The remaining transactions in the Deccan are few. Tuljajee, the raja of Tanjore, adopted Serfojee, and died in 1786; but the validity of the adoption was
controverted, on the ground that the raja himself was in a state of mental incapacity at the time, that Serfojee was an only son, and that he was beyond the age of ten. Ameer Sing, the half-brother of the deceased prince, was accordingly placed on the throne, with the full concurrence of the Court of Directors. Serfojee, who had been educated by the missionary Swartz, and was a youth of many accomplishments, did not cease to press his claims on the British Government, and they were indirectly strengthened by the gross misconduct of Ameer Sing, who was a mere Asiatic voluptuary and tyrant. Sir John Shore was at length induced to submit the case anew to the most renowned pundits in Hindostan, as well as in the Deccan, and they concurred in pronouncing the adoption of Serfojee unexceptional, according to the precepts of Hindoo law. The Court of Directors, persuaded that they had given their sanction to an act of injustice by his exclusion, instructed Lord Wellesley to place him on the throne, on condition that he should accept any arrangement the Government might think fit to dictate regarding the more punctual payment of the debts due to the Company, and the better management of the country. Commissioners were appointed to examine the condition and the resources of Tanjore, and on their report, Lord Wellesley assumed the entire administration of the country, and settled on the raja an annual allowance of one lac of pagodas, together with a fifth of its net revenue. Thus expired this little independent principality, a hundred and fifty years after it had been founded by Shahjee, the father of Sevajee.
In the treaty made by Lord Cornwallis, in 1792, with the Nabob of the Carnatic, it was provided that an annual subsidy should be paid for the support of the British troops to whom the defence of the country was committed, and that certain districts should be pledged to the Company, on which no assignments should be given. Mohamed Ali, the reigning prince, whom the Company had set up as “their own nabob of the Carnatic” in the days of Clive and
Coote, in opposition to the nominee of the French, occupied the throne for nearly half a century, and died in 1795. His son and successor, Omdut-ool-omrah, was surrounded, as his father had been, by a swarm of unscrupulous and rapacious Europeans, who fed his extravagance by loans at exorbitant interest, and received by way of security, assignments on the revenue of districts, which were rack-rented by their profligate agents. The Company’s servants at the Madras Presidency were very inadequately paid, and the traffic in loans to the Nabob presented the shortest and surest road to fortune. The moral atmosphere of the Presidency had been polluted for forty years with the corruption of these nefarious transactions, and it was believed that some of the public servants still continued to participate in them. The European creditors of the Nabob had instilled into his mind the idea that a distinction both of interest and of powers existed between the Crown and the Company, and that the (de might be advantageously played off against the other; the Company’s Government was, therefore, treated by him with habitual contumely. Their representations were strengthened by the letters addressed to him, from time to time, as to an equal, by the King of England and, more particularly, by the Prince of Wales, which were treasured up in the palace as the most precious gems. This royal correspondence, which was not vouchsafed to any other native prince, tended to lower the character and weaken the authority of the local Government to such an extent that Lord Wellesley ventured to remonstrate with his royal highness on the injurious effect of his letters on the public interests. The advances with which the Nabob was liberally supplied by the European and native money-lenders who haunted his court, enabled him to pay the subsidy with punctuality. But this aid only served to postpone the crisis of his embarrassments, and was sure to aggravate it when it came. The wretched cultivators were ground down by the local agents of the creditors; the prosperity of the country was rapidly declining, and the resources of Government were threatened
with extinction. In 1795, Lord Hobart, the Governor of Madras, endeavoured, at the particular request of the Court of Directors, to obtain a modification of the treaty of 1792, and proposed that the mortgaged districts, on which the Nabob continued to grant assignments contrary to his engagement, should be transferred to the Company in lieu of the subsidy. To secure the concurrence of the Nabob, he offered to relinquish debts due to the Company to the extent of a crore of rupees, but his creditors constrained him to reject the proposal, because, though highly advantageous to his interests, it would have extinguished their own flagitious profits. Lord Hobart then proposed to resort to coercion, on the ground that the treaty of 1792 had been violated by the Nabob, and ceased to be binding on the Company, but Sir John Shore, peremptorily refused his concurrence; and the acrimonious correspondence which grew out of the proposition, induced the Court of Directors to recall Lord Hobart.
They had, however, set their heart on this measure, and they requested Lord Wellesley to call at Madras on his way to Calcutta, and make a second effort to procure the Nabob’s consent to it. But under the interested counsel of the harpies around him, he not only spurned the proposals, but went so far as to raise the question whether the Company had any claim whatever upon the revenues of the Carnatic. The negotiation consequently fell to the ground; but the treaty of 1792, had, likewise, given the Governor-General authority, in the event of a war on the Coast, to assume the entire government and resources of the Carnatic, with the reservation of a fifth for the support of the Nabob’s dignity. In the prospect of a war with Tippoo, the Court of Directors had, moreover, directed the Government of India to take possession of the Carnatic, and not to relinquish it without special instructions from them. But Lord Wellesley was unwilling to adopt so extreme a measure, and made the milder request of a contribution of three lacs of pagodas for the use of the army then about to
take the field. The Nabob made a solemn promise to furnish this supply, but violated it “with every circumstance of infamy.” In reliance on his pledge, the scanty funds in the Madras treasury had been fully appropriated to the equipment of the army, and his failure might have proved most disastrous to the military operations of the campaign, if a supply of treasure had not opportunely arrived from Bengal. Lord Wellesley next proposed to the Nabob to renounce forever the right of the Company to assume the management of the Carnatic, on the occurrence of war, if he would consent to transfer in perpetuity territory yielding an annual revenue equal to the subsidy he was bound to contribute for the military defence of the country, he receiving the benefit of whatever additional rents the districts might yield under improved management. Lord Wellesley likewise offered a liberal and generous arrangement respecting the debts due by the Nabob to the Company, which fell little short of two crores of rupees. But this proposal was likewise rejected, and the Governor-General was rebuked for having ventured to make it, at a time when the instalments were punctually paid, although with money raised at usurious interest.
By the treaty of 1792, the Nabob was bound “not to enter into any negotiation or political correspondence with any European or native power, without the consent of the Company.” But, on the fall of Seringapatam, papers were discovered which showed that both the late and the present Nabob had been engaged in a clandestine correspondence with Tippoo, by means of a cipher – which was found – and had conveyed secret intelligence, and friendly admonition, and important advice to him. The fact of this intrigue was established by the clearest oral and documentary evidence; nor will it appear incredible except to a European mind. Intrigue is the aliment of native courts, and there was not a native prince in India who would have considered such a plot dishonourable under any circumstances, or felt any regret except on its failure. On examining the
documents, Lord Wellesley came to the conclusion that the Nabobs, father and son, had not only violated the treaty by negotiating a separate connection with Tippoo, but had placed themselves in the position of enemies of the Company by endeavouring to establish a unity of interests with “their most implacable foe.” The obligations of the treaty, he said, were thus extinguished, and the British Government was at liberty to exercise its rights in whatever manner might be most conducive to the general interests of the Company in the Carnatic. The “combination of fortunate circumstances” which had revealed the correspondence, removed every difficulty from his mind, and satisfied him of the justice and equity of depriving the Nabob of the civil and military government of the Carnatic, reserving a suitable proportion of its revenues for his support. But the negotiations then on foot with the court of Hyderabad, regarding the commutation of territory for the subsidy, were not, as yet, complete, and it appeared advisable to postpone the assumption of the Carnatic. This delay afforded time for receiving the direct sanction of the Court of Directors and of the Board of Control for this bold measure. But when the period for action arrived, the Nabob Omdut-ool-omrah was on his death-bed, and it was deemed indelicate to disturb his last moments with a painful discussion. On his death, the Governor of Madras communicated to his reputed son, whom he had nominated as his heir, the proofs of his father’s and grandfather’s infidelity, by which all claim to the consideration of the Company had been forfeited. He was informed that the succession to the musnud was now a question of favour and not of right, and that it could be conceded only on condition that the entire civil and military power of the state should be resigned to the British Government. Acting under the advice of the guardians whom his father had appointed, he refused to accept these conditions. They were then offered to Azim-ool-omrah, the son of the deceased Nabob’s brother, who acceded to them without hesitation; and, in the pompous language of the proclamation, “this prince, the immediate
great grandson of the Nabob Anwur-ood-dean khan, of blessed memory, had renewed the affiance between the Company and his illustrious ancestors, and established an adequate security for the British interests in the Carnatic; and the British Government had resolved to exercise its rights and its powers, under Providence, in supporting and establishing the hereditary pretensions of the prince in the Soobadaree of the territories of Arcot and the Carnatic Payenghaut.”
In plain English, the Nabob was mediatized, and the Carnatic became a British province. A fifth of its revenues was allotted for his support; but the arrangement was distinctly and intentionally limited to him and to his own family, instead of being extended, as in the case of former treaties, to his heirs and successors. The annexation of the Deccan to the dominions of the Company was thus consummated. Out of the territories acquired from Mysore, the Nizam, the Nabob of the Carnatic, and the raja of Tanjore, Lord Wellesley created the Presidency of Madras. Of the population, which, according to a late census amounted to more than twenty-two millions, eighteen millions belong to Lord Wellesley’s annexations, and though they were made in direct contravention of the resolutions of all the public authorities in England, they were honoured with their hearty concurrence.
While Zemaun Shah was advancing towards Delhi, Lord Wellesley despatched a native envoy, Mehndy Ali, to the court of Persia, to instigate the king to threaten his hereditary dominions in Central Asia, and induce him to recross the Indus for their defence. The unscrupulous vakeel, who considered lying the first qualification of an Oriental diplomatist, assured the king that the Governor-General was not in the smallest degree annoyed at the invasion of Zemaun Shah, but rather wished him to advance into the country, and thus afford an opportunity of showing how easily he could be expelled. But, he remarked, the Abdalee was a Soonee, and had grievously oppressed the Sheahs, the ruling sect in Persia, and constrained thousands of them to
take refuge in the Company’s territories. To arrest the progress of so heterodox a prince would be an acceptable service both to God and man. The pious monarch swallowed the bait, and lost no time in giving encouragement to Mohamed Shah to invade the dominions of his brother, Zemaun Shah, who was thus obliged to retreat in haste across the Indus, in the course of the year 1799.
But Lord Wellesley considered it advisable to send a more imposing embassy to Persia, with the view of establishing a British influence in Central Asia, and preventing the periodical alarm of an invasion by Zemaun Shah, with his horde of Turks and Tartars, Oosbegs and Ghillies. The officer selected for this mission was Captain Malcolm, then not more than thirty, who had attracted the notice of Lord Wellesley by the talent he had exhibited during the late critical transactions at Hyderabad, and the ardour of his professional ambition. He was peculiarly adapted for a mission to a court like that of Persia, by his thorough knowledge of the oriental languages, character, and weaknesses, his admirable tact, and his invariable good humour. No accredited agent had visited that court since the days of Queen Elizabeth, when the name of England was utterly unknown in Asia, and Lord Wellesley was anxious to impress the Persians with a due sense of the power and wealth of the British empire in the east. The envoy’s suite comprised more than five hundred persons, European and native. The embassy was equipped in the most magnificent style, and supplied with watches glittering with jewels, caskets of gold beautifully enamelled, lustres of variegated glass, richly chased pistols, and massive mirrors in gorgeous frames, which twelve hundred men were daily impressed to convey from the coast to the capital, and a hundred and forty maunds of sugar and sugar-candy. Though impeded at every step by the frivolities of Persian etiquette, Captain Malcolm was treated with distinguished honour during his progress through the country. On his arrival at Teheran,
he was received in full durbar by the king, decked with the jewels of which his ancestor, Nadir Shah, had plundered Delhi in 1739, and arrayed in a robe studded with precious stones, the value of which was computed at a crore of rupees. The ulterior purpose of the mission was to establish a predominant influence at the Persian court, and this could be accomplished only by a lavish expenditure; the envoy, therefore, “bribed like a king, and not a pedlar,” upon a scale which made the Court of Directors wince. But, when he came to open his commission, he found that his immediate object had been already accomplished, by the humble native vakeel who preceded him, and who had been instrumental in compelling Zemaun Shah to recross the Indus, by fomenting the rebellion of his brothers, and suggesting an attack on Balkh. A political treaty was nevertheless made, which provided that the king of Persia should labour to counteract any future attempt to invade Hindostan; that if Zemaun Shah invaded Persia, the Company should aid the king with stores, and that neither the French, nor any power in affiance with them, should be allowed to erect a fort in any part of the Persian dominions. It stipulated, moreover, that if any of the French nation should endeavour to establish themselves in the country, the king’s officers should disgrace, expel and exterminate them. To extenuate this truculent order, Captain Malcolm explained that it was a mere eastern hyperbole, and, in reality, meant nothing. He likewise concluded a commercial treaty, granting various privileges, which were, however, of no value, as the trade of Persia, in its most palmy days, had never been worth maintaining. The result of the embassy fell miserably short of its cost. Indeed, the political treaty, so far as it revealed our fears of the invasion of India by a European power, through Persia, may be considered positively mischievous. The Government of India, however, experienced no further molestation from Zemaun Shah, who perished in battle two years after.
On the fall of Seringapatam, Lord Wellesley
suggested to Mr. Dundas the propriety of sending a force from India to co-operate in any attempt which the Ministry might make to expel the French from Egypt. But the communication between England and India, was at that period so dilatory and precarious, that he was for seven months without any authentic information from home. He limited his exertions, therefore, to the assemblage of a large body of European troops at Trincomalee, the noblest harbour in Ceylon, to be ready to proceed in any direction which Mr. Dundas might indicate. In the reply which he subsequently received from Downing Street, no notice was taken of the proposed expedition to Egypt, and Lord Wellesley resolved to employ the armament collected at Trincomalee in the capture of the Mauritius and Bourbon. The possession of these islands, at an easy distance from the continent of India, greatly facilitated the hostile projects of the French, and exposed the political and commercial interests of England in the east to no small risk. The privateers fitted out in them preyed incessantly on British trade in every part of the eastern seas. The losses sustained by the merchants of Calcutta alone, since the beginning of the war, were moderately estimated at two crores of rupees. The rate of insurance had reached a point which almost suspended the trade of the port. The Indian squadron, under Admiral Rainier was unable to protect the Bay of Bengal, in which five merchant vessels had recently been taken. On the 7th of October, 1800, the Company’s ship the “Kent,” armed with eighteen guns, was captured by a French vessel of war, at the mouth of the Hooghly, after an action of an hour and three-quarters, in which fifty-five of her crew, were killed or wounded. Lord Wellesley could not brook this insult at the very threshold of his capital, and determined at once to send the Trincomalee fleet and army to the islands, and extinguish this nest of corsairs. But, the design was unfortunately frustrated by Admiral Rainier. He thought fit to keep the letter soliciting the co-operation of the fleet, for six weeks
without acknowledgment, though the lateness of the monsoon required the utmost despatch, and at length positively refused to take part in the expedition, without the express commands of his Majesty, signified through the usual channel of the Admiralty. As the Ministry were not prepared to displace him for this misconduct they gave him official credit for having acted under a sense of public duty. To everyone besides, it was palpable that he was actuated only by that feeling of contemptible jealousy which had so often led the officers of the royal navy to treat the instructions received from a Governor of the Company with contempt. The expedition was necessarily abandoned when the aid of the navy was denied. The islands remained in possession of the French for eight years longer, and the priggish conceit of the Admiral entailed on the commerce of India an additional loss of two crores of rupees. The recurrence of such acts of folly was subsequently prevented by an Act of Parliament which placed the king’s navy, equally with his army, at the disposal of his representative in the east.
At length, Lord Wellesley received a despatch from Downing-street, stating that Sir Ralph Abercromby bad been despatched with a force of 15,000 men, to co-operate with the Turkish army in expelling the French from Egypt, and that it was deemed advisable to support his operations with an Indian force. The armament collected at Trincomalee was, therefore, ordered to the Red Sea, together with a large addition of Bombay troops. The army, consisting altogether of 4,000 Europeans and 5,000 volunteer sepoys, was entrusted to General Baird, with the animating remark of Lord Wellesley, that a “more worthy sequel to the storm of Seringapatam could not be presented to his genius and valour.” The expedition touched at Mocha, and proceeded up the Red Sea to Cosseir, where the troops performed one of the most extraordinary feats ever achieved by an army, that of traversing a hundred and twenty miles of the arid and pathless desert to Ghennah, on the Nile. General
Baird reached Cairo on the 10th August, and on the 27th encamped on the shores of the Mediterranean. The history of British India teems with romance, but there is no incident more romantic than the appearance of sepoys from the banks of the Ganges, in the land of the Pharaohs, marching in the footsteps of Alexander and Caesar, under an English commander, to encounter the veterans of the army of Italy. Before the Indian contingent, however, could be brought into action, the report of its approach, combined with the energy of Sir John Hutchinson, who had succeeded to the command on the death of Sir Ralph Abercromby, induced the French general to capitulate. But the power and the resources of the British empire were most conspicuously exhibited to the world by this concentration of troops from Europe and Asia on the banks of the Nile.
Within a month of the surrender of the French army in Egypt, the preliminaries of peace between England and France were signed at Amiens. All the foreign settlements which had been captured in India, Ceylon excepted, were restored, as well as the Cape of Good Hope, then considered, and with reason, the maritime gate of India. The Court of Directors, under the influence of a short-sighted economy, immediately ordered their military establishments in India to be reduced, but Lord Wellesley, not considering the British dominions sufficiently secure to justify such a measure, hesitated to comply with their order, and the course of events fully vindicated his sagacity. The treaty of Amiens was no sooner ratified than Bonaparte despatched a large armament to Pondicherry, with the determination of re-establishing the power and influence of France in India. It consisted of two ships of the line, two frigates, and two corvettes, with a military staff of several general officers, and a due proportion of subordinate officers, with 1,400 European troops, and ten lacs of treasure, under the direction of Mons. Leger, who was designated Captain-General of the French establishments to the east of the Cape. It was to be followed by a second
squadron of three ships of the line and two frigates. Lord Wellesley had brought with him to India the intense anti-Gallic feeling of the day. It had been his constant aim for three years to exclude French influence from every native durbar. He had completely succeeded in closing the Deccan against it, and the feelings with which he now witnessed the arrival of a powerful French force on the Coromandel coast, directed by the supreme genius of Bonaparte, may be readily conceived. He felt that all our relations with the native princes would be at once deranged, and the seeds of another conflict for supremacy planted in the soil of India, ever fruitful in revolutions. There was already a formidable French force in Sindia’s pay in Hindostan, equal in numbers and strength to the British army in that quarter, and he could not contemplate the co-operation of the two bodies in the north and south without a feeling of just alarm. He determined, therefore, by an act of unexampled audacity, to disregard the royal warrant, which peremptorily directed him to restore to the French Republic “all the countries, territories, and factories which had belonged to it in India.” On the arrival of Admiral Linois with his squadron in the roadstead of Pondicherry, Lord Clive, the Governor of Madras, was directed to inform him that the Governor-General had resolved to postpone the restitution of the French settlements till he could communicate with the Ministry in England. The fleet returned to the Mauritius, and before a reply could be received to the reference, hostilities had recommenced in Europe, and the British interests in India were thus saved from the dangers they must have been exposed to if the continuance of peace had enabled Bonaparte to give full scope to his ambitious schemes.
We turn now to the affairs of Oude. One of the latest acts of Sir John Shore’s administration was the elevation of Sadut All to the musnud, in the room of the profligate Vizier Ali, who was sent to Benares, with an annual pension of a lac and a half of rupees. The turbulence of his disposition, however, rendered it imprudent
to permit him to reside so near the frontier of Oude, and it was resolved to remove him to Calcutta. He spared no effort to procure a reversal of the order, but without success. A day or two before the period fixed for his departure, he called on Mr. Cherry, the British Resident, under whose superintendence he had been placed, and complained in very intemperate language of the harshness of this procedure. Mr. Cherry endeavoured to calm his violence, and remarked that he was simply carrying out the orders of his superiors, for which he was not himself responsible. The youth started up in a rage from his seat, and struck Mr. Cherry with his sword. His attendants, who were waiting for the signal, rushed in and butchered him, as well as several other gentlemen residing in the house. From thence they hurried to the houses of other Europeans, several of whom fell victims to their fury; but on the arrival of a troop of horse, they took to flight, and eventually sought refuge in the woody district of Bootwul. Vizier Ali was soon after joined by several zemindars, and was enabled to take possession of the eastern districts of Oude with a considerable force. Sadut All had lost all popularity by his exactions, and in the hour of need discovered that both his subjects and his troops were disposed to desert him, and join the standard of his rival. He was constrained, therefore, to apply for a British detachment to protect his own person. Another detachment was sent against Vizier Ali; his followers rapidly dispersed, and he fled for protection to the Rajpoot raja of Jeypore, who delivered him up on the demand of Lord Wellesley. But even in that age of anarchy and treachery, the surrender of one to whom an asylum had once been granted, was considered an act of unpardonable baseness, and the raja became an object of contempt in every kingdom and province of India.
On the approach of Zemaun Shah to the Indus which has already been noticed, Lord Wellesley requested Sir James Craig, the commandant in Oude, to communicate his views on the defence of that kingdom,
which was certain to be the first object of spoliation, more especially as the discontented Rohillas in its northern districts would not fail to join their fellow-countrymen in the camp of the invader. Sir James replied that the rabble of troops maintained by the Vizier was not merely useless, but dangerous, and that if he were required to march against Zemaun Shah, he should be as unwilling to leave them behind, as to leave a fortress in the possession of an enemy. Sadut Ali was bound by the treaty which seated him on the throne to provide seventy-six lacs of rupees a-year for the subsistence of British troops, 13,000 in number, employed in the defence of his country. The home authorities had more than once informed the Governor-General that they considered this force too small for the protection of the kingdom, and that it could be rendered secure only by the substitution of a well organised force commanded by their own officers, for the disorderly regiments of the Vizier. Lord Wellesley, who fully concurred in these views, had frequently brought the subject before the Nabob. On his return to Calcutta, in November, 1799, he renewed his representations in greater detail. The British Government, he said, was bound to defend the Nabob Vizier’s territories against all enemies; the present British force was insufficient for this purpose, and required a large augmentation. The treaty had provided for this contingency, out of the revenues of the country. The cost of additional troops would amount to fifty lacs of rupees a-year, and the proper course for the Nabob to adopt was to discharge his own disorderly troops, and thus effect a saving equivalent to the new demand.
The proposed reform would have transferred the entire military power of Oude to the Company, which was precisely the object which Lord Wellesley had in his eye, but which the Nabob was most anxious to prevent. To evade the question, he proposed to retire from the Government. The refractory and perverse disposition of the people, he said, combined with the want of zeal and fidelity
in his servants, had filled him with disgust. Neither was he pleased with his subjects, nor they with him. From the first he had been indisposed to the cares of government, and he was not reconciled to them by experience. He expected that one of his sons would be placed on the throne, as a matter of course, to perpetuate his name, and that suitable allowances would be granted to the other members of the family. As for himself, the treasure which he had accumulated – estimated at a crore of rupees – would procure him all the gratification he could desire in a private station. Lord Wellesley eagerly caught at the proposal of the Nabob Vizier, and hastened to inform the Court of Directors that he intended to turn it to account, and establish the Company’s exclusive authority in Oude. He informed the Nabob that he was fully prepared to sanction the proposed abdication, provided he took up his residence in the British dominions, and vested the government of Oude absolutely and permanently in the Company, but he could not permit the public treasure, which belonged to the state and was liable for its obligations, to be removed.
But the Nabob Vizier had never seriously contemplated the resignation of his kingdom to his son, and still less to the Company. His ruling passion was avarice, and nowhere could it be more amply gratified than on an Asiatic throne. On the receipt of Lord Wellesley’s proposal, he assured the Resident that he would not bring on himself the odium and disgrace of having sold his country for money, and had therefore abandoned all thought of retirement. Lord Wellesley expressed great indignation at the insincerity and duplicity, as he termed it, of the Vizier, and charged him with having made a proposal which was from the first illusory, and designed only to defeat the reform of his military establishment by artificial delays. The Governor-General resolved to proceed at once to action. Several regiments were ordered to move to different stations in the Oude territories, and the Nabob was called on to make provision for their maintenance, according to the terms of the treaty. He
immediately addressed a memorial to the Governor-General, acknowledging that he was the creature and dependent of the Company, but remonstrating against a measure to which he had never given his consent. The seventh article of the treaty, he said, provided that no augmentation of the British force should be made without necessity, yet a large increase was now needlessly forced upon him. By the seventeenth article he was to enjoy full authority over his household affairs, his subjects, and his troops; whereas he was now required to relinquish the control of the military force in his dominions, which would not fail to annihilate his authority, and expose him to the contempt of his people. This remonstrance excited the highest displeasure of Lord Wellesley, who ordered it to be returned to the Nabob, as being deficient in that respect which was due to the first British authority in India, and he was informed that “if he should think proper again to impeach the honour and justice of the British Government in such terms, the Governor-General would consider how such unfounded calumnies and gross misrepresentations, both of facts and arguments, ought to be noticed.”
The Nabob Vizier yielded to necessity, and began to disband a part of his own troops, in order to obtain funds for the payment of the British regiments. But, in November, 1800, he was required to make provision for a second body of troops, “to complete the augmentation.” He pleaded the extreme difficulty with which the collections were realized, and refused to become responsible for any further payments till he was assured that his resources were sufficient to meet them, lest he should be chargeable with a breach of faith. At the same time, he ordered a schedule of his revenues to be drawn up by his treasurer, and submitted through the Resident to Lord Wellesley, who, on receiving the statement, replied that “if the alarming crisis be now approaching in which his Excellency can no longer fulfil his public engagements to the Company ... it became the duty of the British Government to interpose effectually for the protection
of his interests, as well as those of the Company, which were menaced with common and speedy destruction by the rapid decline of the general resources of his Excellency’s dominions.” The Resident was then instructed to propose either that he should resign the entire management of the civil and military government to the Company, a suitable provision being made for his own maintenance and that of his family, or that he should cede to the Company in perpetual sovereignty a section of his territories sufficient to cover the expense of the entire British force. The Nabob manifested the strongest repugnance to both proposals, and a tedious correspondence ensued, which was marked, on the Part of Lord Wellesley, by that imperious tone which had characterized the transaction throughout. The Nabob, unable to obtain any relaxation of the demand, entreated Lord Wellesley to allow him to go on pilgrimage, the pretext by which Hindoos and Mohamedans endeavour to escape from an embarrassing position. The whole of his territories and treasure, he said, was at the disposal of the Company, and he had neither inclination nor strength to resist them, but he could not yield his consent to a proposal so injurious to his royal character. Lord Wellesley was desirous, if possible, to avoid the appearance of a compulsory cession of territory, and despatched his brother and private secretary, Mr. Henry Wellesley, to Lucknow, in the hope that the presence of a member of his own family would overcome the repugnance of the Nabob. Every form of ingenuity was exhausted to obtain the voluntary surrender of the districts, but the Nabob still persisted in asserting that it would inflict an indelible stain on his reputation throughout India to deprive one of its royal houses of such a dominion. The Resident at length brought the discussion to an issue by ordering the intendants of the districts which had been selected to hold themselves in readiness to transfer their collections and their allegiance to the Company.
The Vizier deemed it vain any longer to contend with negotiators who could bring such arguments to bear on him, and on the 10th November, after
two years of weary discussion, simply, as he said, “to gratify the wishes of Lord Wellesley, and in submission to the earnest solicitations of his brother,” signed the treaty which transferred to the Company for ever districts yielding a hundred and thirty-five lacs of rupees a-year, leaving him a territory, guaranteed against all invaders, valued at a little over a crore of rupees.
The security which this transfer of military power in Oude gave to the possessions both of the Nabob and the Company will admit of no question. A British force, fully adequate to the defence of the frontier was substituted for the miserable legions of the Nabob, always an object of more dread to their masters than to their enemies. An important addition was made to the resources of the Company, and a large population was rescued from the oppression of native officers, whose only remuneration consisted of the sums they could extort from the people. But of all the transactions of Lord Wellesley’s administration, this acquisition of territory from the Nabob by the process of coercion has been considered most open to censure, as an arbitrary, if not unjust proceeding. For any justification of it we must look to the peculiar position of the country and the political obligations which it created. The throne of the Nabob was upheld only by British bayonets, and if at any period during the previous fifteen years they had been withdrawn, the dynasty of Oude would have ceased to exist. The safety of Oude was menaced not only by Zemaun Shah, and the hordes of Central Asia ready to follow his stirrup, but also by Sindia, who had planted a formidable force of 30 or 40,000 disciplined troops, commanded by European officers on its frontier, and only waited for an opportunity to spring on its inviting districts. It was necessary, therefore, to maintain a powerful force, permanently, against the probabilities of a Mahratta invasion. For the Company to continue responsible for the defence of the whole kingdom of (hide, with only a third of its revenues, the realization of which was subject to all the corruption and abuses of the system of
misrule, dignified with the name of government at Lucknow, was not only unreasonable, but financially impracticable. The fidelity of the troops depended on punctual pay, and this punctuality required the solid basis of territorial revenues, honestly administered by British officers. This is the sinew of the argument by which this high-handed – or as the natives would call it, zuburdust – proceeding has been vindicated, and it will be readily conceded that it is by no means deficient in strength. Nor should it be forgotten that the kingdom of Oude fell to the Company by right of conquest in 1763, and was restored to the reigning family as a matter of grace; and that according to the prescriptive maxims of eastern policy, it was considered ever after subject to the control, if not even at the disposal, of the British Government, who had accordingly made and unmade Nabobs at its own pleasure. It was doubtless on this principle that Lord Wellesley told the Nabob on one occasion during these negotiations, that he had a right to take over, not a part only, but the whole of his country.
The settlement of the districts ceded by the Nabob Vizier was entrusted to a commission consisting of the Company’s civil servants, of which Mr. Henry Wellesley, the brother of the Governor-General, who combined great administrative talent with much firmness and discretion, was made President. In announcing this arrangement to the Court of Directors, Lord Wellesley stated that the labours of the commission would probably be completed within a twelvemonth, perhaps in a shorter period, and that his brother would receive no allowance beyond the salary of his post as private secretary. The Directors expressed their cordial approbation of the terms of the treaty, which was calculated to promote their interests, and which created thirty new appointments for their civil service, but they denounced even the temporary appointment of Mr. Wellesley as “a virtual supersession of the jus rights” of that favourite service, and they hastened to give vent to their jealous feeling in a despatch, which peremptorily ordered his dismissal. The
President of the Board of Control, Lord Wellesley’s personal friend, Lord Castlereagh, drew his pen across the despatch and returned it to the India House, with the remark that the appointment was not in the fixed and ordinary line of the Company’s service; that it was only decent to await an explanation from the Governor-General, and that Mr. Wellesley would probably have relinquished the office before the despatch could reach India. The labours of the commission were in fact completed, and Mr. Wellesley had resigned the office, even before the despatch was drafted.
On Lord Wellesley’s return from the Coast, he devoted his attention to various measures of internal administration with his accustomed ardour. Of these, one of the most important was the reconstruction of the Sudder Court at Calcutta. This was not only the highest local court of appeal, but was charged with the duty of superintending the administration of justice, and the operations of the police throughout the whole of the Presidency. Under the native governments, the prince had always united the legislative, executive, and judicial powers of the state in his own person. The Company acted on the principle of introducing as few changes as possible in the existing system of administration, and it was accordingly provided that the Governor-General in Council should, in like manner, exercise the highest judicial functions, in addition to those of the executive government and of legislation. The Sudder Court was accordingly held in the Council Chamber, with closed doors, and without the presence either of the suitors or of their pleaders. The proceedings of the lower courts were translated into English and read to the members of Council, and the decisions they passed in each case, were recorded and promulgated by the registrar. To this system of procedure, Lord Wellesley saw many grave objections. The translation of the papers occasioned a vexatious delay, and the union of the judicial and the legislative functions in the same body was repugnant to sound principle; a conscientious discharge of
the duties of the Sudder Court would absorb all the time of the Governor-General, while the administration of justice with closed doors deprived it of one of its most important safeguards, and impaired the confidence of the country. On the other hand, to throw open the Council Chamber while suits were under examination, would not be without its disadvantages. The presence of the Governor-General on the bench would necessarily interfere with the freedom of advocacy; few native pleaders would be found to contest his opinions, and his will, rather than the law, would too often be the rule of decision. It was resolved, therefore, to divest the Governor-General and Council of their judicial functions, and to select the ablest judicial officers in the service to preside in the Court. Lord Wellesley was anxious that the chief judge should be invested with the same emblem of dignity which the chief justice of the Crown Court enjoyed, but he was unable to procure the distinction of knighthood for him. The Sudder Court, however, was rendered illustrious by the appointment of Mr. Henry Thomas Colebrooke, the most profound Oriental scholar of the day, and one of the most distinguished of the public servants, to preside over its proceedings.
It became evident, moreover, to Lord Wellesley’s mind, that there could be no substantive improvement in the administration of the country, without providing a succession of men, sufficiently qualified to conduct it. The civil service had produced not a few men of first-rate ability, but it was in its origin only a mercantile staff, and it had not been deemed necessary to accommodate the training of the civilians, as a body, to the more important duties which now devolved upon them. India was still considered rather in the light of a commercial factory. than an imperial domain. For men who were to act as magistrates, collectors, judges, political agents, and ambassadors, it was still deemed sufficient if they were well versed in the mysteries of the counting-house, understood book-
keeping by double entry, and wrote a hand which the Directors could read. The system which Burke had reprobated fifteen years before was still unchanged, and lads of fifteen were sent out to the Indian service before their education was finished, with no opportunity or inducement after their arrival, to complete it. Of the languages of the people, whose affairs they were to administer, they were not required to know even the rudiments. To supply these palpable deficiencies in the system of government, Lord Wellesley was determined to found a College in Calcutta, and assemble in it the young writers, as the embryo civilians were designated, from the three Presidencies, and set them to continue and complete their European education, and to study the laws, literature, and languages of the people they were to govern. The institution was projected on that scale of magnificence which marked all Lord Wellesley’s plans, and in the medal which was struck on the occasion, the date of its establishment was thrown back a twelvemonth, to associate it with the memorable event of the capture of Seringapatam. A provost and vice-provost were appointed, with salaries of Indian magnitude, and the sum of 5,000 rupees a-month was allotted for the public table of the collegians. Learned men were invited to join it from all parts of India, and in the minds of the natives the halcyon days of the great Mohamedan and Hindoo princes, who had sought to render their courts illustrious by the assemblage of the literati, appeared now to be revived in the metropolis of British India. Four disputations were to be held annually in the grand edifice which Lord Wellesley had erected, “in an august assembly,” composed of the natives of rank and learning, pundits and moonshees, rajas and foreign ambassadors. Such an institution was at the time essentially necessary to give the stamp of efficiency to the institutions of the British Government; but it was very costly, and, it was erected without the sanction, or even the cognizance, of the Court of Directors. Accordingly, on the 29th January, 1802, they passed a
peremptory order for its immediate abolition. Lord Wellesley was mortified to an extreme degree by this subversion of one of his most cherished schemes, which exposed him to the contempt of India, and he gave vent to his feelings in a passionate appeal to his friends in the Ministry. He likewise placed on the records of the Council an elaborate minute, in which he combated the arguments of the India House, and maintained the necessity of such an institution with irresistible force. The objection which the Court of Directors had raised, on the ground of expense, had been obviated, he said, by the imposition of a new tax, which would produce a sum equal to the charge of the College establishment. This was no other than the renewal of the transit duty on the conveyance of produce from district to district, which Hindoo and Mohamedan Governments had been in the habit of imposing. At the present day it appears incredible, that one of the most liberal and enlightened statesmen of that period, should have taken credit to himself for the establishment of one of the most barbarous and mischievous taxes ever devised, and sought to make provision for his noble college by the interruption of inland commerce. He proceeded to pass an order for the abolition of the College, “as an act of necessary submission to the controlling authority of the Court,” but immediately after, issued a second order directing that the abolition should be gradually effected, in the next eighteen months. At the same time, he entreated Lord Castlereagh to use his utmost endeavours to save from destruction the institution which he regarded with feelings of greater exultation, than even the kingdom he had built up in the Deccan, and to the consolidation of which he vowed to devote his political life. Under the pressure of the Board of Control, the Court of Directors were induced to qualify their orders, and permit the continuance of the College, but on a reduced scale, limiting its agency to the students of the Bengal Presidency, and to the cultivation of the native languages. To complete the European education of the students, and impart to them the
rudiments of the eastern tongues, they set up an expensive College of their own at Haileybury.
At the renewal of the charter in 1793, Parliament endeavoured to silence the clamours of the merchants and manufacturers of England for a participation in the Indian trade, by obliging the Court of Directors to allot them 3,000 tons of freight annually. Though this concession was saddled with extravagant charges and vexatious restrictions, the private trade soon increased, under its operation, to 5,000 tons a-year. The commerce of India was, in fact, bursting the bonds of the monopoly, which, however valuable during the period of its infancy, was totally unsuited to an age of development and maturity. The subject was forced on the attention of Lord Wellesley as soon as he landed in Calcutta, and on the 5th October, 1798, he issued his first notification for the encouragement of free trade between India and the port of London, to which, at that time, all imports were restricted. Ship-building had recently attained great perfection on the banks of the Hooghly, and a vessel of 1,400 tons, a vast size for a merchantman of that period, was then on the stocks. Lord Wellesley, on the part of Government, chartered a number of country-built vessels, and relet them to the private merchants, with liberty to make arrangements with the proprietors to suit their own convenience, and secure those advantages which could not be enjoyed in the privileged tonnage of the Company. This indulgence was discontinued in 1799, but it was found necessary to renew it in the succeeding year. The evils of the monopoly were daily becoming more palpable. The trade of Calcutta was increasing beyond all example, and forcing a passage in foreign vessels which were freighted by English capital, the funds of the merchants, and the savings of the services. In the previous year, the imports and exports of American, Portuguese, and Danish vessels had exceeded a crore and a half of rupees, and in September, 1800, there were 8,500 tons of shipping, under foreign colours, lying in the Hooghly. By these ships the produce of India was conveyed
to Europe with great expedition and economy, and the East India Company was thus beaten out of the markets on the continent. Lord Wellesley considered it important to secure this valuable commerce to British interests. There were 10.000 tons of India-built shipping then anchored in Calcutta, and he determined, as in 1798, to engage a large portion of this tonnage to convey the produce of the country, belonging to private merchants, to the port of London.
In his despatch to the Court of Directors on the subject, he stated that “it would be equally unjust and impolitic to extend any facility to the trade of the British merchants in India by sacrificing or hazarding the Company’s rights or privileges, by injuring its commercial interests, or by departing from any of the fundamental principles of policy which now govern the British establishments in India; but the increasing commercial resources of Great Britain claimed for her subjects the largest attainable share of the valuable and extensive commerce of such articles of Indian produce and manufacture as were necessarily excluded from the Company’s investments.” He recorded his decided opinion that a well-organised system of intercourse between the ports of India and London was indispensable to the interests both of the Company and of the nation. These liberal views met with the entire concurrence of Mr. Dundas, who said “it was notorious that at no period had the capital or commercial powers of the East India Company been able to embrace the whole, or near the whole, of the wealth of India, exported thence by trade to England, and he was anxious to authorise the Government of India to license the appropriation of India-built shipping for the purpose of bringing home that India trade which the means and capital of the East India Company was unable to embrace.” Far different, however, was the feeling at the India House. The great dread of interlopers, which had haunted it for two centuries, was still in full vigour. Though the cream of the India trade was still to be assured to the Company, the Directors could not
brook that others should be permitted to taste even the lees. The proceedings of Lord Wellesley were arraigned with the greatest virulence. That “our Governor-General,” as he was usually addressed in the public despatches, should give the slightest countenance to free trade, was not to be endured. He lost caste at once and irretrievably in Leadenhall-street. Every effort was made to thwart his administration and weaken his authority, and, during the last three years of his Indian career, the treatment he experienced from the India House was scarcely less rancorous than that which had embittered the life of his illustrious predecessor, Warren Hastings. The Court of Directors passed a vote, in the teeth of the Prime Minister, Mr. Addington, condemning the liberal commercial policy of Lord Wellesley, and the Court of Proprietors cordially adopted it. A farther period of ten years was required to break up the monopoly of two centuries, and open the gates of India to British enterprise and capital.
As soon as the arrangements in Oude were completed, Lord Wellesley sent in his resignation to the Court of Directors, assigning no other reason for this step but the completion of the plans he had devised for the security of the empire, and the general prosperity of the country. To Mr. Addington, however, he unburdened his mind, and explained the real motives of his retirement – the hostile disposition of the Court, and the withdrawal of their confidence. They had peremptorily ordered him to reduce the military establishments in the Peninsula, leaving him no option between an act of direct disobedience and the execution of measures which he considered fatal to the vital interests of the Government. The total disregard of the strong opinion he had expressed on the subject appeared clearly to intimate that they considered him no longer competent to govern the empire which he endeavoured to consolidate. They had issued the most positive injunctions to reduce many of the stipends which he had considered advisable at the close of the war. They had selected for especial censure the additional allowances granted by the Madras Government,
with his concurrence, to his brother, General Wellesley, to defray the charges of his important and expensive command in Mysore. He considered this reduction as “the most direct, marked, and disgusting indignity which could be devised.” The Act of 1793 had invested the Governor-General in Council with the power of enforcing his orders on the minor Presidencies, though they might happen to supersede the injunctions of the Court of Directors. But the Court had now thought fit to issue orders to those Presidencies to carry certain measures into effect, notwithstanding any directions they might have received to the contrary from Calcutta. The authority of the Supreme Government over the subordinate Presidencies was thus neutralized.
The Court had not only taken upon themselves to displace officers who enjoyed the full confidence of the Governor-General, but to nominate others in opposition to his judgment. For example, he had placed Colonel Kirkpatrick, one of the ablest and most experienced officers in the service, in the important post of political secretary. The Court cancelled the appointment, to the great detriment of the public interests, and the injury of the Governor-General’s character and influence. They had likewise forced on him the nomination of Mr. Speke, an ex-member of Council, as officiating president of the Board of Trade, though he had no higher recommendation than the favour of the Prince of Wales. At Madras, the Court had removed from the office of chief secretary Mr. Webbe, the most eminent statesman of that Presidency, and the unflinching enemy of that system of intrigue and corruption which had for more than thirty years disgraced the public service. This removal was the more offensive as it was to be traced to the base insinuation of some informer that Mr. Webbe exercised a strong influence on the mind of Lord Clive, which, if true, was equally honourable to both. Mr. Cockburn, the ablest financial officer at the Madras Presidency, was likewise displaced to make room for some nominee of Leadenhall-street. Lord Wellesley was well
known to have approved of both these appointments, and indeed of all the proceedings of Lord Clive, and he considered the conduct of the Court of Directors in these instances as a reflection also on himself. This nomination to offices in India of those who could secure the smiles of the Directors had been checked by Lord Cornwallis, who threatened to throw up his office if it were persisted in, “that he might preserve his own character, and avoid witnessing the ruin of the national interests.” By the subsequent Act of 1793, the power of appointing to official situations in India was vested in the local Governments, subject only to the general control of the home authorities. The interference with this patronage by the India House was therefore not only highly injurious to the public interests, but altogether unconstitutional. Lord Wellesley justly remarked that if the Government of India was thus to be thwarted in every subordinate department, deprived of all local influence, and counteracted in every local detail by a remote authority, interfering in the nomination of every public servant, it would be impossible to conduct the government under such disgraceful chains. It was a singular anomaly that the Court of Directors should thus have grasped at appointments in India at the time when they themselves were denouncing the appointment of Mr. Henry Wellesley, even for a twelvemonth, as an invasion of their own rights. Lord Castlereagh, the President of the Board of Control, was anxious that Lord Wellesley should remain another year in the government, and he placed this letter to Mr. Addington, confidentially, in the hands of the Chairman and Deputy Chairman of the Court. They did not disguise from him that great dissatisfaction and jealousy was felt by the Company with regard to certain measures of Lord Wellesley’s government, which had been increased by the employment of Mr. Henry Wellesley. Lord Wellesley had, in fact, touched the two privileges on which the India House was most sensitive, its commercial monopoly in the matter of the private trade, and its patronage in the appointment given to his brother, and the indignation of the
Directors rose to fever heat. But the Chairs assured Lord Castlereagh that they were not unmindful of his eminent services, and were alive to the importance of retaining them for another year.
A despatch was sent out, officially commending his zeal and ability, and requesting him to postpone his departure to January, 1804. Little did they dream of the momentous results of this request., and of the great revolution to which it would lead, in the irretrievable prostration of the Mahratta powers, to whose history we now return.
This collection transcribed by Chris Gage