Warren Hastings was appointed the first Governor-General under the new Act, – a man endowed by nature with the greatest talent for government, and whose renown has not been eclipsed by the most illustrious of his successors. He landed in Calcutta in January, 1750, at the age of eighteen, and was employed for six years in the duties of appraising silk and muslins, and copying invoices. The political exigencies which arose out of the battle of Plassy suddenly developed his administrative abilities, which Clive was the first to discover and foster. He was selected to represent the Company at the Moorshedabad durbar, which, at the time, was one of the most arduous and delicate posts in the service. Three years after, he came by rotation to the Council board in Calcutta, and strenuously supported Mr. Vansittart in his opposition to those profligate measures which issued in the war with Meer Cassim. In the most venal period of the Bengal administration, he was distinguished by high principle and unsullied probity, and returned to England on furlough in graceful poverty, while his colleagues were retiring from the service with ambitious fortunes. By this step he forfeited his position in the service, according to the rules then in force, and he long solicited to be restored to it, but without success. By a happy accident, however, he was at length required to give evidence before a committee of the House of Commons, when the clearness of his statements, and the breadth of his views, excited the admiration both of the Court of Directors and the Ministry, and he was at once appointed second in Council at Madras.
The double government established by Clive after the acquisition of the Dewanny, though regarded
at first as a master-piece of policy, soon proved to be the curse of Bengal. It combined all the vices of a native government with all the confusion and mischief inseparable from foreign interference. The management of the revenue, which included the entire administration, was in the hands of native agents, who were subject to the supervision of the British resident at Moorshedabad, but his control was merely nominal. There was no European functionary in Bengal conversant with revenue details, and the zemindars were at liberty to make their own terms with the ryots on the one hand, and with the treasury on the other; in every case it was the interests of the state which suffered. Individuals grew rich, while the government was sinking in debt. To check these abuses, supervisors or collectors were appointed in 1769 to look after the revenue; but they were both ignorant and rapacious, and became mere tools in the hands of their banians, or native factors. The public money they collected was employed, for the most part, in supporting the monopolies which they and their native banians had established in the traffic of the district, and the value of their appointments consequently ranged from one to three lacs of rupees a year. The Court of Directors determined, therefore, “to stand forth as Duan, and to take on themselves the entire care and management of the revenues through the agency of their own servants.” This decision involved a complete revolution in the whole system of administration, civil, criminal, and fiscal, among twenty-five millions of people, and a more momentous change than any which had taken place since the days of Akbar and Toder Mull. Hastings was considered the only man in the Company’s service capable of inaugurating this new policy, and he was accordingly elevated to the chair in Bengal, and took charge of the government on the 13th April, 1772.
Upon this arduous task he entered with great zeal and energy. It was resolved to farm out the lands for five years, and the President and four
members of the Council proceeded through the districts to conduct the settlements. The offers made by the zemindars were, however, deemed unsatisfactory, and it was determined to put the lands up to competition, after abolishing some of the most oppressive of the imposts with which the laud had latterly been saddled. Where the old zemindars were displaced by higher bidders, an allowance was granted for their support out of the rents. The Khalsa, or exchequer, was removed from Moorshedabad to Calcutta, to which the entire administration of the country, in every branch, was transferred, and which became, from this date, the capital of Bengal. The charge of civil and criminal justice in each district was entrusted to European officers, and two courts of appeal were established at the seat of government. Without the aid of an English lawyer, Hastings drew up a short and simple code of regulations for the new courts, which exhibited in a remarkable degree the versatility of his talents. All these organic changes in the system of government were completed in six months.
The Mahrattas had no sooner crossed the Ganges on their return home, than the Vizier began to importune Hastings to assist him in seizing the province of Rohilcund, and offered a donation of forty lacs of rupees, and the payment of two lacs a month for the services of the English force. The Court of Directors, overwhelmed with debt and disgrace, were imploring the Council in Calcutta for remittances, and urging a reduction of the military expenditure, which was devouring the resources of the country. The treasury in Calcutta was empty, but the oiler of the Vizier seemed to be exactly adapted to meet the exigency. Mr. Hastings was assured that the Rohillas had offered to pay the Vizier the sum of forty lacs of rupees if he would deliver them from the Mahrattas; that they had been saved from destruction by the presence of the Vizier’s troops and those of his English ally, and, that now the danger was passed, they refused to pay anything. With this garbled
statement of the case, Hastings satisfied his conscience, and concluded that their ingratitude deserved punishment, and that, on the plan suggested by the Vizier, an act of just retribution might be made the means of replenishing the Company’s coffers. The Vizier wanted territory, and Hastings wanted money. “Such,” he wrote, “was my idea of the Company’s distress in England and India, that I should have been glad of any occasion of employing these forces, which saves so much of their pay and expenses.” Hastings accordingly proceeded to Benares in August, 1773, and concluded a treaty with the Vizier on the terms proposed by him. The districts of Corah and Allahabad were considered to have lapsed to the Company, when the emperor, to whom Clive had given them, was compelled to make them over to the Mahrattas. The defence of these districts – such was the extravagance and embezzlement in the military department – had cost the treasury two crores of rupees in five years, and Hastings wisely determined to “free the Company from this intolerable burden,” and transferred them to the Vizier who offered an additional payment of fifty lacs of rupees for them. The subsidy of twenty-six lacs of rupees a-year from the revenues of the three soobabs, which had been settled on the emperor, was suspended during the great famine which depopulated and pauperised Bengal, and, as he had now ceased to be a free agent, it was finally abolished.
The Vizier having secured the aid of an English force, demanded of Hafiz Ruhmut the payment of the balance of his bond, thirty-five lacs of rupees. Hafiz offered to make good whatever sum the Vizier had actually paid the Mahrattas for their forbearance, but as he knew that he had never paid them anything, the offer was treated with contempt. Hafiz, seeing the storm ready to burst upon his head, proposed a compromise, but the Vizier raised his demand to two hundred lacs of rupees, and the Rohillas adopted the resolution of defending their independence to the last extremity. Colonel Champion, the
British commander, advanced into Rohilcund, accompanied by the Vizier’s army, and the campaign was decided in a single engagement, on the 23rd of April, 1774. Hafiz brought 40,000 Rohillas into action, and exhibited a degree of military skill and courage, which excited the admiration of his European opponents. But nothing could withstand the steady charge of British bayonets, and after two hours of severe conflict, and the slaughter of more than 2,000 Rohillas – among whom was the brave Hafiz and his son – they were obliged to fly. The dastardly Vizier remained with his troops beyond the reach of fire, till the Rohillas were defeated, when he let them loose to plunder the camp. “We have the honour of the day,” exclaimed the indignant Champion, “and these banditti the profit.”
This transaction is one of the few stains on the bright and honourable career of Hastings. It has been urged in extenuation of it that the Rohillas were mere usurpers, with no right to the province but that of the sword. But so were nine-tenths of the princes of India at the time. The usurpation of Holkar, and Sindia, and Hyder Ali, and even of the Peshwa, and the Nizam, was quite as modern as that of the Rohillas, and the Nabob vizier himself was only the grandson of the Khorasan merchant, who had alienated Oude from the crown of Delhi. That the Rohillas formed a powerful confederacy on the borders of Oude, which, in the unsettled state of India, might have joined the Mahrattas and endangered the safety of a province which the Company was bound, no less by policy than by treaty to defend, cannot be controverted. The extinction of this dangerous power was a wise and politic measure, so far as anything that is intrinsically unjust can be wise and politic. Such transactions were, moreover, of constant occurrence in India; no native prince saw anything unusual or unjust in it, and even the Rohillas themselves considered it only as one of the chances of war to which they, in common with all states, were constantly liable. But it was inconsistent with that higher standard of morals by which Hastings’s conduct was judged
in England, and it has been invariably condemned, even by those who admire his genius. The conduct of the Vizier towards the conquered, in spite of Hastings’s remonstrances and threats, was infamous; but the assertion that 500,000 husbandmen were driven across the Ganges, and that the country was reduced to a bare and uninhabitable waste, was an Oriental exaggeration. The “extermination,” which was so loudly denounced by the enemies of Hastings, had reference only to the power of the Afghans, who did not exceed 20,000 in number. The Hindoo natives of the soil, numbering more than a million, experienced no other distress than that which follows every change of masters in India.
Hastings had succeeded in reorganising the administration, and extinguishing the Indian debt. He had overcome all the difficulties which beset his position on his arrival; but he was now called to encounter the more serious dangers which arose out of the provision made by the wisdom of Parliament for the better government of India. The judges of the Supreme Court and the new members of Council arrived from England, and landed at Chandpal ghaut on the 19th of October, 1774, with the firm conviction that the government was a compound of tyranny and corruption, which it was their mission to purify. As the judges stepped on shore, one of them, observing the bare legs and feet of the natives who crowded to the sight, said to his colleague, “Our court, brother, certainly was not established before it was needed. I trust we shall not have been six months in the country before these victims of oppression are comfortably provided with shoes and stockings.” Of the counsellors, Colonel Monson had served on the coast, General Clavering was the favourite of the King and the Ministry, and Mr. Francis, the undoubted author of Junius’s letters, had been an assistant in the War Office, and was distinguished for his talents and his malignity. They had all imbibed the most violent prejudices against Mr. Hastings, and regarded him as a monster of iniquity, whom it was the part of virtue
to censure and oppose. The spirit in which they entered on their duties may be inferred from the fact that their first complaint was that he had received them with a salute of only seventeen guns, when they expected nineteen. The old government was abolished, and the new government installed by proclamation on the 20th of October. Mr. Francis and his two colleagues, commenced their opposition on the first meeting of Council, and, as they formed a majority, Hastings found that the government of India had at once passed out of his hands, and was transferred to men utterly ignorant of the feelings, the habits, and the weaknesses of the natives, and bent on thwarting and degrading him.
The first exercise of their authority had reference to the affairs of Oude. Nine months previously, Hastings had placed Mr. Middleton as the representative of the Company at the court of the Vizier. They demanded the production of every letter which had ever passed between them, even in the confidence of private friendship. Hastings refused this preposterous request, but offered to furnish them with an extract of every paragraph which had the smallest bearing on public business. The triumvirate protested against this reservation, and immediately superseded Mr. Middleton, and appointed Mr. Bristow, one of their own friends to the durbar, and thus proclaimed the extinction of Hastings’s authority to all the princes of India. They reprobated the treaty of Benares made with the Vizier, as well as the Rohilla war, which was to be expected; but they went further, and issued orders to the officer commanding the brigade in Rohilcund to withdraw it immediately from the province, and to demand payment, within fourteen days, of all arrears due from the Vizier. Hastings warned them of the danger of these precipitate measures, which compromised equally the safety of Oude and the honour of the British name, but they turned a deaf ear to every remonstrance. During these transactions, the Vizier died, and his successor was informed by Mr. Francis and his colleagues
that all the engagements between the two states were cancelled by this event, except those which referred to the payment of arrears; and that whatever assistance he might receive from British troops must be based on a new arrangement. A treaty was accordingly concluded under the auspices of Mr. Francis, and although he had condemned Hastings in no measured terms “for letting out British troops for hire to the Vizier,” the services of the brigade were continued to him; but the amount of the hire was augmented by half a lac of rupees a month. The Vizier was likewise peremptorily commanded to cede to the Company, the zemindary of Benares, which yielded twenty-two lacs of rupees a year, and this was the only addition made to the British territory during the long period of Hastings’s administration.
The deceased Vizier had amassed treasure to the extent of two crores of rupees, and deposited it in vaults in the zenana. His widow and his mother, known in history as “the begums,” claimed the whole of this property on his death, under a will which they affirmed had been made in their favour. The will was never produced, and probably never existed; at all events it could not supersede the right of the state to these public funds, and, least of all, in favour of females. The late Vizier was under heavy obligations to the Company at the time of his death, and his troops, a hundred thousand in number, were twelve months in arrear. The funds were therefore primarily chargeable with these liabilities, but Mr. Bristow, the resident, lent himself to the views of the begums, and constrained the Vizier to affix his seal to a deed, under the guarantee of the government in Calcutta, which assigned three-fourths of this state property to them. Mr. Francis and his colleagues recorded their approval of this alienation, in spite of an earnest protest from Hastings and Mr. Barwell, who invariably supported him. The Vizier thus ascended the throne with an empty treasury; the troops
mutinied for their pay, and according to the report of the British resident, 20,000 of them were slaughtered, and nothing but the presence of the English brigade saved the country from a revolution.
The discord in the Council soon began to tell upon the government. The triumvirate had diligently studied the public records to discover grounds for criminating Hastings. They raked up information from the kennels of Calcutta, and offered every encouragement to the miscreants in the provinces to come forward and defame him. As soon as it was known that his authority was extinct, and that any accusation against him would be welcome to those who now enjoyed the power of the state, a host of informers hastened to Calcutta and crowded their anti-chambers. Charges were manufactured with great activity. The widow of Teluk Chand, the zemindar of Burdwan – a zemindary then scarcely a century old – brought a charge against Mr. Graham, whom Hastings had appointed guardian of the person and property of his minor son, of having embezzled more than three fats of rupees in five months, of which Hastings was accused of having received fifteen thousand. The native fouzdar of Hooghly had continued to receive an allowance of seventy-two thousand rupees a year, after the administration of the Company had commenced, and some native who coveted the place, charged Hastings with having appropriated to his own use one half this sum. No evidence was produced of the charge, which was in itself preposterous, but Mr. Francis and his two colleagues placed it on record “that there appeared to be no species of peculation from which the Honourable Governor-General has thought it reasonable to abstain, and that they had now obtained a clear light on his conduct, and the means by which he had amassed a fortune of forty lacs of rupees in two years and a half.”
A more important charge was preferred by Nundu koomar. This man, who had been repeatedly
denounced by the Court of Directors for his perfidy, and whose career had been marked by the most nefarious intrigues and treachery, offered to impeach Hastings, and was immediately taken into the alliance of the three counsellors. Under their auspices, he held his durbar in state in Calcutta, and issued his mandates to the zemindars throughout the country. At length, he came forward with a charge against Hastings of having received a bribe of three lacs and a half of rupees on the appointment of Munee Begum, the widow of Meer Jaffier, and his own son, Raja Gooroodass, to the management of the Nabob’s household at Moorshedabad, and likewise of having connived at the embezzlements of Mahomed Reza khan for a douceur of ten lacs. Mr. Francis and his colleagues proposed that Nundu koomar should be called before the Council board to substantiate the charge. Hastings, as might have been expected, opposed this proceeding with great indignation. “I know,” he said, “what belongs to the dignity and character of the first member of this administration, and I will not sit at this board in the character of a criminal.” It does not appear that on this or any other occasion, Hastings endeavoured to stifle enquiry, or objected to his opponents forming a committee of investigation, and reporting their proceedings to their masters at home, or referring the questions at issue to the arbitriment of the Supreme Court; but be felt that the government would be degraded in the eyes of the native community, if the dregs of society were introduced into the Council chamber to criminate the President at the instigation of Nundu koomar, and he dissolved the meeting and left the chamber. The majority immediately placed General Clavering in the chair, and called in Nundu koomar who dilated on the venality of Hastings, and moreover, produced a letter purporting to be written by Munee begum herself, which admitted the payment of two lacs and a half of rupees to the Governor-General, on which Mr. Francis and his friends resolved with one consent, that Hastings had clandestinely and illegally received three lacs and forty
thousand rupees, and that measures should be taken to compel him to repay it into the public treasury. The signature to the letter was pronounced on the most impartial examination to be spurious, but the seal appeared to be genuine. The begum herself denied all knowledge of the letter, and the mystery of the seal was not discovered till after the death of Nundu koomar, when fac-similes of the seals of all the most eminent personages in Bengal were found in his cabinet.
Hastings, in self-defence, now brought an action in the Supreme Court against Nundu koomar and others for a conspiracy to induce one Kumal-ood-deen, a large revenue farmer, to criminate him. The judges admitted the charge and held Nundu koomar to bail, and Mr. Francis and his two associates immediately paid him a complimentary visit at his own residence. Eight weeks after the commencement of this action, one Mohun Prisad, a native merchant, renewed an action for forgery against Nundu koomar, which had been originally instituted in the local court, when Nundu koomar was arrested, but released, through the intervention of Hastings. On the establishment of the Supreme Court, this suit, along with others, was transferred to its jurisdiction. The forgery was established on the clearest evidence; the jury found him guilty, and the judges ordered him to be hung. It was the first instance of the execution of a brahmin, since the English became lords of the country, and it created a profound sensation in the native community. Thousands of Hindoos surrounded the scaffold, unwilling to believe their own eyes, and when the deed was completed, rushed down to the sacred stream to wash out the pollution.
This transaction was long considered the most atrocious crime of Hastings’s administration. It was asserted in high quarters that Nundu koomar had been judicially murdered by him through the agency of Sir Elijah Impey, the chief justice. But time has dispelled
the clouds of prejudice. For this foul imputation there was no other ground than the coincidence of this trial, in point of time, with the accusations brought by Nundu koomar against Hastings. There never was the slightest evidence that Hastings had ever prompted, or even encouraged the action. The capital sentence, however conformable to the barbarous laws of England at the time, was, on every consideration, most unjust. The offence was venial by the laws of the country, and the English code, which made it capital, was not introduced till several years after it had been committed. Mr. Francis and his colleagues protested against the whole proceeding, but the judges indignantly refused to submit to any dictation in the exercise of their judicial functions. But after the sentence had been passed, it was still within the power of the majority of the Council who exercised the whole authority of the government, to suspend the execution of it, pending a reference to England; they did not, however, choose to interfere, and the odium of this transaction must be divided between them and the judges. Nundu koomar, who began life a poor man, left a fortune of a crore of rupees.
Towards the close of 1775, the decision of the Court of Directors on the matters in dispute between Mr. Francis and Hastings, was received in Calcutta. They condemned the measures of the Governor-General in strong language, but they neither ordered the restitution of Rohilcund to the Rohillas, nor the return of the forty lacs which had enriched their treasury, to the Vizier. But they recommended concord and unanimity to the Council, and the advice was received with a shout of derision by both parties. The adverse resolutions of the Directors were, however, overruled by the Proprietors, who held Hastings in the highest estimation; and the dissensions abroad, aggravated by the discord at home, brought the British interests in India to the verge of destruction, from which they were rescued only by the firmness and resolution of the Governor-General. In September, 1776, his authority in the government was restored
by the death of Colonel Monson, which gave him the casting vote in an equally-balanced Council. But in the preceding year, worried by the opposition and insults of his opponents, he had informed his agent in England, Colonel Macleane, that it was his intention to resign his appointment, if he found that his measures were not approved of at home. But within two months of this communication, he recovered his spirits, revoked his resignation, and, at the same time, informed the Minister, Lord North, that he would remain at his post till he was recalled by the same authority, – that of Parliament, – which had placed him at the head of the government. But Colonel Macleane, finding the current against Hastings as strong in Leadenhall Street as it was in Downing Street, took upon himself to announce to the Court of Directors that he was authorised, on certain conditions, to tender his patron’s resignation. After several months of violent intrigue, which it is not necessary to detail, the Directors came to the resolution that Mr. Hastings had positively resigned his office, though his latest as well as his earliest letters were before them, and appointed Mr. Wheler to the vacant seat in Council.
When intelligence of this resolution reached Calcutta, General Clavering, whom Lord North had encouraged in his opposition to Hastings, by the Order of the Bath, attempted to seize the government, as being the senior member of Council, obtained possession of the Council Chamber, and took the oaths as Governor-General. He likewise demanded the keys of the Treasury and of the fort from Hastings, and wrote to the commandant to obey no orders but those which emanated from him. Hastings, who did not admit the fact of his resignation, had anticipated Sir John Clavering by securing the gates of Fort William, and his messengers found them closed against him. The dispute was rapidly tending to a collision, which must have proved in the highest degree disastrous to the interests of the Company, when Hastings prudently
averted it by referring the question to the Judges of the Supreme Court. After a careful investigation of all the documents connected with this transaction, they came to the decision, that any assumption of authority by Sir John Clavering would be illegal, and the storm blew over. He did not survive the chagrin of this disappointment many months. Mr. Wheler, who had taken his seat in Council, though professing neutrality, generally sided with Francis, but the casting vote of the Governor-General overruled all opposition. At the beginning of 1780, Mr. Barwell was anxious to return to his native land with the colossal fortune he had accumulated, but he hesitated to embark and leave his friend Hastings in a minority. Mr. Francis, unwilling to stand in the way of Mr. Barwell’s retirement, came to an understanding with Hastings not to take advantage of it, and Mr. Barwell embarked for England. But the discord was speedily renewed; the antagonists could not agree on the nature or extent of the neutrality. Hastings charged Francis with having duped him, and the dispute was settled, according to the barbarous custom of the times, by a hostile meeting, in which Mr. Francis was wounded. At the close of the year he returned to England.
The settlement of the land revenue, which had been made for five years, expired in 1777, when it was found that the country had been grievously rack-rented. Many of the zemindars, ambitious of retaining their position in the country, had made offers which they soon found themselves unable to support. The speculators, who had in many cases outbid and dislodged the old landholders, had no object but to enrich themselves by oppressive exactions, and throw up their engagements as soon as the ryots were exhausted. The government, new to their duties, had committed serious errors. To the usual imperfection of all new institutions, was in this instance added an entire ignorance of the quality and value of the lands and even of the language of those who held them. The whole system collapsed; the country was impoverished, and, what with remissions and
irrecoverable balances, the Company lost little short of two crores and a half of rupees in five years. Before the expiration of the old settlement, Hastings had wisely appointed a. commission of inquiry to travel through the country and collect data for a new arrangement. The Court of Directors denounced the commission as a flagrant job, and charged Hastings with “the meanest and most corrupt motives in the selection of the members.” They expressed their surprise that any such inquiry should be found necessary, after they had held the Dewanny for ten years. But they seemed to forget that their own time had been occupied in cabal and intrigue at home, to the neglect of the duties of administration, and that their ill-paid revenue officers in India had been too closely occupied in making fortunes by private trade to have any leisure to attend to the interests of the state. By order of the Directors, the settlement was therefore made for one year only.
To resume the thread of Mahratta affairs. The young Peshwa, Madhoo Rao, little inferior to any of his race in the cabinet or in the field, died of consumption, on the 18th of November, 1772. At the period of his death, the nominal revenue of the Mahratta empire in Hindostan and in the Deccan, was ten crores of rupees, but the amount actually realized did not greatly exceed seven crores, of which the sum at the absolute disposal of the Peshwa was only three crores, the remainder of it belonged to the Guickwar, Bhonslay, Holkar, Sindia, and minor chieftains. The Peshwa’s own army consisted of 50,000 horse, besides infantry and artillery, but the entire army be was able to assemble under the national standard was not less than 100,000 splendid cavalry, and a proportionate strength of foot and artillery, not including the Pindarrees, or hereditary freebooters of the country. It was a fortunate circumstance for India that this formidable force, animated by the instinct of plunder, and stimulated by the remembrance of past successes, was not under the control
of a single leader, but divided by allegiance to five princes, each one of whom had his own individual interests to promote. Madhoo Rao was succeeded by his younger brother, Narayun Rao, who immediately proceeded to Satara, and was invested with the office of Peshwa. Though not twenty, he was ambitious of military glory, and determined on an expedition to the Carnatic, which induced him to recall the Mahratta army from Rohilcund. But, after a reign of nine months, he was assassinated by the orders, or by the connivance of his uncle, Roghoonath Rao, or Raghoba. Raghoba had long been distinguished as a brave soldier, and, in 1759 had led a body of 50,000 Mahratta horse from the banks of the Nerbudda to the banks of the Indus. But he was an inveterate intriguer, and had been repeatedly confined by Madhoo Rao for his turbulence and treason. He was, moreover, always imprudent, and rarely fortunate.
Raghoba took possession of the vacant office, and after having obtained investiture from Satara, plunged into hostilities with the Nizam, whom he pursued with such vigour as to oblige him to purchase peace by the sacrifice of territory valued at twenty lacs a year. With his usual folly, Raghoba restored the lands to the Nizam, instead of judiciously distributing them among his military chiefs, and thus increasing the strength of their loyalty. He then marched against Hyder, but his pecuniary difficulties obliged him to be content with a promise of six lacs of rupees, and the acknowledgment of his title as Peshwa. From this southern expedition he was recalled by a formidable confederacy of the ministers at Poona, who were hostile to him, and had, moreover, received intimation that the young widow of the late Peshwa was pregnant. They conveyed her, on the 30th of January, to the fort of Poorunder, taking the precaution of sending with her a number of females in the same condition, to provide against the chance of her giving birth to a daughter. They then proceeded to form a Regency composed of Succaram Bappoo, an
old and astute statesman, Nana Furnuvese, and the military commandant, and at once assumed all the functions of government. Raghoba, on the news of this revolution, hastened to meet his opponents, accompanied by Moran Rao, one of the greatest soldiers of the age, who had measured swords with Lawrence and Coote in the Carnatic, and on the 4th of March inflicted a signal defeat on the army of the Regency. This success replenished his military chest, and brought crowds to his standard; fortune seemed to declare in his favour, when, having conceived suspicions of the fidelity of his own generals, he threw away his chance of power by turning off to Boorhanpore, instead of marching at once on Poona, which its terrified inhabitants had begun to desert. The widow was delivered of a son on the 18th of April, 1774, who was installed as Peshwa when only ten days old, under the title of Madhoo Rao the Second.
After remaining a short time at Boorhanpore, Raghoba crossed the Nerbudda to Indore, where he was joined by Holkar and Sindia, who had returned from Rohilcund with about 30,000 horse. He also indulged the hope of receiving aid from the raja of Berar, and advanced to the banks of the Taptee, to secure the co-operation of the Guickwar army. In reference to the province of Guzerat, then under the rule of this family, it is to be observed that the authority of the Emperor was finally extinguished in it during the year 1755, when the capital, Ahmedabad, was captured by Damajee Guickwar, the Mahratta sirdar. At the period of his death, in 1768, his son, Govind Rao, who happened to be at Poona, obtained his father’s title and possessions on the payment of various sums, which eventually reached fifty lacs of rupees. In 1771, his brother, Futteh Sing, proceeded to the Peshwa’s court, and succeeded in supplanting him; but Govind Rao’s cause was espoused by Raghoba, on becoming Peshwa, and the province was distracted by these rival claims. Raghoba now advanced to claim the support of his protegée.
During the year 1772, the Court of Directors resolved to place a representative at the Poona durbar, in the hope of promoting their commercial interests, and, more especially, of obtaining possession of the port of Bassein, and the island of Salsette, which was separated from Bombay by a narrow channel, and comprised an area of about 150 square miles. With these acquisitions the Directors hoped to render Bombay the great emporium of the trade of the western coast with Persia, Arabia, the Red Sea, and China. These possessions fell into the hands of the Portuguese in an early period of their career, but were conquered by the Mahrattas in 1739, by whom they were prized beyond their value, as having been wrested from a European power. Raghoba, on his arrival at the Tapteel sent an envoy to Bombay to solicit the aid of a sufficient force to establish him in the government at Poona, and offered to defray all the expenses of the troops, as well as to make large grants of territory to the Company. The President and Council eagerly grasped at the proposal, and on the 6th of September, 1774, offered to assist him with 2,500 troops, on condition of his advancing fifteen or twenty lacs of rupees, and engaging to cede Salsette and Bassein in perpetuity to the Company. But Raghoba, even in his extremity, refused to alienate Salsette from the Mahratta dominions. While these negotiations were pending, the Bombay authorities received information that a large armament was fitted out at Goa for the recovery of these possessions, and as it was felt that the Portuguese would be more dangerous neighbours than the Mahrattas, an expedition was sent to Salsette, and the island occupied before the end of the year.
Meanwhile, the Regency at Poona having succeeded by large offers in detaching Holkar and Sindia from the cause of Raghoba, moved against him with a body of 30,000 men, and he narrowly escaped being captured by his perfidious allies and delivered up to his enemies. He retreated in all haste, leaving his begum at
Dhar, where she gave birth to a son, Bajee Rao, the last of the Peshwas. On the 17th of February, the troops of the Regency overtook him at Wassud, where his army was totally routed and dispersed, and he fled from the field with only a thousand horse. Ten days after this event, Colonel Keating arrived at Surat with the force which had been despatched from Bombay to his aid. Raghoba soon after joined his camp, and, after some further negotiations, affixed his seal on the 6th of March, 1775, to a treaty, known in history as the Treaty of Surat, concluded by the Bombay President, without the authority of the Calcutta Government, and which involved the Company in the first Mahratta war. The President bad no evidence that Raghoba was chargeable with the assassination of his nephew, but his guilt was universally believed by the Mahrattas, and the alliance of the English with a man branded with the crime of murder created a deep and lasting prejudice against them. By this treaty the Bombay Government engaged to furnish Raghoba with 3,000 British troops, and he pledged himself to the payment of eighteen lacs of rupees a-year, made an assignment of lands of the annual value of nineteen lacs, and – such was the desperate state of his affairs – agreed to concede Salsette and Bassein. The army of Colonel Keating, joined by the troops whom Raghoba’s officers had succeeded in collecting together after their dispersion, manoeuvred for a month between the Sabermuttee and the Myhee. It was during this period that Colonel Keating indiscreetly attempted to detach Futteh Sing Guickwar from the Poona regency; but the English troops had as yet achieved nothing, and the Colonel’s envoy, a young lieutenant, was treated with the most humiliating contempt.
The Bombay Government having thus embarked in a war with the Mahratta Regency, ordered Colonel Keating to quit Guzerat, and march upon Poona; but, as he moved down to the Myhee, he found the Mahratta army posted at Arras to dispute his progress. It was on this field that the English and Mahratta forces encountered each
other, for the first time since the gentlemen of the factory at Surat had so gallantly repulsed Sevajee in 1669. The brunt of the action fell on Colonel Keating’s brigades which was attacked by an army of ten times its number. The loss of life was severe, but, though the English troops were for a time staggered, their final triumph was complete, and the Mahrattas retreated in haste and disorder to the Nerbudda. Colonel Keating pursued them with vigour, and they considered themselves fortunate in effecting their escape across 4 the river, after they had thrown all their heavy guns into it. Futteh Sing now hastened to make his peace with the victors, and engaged to furnish Raghoba with twenty-six lacs of rupees in two months, together with a large body of troops, and to secure to the Company a share of the Broach revenues to the extent of two lees a-year. The Mahratta navy, moreover, which consisted of six vessels, carrying from 26 to 46 guns, was completely crippled by the English commodore. The campaign had been prosperous by sea and land; the Company had obtained a territorial revenue of twenty-four lacs a-year; the Mahrattas had been driven with disgrace across the Nerbudda, and so effectually damaged was their reputation, that the Nizam was emboldened to take advantage of their distress, and, under the threat of joining Raghoba, exacted a cession of lands valued at eleven lacs a-year. But the brilliant prospects which this success opened up were ruined by the proceedings of the Calcutta triumvirate.
The treaty with Raghoba, which appeared likely to involve a war with the Regency, was severely condemned by both parties in the Council in Calcutta, as “impolitic, dangerous, unauthorised, and unjust.” When the war, however, had actually commenced, Hastings considered it almost impossible to withdraw from it with honour and safety, before the conclusion; and he advised that the Bombay Government should be vigorously supported in conducting it, and instructed to bring it to a termination as speedily as possible. But Mr. Francis and his colleagues
resented the audacity of the Bombay Council in making war without their consent, ordered the treaty with Raghoba to be immediately annulled, and all the British troops to be withdrawn from the field. At the same time, they announced their intention to send an agent of their own to open an independent negotiation with the ministers at Poona. In vain did the Bombay Council remonstrate with them on the disgrace of violating a solemn treaty. Colonel Upton was sent to Poona to disavow their proceedings; their authority was paralysed, and their character wantonly disgraced in the eyes of the princes of India.
The astute ministers at Poona were not slow to take advantage, of these discords, and extolled to the skies the wisdom of “the great governor of Calcutta, who had ordered peace to be concluded.” When, however, Colonel Upton came to propose that Salsette and Bassein and the assigned revenues of Broach should be retained by the Company, they assumed a lofty tone, and spurned the conditions, demanding the immediate surrender of Raghoba and of all the territory recently acquired by the English; but they offered, as a matter of favour, to contribute twelve lacs of rupees towards the expenses which had been incurred in the war. The majority of the Council had, in fact, cut the sinews of the negotiation by the precipitate recal of the army from the field, but the insolent reply of the Regency roused their indignation, and they determined to support Raghoba, and to prosecute the war with all vigour. Letters were at once despatched to the various princes of India to secure their alliance, or their neutrality; a supply of treasure was despatched to Bombay, and troops were ordered to be held in readiness to take the field. But the Poona ministers, after this display of arrogance, unexpectedly conceded the greater part of Colonel Upton’s demands, and the Treaty of Poorunder was signed on the 1st of March, 1776, by Succaram Bappoo and Nana Furnuvese. It annulled the engagements of the Bombay Government with Raghoba, who was to disband his army and retire
to the banks of the Godavery on a pension of three lacs of rupees a-year. The British army was to quit the field. Sal-Bette was to be retained by the Company if the Governor-General desired it, but all the other acquisitions were to be relinquished; the claim on the revenues of Broach was conceded, together with twelve lacs of rupees, towards the expenses of the war, “by way of favour.” Considering that all the advantages of the campaign had been on the side of the English, the Bombay Presidency was fully justified in reprobating the treaty, as “highly injurious to the reputation and the interests of the Company.” It was a flagrant breach of faith with Raghoba, and it served to impair the confidence of the native powers in the engagements of the British Government. It inspired the Poona Regency with an undue sense of their own importance, and rendered a second war inevitable. The Bombay Council did not conceal their anxiety to obstruct the treaty. They gave an asylum to Raghoba at Surat, and threw their field armies into Surat and Broach. The Poona ministers raved at this infraction of the treaty, and threatened to carry fire and sword into every part of the Company’s dominions; but all their menaces were treated with contempt at Bombay.
On the 20th of August, 1776, a despatch was received from the Court of Directors, approving of the treaty concluded with Raghoba at Surat, and directing the other Presidencies to give him their support, and to retain the territories which had been ceded by him. The Bombay Council, smarting under the degradation inflicted on them by the Supreme Government, lost no time in turning this favourable decision to account. To the great annoyance of the Poona Regency, they gave countenance to an impostor, who claimed the office of Peshwa, as the identical Sudaseeb Rao Bhao, who had disappeared at the battle of Paniput. They invited Raghoba to Bombay, and settled 10,000 rupees a month on him. The Mahratta cabinet remonstrated against this fresh violation of the treaty of Poorunder, but it was weakened by internal discords. Succaram Bappoo, the head
of the ministry, was jealous of the growing power of his younger associate, Nana Furnuvese, who had fled from the field of Paniput, and who united the highest political talent with a singular want of personal courage. His cousin, Maroba Furnuvese, had been the minister of the deceased Madhoo Rao, and took a prominent part in public affairs, but in the interests of Succaram. Mandajee Sindia was endeavouring to increase his own consequence by acting as umpire between the two factions. To increase the confusion at Poona, a French adventurer, of the name of St. Lubin, arrived there in March, 1777, and announced himself as the envoy of the King of France, who was on the eve of a war with the English. He was authorised, as he said, to offer the Mahrattas the support of 2,500 European troops, an abundant supply of stores and munitions of war, and officers to discipline 10,000 sepoys. He affected horror at the connection of the English with the assassin Raghoba, and produced in the durbar, with a burst of grief, a picture of the barbarous murder of Narayun Rao, which had been painted under his direction at Paris. Nana Furnuvese affected to credit his mission, and, with the view of annoying the English government, afforded him every encouragement, and made over to him the harbour of Choul, only twenty-three miles from Bombay.
Meanwhile, a despatch was received at Bombay and Calcutta from the Court of Directors, regretting the sacrifices made by the treaty of Poorunder, and stating that, although they considered themselves bound in honour to adhere to it, yet, if there was any attempt on the part of the Poona Regency to evade its provisions, the Bombay Presidency was at liberty to renew the alliance with Raghoba. The President and Council found little difficulty in discovering infractions of a treaty which those who had dictated it never intended to respect but as it suited their interests, and prepared to espouse the cause of Raghoba. Their movements were hastened by the course of events at the Mahratta capital. Moraba Furnuvese, assisted
by Holkar, resolved to support Raghoba, and Succaram Bappoo joined the confederacy, and despatched an envoy to Bombay to request the government to conduct Raghoba to Poona with a military escort. The proposal was eagerly accepted, and preparations were immediately made for the expedition. Hastings, who had now regained his ascendancy in the Council, gave the project his approbation, partly because it was countenanced by Succaram Bappoo, one of the parties to the treaty of Poorunder, but chiefly because Nana Furnuvese was giving encouragement to the French, whose influence in Indian politics he considered the greatest of calamities. In a letter dated the 23rd of March, 1778, he authorized the Bombay Government “to assist in tranquillizing the Mahratta state,” and engaged to send a large force across the continent to resist the aggressions of the French, which, in his opinion, threatened the existence of the Company’s possessions in the west of India.
Nana Furnuvese was obliged to bend to the storm, and retire to Poorunder. Hurry Punt, the Mahratta general-in-chief, and one of his partizans, was, at the time, on his way to Meritch, to join Sindia in resisting the encroachments of Hyder, to which reference will be made hereafter. They were hastily recalled from the south, and reached Poorunder on the 8th of July, where they united with the army of Holkar, who had been, in the meantime, detached from the opposite party by a bribe of nine lacs of rupees, and restored Nana Furnuvese again to power. Maroba and his colleagues were arrested on the 11th, and many of them put to death, but Succaram Bappoo, whose name it was deemed important to associate with the, proceedings of the state, was simply placed under restraint. The party of Raghoba was thus extinguished at Poona. But the Bombay President and Council were not disposed to desert him. They addressed certain questions to the new ministry at Poona; the replies were considered a violation of the treaty of Poorunder, and it was resolved to put to use the
liberty granted to them in the despatch of the Court of Directors and in the letter of Hastings. Towards the end of August, he informed them that he was endeavouring to form an alliance with the Rajah of Berar, which would embrace the politics of Poona, and enjoined them to avoid any measure hostile to the Poona Regency. But their passions were enlisted in the cause of Raghoba, which, in effect, they made their own; and without adequate preparation, without a commander on whom they could depend, and without alliances, they determined to send a handful of men against the strength of the Mahratta empire. Nana Furnuvese perceived the gathering storm, and prepared to meet it; he enlisted recruits in every direction, repaired and provisioned his forts, and refitted his vessels.
A new treaty was now made with Raghoba, which differed little from that of Surat. An army of 4,000 men, of whom 600 were Europeans, was equipped and entrusted to Colonel Egerton, who had seen some service in Europe, but was little qualified for the duty assigned him. Disregarding the experience so dearly bought in the war with Hyder in 1768, “field deputies,” under the name of civil commissioners, were sent with the army to control its movements, and to check peculation. Carnac, who had won some credit in the field in Bengal, was appointed the senior commissioner, and he exhibited his fitness for such a trust by a squabble, on the first day, with Colonel Egerton about the military honours to be paid him. The troops, encumbered with 19,000 bullocks besides other cattle, embarked at Panwell on the 25th of November, and, as if it had been designed to afford Nana and Sindia the most ample leisure for preparation, moved at the rate of two miles a day. It was the 23rd of December before the army ascended the ghauts, when its disasters began by the loss of one of the most energetic, bold, and judicious officers in its ranks, Captain Stewart, whose name, after the lapse of half a century, was still held in veneration by the inhabitants
of those valleys as Stewart Phakray, or Stewart the gallant.
On the 6th of January, Colonel Egerton resigned the command to Colonel Cockburn, but though he acted as civil commissioner, the responsibility of all subsequent movements rested with Carnac. On the 9th, the army reached Tullygaum, and found it destroyed. A report was spread that the enemy intended also to burn Chinchore, and even the capital itself. Carnac was panic-struck, and though within eighteen miles of Poona, with eighteen days’ provisions in the camp, determined, in the first instance, to open a negotiation with the enemy, and then to retreat. Raghoba, who, with all his faults, was a gallant soldier, protested against this cowardice, so contrary to the British character, but the commissioners were so completely under the control of their own terrors, that they refused to wait even a single day for the result of their negotiations, threw their heavy guns into a pond, and begun their retreat that very night, hotly pursued by the enemy. The rear-guard, upon which the enemy’s assaults were chiefly directed, was commanded by a young and gallant officer of the name of Hartley, who had been in the service about fourteen years, and gained the entire confidence of the sepoys. He received every attack with the utmost steadiness and animation, and drove back the enemy at every point. The sepoys fought with perfect enthusiasm. Had the command of the expedition been entrusted to him, he would, doubtless, have planted the British standard on the battlements of Poona: but in this, as in many subsequent campaigns, while the army contained men of the most heroic mould, and of the highest talent, it was under the command of wretched drivellers.
The British force encamped, on the night of the 12th, at Wurgaum, and was assailed in the morning by the guns brought up by the enemy during the darkness. The troops began to lose heart;
the commander was bewildered, and declared that. even a retreat had ceased to be possible. Captain Hartley in vain pointed out the mode in which it might be effected with little toss. Overtures were made to Nana Furnuvese, who demanded the surrender of Raghoba, before he would listen to terms, and the commissioners would have complied with the demand if that prince had not saved them from this infamy by surrendering himself to Sindia. Nana Furnuvese, however, appeared to be impracticable, and the commissioners turned to Sindia to whom they sent Mr. Holmes with full powers to treat. This separate negotiation flattered his vanity and increased his importance, and a convention, known as that of Wurgaum, was concluded under his auspices, which rescued the British army from destruction by the sacrifice of all the acquisitions which had been made since 1773. The advance of the army under Colonel Goddard across the country was countermanded, and for the first time in the history of British India, two hostages were given for the performance of the treaty. The failure of this expedition, which was owing to the interference of the imbecile Carnac, was a severe blow to the interests of the Company, who lost no time in dismissing him, as well as Colonels Egerton and Cockburn, from the service. The Bombay Presidency lost its reputation and its strength, and its only hope of safety now rested on the arrival of the Bengal army.
This expedition was despatched from the banks of the Jumna to Bombay through a thousand miles of unknown country, occupied by chiefs who were more likely to prove hostile than friendly. It was described by Mr. Dundas, the Indian minister, as “one of the frantic military exploits of Hastings,” but he forgot that it was by a succession of such “frantic exploits” that British power and prestige had been established in India by a handful of foreigners. The force consisted of between 4,000 and 5,000 men, under the command of Colonel Leslie, a fair soldier, but unequal to such an enterprise. He crossed the Jumna in May,
1778, and was expected to reach the Nerbudda before it was swelled by the rains, but he wasted his time in discussions with petty chiefs, and in the course of five months had only advanced 120 miles. He was accordingly displaced, but died before the news of his supercession reached him, and the command of the army was entrusted by Hastings to Colonel Goddard, one of the brightest names in the history of British India. Through his energy, the expedition advanced at a rapid pace, notwithstanding the opposition of many of the chieftains. The raja of Bhopal, however, treated Goddard with the greatest kindness and hospitality, and furnished his troops with ample supplies, though at the risk of bringing down on himself the vengeance of the Mahratta powers. This generous conduct in a season of difficulty has not been forgotten by the British government in the height of its prosperity. The house of Bhopal has been treated by successive Governors-General with marked consideration; it has always been distinguished by its fidelity to the English crown, and the present Muha-ranee is the only female decorated with the most exalted Order of the Star of India.
During the progress of Colonel Goddard’s expedition, intelligence was received in Calcutta of the declaration of war between France and England, and the difficulties of Hastings’s position were greatly multiplied. The mission of St. Lubin – who had not then been detected as a charlatan – and the countenance given to him by Nana Furnuvese, created the apprehension that the Mahrattas would be strengthened by a large French armament, and possibly under the command of the redoubted Bussy, who had retired to France with a magnificent fortune, and married the niece of the minister, but was thirsting for service in the country where his exploits were still held in honour. Hastings adopted the most vigorous measures to meet this new crisis; he augmented the army; he embodied the militia of Calcutta, to the number of a thousand; and sent Mr. Elliott to the Rajah of Berar to secure his alliance by
the offer of assisting him to obtain the office of Peshwa. The negotiation, the success of which would have involved the Company in endless complications, was happily nipped in the bud when the raja heard that the Bombay government were about to support the claims of Raghoba by force of anus, but he liberally supplied Colonel Goddard with money and provisions, and thus enabled him to reach Boorhanpore without difficulty on the 30th of January, 1779. So strict was the discipline which the Colonel maintained in his army, and so punctual were his payments, that the chiefs and people on the route hastened to furnish him with supplies. At Boorhanpore, he heard of the disaster of the Bombay force at Wurgaum, and immediately turned off to Surat, a distance of 300 miles, which he traversed in twenty days, though he was without any map of the country. By this prompt movement he avoided a body of 20,000 Mahratta horse sent from Poona to intercept him. His timely arrival on the western coast proved the salvation of the Bombay Presidency. The unexpected appearance of so large a force from the banks of the Jumna, augmented the reputation of the British power, and confirmed its influence at the native courts, which the convention of Wurgaum had impaired.
This convention was repudiated equally by the Bombay Council and by Hastings, who directed Colonel Goddard to open a fresh negotiation with Nana Furnuvese, on the basis of the treaty of Poorunder, but with an additional stipulation for the exclusion of the French from the Mahratta dominions. In the meantime, Sindia had granted a jaygeer of twelve lacs of rupees in Bundlecund to Raghoba, and sent him under a slender escort to take possession of it. Raghoba, who was permitted to take his body guard and his guns with him, attacked and overpowered the escort on the route, and escaped to Surat, where he was honourably entertained by Colonel Goddard, who settled an allowance of half a lac of rupees a month on him. The whole scheme was evidently a contrivance of Sindia, to procure the release of
Raghoba, and hold Nana Furnuvese in check, by his habitual fears. Towards the close of the year, Succaram Bappoo, being no longer considered necessary, was confined by Nana in the fortress of Pertabgur, 4,000 feet above the level of the plain, from the windows of which he could discern the spot, where, a hundred years before, his ancestor Puntajee had basely betrayed his confiding master, Ufzul Khan, into the hands of Sevajee. The venerable old man was soon after removed to Raigur, where he closed a life which had been marked by every vicissitude of privation and grandeur, of toil and triumph.
The ministers at Poona considered the convention of Wurgaum as a final settlement of their differences with the English, and invited them to unite in an attack on Hyder, who had taken advantage of the confusion of the times to overrun the Mahratta territories up to the banks of the Kistna. But the reception accorded to Raghoba by Goddard on the 12th of June gave them mortal offence, and they immediately turned round and proposed to Hyder a union against the English, in pursuance of the confederacy which had been formed by the Nizam at the end of the monsoon. When, therefore, Goddard, who had early intimation of this alliance, demanded a categorical reply to the proposals he had made, Nana Furnuvese at once stated that the restitution of Salsette, and the surrender of Raghoba were necessary preliminaries to any treaty; and Goddard immediately dismissed the vakeels, and prepared for war. At the same time he endeavoured to negotiate with Futteh Sing Guickwar, whom Hastings had determined to acknowledge as the ruler of Guzerat, but that prince manifested a disposition to procrastinate, and Goddard lost no time in laying siege to Dubhoy, garrisoned by 2,000 of the Peshwa’s troops, which surrendered on the 20th of January, 1780. Futteh Sing now began to negotiate in earnest, and a treaty offensive and defensive was concluded six days after, in which it was agreed that he should join the English camp with 3,000 horse, and
receive possession of all the Peshwa’s territories north of the Myhee, and that certain districts to the south should be made over to the Company. On the 10th of February, Goddard captured the noble city of Ahmedabad, the modern capital of the province, surrounded by walls of immense extent, and filled with a population of 100,000. The capital was scarcely reduced, when Goddard heard that Sindia and Holkar had forded the Nerbudda with 20,000 horse on the 29th of February, and were advancing to encounter him. Sindia professed great enmity of Nana Furnuvese, and great friendship for the English, and liberated the two hostages of Wurgaum, whom he had treated with hospitality. He endeavoured to open negotiations, but Goddard could not fail to perceive that his chief object was to waste the season of operations. Seven days were, therefore, allowed him for a definite reply, and as it did not prove satisfactory, Goddard attacked and dispersed his troops on the 2nd, and again on the 14th of April, and cantoned his army for the season on the banks of the Nerbudda.
On the side of Bengal, the war was conducted with brilliant success. Sixty miles south-east of Agra lay the little independent principality of Gohud, erected by a Jaut chieftain on the decay of the Mogul empire. The rana was incessantly threatened by the encroachments of Sindia, and solicited the protection of Hastings, who determined to take advantage of the appeal, and despatch an expedition, chiefly however with the view of creating a salutary diversion. It consisted of only 2,400 infantry, with a small body of cavalry, and a detail of European artillery, but it was commanded by Major Popham, one of the best soldiers in the service. He proceeded on his march in February, 1780, and having expelled the Mahratta invaders from the country, attacked the fortress of Lahar, without battering cannon, and carried it by the gallantry of his men. Fifty miles to the south of it lay the fort of Gwalior, on the summit of a stupendous rock, scarped almost entirely round, and
deemed throughout India impregnable. Sir Eyre Coote, the veteran hero of the Carnatic, now general-in-chief in Bengal, had declared that any attempt to capture it, more especially without siege guns, would be an act of madness. But Popham had set this “glorious object,” as he termed it, before him, and determined to accomplish it. For two months he lay about the fortress, maturing his plans with such secrecy as to baffle all suspicion. On the night of the 3rd of August, the troops selected for the assault proceeded under the guidance of Captain Bruce to their destination. Two companies of sepoys led by four European officers, and followed by twenty English soldiers, applied the scaling ladders to the base of the scarped rock, sixteen feet high, then to a steep ascent of forty feet, and, lastly, to a wall of the height of thirty feet. Captain Bruce with twenty sepoys climbed up the battlements before their approach was suspected. The bewildered garrison made but a feeble resistance, and, by break of day, the British ensign was floating over the renowned fortress of Gwalior, while the Mahratta troops fled to carry the news to Sindia. The report of this brilliant achievement resounded through India, and wiped out the disgrace of the “infamous convention of Wurgaum,” as Hastings termed it, and which he considered “it worth crores to obliterate.” Popham was promoted to a majority, and then superseded by Colonel Carnac, who brought an additional force with him, and not only invaded Malwa, but threatened Sindia’s capital. That chief was obliged to quit Poona in haste to attend to the defence of his own dominions, and the object of Hastings in this expedition was fully accomplished. Carnac, however, proved unequal to the enterprise entrusted to him, and allowed his force to be surrounded by the enemy, who obliged him to retreat, and harassed him at every step. Having at length procured a small supply of provisions for his starving troops, by forced contributions, he called a council of war to determine his future course. Captain Bruce, who was fortunately with the force, urged a
vigorous attack on the enemy’s camp during the night, as affording the only chance of deliverance. His advice was adopted, and the surprise and overthrow of Sindia on the 24th of March, 1781, was complete. He lost elephants, horses, baggage, and a large number of troops, but, above all, his reputation, and that at a time when the credit of Holkar at the capital was elevated by his successful attack on General Goddard’s force. Colonel Carnac soon after resigned the command of the brigade to Colonel Muir.
Towards the close of 1770, intelligence reached Hastings from various quarters of a general confederacy which had been formed by the Nizam and Hyder, and all the Mahratta chiefs, with the exception of the Guickwar, for the expulsion of the English from India. A simultaneous attack was to be made on the three Presidencies; on Bombay, by Sindia, Holkar, and the army of the Peshwa; on Madras by Hyder; and on Bengal by the Modajee Bhonslay, raja of Nagpore. At no former period had the English power been menaced with greater peril, and it required all the fortitude, resources, and genius of Hastings to meet the crisis. Hyder Ali was the first in the field, and burst on the Carnatic in July, 1780, as will be hereafter narrated. The safety of Madras demanded the immediate and undivided attention of Hastings, and be was under the necessity of informing Bombay that he could afford it no farther assistance. Mr. Hornby, the President, feeling that he had no resource but in his own efforts, exhibited the greatest vigour and prudence. To enable him to draw supplies from the Concan, Colonel Hartley was sent to clear the province of the Mahrattas, which he effected with little difficulty, after he had inflicted a severe defeat on them in October, 1780. Goddard marched down from Surat, and laid siege to Bassein on the 13th of November. Nana Furnuvese advanced with a powerful army to recover the Concan, and relieve that fortress. Colonel Hartley had been engaged for upwards of a month in daily skirmishes with the Mahratta force; his ammunition was
nearly exhausted; he was encumbered with 600 sick, and had only 2,000 jaded troops fit for duty; but he felt the importance of maintaining his communications with Goddard, which Nana was endeavouring to cut off, and he took up a strong position at Doogaur, where he sustained the assault of 20,000 Mahratta horse for two days. On the third, the 12th of December, 1780, their gallant and skilful general, Ramchunder Gunnesh, was killed; the army became dispirited and fled precipitately with heavy loss. Bassein had surrendered on the previous day to Goddard with the loss of only thirteen of his men, and he immediately moved down to the support of Colonel Hartley, and, on surveying the field of action, expressed his admiration of the judicious position he had chosen, and the valour of his troops. This was all the reward that gallant soldier ever received for his achievements in this war; he was immediately after superseded, and the public service deprived of his talents at the time when they were most urgently needed.
Hastings, alarmed by Hyder’s irruption into the Carnatic, considered it important to the safety of British interests in India to make peace with the Mahrattas, and he proposed a treaty on reasonable terms, through the raja of Nagpore, who, was still friendly to the English though he had joined the confederacy. But on hearing of the destruction of Baillie’s force in the Carnatic, in September, 1780, he considered their affairs desperate, and hesitated to become mediator, except on conditions to which the Governor-General would not accede. Goddard, conceiving that the desire for peace on the part of the Poona durbar would be quickened by an advance towards Poona, ascended the ghauts with a large force. This expedition, which proved to be a total failure, was the only mistake of his career. After having injudiciously taken post at the Bhore ghaut, he was incessantly harrassed by the Mahratta army, and obliged at length to retreat, when he was vigorously attacked by Holkar with 25,000 horse, and did not reach Bombay without the loss of
450, killed and wounded. The discomfiture of this renowned general was considered by the Mahrattas one of their most signal victories, and it was a fortunate circumstance that at this critical period the troops of Sindia should have been engaged in defending his own territories, many hundred miles distant. This inauspicious expedition, which terminated on the 23rd of April, 1781, was the last operation of the war, although more than a twelvemonth elapsed before the conclusion of peace.
The raja of Berar, to support appearances with his confederates, sent an army of 30,000 horse in October, 1779, under his son Chimnajee towards Cuttack, for the ostensible purpose of invading Bengal, but he endeavoured to convince Hastings that his intentions were not hostile, by prolonging its march for seven months, and then employing it in the reduction of a fort in Orissa. To relieve Madras from the pressure of Hyder’s army, Hastings resolved to aid it by a force from Bengal. But a body of Bengal sepoys, who had recently been ordered to embark at Vizagapatam for Madras, objecting to a sea voyage on account of their caste prejudices, had murdered their officers, and committed great outrages. To avoid the recurrence of such a scene, Hastings determined to send the Bengal detachment along the coast by land, though the distance was seven hundred miles, and the route lay through unknown and hostile provinces. This was another of those “frantic military exploits” of Hastings, which served to overawe the native princes, and to establish the ascendancy of British power. Colonel Pearce started with the army on the 9th of January, 1781, and it was on the line of march in Orissa that one-half his force perished of cholera, and this is apparently the first notice which we have of the existence of a disease which has proved the mysterious scourge of the nineteenth century. Colonel Pearce experienced the same friendly support from the raja of Nagpore, which that prince had previously given to Goddard. Hastings, with the
view of detaching the raja from the confederacy, and enlisting him against Hyder, had made him a promise of sixteen lacs of rupees, of which three had already been paid. Chimnajee was, at this time, in great distress for money, and Hastings eagerly embraced the opportunity of offering the remainder of the sum, on the condition of a treaty of alliance, which was soon after concluded, with the proviso that 2,000 of the raja’s horse should accompany the detachment, and act against Hyder. “Thus,” remarked Hastings, with exultation, “have we converted au ostensible enemy into a declared friend, and transferred the most formidable member of the confederacy, after Hyder, to our own party, saved Bengal from a state of dangerous alarm, if not from actual invasion, and all the horrors of a predatory war, and have completed the strength of Colonel Pearce’s detachment.”
The signal defeat of Sindia by Colonel Carnac convinced him that he had everything to lose by a contest with the English in the heart of his dominions, which might end in driving him across the Nerbudda without land or friends, and extinguishing his influence in the Mahratta commonwealth. He accordingly made overtures to Colonel Muir, which Hastings was but too happy to entertain, and they terminated in a treaty which was concluded on the 13th of October. The territory west of the Jumna, from which he had been expelled by Major Popham, was restored to him, with the exception of the fort of Gwalior, which was reserved for the rana of Gohud, and he engaged to negotiate a treaty between the other belligerents and the British government, but, at all events, to stand neutral. The treaty gave great umbrage to Nana Furnuvese, partly because it acknowledged Sindia as an independent power, but chiefly because this assumption of the office of plenipotentiary served to increase his power and his importance.
Hastings’s anxiety for peace with the Mahratta Regency was quickened by the arrival of a French armament on the coast which, under existing circumstances,
might, he feared “result in the extirpation of our nation from the Carnatic.” “It was not,” he said, “peace with conditions of advantage he wanted, but speedy peace, for which he would sacrifice every foot of ground he had acquired from the Mahrattas.” After a variety of disappointments, the treaty of Salbye was at length completed on the 17th of May, 1782, and signed by Mr. Anderson on the part of the Company, and by Sindia on behalf of the Peshwa and the Mahratta chiefs, he becoming at the same time the mutual guarantee of both parties for the performance of its conditions. All the territory acquired by the British arms since the treaty of Poorunder was restored. Futteh Sing Guickwar was replaced in his original position in Guzerat Raghoba, was to be allowed three lacs of rupees a year, with liberty to choose his own place of residence. Hyder was to be required to relinquish all his conquests in the Carnatic, and to release all his prisoners within six months, and, in case of refusal, was to he attacked by the forces of the Peshwa. But Nana Furnuvese, after having accepted the treaty, hesitated to ratify it, in the hope of making better terms with Hyder. After many months of anxiety, Hastings became impatient of further delay, and on the 4th of December instructed Mr. Anderson to demand the fulfilment of Sindia’s promises, and the immediate ratification of the treaty, stating that he should otherwise be under the necessity of making a separate peace with Hyder, which would leave him at liberty to carry all his forces towards the Kistna, and not only secure the possessions he had conquered from the Mahrattas, but augment them. On the 5th of December, Hastings received a copy of the resolution of the House of Commons, that it was the duty of the Court of Directors to remove him from the head of affairs inasmuch as he had acted in a manner repugnant to the honour and policy of the British nation, and he began to tremble for the ratification of the treaty, when this resolution should be known in every durbar in India. On the 7th all anxiety was removed by the death of Hyder, of which Nana Furnuvese was no
sooner informed than he affixed the Peshwa’s seal to the treaty, without any farther hesitation.
This collection transcribed by Chris Gage