated, and taken prisoner with his family; and his country put

into the hands of his mortal enemy. There were men of honour and

virtue enough amongst the Directors at home, however, to feel a proper

disgust, or at least, regard for public opinion, at these unprincipled

proceedings, and the Rajah, through the means of Lord Paget was

restored, not however without having a certain quantity of troops

quartered upon him; a yearly payment of four lacs of pagodas imposed;

and being bound not to make any treaty or assist any power without the

consent of the English. He was, in fact, put into the first stage of

that process of subjection which would, in due time, remove from him

even the shadow of independence.

Such were the measures by which the Nabob of Arcot endeavoured to

relieve himself from his embarrassments with the English; but they

would not all avail. Their demands grew faster than he could find means

to satisfy them. Their system of action was too well devised to fail

them; their victims rarely escaped from their toils: he might help

them to ruin his neighbours, but he could not escape them himself.

During his life he was surrounded by a host of cormorant creditors;

his country, harassed by perpetual exactions, rapidly declined; and

the death of his son and successor, Omdut ul Omrah, in 1801, produced

one of the strangest scenes in this strange history. The Marquis

Wellesley was then Governor-general, and, pursuing that sweeping

course which stripped away the hypocritical mask from British power in

India, threw down so many puppet princes, and displayed the English

dominion in Indostan in its gigantic nakedness. The revenues of the

Carnatic had been before taken in the hands of the English, but Lord

Wellesley resolved to depose the prince; and the manner in which this

deposition was effected, was singularly despotic and unfeeling. They

had come to the resolution to depose the Nabob, and only looked about

for some plausible pretence. This they professed to have found in a

correspondence which, by the death of Tippoo Saib, had fallen into

their hands—a correspondence between Tippoo and some officers of the

Nabob. They alleged, that this correspondence contained injurious and

even treasonable language towards the English. When, therefore, the

Nabob lay on his death-bed they surrounded his house with troops, and

immediately that the breath had departed from him they demanded to see

his will. This rude and unfeeling behaviour, so repugnant to the ideas

of every people, however savage and brutal, at a moment so solemn and

sacred to domestic sorrow, was respectfully protested against—but

in vain. The will they insisted upon seeing, and it accordingly was

put into their hands by the son of the Nabob, now about to mount the

throne himself. Finding that the son was nominated as his heir and

successor by the Nabob, the Commissioners immediately announced to

him the charge of treason against his father, and that the throne was

thereby forfeited by the family. This charge, of course, was a matter

of surprise to the family; especially when the papers said to contain

the treason were produced, and they could find in them nothing but

terms of fidelity and respect towards the English government. But the

English had resolved that the charge should be a sufficient charge, and

the young prince manfully resisting it, they then declared him to be

of illegitimate birth,—a very favourite and convenient plea with them.

On this they set him aside, and made a treaty with another prince, in

which for a certain provision the Carnatic was made over to them for

ever. The young nabob, Ali Hussein, did not long survive this scene of

indignity and arbitrary deposition—his death occurring in the spring

of the following year.

Such was the English treatment of their friend the Nabob of Arcot;—the

Nabob of Arcot, whose name was for years continually heard in England

as the powerful ally of the British, as their coadjutor against

the French, against the ambitious Hyder Ali, as their zealous and

accommodating friend on all occasions. It was in vain that either

the old Nabob, or the young one, whom they so summarily deposed,

pleaded the faith of treaties, their own hereditary right, or ancient

friendship. Arcot had served its turn; it had been the stalking-horse

to all the aggressions on other states that they needed from it,—they

had exacted all that could be exacted in the name of the Nabob from

his subjects—they had squeezed the sponge dry; and moreover the time

was now come that they could with impunity throw off the stealthy

crouching attitude of the tiger, the smiling meek mask of alliance, and

boldly seize upon undisguised sovereign powers in India. Arcot was but

one state amongst many that were now to be so treated. Benares, Oude,

Tanjore, Surat, and others found themselves in the like case.

Benares had been a tributary of Oude; but in 1764, when the English

commenced war against the Nabob of Oude, the Rajah of Benares joined

the English, and rendered them the most essential services. For these

he was taken under the English protection. At first with so much

delicacy and consideration was he treated, that a resident was not

allowed, as in the case of other tributaries, to reside in his capital,

lest in the words of the minute of the Governor-general in command

in 1775: “such resident might acquire an improper influence over the

Rajah and his country, which would in effect render him master of

both; lest it should end,” as they knew that such things as a matter

of course did end, “in reducing him to the mean and depraved state of

a mere Zemindar.” The council expressed its anxiety that the Rajah’s

independence should be in no way compromised than by the mere fact of

the payment of his tribute, which, says Mills, continued to be paid

with an exactness rarely exemplified in the history of the tributary

princes of Hindustan. But unfortunately, the Rajah gave some offence

to the powerful Warren Hastings, and there was speedily a requisition

made upon him for the maintenance of three battalions of Sepoys,

estimated at five lacs of rupees. The Rajah pleaded inability to pay it

forthwith; but five days only were given him. This was followed by a

third and fourth requisition of the same sort. Seeing how the tide was

running against him, the unhappy Rajah sent a private gift of two lacs

of rupees to Mr. Hastings,—the pretty sum of 20,000_l._, in the hope

of regaining his favour, and stopping this ruinous course of exaction.

That unprincipled man took the money, but exacted the payment of the

public demand with unabated rigour, and even fined him 10,000_l._ for

delay in payment, and ordered troops, as he had done before, to march

into his country to enforce the iniquitous exaction!

The work of diplomatic robbery on the Rajah now went on rapidly. “The

screw was now turned” with vigour,—to use a homely but expressive

phrase, the nose was held desperately to the grind-stone. No bounds

were set to the pitiless fury of spoliation, for the Governor’s revenge

had none; and besides, there was a dreadful want of money to defray

the expenses of the wars with Hyder into which the government had

plunged. “I was resolved,” says Hastings, “to draw from his guilt”

(his having offended Mr. Hastings—the guilt was all on the other

side) “the means of relief to the Company’s distresses. In a word, I

had determined to make him pay largely for his pardon, or to exact a

severe vengeance for his past delinquency.”[16] What this delinquency

could possibly be, unless it were not having sent Mr. Hastings a

_second_ present of _two lacs_, is not to be discovered; but the

success of the first placebo was not such as to elicit a second. The

Rajah, therefore, tried what effect he could produce upon the council

at large; he sent an offer of TWENTY LACS _for the public service_. It

was scornfully rejected, and a demand of FIFTY _lacs_ was made! The

impossibility of compliance with such extravagant demands was what was

anticipated; the Governor hastened to Benares, arrested the Rajah in

his own capital; set at defiance the indignation of the people at this

insult. The astounded Rajah made his escape, but only to find himself

at war with his insatiable despoilers. In vain did he propose every

means of accommodation. Nothing would now serve but his destruction.

He was attacked, and compelled to fly. Bidgegur, where, says Hastings

himself, “he had left his wife, a woman of amiable character, his

mother, all the other women of his family, and the survivors of the

family of his father, Bulwant Sing,” was obliged to capitulate; and

Hastings, in his fell and inextinguishable vengeance, even, says

Mills, “in his letters to the commanding officer, employed expressions

which implied that the plunder of these women was the due reward of

the soldiers; and which suggested one of the most dreadful outrages

to which, in the conception of the country, a human being could be

exposed.”

The fort was surrendered oh express stipulation for the safety, and

freedom from search, of the females; but, adds Mills, “the idea

suggested by Mr. Hastings diffused itself but too perfectly amongst the

soldiery; and when the princesses, with their relatives and attendants,

to the number of three hundred women, besides children, withdrew

from the castle, the capitulation was shamefully violated; they were

plundered of their effects, and their persons otherwise rudely and

disgracefully treated by the licentious people, and followers of the

camp.” He adds, “one is delighted for the honour of distinguished

gallantry, that in no part of the opprobrious business the commanding

officer had any share. He leaned to generosity and the protection of

the princesses from the beginning. His utmost endeavours were exerted

to restrain the outrages of the camp; and he represented them with

feeling to Mr. Hastings, who expressed his concurrence, etc.”

The only other consolation in this detestable affair is, that the

soldiers, in spite of Hastings, got the plunder of the Rajah, and that

the Court of Directors at home censured his conduct. But these are

miserable drops of satisfaction in this huge and overflowing cup of

bitterness,—of misery to trusting, friendly, and innocent people; and

of consequent infamy on the British name.

We must, out of the multitudes of such cases, confine ourselves to

one more. The atrocities just recited had put Benares into the entire

power of the English, but it had only tended to increase the pecuniary

difficulties. The soldiery had got the plunder—the expenses of the

war were added to the expenses of other wars;—some other kingdom must

be plundered, for booty must be had: so Mr. Hastings continued his

journey, and paid a visit to the Nabob of Oude. It is not necessary

to trace the complete progress of this Nabob’s friendship with the

English. It was exactly like that of the other princes just spoken of.

A treaty was made with him; and then, from time to time, the usual

exactions of money and the maintenance of troops for his own subjection

were heaped upon him. As with the Nabob of Arcot, so with him, they

were ready to sanction and assist him in his most criminal views on

his neighbours, to which his need of money drove him. He proposed to

Mr. Hastings, in 1773, to assist him in _exterminating the Rohillas_,

a people bordering on his kingdom; “a people,” says Mills, “whose

territory was, by far, the best governed part of India: the people

protected, their industry encouraged, and the country flourishing

beyond all parallel.” It was by a careful neutrality, and by these

acts, that the Rohillas sought to maintain their independence; and it

was of such a people that Hastings, sitting at table with his tool,

the Nabob of Oude, coolly heard him offer him a bribe of forty lacs

of rupees (400,000_l._) and the payment of the troops furnished, to

assist him to destroy them utterly! There does not seem to have

existed in the mind of Hastings one human feeling: a proposition which

would have covered almost any other man with unspeakable horror, was

received by him as a matter of ordinary business. “Let us see,” said

Hastings, “we have a heavy bonded debt, at one time 125 lacs of rupees.

By this a saving of near one third of our military expenses would be

effected during the period of such service; the forty lacs would be an

ample supply to our treasury; and the Vizir (the Nabob of Oude) would

be freed from a troublesome neighbour.” These are the monster’s own

words; the bargain was struck, but it was agreed to be kept secret from

the council and court of Directors. In one of Hastings’ letters still

extant, he tells the Nabob, “should the Rohillas be guilty of a breach

of their agreement (a demand of forty lacs suddenly made upon them—for

in this vile affair everything had a ruffian character—they first

demanded their money, and then murdered them), _we will thoroughly

exterminate them_, and settle your excellency in the country.”[17] The

extermination was conducted to the letter, as agreed, as far as was

in their power. The Rohillas defended themselves most gallantly; but

were overpowered,—and their chief, and upwards of a hundred thousand

people fled to the mountains. The whole country lay at the mercy of the

allies, and the British officers themselves declared that perhaps never

were the rights of conquest more savagely abused. Colonel Champion,

one of them, says in a letter of June 1774, published in the Report

alluded to below, “the inhumanity and dishonour with which the late

proprietors of this country and their families have been used, is

known all over these parts. A relation of them would swell this letter

to an enormous size. I could not help compassionating such unparalleled

misery, and my requests to the Vizir to shew lenity were frequent,

but as fruitless as even those advices which I almost hourly gave him

regarding the destruction of the villages; with respect to which he

always promised fair, but did not observe one of his promises, nor

cease to overspread the country with flames, till three days after the

fate of Hafez Rhamet was decided.” The Nabob had frankly and repeatedly

assured Hastings that his intention was to _exterminate_ the Rohillas,

and every one who bore the name of Rohilla was either butchered, or

found his safety in flight and in exile. Such were the diabolical deeds

into which our government drove the native princes by their enormous

exactions, or encouraged them in, only in the end to enslave them the

more.

Before the connexion between the English and Oude, its revenue had

exceeded three millions sterling, and was levied without being

accused of deteriorating the country. In the year 1779, it did not

exceed one half of that sum, and in the subsequent years it fell far

below it, while the rate of taxation was increased, and the country

exhibited every mark of oppressive exaction.[18] In this year the Nabob

represented to the council the wretched condition to which he was

reduced by their exactions: that the children of the deceased Nabob

had subsisted in a very distressed manner for two years past; that the

attendants, writers, and servants, had received no pay for that period;

that his father’s private creditors were daily pressing him, and there

was not a foot of country which could be appropriated to their payment;

that the revenue was deficient fifteen lacs, (a million and a half

sterling); that the country and cultivation were abandoned; the old

chieftains and useful attendants of the court were forced to leave it;

that the Company’s troops were not only useless, but caused great loss

to the revenue and confusion in the country; and that the support of

his household, on the meanest scale, was beyond his power.

This melancholy representation produced—what?—pity, and an endeavour

to relieve the Nabob?—no, exasperation. Mr. Hastings declared that,

both it and the crisis in which it was made were equally alarming. The

only thing thought of was what was to be done if the money did not

come in? But Mr. Hastings, on his visit to the Nabob at Lucknow, made

a most lucky discovery. He found that the mother and widow of the late

Nabob were living there, and possessed of immense wealth. His rapacious

mind, bound by no human feeling or moral principle, and fertile in

schemes of acquisition, immediately conceived the felicitous design

of setting the Nabob to strip those ladies, well known to English

readers since the famous trial of Mr. Hastings, as “the Begums.” It

was agreed between the Nabob and Mr. Hastings, that his Highness

should be relieved of the expense which he was unable to bear, of the

English troops and gentlemen; and he, on his part, engaged to strip the

Begums of both their treasure and their jaghires (revenues of certain

lands), delivering to the Governor-general the proceeds. As a plea for

this most abominable transaction, in which a prince was compelled by

his cruel necessities and the grinding exactions and threats of the

English to pillage forcibly his near relatives, a tale of treason was

hatched against these poor women. When they refused to give up their

money, the chief eunuchs were put to the torture till the ladies in

compassion gave way: 550,000_l._ sterling were thus forced from them:

the torture was still continued, in hope of extracting more; the women

of the Zenana were deprived of food at various times till they were on

the point of perishing for want; and every expedient was tried that

the most devilish invention could suggest, till it was found that

they had really drawn the last doit from them. But what more than all

moves one’s indignation against this base English Inquisitor, was,

that he received as his share of these spoils the sum of ten lacs, or

100,000_l._!—and that notwithstanding the law of the Company against

the receipt of presents; its avowed distress for want of money; and

the poverty of the kingdom of Oude, which was thus plundered and

disgraced from the very inability to pay its debts, if debts such

shameful exactions can be called. Hastings did not hesitate to apprise

the council of what he had received, and requested their permission to

retain it for himself.

Of the numerous transactions of a most wicked character connected with

these affairs; of the repugnance of the Nabob to do the dirty work

of Hastings on his relatives, the Begums; of the haughty insolence

by which his tyrant compelled him to the compact; of the restoration

of the jaghires, but not the moneys to the Begums; of the misery and

desolation which forced itself even upon the horny eyes of Hastings as

he made his second progress through the territories of Oude, the work

of his own oppressions and exactions; of the twelve and a half millions

which he added by his wars and political manœuvres to the Indian

debt—we have not here room to note more than the existence of such

facts, which are well known to all the readers of Indian history, or of

the trial of Warren Hastings, where every artifice of the lawyers was

employed to prevent the evidence of these things being brought forward;

and where a House of Peers was found base or weak enough to be guided

by such artifices, to refuse the most direct evidence against the

most atrocious transactions in history; and thus to give sanction and

security to the commission of the most dreadful crimes and cruelties in

our distant colonies. Nothing could increase from this time the real

power of the English over Oude, though circumstances might occasion a

more open avowal of it. Even during the government of Lord Cornwallis

and Sir John Shore, now Lord Teignmouth, two of the most worthy and

honourable rulers that British India ever had, the miseries and

exactions continued, and the well-intentioned financial measures of

Lord Cornwallis even tended to increase them. In 1798, the governor,

Sir John Shore, proceeded to depose the ruling Nabob as illegitimate

(a plea on which the English set aside a number of Indian princes),

and elevated another in his place, and that upon evidence, says the

historian, “upon which an English court of law would not have decided

against him a question of a few pounds.”

It was not, however, till 1799, under the government of the Marquis

Wellesley, that the hand of British power was stretched to the utmost

over this devoted district. That honest and avowed usurper, who

disdained the petty acts of his predecessors, but declared that the

British dominion over the peninsula of India must be frankly avowed and

fearlessly asserted—certainly a much better doctrine than the cowardly

and hypocritical one hitherto acted upon;—that every Englishman who

did not belong to the Company must and should be expelled from that

country; and that the English power and the Corporate monopoly should

be so strenuously and unflinchingly exerted, that foreign aggression

or domestic complaint should be alike dispersed;—this straightforward

Governor-general soon drove the Nabob of Oude to such desperation, by

the severity of his measures and exactions, that he declared his wish

to abdicate. Nothing could equal the joy of the Governor-general at the

prospect of this easy acquisition of this entire territory: but that

joy was damped by discovering that the Nabob only wished to resign in

favour of—his own son! The chagrin of the Governor-general on this

discovery is not to be expressed; and the series of operations then

commenced to force the Nabob to abdicate in favour of the Company; when

that could not be effected, to compel him to sacrifice one half of his

territories to save the rest; when that sacrifice was made, to inform

him that he was to have no independent power in his remaining half—is

one of the most instructive lessons in the art of diplomatic fleecing,

of forcing a man out of his own by the forms of treaty but with the

iron-hand of irresistible power, which any despot who wishes to do a

desperate deed handsomely, and in the most approved style, can desire.

It was in vain that the Nabob declared his payment of exactions; his

hereditary right; his readiness shewn on all occasions to aid and

oblige; the force of treaties in his favour. It was in vain that he

asked to what purpose should he give up one half of his dominions if

he were not to have power over the other, when it was to secure this

independent power that he gave up that half? What are all the arguments

of right, justice, reason, or humanity, when Ahab wants the vineyard

of Naboth, and the Jezebel of political and martial power tells him

that she will give it him? The fate of Oude was predetermined, along

with that of various other states, by the Governor-general, and it was

decided as he determined it should be.

Before we close this chapter, we will give one instance of the manner

in which the territories of those who held aloof, and did not covet the

fatal friendship of the English were obtained, and the most striking of

these are the dominions of Hyder Ali—the kingdom of Mysore.

Hyder was a soldier of fortune. He had risen by an active and

enterprising disposition from the condition of a common soldier to

the head of the state. The English considered him as an ambitious,

able, and therefore very dangerous person in India. There can be no

doubt that he considered them the same. He was an adventurer; so were

they. He had acquired a great territory by means that would not bear

the strictest scrutiny; so had they;—but there was this difference

between them, Hyder acted according to the customs and maxims in which

he had been educated, and which he saw universally practised by all

the princes around him. He neither had the advantage of Christian

knowledge and principle, nor pretended to them. The English, on the

contrary, came there as merchants; they were continually instructed by

their masters at home not to commit military aggressions. They were

bound by the laws of their country not to do it. They professed to be

in possession of a far higher system of religion and morals than Hyder

and his people had. They pretended to be the disciples of the Prince of

Peace. Their magnanimous creed they declared to be, “To do to others as

they would wish to be done by.” But neither Hyder nor any other Indian

ever saw the least evidence of any such superiority of morals, or of

faith, in their conduct. They were as ambitious, and far more greedy

of money than the heathen that they pretended to despise for their

heathenism. They ought to have set a better example—but they did not.

There never was a people that grasped more convulsively at dominion, or

were less scrupulous in the means of obtaining it. They declared Hyder

cruel and perfidious. He knew them to be both. This was the ground

on which they stood. There were reasons why the English should avoid

interfering with Hyder. There were none why he should avoid encroaching

on them, for he did not profess any such grand principles of action as

they did. If they were what they pretended to be, they ought to preach

peace and union amongst the Indian princes: but union was of all things

in the world the very one which they most dreaded; for they _were not_

what they pretended to be; but sought on the divisions of the natives

to establish their own power. Had Hyder attacked them in their own

trading districts, there could have been no reason why they should not

chastise him for it. But it does not appear that he ever did attack

them at all till they fell upon him, and that with the avowed intention

to annihilate his power as dangerous. No, say they, but he attacked the

territories of our ally the Subahdar of Deccan, which we were bound to

defend. And here it is that we touch again upon that subtle policy by

which it became impossible, when they had once got a footing in the

country that, having the will and the power, they should not eventually

have the dominion. While professing to avoid conquest, we have seen

that they went on continually making conquests. But it was always on

the plea of aiding their allies. They entered knowingly into alliances

on condition of defending with arms their allies, and then, when they

committed aggressions, it was _for_ these allies. In the end the allies

were themselves swallowed up, with all the additional territories thus

gained. It was a system of fattening allies as we fatten oxen, till

they were more worthy of being devoured. They cast their subtle threads

of policy like the radiating filaments of the spider’s web, till the

remotest extremity of India could not be touched without startling

them from their concealed centre into open day, ready to run upon the

unlucky offender. It was utterly impossible, on such a system, but that

offences should come, and wo to them by whom they did come.

The English were unquestionably the aggressors in the hostilities

with Hyder. They entered into a treaty with Nizam Ali, the Subahdar

of Deccan, offensive and defensive; and the very first deed which

they were to do, was to seize the fort of Bangalore, which belonged

to Hyder. They had actually marched in 1767 into his territories,

when Hyder found means to draw the Nizam from his alliance, and in

conjunction with him fell upon them, and compelled them to fly to

Trincomalee. By this unprovoked and voluntary act they found themselves

involved at once in a war with a fierce and active enemy, who pursued

them to the very walls of Madras; scoured their country with his

cavalry; and compelled them to a dishonourable peace in 1769, by which

they bound themselves to assist _him_ too in his defensive wars! To

enter voluntarily into such conditions with such a man, betrayed no

great delicacy of moral feeling as to what wars they engaged in, or

no great honesty in their intentions as regarded the treaty itself.

They must soon either fight with some of Hyder’s numerous enemies, or

break faith with him. Accordingly the very next year the Mahrattas

invaded his territories; he called earnestly on his English allies

for aid, and aid they did not give. Hyder had now the justest reason

to term them perfidious, and to hold them in distrust. Yet, though

deeply exasperated by this treachery, he would in 1778 most willingly

have renewed his alliance with them; and the presidency of Madras

acknowledged their belief that, had not the treaty of 1769 been evaded,

Hyder would never have sought other allies than themselves.[19] There

were the strongest reasons why they should have cultivated an amicable

union with him, both to withdraw him from the French, and on account of

his own great power and revenues. But they totally neglected him, or

insulted him with words of mere cold courtesy; and a new aggression

upon the fortress of Mahé, a place tributary to Hyder, which they

attacked in order to expel the French, and which Hyder resented on the

same principle as they would resent an attack upon any tributary of

their own, well warranted the declaration of Hyder, that they “were

the most faithless and usurping of mankind.” They were these arbitrary

and impolitic deeds which brought down Hyder speedily upon them, with

an army 100,000 strong; and soon showed them Madras menaced, the

Carnatic overrun, Arcot taken, and a war of such a desperate and bloody

character raging around them, as they had never yet seen in India, and

which might probably have expelled them thence, had not death released

them in 1782 from so formidable a foe, who had been so wantonly

provoked.

Tippoo Sultaun, with all his activity and cunning, had not the masterly

military genius of his father,—but he possessed all the fire of his

resentment, and it was not to be expected that, after what had passed,

there could be much interval of irritation between him and the English.

They had roused Hyder as a lion is roused from his den, and he had

made them feel his power. They would naturally look on his son with

suspicion, and Tippoo had been taught to regard them as “the most

faithless and usurping of mankind.” Whatever, therefore, may be said

for or against him, on the breaking out of the second war with him,

the original growth of hostility between the British and the Mysorean

monarchs, must be charged to the former, and in the case of the last

war, there appears to have been no real breach of treaty on the part

of Tippoo. He had been severely punished for any act of irritation

which he might have committed against any of the British allies, by

the reduction of his capital, the surrender of his sons as hostages,

and the stripping away of one half of his territories to be divided

amongst his enemies, each of whom had enriched himself with half a

million sterling of annual revenue at his expense. Tippoo must have

been nothing less than a madman in his shattered condition, and with

his past experience, to have lightly ventured on hostilities with the

English. But it was charged on him that he was seeking an alliance

with the French. What then? He had the clearest right so to do. So

long as he maintained the terms of his treaty, the English had no

just right to violate theirs towards him. The French were his ancient

and hereditary friends. Tippoo persisted to the last that he had done

nothing to warrant an attack upon him; but Lord Mornington had adopted

his notions about consolidating the British power in India, and every

possible circumstance, or suspicion of a circumstance, was to be seized

upon as a plea for carrying his plans into effect. It was enough that

a fear _might_ be entertained of Tippoo’s designs. It became good

policy to get the start; and when once that forestalling system in

hostilities, that outstripping in the race of mischief, is adopted,

there is no possible violence nor enormity which may not be undertaken,

or defended upon it. Tippoo was assailed by the British, and their

ally the Nizam; and though he again and again protested his innocence,

again and again asked for peace, he was pursued to his capital, and

killed bravely defending it. His territories were divided amongst those

who had divided the former half of them in like manner, the English,

the Nizam, and the Mahrattas, with a little state appropriated to a

puppet-rajah. Thus did the English shew what they would do to those who

dared to decline their protection. Thus did they pursue, beat down, and

destroy with all their mighty resources an independent prince, whose

whole revenue, after their first partition of his realm, did not much

exceed a million sterling. We have heard a vast deal in Europe of the

partition of Poland, but how much better was the forcible dismemberment

of Mysore? The injury of this dismemberment of his kingdom is, however,

not the least heaped upon Tippoo. On his name have been heaped all the

odious crimes that make us hate the worst of tyrants. Cruelty, perfidy,

low cunning, and all kinds of baseness, make up the idea of Tippoo

which we have derived from those who profited by his destruction. But

what say the most candid historians? “That the accounts which we have

received from our countrymen, who dreaded and feared him, are marked

with exaggeration, is proved by this circumstance, that his servants

adhered to him with a fidelity which those of few princes in any age

or country have displayed. Of his cruelty we have heard the more,

because our own countrymen were amongst the victims of it. But it is

to be observed, that unless in certain instances, the proof of which

cannot be regarded as better than doubtful, their sufferings, however

intense, were only the sufferings of a very rigorous imprisonment, of

which, considering the manner in which it is lavished upon them by

their own laws, Englishmen ought not to be very forward to complain. At

that very time, in the dungeons of Madras or Calcutta, it is probable

that unhappy sufferers were enduring calamities for debts of 100_l._,

not less atrocious than those which Tippoo, a prince born and educated

in a barbarous country, and ruling over a barbarous people, inflicted

upon imprisoned enemies, part of a nation, who, by the evils they

had brought upon him, exasperated him almost to frenzy, and whom he

regarded as the enemies both of God and man. Besides, there is among

the papers relating to the intercourse of Tippoo with the French,

a remarkable proof of his humanity, which, when these papers are

ransacked for matters to criminate him, ought not to be suppressed.

In a draught of conditions on which he desired to form a treaty with

them, these are the words of a distinct article:—‘demand that male and

female prisoners, as well English as Portuguese, who shall be taken by

the republican troops, or by mine, shall be treated with humanity; and,

with regard to their persons, that they shall (their property becoming

the right of the allies) be transported, at our joint expense, out of

India, to places far distant from the territories of the allies.’

“Another feature in the character of Tippoo was his religion, with

a sense of which his mind was most deeply impressed. He spent a

considerable part of every day in prayer. He gave to his kingdom a

particular religious title, _Cudadad_, or God-given; and he lived under

a peculiarly strong and operative conviction of the superintendence

of a Divine Providence. To one of his French advisers, who urged

him zealously to obtain the support of the Mahrattas, he replied,

‘I rely solely on Providence, expecting that I shall be alone and

unsupported; but God and my courage will accomplish everything.’...

He had the discernment to perceive, what is so generally hid from

the eyes of rulers in a more enlightened state of society, that it is

the prosperity of those who labour with their hands which constitutes

the principle and cause of the prosperity of states. He therefore

made it his business to protect them against the intermediate orders

of the community, by whom it is so difficult to prevent them from

being oppressed. His country was, accordingly, at least during the

first and better part of his reign, the best cultivated, and his

population the most flourishing, in India: while under the English and

their pageants, the population of Carnatic and Oude, hastening to the

state of deserts, was the most wretched upon the face of the earth;

and even Bengal itself, under the operations of laws ill adapted to

their circumstances, was suffering almost all the evils which the

worst of governments could inflict.... For an eastern prince he was

full of knowledge. His mind was active, acute, and ingenious. But in

the value which he set upon objects, whether as means, or as an end,

he was almost perpetually deceived. Besides, a conviction appears

to have been rooted in his mind that the English had now formed a

resolution to deprive him of his kingdom, and that it was useless

to negotiate, because no submission to which he could reconcile his

mind, would restrain them in the gratification of their ambitious

designs.”—_Mills._

Tippoo was right. The great design of the English, from their first

secure footing in India, was to establish their control over the whole

Peninsula. The French created them the most serious alarm in the

progress of their career towards this object; and any native state

which shewed more than ordinary energy, excited a similar feeling.

For this purpose all the might of British power and policy was exerted

to expel these European rivals, and to crush such more active states.

The administration of the Marquis Wellesley was the exhibition of this

system full blown. For this, all the campaigns against Holkar and

Scindia; the wars from north to south, and from east to west of India,

were undertaken; and blood was made to flow, and debts to accumulate

to a degree most monstrous. Yet the admiration of this system of

policy in England has shewn how little human life and human welfare,

even to this day, weigh in the scale against dominion and avarice. We

hear nothing of the horrors and violence we have perpetrated, from

the first invasion of Bengal, to those of Nepaul and Burmah; we have

only eulogies on the empire achieved:—“See what a splendid empire we

have won!” True,—there is no objection to the empire, if we could

only forget the means by which it has been created. But amid all this

subtle and crooked policy—this creeping into power under the colour

of allies—this extortion and plunder of princes, under the name of

protection—this forcible subjection and expatriation of others, we

look in vain for the generous policy of the Christian merchant, and the

Christian statesman.[20]

The moderation of a Teignmouth, a Cornwallis, or a Bentinck, is deemed

mere pusillanimity. Those divine maxims of peace and union which

Christianity would disseminate amongst the natives of the countries

that we visit, are condemned as the very obstacles to the growth of our

power. When we exclaim, “what might not Englishmen have done in India

had they endeavoured to pacify and enlighten, instead of to exact and

destroy?” we are answered by a smile, which informs us that these are

but romantic notions,—that the only wisdom is to get rich!