CHAPTER XIII

The Foundation of British Rule in India, 1746-1805

The object of this history is to give a concise survey of the Indian peoples. What English rule has done for those peoples may best be realized by comparing India under the Muhammadans, as shown in previous chapters, with India at the present day. Such a comparison lies beyond the scope of this work; and a brief narrative of events must here suffice.

Chronology: Clive to the Marquess of Lansdowne.

British Governors and Governors-General of India under the East India Company, 1758-1858.

Governors.

Governors-General.

Viceroys of India under the Crown, 1858-92.

The French and English in the South.

The political history of the British in India begins in the eighteenth century with the French wars in the Karnatik. It was at Arcot, in the Madras Presidency, that Clive’s star first shone forth; and it was on the field of Wandiwash in the same Presidency that the French dream of an Indian Empire was for ever shattered. Fort St. George, or Madras, was, as we have seen, the first territorial possession of the English on the mainland of India, having been founded by Mr. Francis Day in 1639. The French settlement of Pondicherri, about 100 miles lower down the Coromandel coast, was established in 1674; and for many years the English and French traded side by side without rivalry or territorial ambition.

Southern India after 1707.

On the death of the Mughal emperor, Aurangzeb, in 1707, Southern India gradually became independent of Delhi. In the Deccan proper, the Nizam-ul Mulk founded a hereditary dynasty, with Haidarabad for its capital, which exercised a nominal authority over the entire south. The Karnatik, or the lowland tract between the central plateau and the Bay of Bengal, was ruled by a deputy of the Nizam, known as the Nawab of Arcot, who in his turn asserted claims to hereditary sovereignty. Farther south, Trichinopoli was the capital of a Hindu Raja; Tanjore formed another Hindu kingdom under a degenerate descendant of the Maratha leader, Sivaji. Inland, Mysore was gradually growing into a third Hindu State; while everywhere local chieftains, called palegars or nayaks, were in semi-independent possession of citadels or hill-forts. These represented the feudal chiefs or fief-holders of the ancient Hindu kingdom of Vijayanagar; and many of them had maintained a practical independence, subject to irregular payments of tribute, since the fall of that kingdom in 1565.

Our First War in the Karnatik, 1746-1748.

Such was the condition of affairs in Southern India when war broke out between the English and the French in Europe in 1743. Dupleix was at that time the French Governor of Pondicherri, and Clive was a young civil servant or ‘writer’ at Madras. An English fleet appeared first on the Coromandel coast, but Dupleix by a judicious present induced the Nawab of Arcot to interpose and forbid hostilities. In 1746, a French squadron arrived, under the command of La Bourdonnais. Madras surrendered to it almost without a blow; and the only settlement left to the English was Fort St. David, some miles south of Pondicherri, where Clive and a few other fugitives sought shelter. The Nawab of Arcot, faithful to his impartial policy, marched with 10,000 men to drive the French out of Madras, but was defeated. In 1748, an English fleet arrived under Admiral Boscawen, and attempted the siege of Pondicherri, while a land force co-operated under Major Stringer Lawrence. The French repulsed all attacks; but the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, in the same year, restored Madras to the English.

Dupleix.

The first war with the French was merely an incident in the greater contest in Europe. The second war had its origin in Indian politics, while England and France were at peace. The easy success of the French arms had inspired Dupleix with the ambition of founding a French empire in India, under the shadow of the Muhammadan powers. Disputed successions among the reigning families both at Haidarabad and at Arcot gave him his opportunity. On both thrones Dupleix placed nominees of his own, and for a time he posed as the arbiter of the entire south. In boldness of conception, and in knowledge of Oriental diplomacy, Dupleix has probably had no equal. But he was no soldier, and he was destined to encounter in the field the ‘heaven-born genius’ of Clive. The English of Madras, under the instinct of self-preservation, had maintained the cause of another candidate to the throne of Arcot, in opposition to the nominee of Dupleix. Their candidate was Muhammad Ali, afterwards known in history as Wala-jah.

Clive.

The war which ensued between the French and English in Southern India has been exhaustively described by Orme. The one incident that stands out conspicuously is the capture and subsequent defence of Arcot by Clive in 1751. This heroic feat, even more than the battle of Plassey, spread the fame of English valour throughout India. Shortly afterwards, Clive returned to England in ill-health, but the war continued fitfully for many years. On the whole, the English influence predominated in the Karnatik or Madras coast, and their candidate, Muhammad Ali, maintained his position at Arcot. But, inland, the French were supreme in Southern India, and they were also able to seize the maritime tract called ’the Northern Circars.’

Battle of Wandiwash, 1760.

The final struggle did not take place until 1760. In that year, Colonel (afterwards Sir Eyre) Coote won the decisive victory of Wandiwash over the French general, Lally, and proceeded to invest Pondicherri, which was starved into capitulation in January 1761. A few months later, the hill fortress of Ginjee (Gingi) also surrendered. In the words of Orme, ’that day terminated the long hostilities between the two rival European powers in Coromandel, and left not a single ensign of the French nation avowed by the authority of its Government in any part of India.’

Native Rulers of Bengal, 1707-1756.

Meanwhile the narrative of British conquests shifts with Clive to Lower Bengal. At the time of Aurangzeb’s death, in 1707, the Nawab or Governor of Lower Bengal was Murshid Kuli Khan, known also in European history as Jafar Khan. By birth a Brahman, and brought up as a slave in Persia, he united the administrative ability of a Hindu to the fanaticism of a renegade. Hitherto the capital of Lower Bengal had been at Dacca, on the eastern frontier of the empire, whence the piratical attacks of the Portuguese and of the Arakanese or Maghs could be most easily checked. Murshid Kuli Khan transferred his residence to Murshidabad, in the immediate neighbourhood of Kasimbazar, which was then the river port of the Gangelic trade. The English, the French, and the Dutch had each factories at Kasimbazar, as well as at Dacca, Patna, and Maldah. But Calcutta was the separate headquarters of the English, Chandarnagar of the French, and Chinsurah of the Dutch,—these three towns being situated not far from one another on the lower reaches of the Hugli, where the river was navigable for sea-going ships. Murshid Kuli Khan ruled over Lower Bengal prosperously for twenty-one years, and left his power to a son-in-law and a grandson. The hereditary succession was broken in 1740 by Ali Vardi Khan, a usurper, but the last of the great Nawabs of Bengal. In his days the Maratha horsemen ravaged the country, and the inhabitants of Calcutta obtained permission in 1742 to erect an earthwork, known to the present day as the ‘Maratha Ditch.’

‘Black Hole’ of Calcutta.

Ali Vardi Khan died in 1756, and was succeeded by his grandson, Siraj-ud-daulah (Surajah Dowlah), a youth of only eighteen years, whose ungovernable temper led to a rupture with the English within two months after his accession. In pursuit of one of his own family who had escaped from his vengeance, he marched upon Calcutta with a large army. Many of the English fled down the river in their ships. The remainder surrendered after some resistance, and were thrust for the night into the ‘Black Hole’ or military jail of Fort William, a room about 18 feet square, with only two small windows barred with iron. It was our ordinary garrison prison in those times of cruel military discipline. But although the Nawab does not seem to have been aware of the consequences, it meant death to a crowd of English men and women in the stifling heats of June. When the door of the prison was opened next morning, only 23 persons out of 146 remained alive.

Clive and Watson.

The news of this disaster fortunately found Clive back again at Madras, where also was a squadron of King’s ships under Admiral Watson. Clive and Watson promptly sailed to the mouth of the Ganges with all the troops they could get together. Calcutta was recovered with little fighting; and the Nawab consented to a peace, which restored to the English Company all their privileges, and gave them ample compensation for their losses.

Battle of Plassey, 1757.

It is possible that matters might have ended thus, if a fresh cause of hostilities had not suddenly arisen. War had just been declared between the English and French in Europe; and Clive, following the traditions of warfare in the Karnatik, captured the French settlement of Chandarnagar on the Hugli. Siraj-ud-daulah, enraged by this breach of neutrality within his dominions, sided with the French. But Clive, again acting upon the policy which he had learned from Dupleix in Southern India, provided himself with a rival candidate (Mir Jafar) to the throne. Undaunted, he marched out to the grove of Plassey, about 70 miles north of Calcutta, at the head of 1000 Europeans and 2000 sepoys, with 8 pieces of artillery. The Bengal Viceroy’s army numbered 35,000 foot and 15,000 horse, with 50 cannon. Clive is said to have fought in spite of his council of war. The truth is, he could scarcely avoid a battle. The Nawab attacked with his whole artillery, at 6 a.m.; but Clive kept his men well under shelter, ’lodged in a large grove, surrounded with good mud-banks.’ At noon the enemy drew off into their entrenched camp for dinner. Clive only hoped to make a ‘successful attack at night.’ Meanwhile, the enemy being probably undressed over their cooking-pots, he sprang upon one of their advanced posts, which had given him trouble, and stormed ‘an angle of their camp.’ Several of the Nawab’s chief officers fell. The Nawab himself, dismayed by the unexpected confusion, fled on a camel; his troops dispersed in a panic; and Clive found he had won a great victory. Mir Jafar’s cavalry, which had hovered undecided during the battle, and had been repeatedly fired on by Clive, ’to make them keep their distance,’ now joined our camp; and the road to Murshidabad, the Nawab’s capital, lay open.

Mir Jafar, 1757.

The battle of Plassey was fought on June 23, 1757, an anniversary afterwards remembered when the Mutiny of 1857 was at its height. History has agreed to adopt this date as the beginning of the British Empire in the East. But the immediate results of the victory were comparatively small, and several years passed in hard fighting before even the Bengalis would admit the superiority of the British arms. For the moment, however, all opposition was at an end. Clive, again following in the steps of Dupleix, placed his nominee, Mir Jafar, upon the viceregal throne at Murshidabad, as Nawab of Bengal, and obtained for his appointment a farman from the Mughal emperor of Delhi. Enormous sums were exacted from Mir Jafar as the price of his elevation. The Company claimed ten million rupees as compensation for its losses. For the English, Hindu, and Armenian inhabitants of Calcutta were demanded, respectively, 5 million, 2 million, and 1 million rupees; for the naval squadron and the army, 2½ million rupees apiece. The members of the Council received the following amounts:—Mr. Drake, the Governor, and Colonel Clive, as second member of the Select Committee, 280,000 rupees each; and Mr. Becker, Mr. Watts, and Major Kilpatrick, 240,000 rupees each. Colonel Clive also received 200,000 rupees as Commander-in-Chief, and 1,600,000 rupees ‘as a private donation.’ Additional ‘donations’ were likewise made to the other Members of the Council, amounting in the case of Mr. Watts to 800,000 rupees. The whole claim of the British amounted to £2,697,750. The English still cherished extravagant ideas of Indian wealth. But no funds existed to satisfy their inordinate demands, and they had to be content with one-half the stipulated sums. Even of this reduced amount one-third had to be taken in jewels and plate, there being neither coin nor ingots left.

Grant of the Twenty-four Parganas, 1757.

At the same time the new Nawab of Bengal made a grant to the Company of the zamindari or landholder’s rights over an extensive tract of country round Calcutta, now known as the District of the Twenty-Four Parganas. The area of this tract was 882 square miles. In 1757, the Company obtained only the zamindari rights,—i.e. the right to collect the cultivator’s rents, together with the revenue jurisdiction attached, subject to the obligation of paying over the assessed land-tax to the Nawab, as the representative of the Delhi Emperor. But, in 1759, the land-tax also was granted by the emperor, the nominal suzerain of the Nawab, in favour of Clive, who thus became the landlord of his own masters, the Company. This military fief, or Clive’s jagir, as it was called, subsequently became a matter of inquiry in England. Lord Clive’s claims to the property as feudal suzerain over the Company were contested by it in 1764. But finally in 1765, when he returned to Bengal, a new deed was issued, confirming the unconditional jagir to Lord Clive for ten years, with reversion afterwards to the Company in perpetuity. This deed, having received the Delhi emperor’s sanction on the 12th August, 1765, gave absolute validity to the original jagir grant in favour of Lord Clive. It transferred eventually to the Company the Twenty-four Parganas as a perpetual property, based upon a jagir grant. The annual sum of Rs. 222,958, the amount at which the land-rent was assessed when first made over to the Company in 1757, was paid to Lord Clive from 1765 until his death in 1774, when the whole proprietary right reverted to the Company.

Clive, First Governor of Bengal, 1758.

In 1758, Clive was appointed by the Court of Directors the first Governor of all the Company’s settlements in Bengal. Two powers threatened hostilities. On the north-west, the Shahzada or imperial prince, afterwards the Emperor Shah Alam, with a mixed army of Afghans and Marathas, and supported by the Nawab Wazir of Oudh, was advancing his own claims to the Province of Bengal. In the south, the influence of the French under Lally and Bussy was overshadowing the British at Madras. The name of Clive exercised a decisive effect in both directions. Our Nawab of Bengal, Mir Jafar, was anxious to buy off the Shahzada, who had already invested Patna. But Clive marched in person to the rescue, with an army of only 450 Europeans and 2500 sepoys, and the Mughal array dispersed without striking a blow. In the same year, Clive despatched a force southwards under Colonel Forde, which recaptured Masulipatam on the Madras coast from the French, and permanently established British influence in the Northern Circars, and at the Nizam’s court of Haidarabad in Southern India. Clive next attacked the Dutch, the only other European nation who might yet prove a rival to the English. He defeated them both by land and water; and their settlement at Chinsurah existed thenceforth only on sufferance.

Mismanagement, 1760-1764.

From 1760 to 1765, Clive was in England. He had left no system of government in Bengal, but merely the tradition that unlimited sums of money might be extracted from the natives by the terror of the English name. In 1761, it was found expedient and profitable to dethrone Mir Jafar, our Nawab of Murshidabad, and to substitute his son-in-law, Mir Kasim, in his place. On this occasion, besides private donations, the English received a grant of the three Districts of Bardwan, Midnapur, and Chittagong, estimated to yield a net revenue of half a million sterling a year.

Revolt of Mir Kasim, 1763.

But the freshly appointed Nawab of Bengal, Mir Kasim, soon began to show a will of his own, and to cherish dreams of independence. He retired from Murshidabad to Monghyr, a strong position on the Ganges which commanded the line of communication with the north-west. There he proceeded to organize an army, drilled and equipped after European models, and to carry on intrigues with the Nawab Wazir of Oudh. He was resolved to try his strength with the English, and he found a good pretext. The Company’s servants claimed the privilege of carrying on their private trade throughout Bengal, free from the Nawab’s inland imposts. The assertion of this claim caused affrays between the customs officers of the Nawab and the native traders, who, whether truly or not, represented that they were acting on behalf of the servants of the Company. The Nawab alleged that his civil authority was everywhere set at nought. The majority of the Council at Calcutta would not listen to his complaints. The Governor, Mr. Vansittart, and Warren Hastings, then a junior member of Council, attempted to effect some compromise. But the controversy had become too hot. The Nawab’s officers fired upon an English boat, and a general rising against the English took place. Two thousand of our sepoys were cut to pieces at Patna; about 200 Englishmen, who there and in other various parts of Bengal fell into the hands of the Muhammadans, were massacred.

Re-conquest of Bengal, 1764.

But as soon as regular warfare commenced, Mir Kasim met with no more successes. His trained regiments were defeated in two pitched battles by Major Adams, at Gheria and at Udhnala; and he himself took refuge with the Nawab Wazir of Oudh, who refused to deliver him up to us. This led to a prolongation of the war. Shah Alam, who had now succeeded his father as emperor, and Shuja-ud-daulah, the Nawab Wazir of Oudh, united their forces, and threatened Patna, which the English had recovered. A more formidable danger appeared in the English camp, in the form of the first sepoy mutiny. It was quelled by Major (afterwards Sir Hector) Munro, who ordered twenty-four of the ringleaders to be blown from guns, an old Mughal punishment. In 1764, Major Munro won the decisive battle of Baxar, which laid Oudh at the feet of the conquerors, and brought the Mughal Emperor, Shah Alam, as a suppliant to the English camp. The old deposed Nawab of Bengal, Mir Jafar, was brought forth from his retirement, and was again appointed Nawab in place of Mir Kasim, who had risen against us. The English Council in Calcutta had thus twice found the profitable opportunity which they loved, of creating a new Nawab of Bengal, and of receiving the donations and large sums of money distributed to them by each of the Nawabs on his accession.

Clive’s Second Governorship, 1765-1767.

But, in 1765, Clive (now Baron Clive of Plassey in the peerage of Ireland) arrived at Calcutta, as Governor of Bengal for the second time. Two landmarks stand out in his policy. First, he sought the substance, although not the name, of territorial power, under the fiction of a grant from the Mughal Emperor. Second, he desired to purify the Company’s service, by prohibiting illicit gains, and guaranteeing a reasonable salary from honest sources. In neither respect were his plans carried out by his immediate successors. But our efforts at good government in India date from this second governorship of Clive in 1765, as our military supremacy had dated from his victory at Plassey in 1757.

Grant of the Diwani of Bengal, 1765.

Clive advanced rapidly up from Calcutta to Allahabad, and there settled in person the fate of nearly the northern half of India. Oudh was given back to the Nawab Wazir, on condition of his paying half a million sterling towards the expenses of the war. The Provinces of Allahabad and Kora, lying between the Ganges and the Jumna, were handed over to the Emperor Shah Alam, who in his turn granted to the English Company the diwani or fiscal administration of Lower Bengal, Behar, and Orissa, and also the territorial jurisdiction of the Northern Circars. A puppet Nawab was still maintained at Murshidabad, who received an annual allowance from us of £600,000. Half that amount, or about £300,000, we paid to the emperor as tribute from Bengal, Behar, and Orissa. Thus was constituted the dual system of government, by which the English received all the revenues of Bengal, Behar, and Orissa, and undertook to maintain the army; while the criminal jurisdiction was vested in the Nawab. In Indian phraseology, the Company was diwan, and the Nawab was nizam. The actual collection of the revenues still remained for seven years in the hands of native officials (1765-1772).

Clive’s Reorganization of the Bengal Service, 1766.

Clive’s other great task was the reorganization of the Company’s service. All the officers, civil and military alike, were tainted with the common corruption. Their legal salaries were paltry, and quite insufficient for a livelihood. But they had been permitted to augment them, sometimes a hundredfold, by means of private trade and by gifts from the Native powers. Despite the united resistance of the civil servants, and an actual mutiny of two hundred military officers, Clive carried through his reforms. Private trade and the receipt of presents were prohibited for the future, while a fair increase of pay was provided out of the monopoly of salt.

Dual System of Administration, 1767-1772.

Lord Clive quitted India for the third and last time in 1767. Between that date and the governorship of Warren Hastings in 1772, little of importance occurred in Bengal, beyond the terrible famine of 1770, which is officially reported to have swept away one-third of the inhabitants. The dual system of government established in 1765 by Clive had proved a failure. The English were the real rulers, but the administration of the districts was still carried on by native officials. There was thus a divided responsibility, and when any disaster occurred it was impossible to find out who was really to blame. Even the distant Court of Directors in England discerned that a complete change had become necessary in the government of Bengal. Warren Hastings, a tried servant of the company, distinguished alike for intelligence, for probity, and for knowledge of Oriental manners, was nominated Governor by the Court of Directors, with express instructions to carry out a predetermined series of reforms. In their own words, the Court had resolved to ‘stand forth as diwan, and to take upon themselves, by the agency of their own servants, the entire care and administration of the revenues.’ In the execution of this plan, Hastings removed the exchequer from Murshidabad to Calcutta, and appointed European officers, under the now familiar title of Collectors, to superintend the collections and preside in the revenue courts.

Warren Hastings, 1772-1785.

Clive had laid the territorial foundations of the British Empire in Bengal. Hastings may be said to have created a British administration for that empire. The wars forced on him by Native powers in India, the clamours of his masters in England for money, and the virulence of Sir Philip Francis with a faction of his colleagues at the Council table in Calcutta, retarded the completion of his schemes. But the manuscript records disclose the patient statesmanship and indomitable industry which he brought to bear upon them. From 1765 to 1772, Clive’s dual system of government, by corrupt Native underlings and rapacious English chiefs, had prevailed. Thirteen years were now spent by Warren Hastings in experimental efforts at rural administration by means of English officials (1772-1785). The completion of the edifice was left to his successor. But Hastings was the administrative organizer, as Clive had been the territorial founder, of our Indian Empire.

Hastings’ Work in India.

Hastings rested his claims as an Indian ruler on his administrative work. He reorganized the Indian service, reformed every branch of the revenue collections, created courts of justice and laid the basis of a police. But history remembers his name, not for his improvements in the internal administration, but for his bold foreign policy in dealing with the Native States. From 1772 to 1774, he was Governor of Bengal; from the latter date to 1785, he was the first Governor-General of India, presiding over a Council nominated, like himself, under a statute of Parliament known as the Regulating Act (1773). In his domestic policy he was greatly hampered by the opposition of his colleague in council, Sir Philip Francis, whom he ultimately wounded in a duel. But in his external relations with Oudh, with the Marathas and with Haidar Ali, Hastings was generally, although not always, able to compel assent to his views.

Hastings’ Policy to Native Rulers

His relations with the Native powers, like his domestic policy, formed a well-considered scheme. Hastings had to find money for the Court of Directors in England, whose thirst for the wealth of India was not less keen, although more decorous, than that of their servants in Bengal. He had also to protect the Company’s territory from the Native powers, which, if he had not destroyed them, would have annihilated him. Beyond the Bengal frontier a group of Muhammadan viceroys or governors of the old Mughal Empire had established independent States, the most important of which was Oudh. Beyond this group of Muhammadan States, the Marathas were practically the masters of Northern India, and held the nominal Emperor of Delhi as a puppet under their control. The wise policy of Warren Hastings was to ally himself with the independent Muhammadan States, that is to say principally with Oudh, just beyond his own frontier. If he could make these Muhammadan States strong, he hoped that they would prevent the Marathas from pouring down into Bengal. But these Muhammadan States were themselves so weak that this policy only obtained a partial success. In the end Warren Hastings found himself compelled to advance the British territories further up the Ganges, and practically to bring the Muhammadan States under his own control.

Hastings makes Bengal pay

Warren Hastings had in the first place to make Bengal pay. This he could not do under Clive’s dual system of administration. When he abolished that double system, he cut down the Nawab of Bengal’s allowance to one-half, and so saved about £160,000 a year. As a matter of fact, the titular Nawab, being then a minor, had ceased to render even any nominal service for his enormous income. Clive had himself reduced the original £600,000 to £450,000 on the accession of a new Nawab in 1766; and the grant was again cut down to £350,000 on a fresh succession in 1769. The allowance had practically been of a fluctuating and personal character. Its further reduction in 1772 in the case of the new child-Nawab had, moreover, been expressly ordered by the Court of Directors six months before Hastings took office as Governor of Bengal.

Hastings stops the Tribute to Delhi, 1773

Hastings’ next financial stroke was to stop payment of the tribute of £300,000 to the Delhi emperor, which Clive had agreed to, in return for the grant of Bengal to the Company. But the emperor had now been seized by the Marathas. Hastings held that His Majesty was no longer independent, and that to pay money to the emperor would practically be paying it to the Marathas, who were our most formidable enemies, and whom he clearly saw that we should have to crush, unless we were willing to be crushed by them. Hastings therefore withheld the tribute of £300,000 from the puppet emperor, or rather from his Maratha custodians.

Hastings sells Allahabad and Kora, 1773-1774

On the partition of the Gangetic valley in 1765, Clive had also allotted the Provinces of Allahabad and Kora to the emperor Shah Alam. The emperor, now in the hands of the Marathas, made them over to his new masters. Warren Hastings held that by so doing His Majesty had forfeited his title to these Provinces. Hastings accordingly resold them to the Wazir of Oudh. By this measure he freed the Company from a military charge of nearly half a million sterling, and obtained a price of over half a million for the Company. The terms of sale included the loan of British troops to subdue the Rohilla Afghans, who had seized and for some time kept hold of a tract on the north-western frontier of Oudh. The Rohillas were Muhammadans and foreigners; they had cruelly lorded it over the Hindu peasantry; and they were now intriguing with the Marathas, our most dangerous foes. The Wazir of Oudh, supported by the British troops lent to him by Hastings, completely defeated the Rohillas. He compelled most of their fighting men to seek new homes on the other side of the Ganges river, in a neighbouring and equally fertile district, but one in which they could no longer open the northern frontier of Oudh to the Marathas. By the foregoing series of measures, Hastings ceased to furnish the Maratha custodians of the Delhi emperor with the Bengal tribute; he also strengthened our ally the Wazir of Oudh, and closed his frontier against Maratha invasions; he bettered the Company’s finances in Bengal by a million sterling a year in both its revenue and expenditure: say two millions per annum.

Fines on Chait Singh and on the Oudh Begam

Hastings further improved the financial position of the Company by contributions from Chait Singh and from the Begam of Oudh. Chait Singh, the Rája of Benares, had grown rich under British protection. He resisted the just demand of Warren Hastings to subsidize a military force, and entered into correspondence with the enemies of the British Government. This led to his arrest. He escaped, headed a rebellion, and was crushed. His estates were forfeited, but transferred to his nephew, subject to an increased tribute. The Begam, or Queen-Mother, of Oudh was charged with abetting Chait Singh, the Benares Rája, in his rebellion. A heavy fine was laid upon her, which she resisted to the utmost. But after severe pressure on herself and the eunuchs of her household, over a million sterling was obtained.

Hastings’ Trial in England, 1788-1796

On his return to England, Warren Hastings was impeached by the House of Commons for these and other alleged acts of oppression. He was solemnly tried by the House of Lords, and the proceedings dragged themselves out for seven years (1788-1795). They form one of the most celebrated State trials in English history, and ended in a verdict of not guilty on all the charges. Meanwhile the cost of the defence had ruined Warren Hastings, and left him dependent upon the generosity of the Court of Directors,—a generosity which never failed.

First Maratha War, 1779-1781

The Bombay Government looked with envy on the territorial conquests of Madras and Bengal. It accordingly resolved to establish its supremacy at the Maratha court of Poona. This ambition found scope, in 1775, by the treaty of Surat, by which Raghuba, one of the claimants to the headship of the Marathas as Peshwa, agreed to cede Salsette and Bassein to the English, in consideration of being himself restored to Poona. The military operations that followed are known as the first Maratha war. Warren Hastings, who in his capacity of Governor-General claimed a right of control over the decisions of the Bombay Government, strongly disapproved of the treaty of Surat. But when war actually broke out, he threw the whole force of the Bengal army into the scale. One of his favourite officers, Colonel Goddard, marched across the peninsula of India from sea to sea, and conquered the rich Province of Gujarát almost without a blow. Another, Captain Popham, stormed the rock-fortress of Gwalior, which was regarded as the key of Hindustan. These brilliant successes of the Bengal troops atoned for the disgrace of the convention of Wargaum in 1779, when the Marathas had overpowered and dictated terms to our Bombay force; but the war was protracted until 1781. It was closed in 1782 by the treaty of Salbai, which practically restored the status quo. Raghuba, the English nominee for the Peshwáship, was set aside on a pension; Gujarát was restored to the Marathas; and only Salsette, with Elephanta and two other small islands, was retained by the English.

War with Mysore, 1780-1784

Meanwhile, Warren Hastings had to deal with a more dangerous enemy than even the Maratha Confederacy. The reckless conduct of the Madras Government had roused the hostility of Haidar Ali of Mysore and also of the Nizam of the Deccan, the two strongest Musalman powers in India. These attempted to draw the Marathas into an alliance against the English. The diplomacy of Hastings won back the Nizam and the Maratha Rája of Nagpur; but the army of Haidar Ali fell like a thunderbolt upon the British possessions in the Karnatik. A strong detachment under Colonel Baillie was cut to pieces at Perambakam, and Haidar Ali’s Mysore cavalry ravaged the country up to the walls of Madras. For the second time the Bengal army, stimulated by the energy of Hastings, saved the honour of the English name. He despatched Sir Eyre Coote, the victor of Wandiwash, to relieve Madras by sea, with all the men and money available, while Colonel Pearse marched south overland to overawe the Rája of Berar and the Nizam. The war was hotly contested, for the aged Sir Eyre Coote had lost his energy, and the Mysore army was not only well-disciplined and equipped, but skilfully handled by Haidar and his son Tipú. Haidar died in 1782, and peace was finally concluded with Tipú in 1784, on the basis of a mutual restitution of all conquests. Warren Hastings retired from the Governor-Generalship in 1785.

Marquess Cornwallis, 1786-1793

In 1786 arrived Lord Cornwallis, the first English nobleman who undertook the office of Governor-General of India. Between these two great names an interregnum of twenty months took place under Sir John Macpherson, a civil servant of the Company (Feb. 1785 to Sept. 1786). Lord Cornwallis twice held the high post of Governor-General. His first rule lasted from 1786 to 1793, and is celebrated for two events,—the introduction of the Permanent Settlement into Bengal, and the second Mysore war. If the foundations of the system of civil administration were laid by Hastings, the superstructure was raised by Cornwallis. He made over the higher criminal jurisdiction to European officers, and established the Nizamat Sadr Adalat, or Supreme Court of Criminal Judicature, at Calcutta; in the rural districts, he separated the functions of Revenue Collector and Civil Judge. The system thus organized in Bengal was afterwards extended to Madras and Bombay, when those Presidencies also grew into great territorial divisions of India.

The Revenue Settlement of Bengal

But the achievement most familiarly associated with the name of Cornwallis is the Permanent Settlement of the land revenue of Bengal. Up to this time the revenue had been collected pretty much according to the old Mughal system. The zamindárs, or Government farmers, whose office always tended to become hereditary, were recognized as having a right to collect the revenue from the actual cultivators. But no principle of assessment existed, and the amount actually realized varied greatly from year to year. Hastings tried to obtain experience, from a succession of five years’ settlements, so as to furnish a standard rate for the future. Sir Philip Francis, the great rival of Hastings, advocated, on the other hand, a limitation of the State demand in perpetuity. The same view recommended itself to the authorities at home, partly because it would place their finances on a more stable basis, partly because it seemed to identify the zamindár with the landlord of the English system of property. Accordingly, Cornwallis took out with him in 1787 instructions to introduce a Permanent Settlement of the land-tax of Bengal.

The Permanent Settlement, 1793

The process of assessment began in 1789, and terminated in 1791. No attempt was made to measure the fields or calculate the out-turn, as had been done by Akbar, and as is now done whenever settlements are made in the British Provinces. The amount to be paid in the future was fixed by reference to what had been paid in the past. At first the settlement was decennial, or ‘for ten years,’ but in 1793 it was declared permanent. The total assessment amounted to Sikka Rs. 26,800,989, or about three millions sterling for Bengal. Lord Cornwallis carried the scheme into execution; but the praise or blame, so far as details are concerned, belongs to Sir John Shore, afterwards Lord Teignmouth, a civil servant, whose knowledge of the country was unsurpassed in his time. Shore would have proceeded more cautiously than Cornwallis’ preconceived idea of a proprietary body, and the Court of Directors’ haste after fixity, permitted.

Second Mysore War, 1790-1792

The second Mysore war of 1790-1792 is noteworthy on two accounts. Lord Cornwallis, the Governor-General, led the British army in person, with a pomp and a magnificence of supply which recalled the campaigns of Aurangzeb. The two great southern powers, the Nizam of the Deccan and the Maratha Confederacy, cooperated as allies of the British. In the end, Tipú Sultan submitted when Lord Cornwallis had commenced to beleaguer his capital. He agreed to yield one-half of his dominions to be divided among the allies, and to pay three millions sterling towards the cost of the war. These conditions he fulfilled, but ever afterwards he burned to be revenged upon his English conquerors. Lord Cornwallis retired in 1793, and was succeeded by Sir John Shore, afterwards Lord Teignmouth.

Marquess Wellesley, 1798-1806

The period of Sir John Shore’s rule as Governor-General, from 1793 to 1798, was uneventful. In 1798, Lord Mornington, better known as the Marquess Wellesley, arrived in India, already inspired with imperial projects which were destined to change the map of the country. Lord Mornington was the friend and favourite of Pitt, from whom he is thought to have derived his far-reaching political vision, and his antipathy to the French name. From the first he laid down as his guiding principle, that the English must be the one paramount power in the Indian peninsula, and that Native princes could only retain the insignia of sovereignty by surrendering their political independence. The history of India since his time has been but the gradual development of this policy, which received its finishing touch when Queen Victoria was proclaimed Empress of India on the 1st of January 1877.

French Influence in India, 1798-1800

To frustrate the possibility of a French invasion of India, led by Napoleon in person, was the immediate governing idea of Wellesley’s foreign policy. France at this time, and for many years later, filled the place afterwards occupied by Russia in the minds of Indian statesmen. Nor was the danger so remote as might now be thought. French regiments guarded and overawed the Nizam of Haidarábád. The soldiers of Sindhia, the military head of the Maratha Confederacy, was disciplined and led by French adventurers. Tipú Sultan of Mysore carried on a secret correspondence with the French Directory, allowed a tree of liberty to be planted in his dominions, and enrolled himself in a republican club as ‘Citizen Tipú.’ The islands of Mauritius and Bourbon afforded a convenient half-way rendezvous for French intrigue and for the assembling of a hostile expedition. Above all, Napoleon Buonaparte was then in Egypt, dreaming of the Indian conquests of Alexander the Great, and no man knew in what direction he might turn his hitherto unconquered legions.

India before Lord Wellesley, 1798

Wellesley conceived the scheme of crushing for ever the French hopes in Asia, by placing himself at the head of a great Indian confederacy. In Lower Bengal, the sword of Clive and the policy of Warren Hastings had made the English paramount. Before the end of the century, our power was consolidated from the seaboard to Benares, high up the Gangetic valley. Beyond our frontier, the Nawáb Wazír of Oudh had agreed to pay a subsidy for the aid of British troops. This sum in 1797 amounted to £760,000 a year; and the Nawáb, being always in arrears, entered into negotiations for a cession of territory in lieu of a cash payment. In 1801, the treaty of Lucknow made over to the British the Doáb, or fertile tract between the Ganges and the Jumna, together with Rohilkhand. In Southern India, our possessions were chiefly confined, before Lord Wellesley, to the coast Districts of Madras and Bombay. Wellesley resolved to make the British supreme as far as Delhi in Northern India, and to compel the great powers of the south to enter into subordinate relations to the Company’s government. The intrigues of the Native princes gave him his opportunity for carrying out this plan without a breach of faith. The time had arrived when the English must either become supreme in India, or be driven out of it. The Mughal Empire was completely broken up; and the sway had to pass either to the local Muhammadan governors of that empire, or to the Hindu Confederacy represented by the Marathas, or to the British. Lord Wellesley determined that it should pass to the British.

Lord Wellesley’s Policy

His work in Northern India was at first easy. The treaty of Lucknow in 1801 made us territorial rulers as far as the heart of the present North-Western Provinces, and established our political influence in Oudh. Beyond those limits, the northern branches of the Marathas practically held sway, with the puppet emperor in their hands. Lord Wellesley left them untouched for a few years, until the second Maratha war (1802-1804) gave him an opportunity for dealing effectively with their nation as a whole. In Southern India, he saw that the Nizam at Haidarábád stood in need of his protection, and he converted him into a useful follower throughout the succeeding struggle. The other Muhammadan power of the south, Tipú Sultan of Mysore, could not be so easily handled. Lord Wellesley resolved to crush him, and had ample provocation for so doing. The third power of Southern India—namely, the Maratha Confederacy—was so loosely organized, that Lord Wellesley seems at first to have hoped to live on terms with it. When several years of fitful alliance had convinced him that he had to choose between the supremacy of the Marathas or of the British in Southern India, he did not hesitate to decide.

Treaty with the Nizam, 1798

Lord Wellesley first addressed himself to the weakest of the three southern powers, the Nizam of Haidarábád. Here he won a diplomatic success, which turned a possible rival into a subservient ally. The French battalions at Haidarábád were disbanded, and the Nizam bound himself by treaty not to take any European into his service without the consent of the English Government,—a clause since inserted in every engagement entered into with Native powers.

Third Mysore War, 1799

Wellesley next turned the whole weight of his resources against Tipú, whom Cornwallis had defeated, but not subdued. Tipú’s intrigues with the French were laid bare, and he was given an opportunity of adhering to the new subsidiary system. On his refusal, war was declared, and Wellesley came down in viceregal state to Madras to organize the expedition in person, and to watch over the course of events. One English army marched into Mysore from Madras, accompanied by a contingent from the Nizam. Another advanced from the western coast. Tipú, after a feeble resistance in the field, retired into Seringapatam, his capital, and, when it was stormed, died fighting bravely in the breach (1799). Since the battle of Plassey, no event so greatly impressed the Natives as the capture of Seringapatam, which won for General Harris an eventual peerage, and for Wellesley an Irish marquessate. In dealing with the territories of Tipú, Wellesley acted with moderation. The central portion, forming the old State of Mysore, was restored to an infant representative of the Hindu Rájás, whom Haidar Ali had dethroned; the rest of Tipú’s dominion was partitioned between the Nizam, the Marathas, and the English. At about the same time, the Karnatik, or the part of South-Eastern India ruled by the Nawáb of Arcot, and also the principality of Tanjore, were placed under direct British administration, thus constituting the Madras Presidency almost as it has existed to the present day. The sons of the slain Tipú were treated by Lord Wellesley with paternal tenderness. They received a magnificent allowance, with a semi-royal establishment, first at Vellore, and afterwards in Calcutta. The last of them, Prince Ghulám Muhammad, who survived to 1877, was long a well-known citizen of Calcutta, and an active Justice of the Peace.

The Marathas in 1800

The Marathas had been the nominal allies of the English in both their wars with Tipú. But they had not rendered active assistance, nor were they secured to the English side as the Nizam had been. The Maratha powers at this time were five in number. The recognized head of the confederacy was the Peshwa of Poona, who ruled the hill country of the Western Ghats, the cradle of the Maratha race. The fertile Province of Gujarát was annually harried by the horsemen of the Gaekwar of Baroda. In Central India, two military leaders, Sindhia of Gwalior and Holkar of Indore, alternately held the pre-eminence. Towards the east, the Bhonsla Rája of Nagpur reigned from Berar to the coast of Orissa. Wellesley laboured to bring these several Maratha powers within the net of his subsidiary system. In 1802, the necessities of the Peshwa, who had been defeated by Holkar, and driven as a fugitive into British territory, induced him to sign the treaty of Bassein. By that he pledged himself to the British to hold communications with no other power, European or Native, and granted to us Districts for the maintenance of a subsidiary force. This greatly extended the English territorial influence in the Bombay Presidency. But it led to the second Maratha war, as neither Sindhia nor the Rája of Nagpur would tolerate the Peshwa’s betrayal of the Maratha independence.

Second Maratha War, 1802-1804

The campaigns which followed are perhaps the most glorious in the history of the British arms in India. The general plan, and the adequate provision of resources, were due to the Marquess Wellesley, as also the indomitable spirit which refused to admit of defeat. The armies were led by Sir Arthur Wellesley (afterwards Duke of Wellington) and General (afterwards Lord) Lake. Wellesley operated in the Deccan, where, in a few short months, he won the decisive victories of Assaye and Argaum, and captured Ahmadnagar. Lake’s campaign in Hindustan was equally brilliant, although it has received less notice from historians. He won pitched battles at Alfgarh and Laswari, and took the cities of Delhi and Agra. He scattered the French troops of Sindhia, and at the same time stood forward as the champion of the Mughal Emperor in his hereditary capital. Before the end of 1803, both Sindhia and the Bhonsla Rája of Nagpur sued for peace. Sindhia ceded all claims to the territory north of the Jumna, and left the blind old Emperor Sháh Alam once more under British protection. The Bhonsla forfeited Orissa to the English, who had already occupied it with a flying column in 1803, and Berar to the Nizam, who gained fresh territory by every act of complaisance to the British Government. The freebooter Jaswant Rao Holkar alone remained in the field, supporting his troops by raids through Málwa and Rajputána. The concluding years of Wellesley’s rule were occupied with a series of operations against Holkar, which brought little credit on the British name. The disastrous retreat of Colonel Monson through Central India (1804) recalled memories of the convention of Wargaum, and of the destruction of Colonel Baillie’s force by Haidar Ali. The repulse of Lake in person at the siege of Bhartpur (Bhurtpore) is memorable as an instance of a British army in India having to turn back with its object unaccomplished (1805). Bhartpur was not finally taken till 1827.

India after Lord Wellesley, 1805

Lord Wellesley during his six years of office carried out almost every part of his territorial scheme. In Northern India, Lord Lake’s campaigns brought the North-Western Provinces (the ancient Madhyadeśa) under British rule, together with the custody of the puppet emperor. The new Districts were amalgamated with those previously acquired from the Nawáb Wazír of Oudh into the ‘Ceded and Conquered Provinces.’ This arrangement of Northern India remained till the Sikh wars of 1845 and 1849 gave us the Punjab. In South-Eastern India, we have seen that Lord Wellesley’s conquests constituted the Madras Presidency almost as it exists at the present date. In South-Western India, the Peshwa was reduced to a vassal of the Company. But the territories now under the Governor of Bombay were not finally built up into their existing form until the last Maratha war in 1818.