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Chapter 4 – The Southern Maratha Country and Le Grand Jacob

The southern Maratha country

In the first chapter of this volume I have brought the record of affairs in the southern Maratha country up to the spring of 1858. In Belgaon and the neighbouring districts the crisis had passed away. It needed only the continuance of the same firm and conciliatory rule to ensure that it should never return.

Mr. Seton-Karr, applying to be relieved of a portion of his duties

It happened, however, at this period (March and April 1858) that Mr. G. B. Seton-Karr, exhausted by the double labours which had devolved upon him, applied to the Government of Bombay to be relieved of a portion of his overwhelming duties. Mr. Seton-Karr had, unquestionably, reason to believe that the Government, should it accede to his request, would grant him an option in the matter, or, at all events, would relieve him of the less important routine duties appertaining to the administration. But he was mistaken.

Is directed to transfer the political agency to Mr. Manson

The Government, in sanctioning Mr. Seton-Karr’s request, desired him to retain in his own hands the civil administration of the territory, and to transfer the charge of the political agency to his assistant, Mr. Charles Manson.

Character of Mr. Manson

Than Mr. Manson there was not a more high-minded, a more generous, or a more earnest officer in the Bombay Civil Service. He was devoted to his profession, he gave to it his whole soul and his undivided energies. He was in the prime of life, intelligent, energetic, decided.

School to which Mr. Seton-Karr belonged

But – he had been employed on the detested Inam Commission – and he belonged to a school of politics differing in one essential point from that of which Mr. Seton-Karr was a leader. The reader will have already discovered the title of that school. Mr. Seton-Karr was strongly in favour of the maintenance of the native

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aristocracy, an upholder of the rights and customs held and enjoyed by native landowners at the time they came under British rule. He believed that, so long as the British respected those rights and customs, it would never be necessary to employ force; that persuasion and management would effect the required end. How he had tried, and tried successfully, that policy I have already shown. The success had proved to him its efficacy.

School of which Mr Manson was a partisan

Mr. Manson belonged to a more modern school. In one of the letters which Mr. Seton-Karr addressed to him before the transfer of the political duties, he is jestingly referred to as “an admirer of Lord Dalhousie.” This, at least, is certain, that in a crisis such as that which was then prevailing, he gave his preference to measures stronger than those which Mr. Seton-Karr deemed suited to the occasion.

Mr. Seton-Karr was greatly disappointed by the decision of the Government, but the reason adduced by that Government was one to which he could take no exception.

Reasons adduced by the Bombay Government for the change

Lord Elphinstone desired that the whole of the southern Maratha country should be placed under the control of one officer as Commissioner, and,. in the circumstances of the time, he deemed it further advisable that that officer should be a soldier.

Colonel Le G. Jacob is appointed supreme political agent for the entire territory

Now Colonel Le Grand Jacob already exercised political authority in one part of the territory. On the 6th of December he had suppressed a mutiny in Kolhapur, and had, by his firmness and strength of character, impressed the Bombay Government with the conviction that he was peculiarly qualified to wield political power in troublous times. Lord Elphinstone, then, transferred to him in the new arrangement a similar authority in the other part, with Mr. Manson as political agent under him.

Reasons why Mr. Seton Karr augured ill of the change

If, however, the reason for the transfer was sufficient in that it cast no slur upon Mr. Seton-Karr, it did not the less cause considerable misgivings to that gentleman, for, knowing as he did the native chieftains, he felt that a change would create suspicion in their minds, a change more especially which transferred political action from himself to an officer who had been engaged in the Inam Commission, and that, if that change were followed by a tension of the tie which bound them to the suzerain power, it might even produce a catastrophe.

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Colonel George Malcolm

Previous to the assumption of the charge of the political duties of the Belgaon districts, Mr. Seton-Karr had been gradually engaged in disarming the country – a work in which he had been most ably assisted by Colonel George Malcolm, commanding the Southern Maratha Horse, and holding military charge of the southern Maratha territory. It would be difficult to over-estimate the services rendered by this able and gallant officer. His regiment mainly preserved order in that excitable country. In a previous chapter I have referred to his services at Shorapur.

Kerr and La Touche attack Halgalli

Prior to that event, on the 29th of November, 1857, he had led his cavalry, supported by one company 28th Native Infantry, against the fortified village of Halgalli, which had become the head-quarters of the disaffected. For some days previously these men had been held in check by detachments of the horse, first under Kerr, subsequently reinforced by La Touche, of the same regiment.

Malcolm arrives and the place is stormed

These officers had, by spirited charges, driven the enemy into the town, and were struggling with them desperately in the streets when Malcolm, with a fresh party, arrived. His men at once dismounted, and assisted by the Sipahis of the 28th Native Infantry, scrambled over the flat-roofed houses of the village, dashed upon the rebels, and decided the victory.

State of the country generally

The country, however was still uneasy. Beth above and below the ghats British authority had met with resistance, but, except that in some cases the guns and the arms had not been entirely delivered up, the danger from such disturbances was considered to have passed away when Colonel Jacob took charge. Within a very short time of that event, however, a new peril appeared in another quarter.

Nargund

Of the chief of Nargund I have spoken in the first chapter of this volume115. That this chief was thoroughly disaffected there can be no doubt. Mr. Seton-Karr had even suspected him of treasonable correspondence with the chief of Shorapur116.

Pressure exercised upon its chief by Seton-Karr and Manson

But up to May 1858 he had been managed. He had even, under the gentle pressure exercised by Mr. Seton-Karr, sent in a correct list of the guns and ammunition he possessed, and somewhat later, urged by Mr. Manson, had even begun

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to despatch them to Dharwar. Those who are aware of the reverence and affection with which a native chief regards his guns will realise the sacrifice which the Rajah made to meet the expressed wishes of the Government.

The chief hears that Seton-Karr has been replaced by Manson

Matters were thus progressing, the chief doubtless secretly disaffected, yet complying under gentle pressure with the orders of the Bombay Government, when, about the 25th of May, intelligence reached him that Mr. Seton-Karr had been removed from the political charge of his country, and that Mr. Manson had been gazetted his successor.

Reasons why the chief of Nargund dreaded Mr. Manson

This intelligence changed all the good dispositions of the chief of Nargund. Although he did not personally dislike Mr. Manson, he regarded him as the living representative of the hated system of Inam examination – a system which, as I have said, had worked with most disastrous effects on the chiefs of the Southern Maratha country. At that moment, too, Mr. Manson was specially obnoxious to him, for, only a few weeks previously, whilst still serving under Mr. Seton-Karr, he had arrested and carried off as a prisoner his own dearest friend, the chief of Jamkhandi117. The conviction at once took possession of him that the change was aimed against himself, that he was to be arrested, as his friend had been arrested, and thrown into a dungeon118.

He fears to be arrested

In his fear and trepidation, the chief sent a confidential agent to Dharwar to inquire of the magistrate the meaning of the portentous change.

Influences which work on the chief of Nargund

But, before he could receive an answer, those about him had begun to work on a nature constitutionally timid and nervous. his habitual advisers and companions had not even then despaired of receiving a summons to join the victorious standard of the heir of Peshwa. All seemed yet possible. Tantia Topi was confronting the British in Bundelkhand, Kalpi was yet held, and one good victory might give them all they desired. These men took advantage of the consternation caused in the chief’s mind by Mr. Manson’s appointment to inspire him to resist, to cast

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defiance in the teeth of the foreigners who had persecuted themselves and their brethren.

These men were not alone in their endeavours.

The greatest influence of all

The chief’s wife, a lady of great personal attractions, and twenty years younger than he was, had renounced all hopes of a natural heir.

produced by the refusal of the Government to allow the chief to adopt an heir

She loved power, and the chance of her possessing power after her husband’s death rested on the prospect of her becoming the adoptive mother of a reigning boy. And, the British Government having refused to the chief the right to adopt, this prospect was possible only in the event of the British rule being supplanted by that of the Maratha. This favoured counsellor added, then, her entreaties to those of the chief’s companions.

The chief of Nargund submits to those influences and revolts

The chief of Nargund gave way. That day he recalled the guns which had progressed only a few miles on the road to Dharwar, began to store provisions, and on the 27th of May, possessing only three obsolete rusty cannon and a swivel gun, declared war, with all the formalities used by the Marathas, against the British Government!

Manson has set out for the northern districts

Mr. Manson had taken up his duties as political agent on the 16th of May. From that date till the 26th he had remained with Colonel Jacob at Kohlapur, transacting business with him. On the 26th he set out for the northern states of the territory, with the view of judging for himself of the state of the country, and of using his influence with the chiefs.

when Jacob hears of the revolt

Four hours after he had set out, Jacob received a telegram from General Lester, commanding at Belgaon, stating that an insurrection had broken out near to Dharwar, and that the Nargund chief was believed to be supporting it, as he had recalled some of his guns on their way to be given up.

He sends to warn Manson

Jacob at once sent a horseman with this news to Manson, informing him also that he had telegraphed to the general to send, if the report were true, a sufficient force to Nargund, and recommending him to return to Kohlapur.

Jacob’s messenger reached Manson at Kurundwad. Englishmen in India are so accustomed to authority, and to all the incense which waits on authority, that, except in rare cases, they judge men and affairs, not as they are, but as, to their

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complacent minds, they wish them to be.

Manson confident in himself

Now, Manson had always been on the most friendly terms with the chief of Nargund. He had no adequate conception of the depth of bitterness and the dread his connection with the Inam Commission had roused in the mind of that Maratha noble. It was not possible, then, that he should imagine for a moment that his nomination to the control of political affairs, in place of Mr. Seton-Karr, would rouse the chief to madness.

Determines to push on to Nargund

Still believing, then, in the friendly professions of the Rajah, and in the persuasive power of his influence over him, he sent back word to Jacob that from Kurundwad he could reach Nargund by a cross road; that he would arrive there in time to prevent, probably, the development of the intended mischief; but that, if too late to prevent such development, he was confident of being able to prevent the chief’s half-brother, the lord of Ramdrug, from joining the rebellion.

And sends to Malcolm for military aid

Having despatched this reply, Manson posted horses along the road to Ramdrug, and sent off by a horseman a letter to Colonel George Malcolm, commanding at Kaladji, requesting him to push on to Ramdrug with a body of his regiment, the Southern Maratha Horse.

Malcolm, meanwhile has taken the field

But, before this missive reached Malcolm, that able and daring officer had taken the field with two hundred and fifty horsemen to attack the insurgents, who had already plundered the treasury of one of the district stations of Dharwar.

Manson reaches Ramdrug

Mr. Manson, then, though he rode hard, reached Ramdrug to find it unoccupied. He had with him the twelve troopers who had accompanied him from Kohlapur, and these were as fatigued as he himself was.

And resolves to endeavour to join Malcolm

There he learned from the chief the treason of his half-brother; he read the compromising letters from the latter, urging the Ramdrug chief to follow his example; and, entreated by that chief not to pursue his journey to Nargund, he resolved to join the force in the field under Malcolm.

He sets out that that evening, and, tired, stops near a temple to sleep

Tired as he was, Manson set out in a palanquin, escorted by his troopers, that evening. Better had he taken his rest at Ramdrug and made the journey to Malcolm in one day, for, exhausted by the long day’s work, he and his followers stopped about 10 o’clock at a temple near a little village on the way and slept.

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The chief of Nargund is made acquainted with Manson’s movements

A report of all Manson’s movements had been duly carried to the chief of Nargund. When the news reached him of the halt at the temple, he reasoned as an untutored Asiatic will always reason. His enemy was in his power; he would slay him119. He conceived that, having declared war against the British, he had a perfect right to destroy the members of that nation wherever he might find them.

And has him murdered

Accordingly, about midnight, he sallied forth with some hundreds of followers, and, approaching the spot, poured in a volley, which killed the sentry, and sent in his men to finish the work with the sword. Manson, roused from his sleep, fired his revolver at his assailants, but he was immediately overpowered, his head was cut off, and his body thrown in the fire, still burning, which had been kindled by his followers. Having killed as many of these as he could find, the chief returned with Manson’s head to Nargund, and suspended the bloody trophy over a gateway120.

One body of the insurgents marches to Kopuldrug

Meanwhile, the insurgents who had plundered the treasury, had marched southwards and joined Bhim Rao, the chief of Kopuldrug.

where they are attacked and beaten by Hughes

There they were attacked by a Madras force from Ballari, under Colonel Hughes, already mentioned for his soldier-like conduct at Shorapur, and who, in daring and manly qualities, in the capacity to manage men and to direct operations, yielded to none who came to the front in the mutiny. This gallant soldier pushed forward with au energy surpassing that of the rebels, caught them, as I have said, at Kopuldrug, and stormed the place, killing Bhim Rao, the chief of Hembaji, and many of the defenders.

Malcolm hurries towards Nargund

Malcolm, on his side, had no sooner heard that Nargund was in revolt than he felt that a moment’s delay would provoke the rising of the entire Maratha country. With only two hundred and fifty cavalry at his disposal he marched, then, immediately against the

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place, assisted by the wily Brahman officials, who believed he was marching on destruction.

He is reinforced by infantry and guns

At the same time he wrote to Belgaon, asking for some infantry and some guns. The authorities there sent him two companies of Europeans, one of native infantry, and two guns under Captain Paget. Biding on with these, only five days after the insensate declaration of war, Malcolm appeared before Nargund.

The rebels march to attack him

He had scarcely dismounted before news reached him that the rebels were marching to attack him. His heart bounded with joy. “I have them now,” he said. Mounting his troopers as quickly as possible, he went to the front. It was true, they were advancing. But when they saw Malcolm and his horsemen they hesitated, then halted, and, in the manner of natives, began to close in on their centre.

Malcolm charges and defeats them

Then, wavering, they fell back. By this time Malcolm had collected his men.

and captures the town

Riding at their head, he charged, overthrew the rebels – who, however, fought well in groups – drove them back, followed them up into the town, and forced the surviving combatants to take refuge in the fort.

There remained now only the fort, a very strong one, so strong, that, if defended, it would have defied the efforts of the small assailing force. But Malcolm knew the natives well. “Give them a quiet night,” he said, “and they will save us the trouble.”

The rebels evacuate the fort in the night

He was right. On the morning of the 2nd of June the strongest fort in the southern Maratha country was found deserted.

The chief attempts to escape in disguise

The chief, accompanied by six of his principal advisers, attempted, in the guise of a pilgrim, to escape the fate he had provoked. Every possible ruse was had recourse to by the fugitives to baffle the pursuit which, they soon learned, had been instituted after them. The man who had been deputed for that task, Mr. Frank Souter121, possessed qualities which did not permit, him to be easily baffled.

But is captured by Frank Souter

He met ruse with ruse, and after a hot pursuit, captured the chief on the night of the 3rd122.

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Colonel Jacob controls the country

On learning of Mr. Manson’s death, Colonel Jacob had taken Colonel the promptest measures to control the northern states of the territory. He forced the chief of Miraj, the best fortified town in the country, to give a pledge of his fidelity by surrendering his ammunition. Shortly afterwards, the death of General Lester led to the nomination of Colonel Jacob as Brigadier-General in military command in the southern Maratha country.

Measures taken by him for its pacification

Under General Jacob’s firm rule the country above the ghats soon subsided into quiescence, but below the mountains, along the Goa frontier, the Sawant rebels still continued to keep a large number of Madras, Bombay, and Portuguese troops, regular and irregular, in the field. Want of concert, however, naturally resulted from the action of troops serving under commanders independent one of the other.

In concert with the Viceroy of Goa

Eventually, in November, the Portuguese Viceroy, at a conference with General Jacob, consented to place the whole of his field detachments under the command of the officer who should unite that of the Bombay troops. Under this agreement Brigadier-General Fitzgerald of the Madras army took command of the united forces, and an organised plan was arranged. This was to hem in the tract occupied by the rebels, and to inform them that unless they surrendered by the 20th November they would be hunted down without mercy.

are eminently successful,

On that date the band had dwindled to the number of eighty persons. These surrendered to the Portuguese commander on the night of that day, and their ringleaders were subsequently transported to the Portuguese possessions in Taimor.

Thenceforward the peace of the Southern Maratha country was assured.

Footnotes

115. Vide pages 16 to 28.

116. Vide page 86.

117. Only a short. time previously the Rajah of Nargund had met Mr. Manson at the chief of Jamkhandi’s house, visiting him apparently on friendly terms.

118. So penetrated was he with this idea, that he despatched that day a letter to his half-brother at Ramdrug, in which occurs the passage: “I had rather die than be arrested as Jamkhandi was.”

119. It was the reasoning of Jael, wife of Heber the Kenite, whose conduct was infinitely more treacherous.

120. Read also Sir George Le Grand Jacob’s Western India before and during the Mutinies. The account of the suspension of the head over a gateway rests entirely on native testimony. When the place was taken it was found floating in a well.

121. Afterwards Sir Frank Souter, Superintendent of Police in Bombay. He died in 1887.

122. The chief of Nargund was tried at Belgaon on the 11th of June. He pleaded guilty, and in his plea stated that it was the fear of arrest that had caused him to commit the bloody deed. He was executed, in the presence of all the troops and of a large number of natives, on the 12th. It remains only to add that the bodies of the wife of whom I have spoken and the chief’s mother were found in the Malparba river on the night of the 3rd. Sir G. Le Grand Jacob states, in the work already referred to, that they drowned themselves, unable to bear up against the disgrace.

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