THE YOUNGER PITT, AND THE RECOVERY OF ENGLISH PROSPERITY.
1782-1793.
[Sidenote: =Results of the war.=]
When England bowed before the force of circumstances, and concluded
peace with America, France, Spain, and Holland in 1783, she had
touched the lowest point of weakness which had been her lot since
the fifteenth century. Peace had been imposed by victorious enemies,
after a fruitless struggle of eight years. English armies had grown
accustomed to defeat; English fleets could barely hold their own upon
the seas. Money had been spent with a lavish hand, and the National
Debt was doubled. As a result of all her efforts, England had not only
to surrender smaller possessions all over the world, but to witness
the loss of her great Western empire, the thirteen colonies which
had been the pride of her statesmen, and one of the main outlets of
her commerce. A blow such as the loss of America seemed likely to
be fatal to England. Not only was her prestige gone, and her pride
humbled, but she was left with her finances in an apparently hopeless
condition of exhaustion, and her internal politics in a state of
complete disintegration. King George's great experiment in autocratic
government had completely failed; he had led the nation into disaster
and bankruptcy. His ministry had been struck down by the course of
events, the irrefutable logic of the American war. Lord North had
retired; his master had been forced to own himself beaten, and to make
over the conduct of the realm to a Whig ministry. But the Rockingham
cabinet was evidently a mere stop-gap. George's skilful policy of the
last twenty years had so divided and broken up the Whig party, that it
was difficult to reconstitute a strong cabinet from its remnants. When
peace with America and France had been secured--that peace being the
one great mandate which the nation had given to the Whigs--it seemed
likely that the perennial jealousies of their cliques and clans would
once more wreck the party, and that the king, with his steady power of
intrigue, his pension list, and his power of patronage, would succeed
in placing some second North in office.
[Sidenote: =Changed character of the Whigs.=]
The Whigs, however, were no longer their old selves. The great effect
of their twelve years' exile from power had been to teach the better
men of the party to detest the old methods of parliamentary corruption
and family jobbery which they had learnt from Walpole and Newcastle.
The Whigs had failed to realize the hatefulness of these practices
when employed by themselves, but when their own engine was turned
against them by the king, they began to see its shame. That the party
which professed to represent the people and to forward the immortal
principles of the Revolution, should ground its power on official
bribery and corruption, was humiliating to the better men in the Whig
camp. Hence it came that the nobler spirits among them resolved to
protest against the old methods, and to claim that the victory of their
party over the king in 1782 should result in something more than a
distribution of the loaves and fishes of office among their partisans.
Unhappily, however, much of the old leaven of corruption still hung
about the Whigs, and the section which represented it was just about to
perpetrate the worst piece of jobbery which their party ever committed.
[Sidenote: =Death of Lord Rockingham.--The Shelburne ministry.=]
The one thing in which all sections of the Whigs could agree, was
dislike of the royal influence, as employed by George III. The first
end, therefore, which the Rockingham cabinet set before itself, was
to cut down the means of corruption which the king possessed. The
pension list was diminished, no single person was to be allowed to
draw more than £300, the "secret service" funds in the royal hands
were cut down, and a certain number of the useless and expensive
offices about the court abolished. This was all very well so far as
it went, but much more was needed, and it was very uncertain how much
time would be granted to the new Whig ministers to carry out further
reforms. Their leader, Lord Rockingham, died suddenly in July, 1782,
long ere the formal treaties of peace with France and Spain had been
signed. He was a man of slender abilities, but honest and popular, and
able to keep his party together. On his death the old clan rivalries
of his followers burst once more into life. The king sent for Lord
Shelburne, the leader of the liberal and reforming party among the
Whigs, and offered him the premiership. But Shelburne was viewed with
bitter dislike by many of the Whig chiefs; his sharp tongue and his
love of intrigue made him many foes, and when he took office they
refused to serve under him. On the mere ground of personal jealousy
and resentment, the larger half of the party went into opposition and
joined the Tories. Not only the old family cliques that represented
the corrupt and selfish Whigs of an earlier day, but many of the
younger men, who called themselves the friends of liberty and reform,
took this suicidal step. Among them was Charles James Fox, the most
able and open-minded man in the party, but irregular in his private
life, a gambler and a lover of the bottle, somewhat tainted with the
failings of a political adventurer, and too factious to be altogether
honest in his actions. Fox had been a Tory in his earlier years, but
had quarrelled with Lord North in 1772, and after that date had joined
the opposition, become one of its chiefs, and been the first to favour
peace with America.
[Sidenote: =William Pitt the younger.=]
Shelburne took office, therefore, with a comparatively weak following.
So many of the old leaders had refused to aid him, that he was
constrained to give the post of Chancellor of the Exchequer and leader
of the House of Commons to a young man of twenty-three, William
Pitt, the second son of the great Earl of Chatham. This appointment,
startling though it appeared, was a very wise one. The younger Pitt was
the most remarkable man of his age. He had inherited from his father
high principles, an enthusiastic belief in the future of England, and
a sympathy for the cause of reform. He had been reared as a Whig, but
had no sympathies for the old parliamentary jobbing and corruption of
the party. His personal integrity was as great as that of his father,
and his hatred of intrigue and bribery even greater. Though quite new
to the House of Commons, he made a sensation on his first appearance
in it, which showed that men saw that the mantle of his father had
fallen upon his shoulders. His self-confidence and belief in his own
powers were as great as those of Chatham had been, but he was devoid
of the theatrical pomposity which had sometimes marred the effect of
his parent's eloquence. As Chatham had believed himself the destined
saviour of England from the dangers of foreign war, so it was his son's
aim and end to deliver England from internal faction, and to build up
a great constitutional party which should combine loyalty to the crown
with liberal and progressive legislation. This party, as Pitt imagined,
would consist of the more enlightened Whigs, the section of the party
which had once followed his father, and now obeyed Shelburne. That it
would ever grow to be known as the "Tory party," would at this moment
have been beyond his comprehension.
[Sidenote: =Fall of Shelburne.=]
The Shelburne ministry only held office for nine months (July, 1782, to
April, 1783). From the first it was doomed to fall before the hostility
of the Whig opposition. It survived long enough to ratify the final
conclusion of the peace negotiations which the Rockingham cabinet
had begun. But it fell before a factious motion of Fox, who moved a
vote of censure on the very reasonable and moderate terms on which
peace had been bought from France. This motion was supported by the
ominous combination of the old Tory supporters of Lord North with the
discontented sections of the Whig party. It drove Shelburne to instant
resignation.
[Sidenote: =Fox and North combine.=]
But no one could have foreseen the strange sequel to this vote. To the
surprise of all save those who were in the secret, it was suddenly
announced that Fox and North were about to unite their forces, not for
a single division, but for a permanent alliance. Lord North seems to
have imbibed in his long tenure of power--from 1770 to 1782--a craving
for office at any price. Seeing that the king was too weak for the
moment to replace him in his old seat, he plotted an unnatural union
with his foes the Whig clans. He could command the allegiance of that
section of the Tories who cared more for place and power than for their
loyalty towards the crown, of the men who had aided King George from
purely personal and corrupt motives. Now he offered Fox and the Duke of
Portland, the Whig leaders, the invaluable aid of this solid phalanx
of votes, if they would admit him into their alliance. Having no
political aims or principles of his own save a desire to possess power
and patronage, he could undertake to fall in with any schemes that they
might desire. To their great discredit the Whigs closed eagerly with
this immoral proposal, and took North into partnership, though they had
been spending the last ten years in vehement abuse of his methods of
government and his mean subservience to the king.
[Sidenote: =The Coalition Ministry.=]
Hence came into existence the "Coalition Ministry" of April, 1783, in
which the followers of North and Fox sat together under the nominal
control of the Duke of Portland, one of the chiefs of the old Whig
families. The cynical immorality of the combination displeased every
one. The king was enraged with his old hireling North for leading
away half the Tories to join the hated Whig oligarchs. The nation was
puzzled and disgusted to see men who had so often abused each other,
combining from no better motive than mere lust for power and office.
But unpopular though the new cabinet was, it was for the moment supreme
in Parliament by means of its overwhelming majority of votes.
[Sidenote: =Pitt's Reform Bill rejected.=]
The continued existence of the Coalition Government would probably
have led to a return to the ancient corruption of Walpole and
Newcastle. What the principles of the new Whig administration were,
was sufficiently shown by the fate of a Reform Bill, to abolish rotten
boroughs and increase the representation of populous districts, which
William Pitt brought forward in the summer of 1783. The ministry
frowned on a measure which would diminish their power to buy votes, and
the bill was rejected by a majority of 144.
But, fortunately for England, the Coalition was not to last for long.
It fell partly because of its unpopularity with the nation, and partly
because the king tried against it the last of his autocratic methods of
interfering with politics.
[Sidenote: =Fox's India Bill.=]
In November, 1783, Fox brought in a bill for rearranging the government
of our Indian possessions, a measure which had become necessary in
consequence of changes in that country which we shall have to narrate
a few pages later on. The manifest failure of the East India Company
to provide for the good administration of the growing empire which
was falling into its hands, rendered the interference of the Home
Government imperative. Fox produced a bill for taking the rule of our
Indian possessions entirely out of the power of the Company, which
was in the future to confine its activity to commerce alone. All the
English officials in India, from the governors of presidencies down to
ensigns in the army and clerks, were to be selected by a council of
seven commissioners in London, nominated by Parliament. The names of
the seven were given, and they were all violent partisans of Fox and
North. The bill, good in many ways, was liable to censure in the one
point that it gave the ministry a fund of patronage which was certain
to be abused. The Fox-North cabinet was nothing if not unscrupulous,
and when it got control of the £300,000 of annual patronage which the
East India Company possessed, there is no doubt that it would have
employed it to forward Whig family jobs and political corruption. An
opponent of the bill complained that "it took the diadem off the king's
head to place it on that of Mr. Fox." Much was also said as to the
injustice of stripping the Company of its chartered rights.
[Sidenote: =The King and Fox's bill.=]
The India Bill, however, passed the Commons, and then came before the
Lords. To throw it out, the king now took the unprecedented step of
sending down to the House a paper written with his own hand, which
Lord Temple was to show to such of the peers as he thought fit. It was
to the effect that "whoever voted for the bill was not only not his
Majesty's friend, but would be considered as his enemy." This notice
was given to all who wavered, or who did not wish to incur the king's
personal enmity. It led so many of the weaker Whig peers to abstain
from voting, that the bill was thrown out by a majority of nineteen.
George's conduct was quite unconstitutional; if it were possible for
the king to engage in such an underhand intrigue against his own
cabinet, the system of government by responsible ministers became
impossible.
[Sidenote: =The Coalition resigns.=]
The Whigs revenged themselves by passing a vote through the Commons
stigmatizing Lord Temple's conduct in showing the paper as a high crime
and misdemeanour. Nevertheless they had to quit office, though they
boasted that they would soon be back again, since George could not
find any other ministry to put in their place (December, 1783).
[Sidenote: =Pitt takes office.=]
They were mistaken, however. The king, ready to dare any expedient that
would keep the hated Coalition out of power, had offered the position
of prime minister to William Pitt. The ambitious young statesman
accepted the charge, and took office, though he could only rely on the
support of the Shelburne Whigs, the reforming section of the party,
aided by the "King's Friends," as those of the Tory party who had not
followed North were once again styled.
[Sidenote: =The General Election.=]
The sight of a prime minister of twenty-four, backed by a weak
minority, moved the derision of the partisans of Fox and North. They
said that they would drive him to resign in three weeks, and at once
threw out all the bills which he brought before the House. But, instead
of resigning, Pitt was resolved to dissolve Parliament and to face a
general election. He knew that his own name was great with the nation,
and that the Coalition was universally detested and condemned. His
policy was crowned with enormous success. Almost every borough and
county where the election was free and the voters numerous, declared
against the candidates whom Fox and North recommended. No less than 160
supporters of the Coalition lost their seats, and Pitt came back to
Parliament with a clear working majority in his favour (March, 1784).
[Sidenote: =Pitt and the king.=]
Thus began the long and eventful ministry which was to last for the
next seventeen years. With the triumph of Pitt English politics are
lifted to a higher level, and lose the mean and petty aspect which they
had displayed ever since the days of Walpole. For the first time since
the century began, England was in the hands of a minister of a spotless
personal integrity, who possessed broad views and a definite political
programme. His power was enormous, for, in return for having delivered
the king from his hated enemies the Whigs, Pitt was granted the royal
support even for measures which his narrow-minded sovereign hardly
understood and could not love. George tolerated in him a policy which
would have maddened him if it had been pursued by the Whigs. In return
the minister treated the king with a loyalty and a personal regard
which were perhaps hardly deserved by his master.
[Sidenote: =The new Tory party.=]
Pitt took from the elder Tories the loyalty which they had degraded
into subservience, and from the Whigs the liberal and reforming
principles and hatred of corruption which they had preached but not
practised. On the basis of the two combined, he strove to build up
a party, new in fact if not in name, from the scattered knots and
sections of politicians who had united to oppose the iniquitous
coalition of Fox and North. The wonderful success of the earlier years
of his administration fixed him firmly in his seat, and enabled him to
carry out his policy.
[Sidenote: =The financial situation.=]
He found the country still in the depths of the depression caused by
the American war, with a deficit of £12,000,000, and a National Debt
which had just mounted up to what was then considered the crushing
sum of £200,000,000. So low was public credit that Consols only stood
at 60. Yet in five years Pitt could show a prosperous balance-sheet,
a revenue rapidly increasing without any additional taxation, a
scheme--if a faulty one--for extinguishing the National Debt, and the 3
per cents. at par.
The fact was that in 1784 the state of England was not so bad as it
appeared. Financially, the American war failed to ruin the country,
because new sources of wealth were developed exactly at the moment when
they were wanted. To replace the comparatively small commercial profit
which we had been wont to draw from our lost Western colonies, a sudden
increase of wealth came flooding in from our new Eastern empire in
India. Nor was this all. Even more important were the new channels of
profit opened by the development of our home manufactures.
[Sidenote: =Improved communications.=]
We have already spoken of the symptoms of an approaching development
in our domestic industries which were beginning to be felt toward the
end of the reign of George II. This movement came to maturity in the
earlier years of George III. While the king was wrangling with the
Whigs, and sowing the seeds of the American war, a revolution was
quietly transforming the character of English trade. Between 1760 and
1780 a network of canals had been constructed to connect the centres of
manufacturing life. The muddy lanes, which England had hitherto called
roads, began at last to disappear, and a multitude of turnpike Acts
created new highways along which traffic could readily make its way.
The fast-travelling coach superseded the lumbering stage-waggons, which
had crept from town to town.
[Sidenote: =Development of the North.=]
Along the new roads and canals rolled a vastly increased volume of
trade. The great discovery of the last reign, that iron might be
smelted with coal, made Northern England, where coal and iron lie side
by side, a great manufacturing district instead of a thinly peopled
range of moors, and before the century was out Yorkshire and Lancashire
had become the most important industrial centres in the realm.
[Sidenote: =Mechanical inventions.=]
A few years after the expansion of the iron industry came the growth
of textile manufactures, fostered by the new discoveries made by
Watt and Arkwright. The former, a Glasgow instrument-maker, began
the application of steam to the setting of machinery in motion. The
latter, a barber at Bolton, perfected the details of that machinery,
and showed that it was possible to do quickly and accurately with
iron what had hitherto been done slowly and more clumsily with human
fingers. Where previously the spinner and weaver co-operated with the
precarious motive-power of running water, the new mills, working by
steam and able to establish themselves wherever coal was to be found,
made their appearance. Thus the price of production was enormously
lessened, and English woven goods became able to underbid any others
in the markets of the world. For as yet no other nation had learnt
the use of steam and machinery, and England had a monopoly of the new
inventions. Our linen, woollen, and cotton manufactures were increasing
with an astounding rapidity, and wealth and population mounted up by
leaps and bounds. It is true that the new factory system was to lead
to many social troubles and miseries. In the haste to grow rich, the
mill-owners took little thought of the bodily or moral welfare of
their workmen. In the new centres of population the lower classes were
crowded together in narrow and unhealthy streets, forced to work too
many hours a day, and grievously stinted in their wages as competition
grew fierce. But these evils were only beginning to develop, while the
rush of wealth produced in the new industries was apparent at once.
[Sidenote: =Improved agriculture.=]
Moreover, the growth of manufactures had stimulated other sources of
prosperity. The increased population called for a larger food-supply,
and therefore forced agriculture to develop. Waste and moor were
everywhere being ploughed up, to raise corn for the new thousands who
annually swelled our ranks. It is said that more new ground was taken
into cultivation in the years between 1760 and 1780 than in the whole
century which preceded them. Thus the landholding classes shared in the
prosperity of the manufacturers. Nor was it only in the quantity of new
corn-bearing land that progress was seen; the older acres also were
cultivated with improved methods, and brought forth double their former
produce.
[Sidenote: =Growth of wealth.=]
The growth of manufactures and the development of agriculture were
enough in themselves to account for the marvellous ease with which
England bore the burdens imposed upon her by the American war. So
greatly was the national wealth increased, that losses which had seemed
ruinous at the time were forgotten in ten years. The £120,000,000 of
debt incurred in the struggle were no longer a nightmare to Chancellors
of the Exchequer; it became evident that the country had suffered no
incurable wound in the disastrous struggle with America, France, and
Spain.
[Sidenote: =Pitt's financial and commercial policy.=]
Pitt, then, fell upon a fortunate time when he took office in December,
1783. But we must not deprive him of the full credit of restoring the
prosperity of English finance. It is a great title to praise that he
saw the bright side of things when other men were hopeless. And it
must be remembered that his own enlightened conduct of affairs had
much to do with the improved condition of the country. For he was far
ahead of his contemporaries in his knowledge of finance and political
economy. First of all English statesmen, he had studied the laws of
wealth and the workings of international commerce. He had found an
inspiration in Adam Smith's celebrated book, the "Wealth of Nations,"
published in 1776, and from it had convinced himself that Free Trade
was the true policy of England, and that the old and narrow commercial
policy of restriction and Protection was radically unsound. In all his
legislation he bore this principle in mind, and the realm profited
thereby to no small extent.
[Sidenote: =Peace abroad.=]
The first ten years of Pitt's rule (1783-1792) were a time of profound
peace both at home and abroad. Though his foreign policy was not weak
or vacillating, the young premier avoided all collisions with our
neighbours. A slight difficulty with Spain in 1789 about our colony on
Vancouver's Island, in the North Pacific, is hardly worth mention.
[Sidenote: =The Whigs powerless.=]
Meanwhile Pitt's ascendency at home was complete. The disgrace of the
Coalition still hung over the Parliamentary opposition. There seemed to
be hardly any reason for the longer existence of the old Whig party,
which followed Fox, Burke, and Sheridan. The popular principles on
which they had always pretended to rest had now been adopted by the
opponent whom they styled a Tory. The opposition in the years 1783-1793
was factious rather than honest. The Whigs had to see measures, which
they could not but approve, carried by their political enemy, or else
to withstand them on the inadequate ground of pure party spite. The
spectacle of a conscientious and enlightened minister opposed by men
who could find no real fault with his principles or measures, disgusted
the nation, and the Whig party sunk into a disrepute which proceeded
from a general belief that it was insincere. Not least among the
causes of its ill odour with the country was the close connection of
its leaders, Fox and Sheridan--neither of them men of a high moral
reputation--with the Prince of Wales. For the young prince's dissolute
habits, wanton thriftlessness, and unfilial conduct towards his father
rendered him a byword among right-minded men. Yet the only hope of the
Whigs returning to office lay in the help of the younger George. He had
promised to dismiss Pitt and call Fox to office if ever he were able,
and when in 1788 his father was stricken down with a temporary fit of
insanity, it seemed that he might be able to carry out his design. But
the king recovered before his son had been formally named regent, and
the Whigs lost their opportunity.
[Sidenote: =Pitt and foreign trade.=]
The early years of Pitt's domination were a period of active
legislation. He took in hand many schemes, and brought most of them to
a successful end. His enlightened views on Free Trade were shown by a
commercial treaty with France which took off many prohibitive duties,
and much increased the commerce between the two countries (1786).
He also attempted to remove all trade restrictions between England
and Ireland, but was foiled by the factious Irish parliament, which
refused to ratify the terms which he offered. Smuggling he succeeded in
reducing to a low ebb, by lessening the exorbitant duties on tea and
spirits; so that the excess of profit on smuggled goods was no longer
large enough to tempt men to incur the risk of capture.
[Sidenote: =Domestic reforms.=]
We find Pitt abolishing the shocking scandals of public executions
at Tyburn, supporting measures for the abolition of the Slave Trade,
repealing most of the ancient legislation against Romanists, and
opening the bar and the army to them. He turned the ancient punishment
of being sold into slavery on a tropical plantation, which had
hitherto been the lot of convicts, into the comparatively mild form
of transportation to Botany Bay, the penal settlement in Australia
established in 1788 as our first possession in that continent.
[Sidenote: =The Canada Bill.=]
Of wise and liberal dealing with the colonies Pitt set an example,
which has ever since been followed, in his Canada Bill of 1790. This
measure gave a liberal grant of responsible government to that great
colony, where so many of the exiled loyalists from the United States
had settled down after the war. But perhaps the most important of all
the measures of the years 1783-1793 were those dealing with India. Pitt
had to face, not only the problems which had called forth Fox's India
Bill, but some further difficulties of a personal kind.
A word as to the history of our Indian Empire is required to carry it
on from the point where we left it, after Clive's conquest of Bengal
and the final rout of the French at Wandewash (1760).
[Sidenote: =Indian politics.=]
It was impossible for the English to halt in the position which they
had then reached. Most especially was it unlikely that they would
long bear with the unsatisfactory state of affairs in Bengal and the
Carnatic, where the East India Company had taken the nawabs under
their protection and made vassals of them, but had not thought out
any scheme for making those princes govern in accordance with English
interests and ideas. It was intolerable that we should be responsible
for the misrule of effete oriental despots, while keeping no real
control over them; for, except in the suburbs of Madras and Calcutta,
we made no pretence to territorial sovereignty.
[Sidenote: =Battle of Buxar.=]
The feeble Mohammed Ali in the Carnatic did no worse than pile up
mountains of debt, and quibble with the Governor of Madras. But Mir
Kasim, the Nawab of Bengal, was made of sterner stuff. Resenting all
interference of his suzerains in the governance of his realm, he
rebelled against the Company, and sealed his own fate by massacring 150
English merchants of the factory of Patna. This brought down prompt
chastisement. He was driven out of Bengal, and forced to take refuge
with his neighbour Suraj-ud-Dowlah, the Nawab of Oude, who consented to
espouse his cause. But at Buxar, Major Munro, with a handful of sepoys,
defeated the united armies of the two Mohammedan princes (1763). This
important victory gave England the control of all North-Eastern India:
she enthroned a new nawab in Bengal, but made him a mere puppet and
tool, with no real authority. For the future the Company administered
Bengal and Bahar in its own name, under the authority of a grant from
Shah Alum, the powerless Grand Mogul of the day. At the same time Oude
came within the sphere of British influence, for Suraj-ud-Dowlah was
forced to become our ally and to pay us a subsidy.
[Sidenote: =Clive's reforms.=]
Shortly after this pacification, Lord Clive came out again to India,
to act as Governor of Bengal. His second tenure of power lasted two
years (1765-1767), and was notable for great improvements which he
introduced into the governance of the land. Hitherto the English
officials and military commanders had received very low pay, while
placed in positions where money-making was easy. Many succumbed to
the temptation, and accumulated fortunes by blackmailing the natives,
by selling their patronage, or by engaging in private trade. Clive
wisely stopped these sources of corruption, by raising the salaries of
his subordinates, but forbidding them to trade with the country or to
receive gifts from natives. His reforms were much resented, and almost
led to sedition among the military; but he carried them through with
a strong hand, and left the army and civil service much improved and
purified. Ill-health forced him to return to England in 1767, where
some years after he put an end to himself in a fit of depression.
[Sidenote: =Warren Hastings, Governor-General.=]
For the next six years our Indian possessions were ruled by men of
lesser fame, and were unvexed by foreign wars. But in 1773 a new
era began. In that year a Governor-General was for the first time
appointed, and entrusted with the command of all the three presidencies
of Bengal, Madras, and Bombay. The first man placed in this office
was the greatest who has ever held it--the able and undaunted Warren
Hastings. For twelve years this stern ruler maintained the prestige of
the English name in India, though he had to face the fearful storm of
the American war, which shook the foundations of the British empire in
every part of the world. Not the least of his achievements was that he
asserted his own will in every crisis against the strenuous opposition
of his factious council, who, headed by Philip Francis--the virulent
writer of the "Letters of Junius"--did their best to thwart every
scheme that he took in hand.
[Sidenote: =Execution of Nandukumar.=]
Hastings began his rule by placing in English hands all the posts in
the administration of justice and the collection of the taxes, which
had hitherto been in the charge of natives. This led to increased
revenue and pure law. But the Bengalis did not at first understand the
methods of the new courts, which in some ways worked harshly enough.
When Sir Elijah Impey, the first Chief Justice, hung for forgery the
great Calcutta banker, Nandukumar (Nuncomar), they could only believe
that he suffered because he had offended the Governor-General by
intriguing with Francis and the other discontented members of council.
Hence came a most unjust accusation against Hastings and Impey, of
having committed a judicial murder.
[Sidenote: =The Rohilla war.=]
The worst trouble which Hastings experienced was the continual cry
for increased dividends with which the directors of the East India
Company kept plaguing him. They were not particular as to the way in
which money was to be earned, and the Governor-General sometimes tried
strange expedients to satisfy them. The worst was the hiring out to
Asaf-ud-Dowlah, the Nawab of Oude, of English troops for use in wars
with his neighbours. By such aid that prince subdued the Rohillas, an
Afghan tribe on his northern frontier. The only excuse that Hastings
could plead for this undignified traffic was that the Rohillas were a
race of plunderers and a public nuisance to Northern India (1774).
[Sidenote: =The Mahratta war, 1778.=]
A little later an attempt to extend the English influence in Western
India involved Hastings in a dangerous war. The Bombay government
wished to acquire over its neighbours the Mahrattas the same sort of
suzerainty which Madras exercised over the Nawab of the Carnatic, and
Bengal over the Nawab of Oude. With this object a treaty was concluded
with a prince named Raghonath Rao, who claimed to be Peishwa, or head
of the Mahratta confederacy, by which he was to be lent troops, and to
pay in return a large subsidy to the Company. But the other Mahratta
chiefs, headed by Scindiah, the most powerful of their race, refused to
acknowledge Raghonath, and attacked the Company. They utterly defeated
the Bombay army, and the credit of the British arms was only saved by
a daring experiment of Hastings, who made an English army march from
Bengal right across Northern India. This force took Gwalior, Scindiah's
capital, and overran the province of Gujarat. The Mahrattas made peace,
ceding to Hastings the island of Salsette; but the attempt to make them
into vassals had distinctly failed, and had to be postponed for twenty
years.
[Sidenote: =Haider Ali.=]
But the greatest danger which Hastings had to face came from the
outbreak of the war with France in 1778. It is true that his troops
easily captured Pondicherry and the other French settlements, but
they could not prevent their enemies from stirring up against them
a very dangerous enemy. This was Haider Ali, a Mohammedan military
adventurer who had built up an empire for himself in Southern India.
He had usurped the throne of his master, the Rajah of Mysore, and had
conquered all his neighbours by the aid of a great mercenary army
of fanatical Mussulmans. While Hastings was still engaged in the
dangerous Mahratta war, the French easily induced the ruler of Mysore
to interfere in the struggle, for he coveted the rich dominions of our
vassal, the Nawab of the Carnatic.
[Sidenote: =Hastings' extortions.=]
Haider Ali poured his hordes of predatory horse down from the plateau
of Mysore into the Carnatic. They swept over the whole country, and
burnt the villages at the very gates of Madras. Hastings, already
involved in one war, and vexed by a French fleet under De Suffren which
was hovering about, felt himself at his wits' end for troops and money
to resist the 100,000 men whom Haider had sent against the southern
presidency. To raise new resources he harshly fined Cheyte Singh,
Rajah of Benares, a vassal prince who was slack in contributing to the
war. For failing to give £50,000, the unfaithful rajah was mulcted in
the sum of £500,000. When this was unpaid, Cheyte Singh was deposed
from his throne. More funds were procured from our ally, the Nawab of
Oude, in a not very reputable way. When Hastings asked him for aid,
Asaf-ud-Dowlah answered that he was penniless at the moment, because
his late father had illegally left the state-treasure to the Begums,
his widow and mother. He asked permission from Hastings to extract
the hoard from the old ladies, and did so by the cruel imprisonment
and torture of their servants. Of course the Governor-General was not
responsible for the Nawab's methods. But he profited by them: more than
£1,000,000 was torn from the Begums, and served to pay the expenses of
the Mysore war.
[Sidenote: =Battle of Porto Novo.=]
That struggle, which had begun under such unfavourable circumstances,
was finally carried to a glorious end. The veteran Sir Eyre Coote, who
had won the Carnatic at Wandewash twenty years before, now saved it
by the victory of Porto Novo (July, 1781). Haider's multitudes were
routed, and he was driven back into the hills. Next year he died,
and the throne of Mysore fell to his son, Tippoo Sultan, a cruel and
fanatical prince of talents very inferior to those of his father. After
two years of war, Tippoo was constrained to make peace, and to cease
from molesting the Carnatic (1784).
Hastings' work was now done; he had saved our Indian empire by his hard
fighting with the Mahrattas and the rulers of Mysore, at a time when
England, oppressed by war in Europe and America, could give him no aid.
He had organized the administration, increased the revenue, and set
justice on a firm basis. If some of his acts had been harsh, yet all
should have been pardoned him when his difficulties were taken into
consideration.
[Illustration: INDIA
IN THE TIME OF
WARREN HASTINGS.]
[Sidenote: =Trial of Hastings.=]
But when Hastings came home in 1785, hoping to receive the thanks
of the nation and to be rewarded with a peerage, he was woefully
undeceived. His enemy Francis had returned from India before him, and
had laid before Fox and Burke, the leaders of the Whig opposition, all
the doings of the last ten years painted in the darkest colours. He
persuaded them that Hastings was a tyrant and a monster, and moreover
that a damaging blow could be dealt to Pitt by impeaching the great
governor. For if the prime minister defended him, as was likely,
he might be accused of protecting guilt and malfeasance. The Whigs
therefore demanded with loud cries the impeachment of Hastings; but
Pitt--rather to their surprise--granted it. Then began the famous trial
of the Governor-General before the House of Lords, which lasted fully
six years. Accused of having judicially murdered Nandukumar, of having
illegally sold British troops to the Nawab Asaf-ud-Dowlah, and of
having cruelly oppressed Cheyte Singh and the Begums of Oude, Hastings
was acquitted on every point. But the law expenses had ruined him, and
the nation's indifference had soured him, so that he died an unhappy
and disappointed man.
[Sidenote: =Pitt's India Bill.=]
Hastings was succeeded as Governor-General by Lord Cornwallis, the
victor of Camden and the vanquished of Yorktown. This honest and brave
man was set the task of governing India under a new constitution. In
1784 Pitt had passed an "India Bill" not very unlike that of Fox.
It gave the Crown the supreme power over the Company, making the
Governor-General and the Board of Control in London nominees of the
Crown. But the Company was still left its patronage, its monopoly of
trade, and a certain undefined power over the Governor-General which
led to much trouble in the future.
[Sidenote: =Cornwallis' Indian policy.=]
Cornwallis ruled British India for seven years (1786-1793), and, though
he had gone out with no intention of engaging in wars or aggrandizing
the Company's dominions, was driven by the force of circumstances into
a policy which was practically identical with that of Warren Hastings.
[Sidenote: =War with Tippoo of Mysore.=]
The Sultan Tippoo of Mysore, always restless and quarrelsome, made war
on all his neighbours, till at last, in 1789, he attacked the Rajah
of Travancore, a vassal of the Company. Resolved to crush the Sultan,
Cornwallis built up a great alliance with the Nizam, the Mohammedan
ruler of the Hyderabad state, and with the chiefs of the Mahrattas.
Standing at the head of this confederacy, the English appeared for
the first time as asserting a predominance over the whole peninsula.
Neither the Mahrattas nor the Nizam gave any very material aid towards
the suppression of Tippoo, but Cornwallis proved able to accomplish
it without their assistance. His first advance into Mysore was foiled
by lack of provisions, but in the next year (1791) he forced his way
into the heart of Tippoo's realm, beat him at the battle of Arikera,
and then stormed the lines of Seringapatam, which covered the Sultan's
capital. A few more days' fighting would have put it in the hands of
Cornwallis; but when Tippoo humbled himself and asked for peace, he
was spared. Nearly half his dominions were taken from him--part to be
added to the Madras Presidency, part to be given to the Nizam and the
Mahrattas. It was fortunate that Tippoo did not delay his attack on the
allies for a few years; if he had waited a little longer, he would have
found England deep in her struggle with the French Revolution. As it
was, he was so crushed that he gave no trouble for eight years more.
[Sidenote: =The "Perpetual Settlement."=]
Hardly less important than the Mysore war was Cornwallis's
well-intentioned but ill-judged measure, the "Perpetual Settlement" of
Bengal. This was a scheme for permanently fixing the land revenue of
that province, by assessing a fair rent to be paid to the Company--as
supreme lord of the soil--which should not vary from year to year, but
remain for ever at the moderate figure at which it was now settled. But
unfortunately Cornwallis did not make the bargain with the _ryots_,
or peasants, the real owners of the land, but with the _zemindars_, a
class of hereditary tax-collectors who were one of the legacies left
to us by the old Mogul rulers of India. As the Government made its
contract with the zemindar for the rent of each group of villages,
and undertook never to ask more from him than a certain fixed amount,
it became the interest of this tax-collecting class to screw up the
contributions of the villagers to the highest point, as the whole
profit went into their own pockets. The rack-renting led to a general
strike among the peasantry, who agreed to withhold their rents, and to
go to law with the zemindars _en masse_, knowing that they could choke
the law-courts for years by sending in thousands of appeals at the same
moment. The result of this conspiracy--much like one that was seen
in Ireland only a few years ago--was to ruin most of the zemindars,
who became liable for the land-tax to the Government, and could not
raise it while the ryots were fighting them in the courts. In any
other country than Bengal this crisis must have led to agrarian civil
war, but the Bengalis preferred litigation to outrages, and affairs
ultimately settled down. Later legislation has wisely taken note of the
rights of the ryot as well as those of the zemindar, but the pledge of
the "Perpetual Settlement" has never been broken, and to this day the
lands of Bengal pay no more to the crown than the moderate assessment
of 1793--a standing proof that the British Government keeps its word.
Cornwallis came home in 1794, to find England plunged in the greatest
war that she has ever known--that with the French Revolution.