Book I, Chapter 14: End of the Company's Rule

CHAPTER XIV

END OF THE COMPANY’S RULE

“My parting hope and prayer for India is, that, in all time to come, these reports from the Presidencies and Provinces under our rule may form, in each successive year, a happy record of peace, prosperity, and progress.” With this pious wish Lord Dalhousie had concluded the memorable review of his eight years’ administration of India before he sailed for England.

“We must not forget that in the sky of India, serene as it is, a small cloud may arise, at first no bigger than a man’s hand, but which, growing bigger and bigger, may at last threaten to overwhelm us with ruin.” With these almost prophetic words Lord Canning had replied to the Court of Directors at a parting banquet in London, before he sailed for India.

Lord Dalhousie’s bright picture of peace, prosperity, and progress was destined to be obscured for a time; Lord Canning’s fears of a dark cloud threatening to overwhelm the Empire were destined to prove a true prophecy.

The causes of the Indian Mutiny of 1857 are no longer hidden in obscurity. “As a body,” wrote John Lawrence, “the native army did really believe that the universal introduction of cartridges destructive to their caste was only a matter of time . . . such truly was the origin of the Mutiny.¹ And we know now from the equally high authority of Lord Roberts² that the belief of the native army was not altogether unfounded, and that the cartridges introduced were greased with the fat of the pig and the cow.

It is also beyond a doubt that political reasons helped a mere mutiny of soldiers to spread among large classes of the people in Northern and Central India, and converted it into a political insurrection. Lord Dalhousie’s vast and rapid annexations had created an impression in India that the East India Company aimed at universal conquest; that they disregarded treaties and the laws of the country in order to compass their object. The minds of the people were unsettled; and leaders of the insurrection issued Proclamations dwelling on the bad-faith and the earth-hunger of the alien rulers. In Jhansi State, which had been annexed by Lord Dalhousie, the Dowager Rani was the life and soul of the insurrection, fought in male attire against British troops, and died on the field of battle. In Oudh, which had also been annexed by the same ruler, vast masses of the population gathered round the mutinous soldiers, and made their deposed king’s cause their own.

It is not within the scope of the present work to narrate the thrilling incidents of that eventful war, which have been told by Sir John Kaye and Malleson in their great work, and have also been described in more recent and smaller works of great merit. The heroism of the small band of Englishmen who stood at Lucknow against surging masses of insurgents, and the tragic death of that truest and best of English soldiers, Henry Lawrence, “who tried to do his duty”; the unflinching courage with which a handful of warriors held their ground through weary months on the historic ridge of Delhi, until the master hand of John Lawrence denuded the Punjab to deal that memorable blow which decided the fate of the Empire; the rapid and successful march through Central India, and the prolonged and arduous operations in Rohilkhand and Oudh; all these are portions of English history and have been woven into English literature. The Poet-Laureate of the Victorian Age has sung of Lucknow in lines which will never be forgotten; and popular writers of the present day tell the heroic story of John Nicholson and the capture of Delhi.

Still less is it within the scope of this book to dwell on the darker incidents of the Mutiny; and Englishmen as well as Indians sincerely wish that those incidents could be expunged altogether from history, at least as recorded in school books meant for boys. Wars there have been in India since the days of Clive and Wellington; but never has there been a war stained, on one side as on the other, by such wanton cruelty and crime as in 1857. The mutineers, rising as they believed in defence of their caste and religion, disgraced and blackened their cause by the inhuman, brutal, and barbarous massacre of defenceless women and children. On the other hand, British troops burnt down villages along their route of many hundreds of miles, turning the country into a “desert”; British conquerors massacred the inhabitants of Delhi after the mutineers had escaped; and British Special Commissioners executed thousands of citizens in Northern India, guiltless of the Mutiny. In the words of a living historian, “the contest seemed to lie between two savage races, capable of no thought but that, regardless of all justice or mercy, their enemies should be exterminated. Deeds of cruelty on one side and on the other were perpetrated, over which it is necessary to draw a veil.”³

None felt the horror of these proceedings in India more than Lord Canning; none deplored them in England more than the Queen. “There is a rabid and indiscriminate vindictiveness abroad,” wrote Lord Canning to the Queen, “even amongst many who ought to set a better example, which it is impossible to contemplate without a feeling of shame for one’s countrymen.” “Lord Canning will easily believe,” replied the Queen, “how entirely the Queen shares his feelings of sorrow and indignation at the unchristian spirit shown also to a great extent here by the public towards India in general.”⁴

The rule of the East India Company was doomed. The British nation had already made up their minds on the subject, and the Indian Mutiny gave them a suitable occasion. Lord Palmerston had become Prime Minister in 1855, and had concluded the Crimean War with his accustomed vigour. His Government had returned with a larger majority after the general election of 1857; and in the same year he intimated to the Chairman of the East India Company that it was the intention of the Government to propose to Parliament a Bill for placing the Government of India under the direct authority of the Crown.

Ross Mangles, then Chairman of the East India Company, and the Deputy Chairman, Sir Frederick Currie, replied on December 31, 1857. They expressed the surprise of the Court that her Majesty’s Government, without imputing to the Company any blame in connection with the Mutiny, and without instituting any inquiry by Parliament, intended to propose the immediate suppression of the Company. They held that “an intermediate, non-political, and perfectly independent body,” like the Company, was an indispensable necessity for good government in India. And they could not see how it was possible to form such a body if the Members of the new Government were to be nominated by the Crown.⁵

The Company also submitted a formal petition, drawn up by the clear-sighted John Stuart Mill, to the House of Commons and the House of Lords. The document, proceeding from the pen of a writer so thoughtful and philosophical, interests us to the present day, and one or two passages deserve to be quoted.

Referring to the Double Government carried on by the Directors of the Company, and by a Minister of her Majesty’s Government presiding over the Board of Control, John Stuart Mill urged with reason: “That, under these circumstances, if the administration had been a failure, it would, your petitioners submit, have been somewhat unreasonable to expect that a remedy would be found in annihilating the branch of the ruling authority which could not be the one principally at fault, and might be altogether blameless, in order to concentrate all powers in the branch which had necessarily the decisive share in every error, real or supposed. To believe that the administration of India would have been more free from error, had it been conducted by a Minister of the Crown without the aid of the Court of Directors, would be to believe that the Minister, with full power to govern India as he pleased, has governed ill, because he had the assistance of experienced and responsible advisers.”

With reference to the proposed Council of the Secretary of State for India, he urged: “That your petitioners cannot well conceive a worse form of government for India than a Minister with a Council whom he should be at liberty to consult or not at his pleasure. . . . That any body of persons, associated with the Minister, which is not a check, will be a screen. . . . That your petitioners find it difficult to conceive that the same independence in judgment and act, which characterises the Court of Directors, will be found in any Council all of whose members are nominated by the Crown. . . . That your petitioners are equally unable to perceive how, if the controlling body is entirely nominated by the Minister, that happy independence of Parliamentary party influence, which has hitherto distinguished the administration of India and the appointment to situations of trust and importance in that country, can be expected to continue.”

And lastly, against the reproach levelled against a Double Government, the petitioners urged: “It is considered an excellence, not a defect, in the constitution of Parliament, to be not merely a double but a triple Government. An executive authority, your petitioners urge, may often, with advantage, be single, because promptitude is its first requisite. But the function of passing a deliberate opinion on past measures, and laying down principles of future policy, is a business which, in the estimation of your petitioners, admits of and requires the concurrence of more judgments than one. It is no defect in such a body to be double, and no excellence to be single.”

The petition was submitted in vain; Lord Palmerston introduced his Bill for the abolition of the Company’s rule, and the future Government of India. It was provided in that Bill that the home administration should be conducted by a President and a Council of eight persons who were to be nominated by the Crown; that members of the Council should hold office for eight years; and that two of them should retire by rotation each year. The second reading of the Bill was carried by a large majority. But before the Bill could be passed, Lord Palmerston’s Government fell over the Conspiracy Bill, intended to protect the French Emperor against the machinations of political refugees in England.

Lord Derby then formed a Conservative Government; and Benjamin Disraeli, Chancellor of the Exchequer, introduced his new India Bill, which was complicated, unworkable, and grotesque. It provided that the India Council was to consist of members partly nominated by the Crown, and partly elected by the citizens of Manchester and other places, and holders of the East India Stock. Mr. Disraeli’s scheme died of ridicule. And Lord Palmerston said of the Bill, what had been said of Don Quixote, that whenever he saw a man laughing in the streets, he was sure that man had been discussing Mr. Disraeli’s Bill! When the House of Commons met after Easter, no one could be found to support the Bill.

The two Bills were carefully examined by the Court of Directors; and they submitted to the Court of Proprietors an able Report proceeding once more from the logical and fearless pen of John Stuart Mill. One paragraph deserves to be placed before our readers.

“The means which the Bills provide for overcoming these difficulties [of the government of one nation by another] consist of the unchecked power of a Minister. There is no difference of moment in this respect between the two Bills. The Minister, it is true, is to have a Council. But the most despotic rulers have Councils. The difference between the Council of a despot, and a Council which prevents the ruler from being a despot is, that the one is dependent on him, the other independent; that the one has some power of its own, the other has not. By the first Bill [Lord Palmerston’s Bill] the whole Council is nominated by the Minister; by the second [Disraeli’s Bill] one-half of it is nominated by him. The functions to be entrusted to it are left, in both, with some slight exceptions, to the Minister’s own discretion.”⁶

The argument is unanswerable. And after the experience of half a century many thoughtful men will be inclined to hold that a strong and independent deliberative body might have tempered the action of the Crown Minister, and secured a better administration of Indian affairs. The Directors of the Company formed such a body, but they represented the interests of the Company’s shareholders, not of the Indian people. That was the defect of the old system; that was the evil which required a remedy. But in the task of reorganisation which Parliament undertook in 1858, this defect was not remedied. The power of the Court of Directors was destroyed, but no independent deliberative body, representing the people of India and safeguarding their interests and their welfare, found place in the new scheme of administration.

Mr. Disraeli’s Bill was dead; and it was necessary now to frame a new one. It was then resolved that the principles of the new scheme should be discussed in the House, and that a Bill, the joint production of both parties, should be introduced. This was done; and the new Bill became law in August 1858, and is known as an Act for the better Government of India.

The Act consists of 75 sections, and as it still regulates the administration of India, it is necessary to refer to the more important clauses.

The territories of the East India Company were vested in her Majesty the Queen, and the powers exercised by the East India Company and the Board of Control were vested in the Secretary of State for India. He was to have a Council of fifteen members who would hold office during good behaviour,⁷ and each member was to have a salary of £1200 a year out of the revenues of India. The pay of the Secretary of State and all his establishment would similarly be charged to India.

The Secretary of State was empowered to act against the majority of the Council except in certain specified matters. And on questions of peace and war (which had hitherto been dealt with by the Board of Control through the Secret Committee of the Court of Directors), the Secretary of State was empowered to send orders to India without consulting his Council, or communicating them to the members.

The Governor-General of India and the Governors of Madras and Bombay would henceforth be appointed by her Majesty the Queen; and the appointments of Lieutenant-Governors would be made by the Governor-General subject to the approbation of her Majesty. Rules should be framed by the Secretary of State for admission into the Civil Service of India by competition.

The strangest clauses of this Act are the financial clauses. It was provided that the dividend on the capital stock of the East India Company, and all the bond, debenture, and other debt of the Company in Great Britain, and all the territorial and other debts of the Company, should be “charged and chargeable upon the revenues of India alone.”⁸

By this singular clause the capital stock and the debts of the East India Company were virtually added to the Public Debt of India; and the annual tribute which India had so long paid as interest on the stock was made perpetual. The Crown took over the magnificent empire of India from the Company without paying a shilling; the people of India paid, and are still paying, the purchase money. It was an act of injustice towards a British Dependency unexampled in the history of the British Empire.⁹ It was an act of injustice which pressed heavily on the people, after the expenditure of forty millions sterling for suppressing the Mutiny had been saddled on them.

One salutary financial provision was made by the Act. “Except for preventing or repelling actual invasion of her Majesty’s Indian possessions, or under other sudden and urgent necessity, the revenues of India shall not, without the consent of both Houses of Parliament, be applicable to defray the expenses of any military operation carried on beyond the external frontiers of such possessions by her Majesty’s forces charged upon such revenues.”¹⁰

This just and salutary principle has unfortunately been violated but too often; and the expenses of expeditions to Egypt and Abyssinia, of wars in Afghanistan and for the conquest of Burma, have been charged to India.

The Board of Control ceased to exist under the Act; and the East India Company continued to exist, only to receive out of the revenues of India the dividend on their stock.

To the mass of the people of India the provisions of this new Act were little known. But they knew of the Queen of England, and cherished her name with affection and esteem; and they hailed the news that the Indian Empire was taken under her own administration. A Proclamation, suitable to the occasion, was issued; and the Proclamation itself is dear to the people of India because the sentiments conveyed therein were the sentiments of the Queen herself.

For the first draft of the Proclamation did not please her Majesty. She asked the Prime Minister, Lord Derby, to write it: “Bearing in mind that it is a female Sovereign who speaks to more than a hundred millions of Eastern people, on assuming the direct government over them, and after a bloody war, giving them pledges which her future reign is to redeem, and explaining the principles of her government. Such a document should breathe feelings of generosity, benevolence, and religious toleration, and point out the privileges which the Indians will receive in being placed on an equality with the subjects of the British Crown, and the prosperity following in the train of civilisation.”

Such were the sentiments of the Queen towards her Indian subjects; the new Proclamation was drafted according to her wishes; and it was one which was worthy of the occasion. The people of India regard this Proclamation as a Charter of their Rights, and it is necessary therefore to quote the entire document, which is not a long one.¹¹

PROCLAMATION BY THE QUEEN IN COUNCIL TO THE PRINCES, CHIEFS, AND PEOPLE OF INDIA.

“Victoria, by the grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and of the Colonies and Dependencies thereof in Europe, Asia, Africa, America, and Australasia, Queen, Defender of the Faith.

“Whereas for divers weighty reasons, we have resolved, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons in Parliament assembled, to take upon ourselves the government of the territories in India, heretofore administered in trust for us by the Honourable East India Company:

“Now, therefore, we do by these presents notify and declare that, by the advice and consent aforesaid, we have taken upon ourselves the said government; and we hereby call upon all our subjects within the said territories to be faithful, and to bear true allegiance to us, our heirs and successors, and to submit themselves to the authority of those whom we may hereafter, from time to time, see fit to appoint to administer the government of our said territories, in our name and on our behalf.

“And we, reposing especial trust and confidence in the loyalty, ability, and judgment of our right trusty and well-beloved cousin and councillor, Charles John Viscount Canning, do hereby constitute and appoint him, the said Viscount Canning, to be our first Viceroy and Governor-General in and over our said territories, and to administer the government thereof in our name, and generally to act in our name and on our behalf, subject to such orders and regulations as he shall, from time to time, receive from us through one of our Principal Secretaries of State.

“And we hereby confirm in their several offices, civil and military, all persons now employed in the service of the Honourable East India Company, subject to our future pleasure, and to such laws and regulations as may hereafter be enacted.

“We hereby announce to the Native Princes of India that all treaties and engagements made with them by or under the authority of the Honourable East India Company are by us accepted, and will be scrupulously maintained, and we look for the like observance on their part.

“We desire no extension of our present territorial possessions; and while we will permit no aggression upon our dominions or our rights to be attempted with impunity, we shall sanction no encroachment on those of others. We shall respect the rights, dignity, and honour of Native Princes as our own; and we desire that they, as well as our own subjects, should enjoy that prosperity and that social advancement which can only be secured by internal peace and good government.

“We hold ourselves bound to the Natives of our Indian territories by the same obligations of duty which bind us to all our other subjects, and those obligations, by the blessing of Almighty God, we shall faithfully and conscientiously fulfil.

“Firmly relying ourselves on the truth of Christianity, and acknowledging with gratitude the solace of religion, we disclaim alike the right and the desire to impose our convictions on any of our subjects. We declare it to be our royal will and pleasure that none be anywise favoured, none molested or disquieted, by reason of their religious faith and observances, but that all shall alike enjoy the equal and impartial protection of the law; and we do strictly charge and enjoin all those who may be in authority under us that they abstain from all interference with the religious belief or worship of any of our subjects on pain of our highest displeasure.

“And it is our further will that, so far as may be, our subjects, of whatever race or creed, be freely and impartially admitted to offices in our service, the duties of which they may be qualified, by their education, ability, and integrity, duly to discharge.

“We know, and respect, the feelings of attachment with which the Natives of India regard the land inherited by them from their ancestors, and we desire to protect them in all rights connected therewith, subject to the equitable demands of the State; and we will that generally, in framing and administering the law, due regard be paid to the ancient rights, usages, and customs of India.

“We deeply lament the evils and misery which have been brought upon India by the acts of ambitious men, who have deceived their countrymen by false reports, and led them into open rebellion. Our power has been shown by the suppression of that rebellion in the field; we desire to show our mercy by pardoning the offences of those who have been thus misled, but who desire to return to the path of duty.

“Already in one province, with a view to stop the further effusion of blood, and to hasten the pacification of our Indian dominions, our Viceroy and Governor-General has held out the expectations of pardon, on certain terms, to the great majority of those who, in the late unhappy disturbances, have been guilty of offences against our Government, and has declared the punishment which will be inflicted on those whose crimes place them beyond the reach of forgiveness. We approve and confirm the said act of our Viceroy and Governor-General, and do further announce and proclaim as follows:—

“Our clemency will be extended to all offenders, save and except those who have been, or shall be, convicted of having directly taken part in the murder of British subjects. With regard to such, the demands of justice forbid the exercise of mercy.

“To those who have willingly given asylum to murderers, knowing them to be such, or who may have acted as leaders or instigators in revolt, their lives alone can be guaranteed; but in apportioning the penalty due to such persons full consideration will be given to the circumstances under which they have been induced to throw off allegiance; and large indulgence will be shown to those whose crimes may appear to have originated in too credulous acceptance of the false reports circulated by designing men.

“To all others in arms against the Government we hereby promise unconditional pardon, amnesty, and oblivion of all offence against ourselves, our crown, and dignity, on their return to their homes and peaceful pursuits.

“It is our royal pleasure that these terms of grace and amnesty should be extended to all those who comply with these conditions before the first day of January next.

“When, by the blessing of Providence, internal tranquillity shall be restored, it is our earnest desire to stimulate the peaceful industry of India, to promote works of public utility and improvement, and to administer its government for the benefit of all our subjects resident therein. In their prosperity will be our strength; in their contentment our security; and in their gratitude our best reward. And may the God of all power grant to us, and to those in authority under us, strength to carry out these our wishes for the good of our people.”

Footnotes