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Chapter 23 – Administration of Lord Cornwallis and Sir George Barlow, 1805–7

Lord Cornwallis, 30th July, 1805

Lord Cornwallis landed in Calcutta on the 30th July, 1805, and within twenty-four hours Lord Wellesley had the mortification to learn that the system of policy which he had pursued for five years with indefatigable zeal, was to be immediately and entirely subverted. The incessant labours in which Lord Cornwallis had been engaged for thirty years in America, in India, and in Ireland, had exhausted his constitution, and those who had seen him embark in the vigour of health twelve years before, could not help remarking, with sorrow, that he now returned with the hand of death upon him. It would have been well if, at his advanced age, he had remained in England; but when he was importuned by the Court of Directors and the Board of Control to proceed to India and save the empire, he considered it an imperative duty to obey the call, at the sacrifice of his ease and comfort, and, probably, of his life. He came out to India, therefore, pledged to the public authorities in England to overturn

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the existing policy of Government, as far as related to the princes of India, and he affirmed that he could not consider himself at liberty to pursue any other course. It was his primary object, he said, to remove the impression universally entertained of a systematic design to establish British control over every power in India. He was anxious to restore the native Governments which had been subverted by the progress of our arms, and the ascendency of our influence, to a condition of “vigour, efficiency, and independent interest.” He was desirous of abandoning the position in upper India which had been secured by Lord Wellesley’s successes, and to be quit of all our alliances and territories west of the Jumna

His view of the state of affairs, 1805

He lamented the almost universal phrenzy for victory and conquest which had, he said, seized even some of the heads which he thought the soundest, as repugnant to the interests as it was to the laws of their country – yet Lord Wellesley and the public functionaries were equally ardent for an honourable peace. On the 1st August Lord Cornwallis wrote to the Court of Directors that finding we were still at war with Holkar, and could hardly be said to be at peace with Sindia, he had determined to proceed to the upper provinces, and avail himself of the interval of the rains, when military operations were suspended, “to endeavour, if it could be effected without a sacrifice of our honour, to terminate by negotiation a contest in which the most brilliant success could afford no solid benefit, and which, if it continued, would entail pecuniary difficulties we should hardly be able to surmount.” He described the state of the finances as most deplorable, a fact which admitted of no denial. Two years of war had, exhausted the treasury, and increased the public debt. Lord Lake’s army was five months in arrears. The large body of “irregulars” who had been induced to forsake the native princes, and to take service with the Company, and who had thus contributed in no small degree to our successes, were no longer required, and, the six lacs of rupees a month they cost was felt to be a dead weight. Lord Wellesley had

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already made some progress in disbanding them, but Lord Cornwallis declared that he would rather fight them than pay them. They could not, however, be discharged without their arrears, and he adopted a second time the expedient, the most unpalatable to the Company, of robbing their investments to supply the wants of the state. A sum of twenty-five lacs of rupees was, accordingly, taken out of the hold of the China ships at Madras, and sent on to Calcutta, “to give him the chance of getting rid of this force.”

Lord Cornwallis’s policy, 1805

During his progress to the north-west provinces Lord Cornwallis defined the line of policy he intended to pursue in a despatch to Lord Lake, dated on the 19th of September. He proposed to restore to Holkar all the dominions of the family as soon as he should manifest a disposition to accede to reasonable terms of accommodation. He was prepared to conciliate Sindia by resigning Gohud and Gwalior, after a suitable provision had been made for the rana, as well as Dholpore and two other districts, accounting to him likewise for the revenues which had been collected during their occupancy by the Company’s officers. If the demand for the release of the Resident was likely to prove any obstacle to a reconciliation, he was prepared, as a mere point of honour, to waive it. He was disposed to abrogate the treaty with Jeypore, and leave Sindia at liberty to exact whatever contributions he chose from the raja. He considered the possession of the city of Delhi and the person of the emperor a very unfortunate circumstance, as we could only secure him from the danger of being carried off by the maintenance of a large and expensive army. He proposed, therefore, to remove him, if practicable, to some town nearer Calcutta, and to restore the old capital of India to Sindia, with liberty again to establish the power of the Mahrattas in Hindostan. Lord Wellesley had fixed the Chumbul as their future boundary; and to guard against their encroachments had entered into defensive alliances with the princes to the north of that river. Lord Cornwallis resolved to

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dissolve these alliances, and to compensate the princes for the loss of our protection by distributing among them the lands we had obtained to the west of the Jumna, which he considered a useless acquisition. He likewise addressed a letter to Sindia, with a sketch of the proposed arrangements, including a demand for the liberation of the Resident, and enclosed it to Lord Lake to be forwarded to his camp.

Lord Lake’s remonstrance, 1805

Lord Lake justly dreaded the effect of manifesting so eager a desire for peace, and took upon himself the responsibility of withholding the letter to Sindia, more especially as the Resident had in the meantime been unconditionally released. In his reply to the communication of the Governor-General he advanced the most cogent arguments against this new course of policy. It would, he argued, be highly detrimental to the interests of the Company to allow the influence and the armies of the Mahrattas to be again introduced into Hindostan. If the princes to whom we had promised our protection were abandoned, they would fall a prey to Sindia, Holkar, and Ameer Khan, and large bodies of irregular troops thirsting for plunder would be planted on the frontier of our most fertile and opulent districts. Neither could we withdraw our protection from these princes, except on their own requisition, without a breach of public faith, and no offer of territory would induce them to relinquish this blessing, least of all, at a time when we were about to let loose the elements of anarchy and destruction in Central India. He observed that the Jumna, which the Governor-General proposed to make the boundary of the British dominions, was not a barrier of any importance, as, above its junction with the Chumbul, it was fordable in a variety of places except during a few weeks in the year, and would afford little protection from the incursions of an enemy.

Death of Lord Cornwallis, Oct 5, 1805

Before this letter could reach its destination Lord Cornwallis was in his grave. As he proceeded up the river his strength rapidly declined,

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and in the last month of his existence he lay in a state of weakness approaching insensibility during the day, but rallied towards the evening, when he listened to the despatches and dictated replies. It was in this state of mental and physical debility that the memorable despatch of the 19th September, ordering a sudden revolution of policy in the Government of a great empire, was composed and signed. It may reasonably be doubted whether Lord Cornwallis was in a condition to comprehend the scope and consequences of the measures to which he gave the stamp of his authority. A week after, he was unconscious of what was passing around him. He was landed at Ghazeepore, where he expired on the 5th October. His merits as a Governor-General have, doubtless, been overrated, but it would be difficult to name a public character who more richly earned the esteem and confidence of society by his sterling integrity, his straightforward and manly character, and the spirit of justice and moderation which regulated all his actions. If he had been in the full vigour of his faculties, and had enjoyed an opportunity of intercourse with Lord Lake, he would have been able to form an estimate of the change which had taken place since he left the Government, and would have perceived the impossibility of steering the vessel of the state in 1805 by the almanack of 1798; and there is every reason to believe that he would have modified the measures he was now imprudently urging forward, under the impulse of the alarm which brought him to India. As the public authorities in England had sent out an old man of sixty-seven to govern India without making any provision for the contingency of his death, Sir George Barlow, of whom Mr. Pitt, Mr. Dundas – now Lord Melville – and Lord Castlereagh, had said a few months before that he was altogether “out of the question,” succeeded to the office of Governor-General, and proceeded to the upper provinces.

Sir George Barlow Governor-General, 1805

Sir George Barlow was a civil servant on the Bengal establishment, who had risen through the gradations of office by a meritorious service of

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twenty-eight years, to a seat in Council. For many years he had been at the head of some of the most important departments of state and had acquired a fund of knowledge and experience superior to that of any other officer. He had been extolled for his official aptitude and industry by three successive Governors-General, and although the Ministry in England had wisely resolved never again to place any local official at the head of the Government, Lord Wellesley, with all his discernment, had actually obtained the reversion of the Governor-Generalship for him. But Sir George was simply a respectable, plodding, first-rate civilian, whose natural abilities eminently qualified him for a subordinate situation, but who possessed none of that patrician elevation of mind which was needed for the management of an empire. While he continued under the influence of Lord Wellesley’s genius he cordially adopted and assisted in carrying out his comprehensive views, and became so closely identified with his policy that he lost the prospect of succeeding him when that policy was condemned. This significant fact was communicated to him by his earliest patron, Lord Cornwallis, and it may possibly have exercised some influence on his opinions, and led him, on the arrival of that nobleman, to become the unflinching advocate of the new and opposite policy which was now in the ascendant at the India House.

Sir George’s policy, 1805

On the death of Lord Cornwallis it devolved on Sir George Barlow to reply to the letter of Lord Lake, and to notify the course which the Government, now in his hands, intended to adopt. He announced his resolution to follow the footsteps of his deceased predecessor, and to dissolve the alliances with the native princes, which he had assisted Lord Wellesley in establishing. His policy, as he described it, was “directed to the divesting ourselves of all right to the exercise of interference in the affairs of the native princes where we possessed it almost to an unlimited extent by treaty, and to the withdrawing from all concern whatever in the affairs of every state beyond the Jumna.”

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This course, he remarked, was “in conformity with the principles laid down by Parliament, with the orders of their honourable masters, and with his own convictions of expediency.” As to the security of our territories, which Lord Wellesley intended to rest on the establishment of general tranquillity, under British supremacy, Sir George considered that it would be as effectually promoted by the prevalence of general anarchy beyond our frontier; and the revival of the mutual conflicts of the native princes, which had desolated the country for thirty years, but were now happily brought under control, was thus regarded as an object of complacency. It is difficult to believe that the British Government in India, even under the most timid administration, did ever deliberately contemplate the idea of allowing the native chiefs to tear one another to pieces that they might find no leisure to invade our territories; but the voice of honour and humanity is never heard in the delirium of a panic. This despicable policy was aptly described by Mr. Metcalfe, subsequently Governor-General himself, as “disgrace without compensation, treaties without security, and peace without tranquillity.”

Negotiations with Sindia, 1805

In the month of July, Lord Lake, with the full concurrence of Lord Wellesley, had addressed a letter to Sindia demanding the release of the Resident by a fixed day, on pain of hostilities. The requisition came at a very favourable season. The atrocities of Sirjee Rao Ghatkay, the inveterate enemy of the English, had constrained Sindia to discard him from the post of minister, and it was bestowed on Ambajee Inglia. He was favourable to a British alliance, and incensed against Holkar and Ameer Khan, who had recently tortured and plundered him, and he endeavoured, and not without success, to sow dissensions between them and Sindia. Sindia himself saw no farther benefit to be derived from any connection with these extortionate and predatory chiefs. He had a painful recollection of the field of Assye, and was anxious to avoid a second war with the Company; and to Lord Lake’s requisition he replied

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that the rooksut, or friendly departure of the Resident was only delayed, according to usage, till the arrival of his successor. A fair opening was thus presented for negotiations; but the question of taking the initiative, on which, more especially in India, their success mainly depends, was the point of difficulty. Happily, it was discovered that the moonshee Kavil-nyne, an old and favourite servant of Sindia, who had assisted in concluding the treaty of Sirjee Angengaom, but had been obliged to fly from the oppressions of Sirjee Rao, was at this time residing at Delhi. Colonel Malcolm invited him to the English camp, and it was concerted between them that one of his relatives who happened to be in the service of Sindia, should intimate to him the ease with which a negotiation could be opened with the General through Kavil-nyne. Sindia eagerly embraced the proposal, and was the first to make advances. Lord Lake thus occupied the vantage ground of receiving an overture, and replied that no proposal could be entertained while the Resident continued under restraint. He was accordingly permitted at once to take his departure, with suitable honours.

Equipment of the army, Oct. 1805

The negotiations were commenced without delay, but it was felt that any adverse turn of circumstances might interrupt their progress, and possibly throw Sindia back into opposition. Colonel Malcolm judged rightly that nothing would tend so much to facilitate such transactions as a display of military enterprise. Lord Lake had a noble army under his command, but his military chest was empty, and the financiers in Calcutta were very lukewarm about supplying it with funds. Colonel Malcolm was mortified to find “that they could not send Holkar to the devil for want of seven or eight lacs of rupees,” and he set himself to raise the sum with all his natural ardour. He plied the native bankers, but we had lost ground in the money-market, and he could only raise a lac of rupees from them. He besieged the collectors’ treasuries for bills on Calcutta. He prevailed on Government to sell the fortress of Deeg to the raja of Bhurtpore,

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from whom it was temporarily withheld, for the immediate payment of three lacs of rupees. By the beginning of October, the requisite sum was raised, and Lord Lake was enabled to take the field “in grand style,” and to start in pursuit of Holkar. Colonel Malcolm felt that no place could be more advantageous for the discussion of a treaty than the encampment of a pursuing and successful general. The moonshee was, therefore, hurried along with the army, and resumed the thread of the negotiation, day by day, when the tents were pitched. The terms were at length adjusted, and sent to Sindia for his ratification. All the provisions of the treaty of Sirjee Angengaom, which were not modified by the new arrangement, were to remain in force. Gohud and Gwalior were restored to him as a matter of friendship, on his engaging to assign three lacs of rupees from the revenues to the rana. Pensions, which had been granted to different officers of his court, were relinquished, and annuities were settled on himself, his wife, and his daughter. The Chumbul was to form the boundary of the two states, but the British Government engaged to enter into no treaties with the rajas of Oodypore, Joudhpore, and other chiefs, the tributaries of Sindia, in Malwa, Mewar, or Marwar, and Sindia agreed never to admit Sirjee Rao into his counsels.

Pursuit of Holkar, 1805

Holkar and Ameer Khan quitted the encampment of Sindia, when they perceived a change in his policy favourable to the English affiance, and proceeded to Ajmere. Holkar, notwithstanding his reverses, still exhibited a vigorous and daring spirit. Northern India swarmed with military adventurers, the fragments of the armies which had been broken up by our victories, and the “irregulars” whom the British Government was discharging. Holkar was thus enabled to collect together a body of about 12,000 horse and 8,000 foot, with thirty not very serviceable guns, and he would speedily have become as formidable as at any former period of time had been allowed him to complete his levies. He solicited the raja of Jeypore to join his standard, but meeting with a stern refusal, pushed on to the north of

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Delhi, giving out that he had been invited into that region by the Sikh chiefs of Sirhind. But the heavy contributions which his necessities obliged him to levy on his route, and the remonstrances of the Resident at Delhi deterred them from joining him. Lord Lake now started in pursuit of him, at the head of his cavalry, and a small body of light infantry; and a British army was for the first time conducted to the banks of the Sutlege by the same general who had been the first to cross the Jumna. But its progress was suddenly arrested by the repugnance which the sepoys, from some superstitious feeling, manifested to cross it. Colonel Malcolm, on hearing of their hesitation, galloped into their ranks, and with that singular tact which gave him the mastery of the native mind, exclaimed “the city and the shrine of Amritsar, with the water of immortality, is before you, and will you shrink from such a pilgrimage?” The words produced a magic effect, and the sepoys hasted across the stream and entered the Punjab, where Runjeet Sing, a young Sikh chieftain, of twenty-five, was laying the foundation of a great kingdom. Holkar fled as Lord Lake advanced, and had reached Amritsar, but Runjeet Sing was evidently averse to the further progress of a British army in his newly-conquered territories, and Lord Lake encamped on the banks of the Beeas, the ancient Hyphasis, in the neighbourhood of the spot where Alexander the Great had erected altars to commemorate the extent of his conquests. In that classical region the ratification of the treaty by Sindia was received on the 25th December, and a double salute was fired in honour of the day and of the peace. Runjeet Sing is said to have visited the English camp in disguise, to examine the military organisation of the foreigners who in the course of fifty years had become masters of India. After a brief negotiation, he concluded an agreement with Lord Lake, engaging to hold no farther communication with Holkar, and to constrain him to evacuate the Punjab. Holkar, now a helpless fugitive, sent an envoy humbly to sue for peace, and Lord Lake presented him with the draft of a treaty drawn up under the

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instructions of Sir George Barlow. All the family domains South of the Chumbul were to be restored to him; that river was to be his fixed boundary, and the British Government agreed not to interfere with any of the rajas or dependents of the Holkar family south of it. He was required to relinquish all right to Rampoora, and all claims on the state of Boondee; to entertain no Europeans in his service without the permission of Government, and to banish Sirjee Rao for ever from his presence. He was likewise to return to Hindostan by a prescribed route, and to abstain from injuring the territories either of the Company or of their allies.

Treaty with Holkar, Jan. 1806

To Holkar, whose fortunes were now desperate, and who had no alternative but to submit to any terms Lord Lake might choose to dictate, these proposals appeared a god-send. But the incredible lenity of the conditions, which confounded the minds of the native princes, only served to create a feeling of presumption in his breast, and to inflate him with the notion that the British Government could have been influenced only by a dread of his military prowess. His vakeels returned with a demand for eighteen districts in Hindostan, and additional jageers for his family in the Deccan, and liberty to levy contributions on Jeypore. But Colonel Malcolm replied that the British Government had already pledged its faith to the protection of the raja, and would not abandon him. “You have good reason for supporting him,” retorted the envoys, “for he violated the sacred laws of hospitality in surrendering Vizier Ali, on your demand.” Colonel Malcolm rejected all the demands and rebuked the impertinent taunt, which, however, served to show in what light that transaction was still viewed at the native courts. New difficulties and delays were studiously interposed, till Lord Lake’s patience was exhausted, and he threatened to break up his camp and commence the pursuit of Holkar, when his vakeels at once produced the ratified treaty, and confessed that they were only endeavouring to gain credit with their master for their diplomatic tact.

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Declaratory articles, 1806

Sir George Barlow, however, was not satisfied. with the terms of either treaty. He considered that to fix the Chumbul as the boundary of the Mahratta dominions might be construed as a pledge to protect the native principalities lying to the north of it, and he was resolved, in obedience to the authorities in England, to dissolve all connection with them. While ratifying the treaties, therefore, he added declaratory articles, the effect of which was to withdraw our protection entirely from those states west of the Jumna, with whom alliances had been formed two years before. Rampoora, which Colonel Malcolm had positively refused to relinquish, was restored to Holkar, and he fired a royal salute on the occasion, declaring at the same time that the English were, nevertheless, “great rascals, and never to be trusted.” The raja of Boondee was likewise left to his fate. Lord Lake made the most strenuous efforts to save that unfortunate prince. He had the strongest claims on the consideration, if not also on the gratitude of the Government. He had never failed in his attachment to the Company; regardless of the denunciations of Holkar, he had afforded shelter and aid to Colonel Monson during his retreat. His country, moreover, contained one of the most important passes into our northern provinces. Sir George turned a deaf ear to every remonstrance, and the raja was abandoned to the revenge and rapacity of Holkar.

Jeypore, 1806

The course pursued with regard to Jeypore was yet more disgraceful. The raja was among the foremost to enter the system of defensive alliances concluded by Lord Wellesley. But his fidelity was shaken by the apparent decay of our power, when Holkar was chasing Colonel Monson before him, and Lord Wellesley informed Lord Cornwallis that his defection on that occasion had cancelled his claims to our alliance. In the following year, Holkar entered his territories and demanded his aid against the Company, but Lord Lake informed him that he had now an opportunity of making atonement for his former disloyalty, and that the

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boon of our protection would be restored to him if he resisted the advances of the Mahratta chief. Upon the strength of this promise, the raja not only obliged Holkar to quit his dominions, but afforded cordial and important aid to our detachments while passing through his districts in pursuit of him. Lord Cornwallis, who was the soul of honour, assured Lord Lake that any pledge which he had given to the raja should be considered sacred. But Sir George Barlow refused to recognise the obligation, and, at the time when Holkar was returning from the Punjab and entering the Jeypore territory, bent on plunder and revenge, caused it to be notified to the raja, that the British protection was withdrawn from him, in consequence of the breach of his engagements during Monson’s retreat. We thus incurred the odium of having availed ourselves of the raja’s services when they were of the highest value to us, and of abandoning him to destruction when we no longer needed them. It was in vain to attempt to reason with Sir George, and Lord Lake was subjected to the reproaches – the keener for their truth – of the raja’s vakeels, who upbraided the British Government with having made its good faith subservient to its interests, and asserted that this was the first time it had abandoned an ally to suit its convenience. Indignant at the contempt with which his expostulations were treated, and the degradation of the national honour, and convinced, moreover, that he could not be a fit instrument for the execution of measures which he entirely disapproved of, Lord Lake, in the beginning of 1806, resigned the political powers which had been entrusted to him, and resolved to confine his attention to his military duties.

Aggressions of Holkar 1806

The treaty with Holkar had stipulated that he should return to Hindostan by the route prescribed for him, and abstain from all aggression on the territories of the Company or its allies. But Lord Lake was in haste to return, and save Government the field expenses of his army, and, instead of directing Holkar to precede or accompany him, permitted him to remain behind. No

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sooner did he find that the British army was fairly across the Sutlege, than he let loose his predatory bands on the Punjab and plundered the country without mercy. He proved himself, as Runjeet Sing said indignantly to the British envoy who visited his court four years later, a pucka hurainzadaa determined rascal. Holkar was fully aware that he had no longer Lord Wellesley to deal with, and there was no article of the treaty which he did not violate with the greatest effrontery. Passing through the province of Hurriana, which had been granted to Abdul Sumud as a reward for the eminent services he rendered to the Company, Holkar laid waste the lands and levied heavy contributions on the people. Abdul implored the interposition of the British Government, which Sir George Barlow refused, but promised to make him a pecuniary compensation for his losses. Holkar then halted for a month at Jeypore, and finding that the Governor-General had withdrawn his protection from the raja, extorted eighteen lacs of rupees from him. He then proceeded to wreak his vengeance on the raja of Boondee for the assistance which he had given Colonel Monson during his retreat.

Remarks on these transactions, 1806

This disastrous termination of the Mahratta war planted the seeds of another and more momentous contest. The difference between the policy of Lord Wellesley and of his two immediate successors, was not the restoration of peace or the prosecution of war and conquest. When the career of Lord Wellesley was terminated by the arrival of Lord Cornwallis, nothing remained to secure the pacification of India but to complete the accommodation with Sindia, which was in rapid progress, and to extinguish the power of Holkar and Ameer Khan, who were then reduced to extremity. If Lord Wellesley had continued five months longer in power, India would have been blessed with peace and tranquillity. The policy of the Court of Directors brought peace to the Company, but distraction to India, and the wisdom of Lord Wellesley’s measures was lamentably vindicated by the twelve years of anarchy which followed

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the rejection of it. By abandoning all the defensive alliances which had been made, and enjoining a neutral and isolated policy, the Directors endeavoured to check the advance of the British Government to supreme authority in India. But this attempt to control the inevitable progress of events proved not only abortive, but disastrous. It afforded an opportunity for the growth and maturity of a new predatory power, that of the Pindarees, who, after having exhausted the provinces of Central India, poured down on the British territories, and rendered it necessary, in self-defence, to assemble an army of more than 100,000 men to extirpate them. That which it fell to the lot of Lord Hastings to accomplish for the settlement of India in 1817, might have been effected with greater ease, and at a less cost, by Lord Wellesley’s plans in 1805.

Career of Holkar, 1806–11

To continue the brief career of Holkar to its close. After his return to his own dominions he addressed letters to the other Mahratta princes exhorting them to form a national league against the common enemy, but Lord Wellesley had so effectually paralyzed their power as to leave them little inclination to respond to the call. Holkar determined to reorganise his army, to reduce its numbers, and improve its discipline. But the cavalry he had enlisted in the south, whom he proposed in the first instance to discharge, broke into open mutiny, and he was obliged to deliver his nephew, Khundeh Rao, into their hands as a hostage for their arrears. They immediately hoisted the standard of revolt, threw off their allegiance to Jeswunt Rao Holkar, and proclaimed the lad their sovereign. To appease them, he delivered up the sums he had extorted from Jeypore, on the receipt of which they marched back to their homes. Within a week, the unfortunate child, in whose name the government had hitherto been carried on, was removed by poison, under the instigation of Holkar’s gooroo, or spiritual guide, the infamous Chimna Bhao, who soon after became the instrument of murdering Kashee Rao, the brother of his prince, and the only remaining

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member of the royal house. The remorse of this double murder preyed on the spirits of Holkar, and he began to exhibit a degree of excitement in his conduct bordering on insanity. He had determined to increase and improve his artillery, and he laboured in person at the furnaces casting cannon with a wild impetuosity. He gave himself up to unbounded indulgence. The shops at Bombay were ransacked for cherry brandy, and intemperance began to undermine his reason. His phrenzy rose eventually to such a pitch as to endanger the lives of his attendants, and his own officers seized him and confined him with ropes in a separate tent, under a guard, where he uttered the loudest objurgation, and tore his flesh with his nails. The most skilful doctors and the most renowned magicians were called on, but their prescriptions and incantations were equally without avail.

Death of Jeswunt Rao Holkar, 1811

After a year of raging insanity he sunk into a state of fatuity, and expired on the 20th October, 1811. During the period of his incapacity the government of the state was carried on by his favourite concubine, Toolsee bye, and his minister, Buluram Sett, whom we now leave in charge of the administration.

Rajpootana – contest for a princess, 1806

The withdrawal of British protection from the territory west of the Jumna, left the fertile provinces of Rajpootana at the mercy of the Mahrattas and the Patans. The princes, instead of uniting their strength against the enemies of their peace, wasted it for several years against each other in a conflict, which, though tinged with a ray of romance, entailed incalculable misery on their people. The contest was for the hand of Krishnu Koomaree, the beautiful daughter of the rana of Oodypore. An alliance with that ancient and illustrious house – “the sun of Hindoo glory” – was considered the highest honour to which a Rajpoot prince could aspire, and the princess was considered the “flower” of Rajpootana. She had been betrothed to Bheem Sing, the raja of Joudhpore, but his death broke off the match, upon which Juggut Sing, the raja of Jeypore, solicited her hand,

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and being accepted as her bridegroom sent a splendid escort to conduct her to his capital. But Maun Sing, who had succeeded Bheem Sing as the raja of Joudhpore, was advised to demand the princess, on the ground that the affiance was contracted with the throne rather than with its occupant, and attacked and routed the convoy. The raja of Jeypore was incensed at the insult thus offered him, and collected an army of more than 100,000 men to avenge it. It was a motley assembly of Patans, Rajpoots, and Mahrattas. Ameer Khan, whose fortunes were reduced to so low an ebb when the treaty was made with Holkar in the Punjab that he was on the point of flying to Afghanistan, had returned to Hindostan, and collected a large force, with which he joined the raja of Jeypore. Two of Sindia’s commanders were likewise sent to espouse his cause; and Sevae Sing, a powerful Joudhpore noble, who had proclaimed a posthumous child of Bheem Sing the rightful heir of the throne, in opposition to Maun Sing whom he held in detestation, likewise joined his enemies. There were few of the Rajpoot chiefs who were not ranged under either flag. In the great battle which ensued, in February, 1807, Maun Sing was deserted by his nobles and sustained a total defeat. He fled from the field to the citadel of his capital, which he defended with great gallantry for many mouths, while his country was devastated by the enemy. To relieve himself from this scourge, he made overtures to Ameer Khan, who had no interest in reducing any of the Rajpoot states to destruction, and thus depriving himself of the prospect of plundering them in succession. The Patan, therefore, on the promise of fifty lacs of rupees a-year and a jageer of four lacs for his kitchen expenses, deserted the cause of the Jeypore raja, and that prince, in addition to the loss of a hundred and twenty lacs of rupees, which the war and his allies had cost him, now found his territories ravaged without mercy by his own ally. The fortunes of Maun Sing were thus retrieved; but he could. not consider himself secure while Sevae Sing lived, and Ameer Khan agreed to effect his destruction

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for an additional sum of ten lacs. He paid him a visit at Nagore, his chief town, pretending to have deserted the cause of Maun Sing, and took an oath on the Koran as a pledge of his sincerity. Sevae Sing, suspecting no treachery, accepted an invitation to an entertainment; but while he was amused with dancing girls, the ropes of the tent were cut, he and his followers were entangled in its folds, and indiscriminately slaughtered by musketry and grape shot.

Rajpoot Princes and the British Government, 1809

The raja of Oodypore had taken no part in the war of which his (daughter was the innocent cause, but he was, nevertheless, subjected to plunder by Sindia and Ameer Khan, who were constrained to resort to rapine to subsist the armies which they persisted in maintaining on a scale beyond their resources. Wherever the Mahratta or the Patan encamped, a single day was sufficient to give the most flourishing spot the aspect of a desert, and their march was traced by the blaze of villages and the havoc of cultivation. In his extremity the rana applied to the British Government for protection, offering to make over one-half his territories for the defence of the other. Zalim Sing, the renowned regent of Kotah, together with the rival princes of Jeypore and Joudhpore, earnestly joined in this solicitation. There had always, they said, been in India some supreme power to which the weak looked for protection against the ambition and the rapacity of the strong. The Company had now succeeded to this paramount sovereignty, and were bound to fulfil the duties attached to it. The Mahrattas and the Patans, who were now spreading desolation from the Sutlege to the Nerbudda, were utterly unable to offer any opposition to the British arms, and the Governor-General had only to speak the word and peace and tranquillity would be restored. These facts could not be controverted, but such interference was known to be foreign to the existing policy of the India House. The Court of Directors, however, when reviewing the conduct of Sir George Barlow towards Jeypore, appeared to experience some slight touch

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of compunction for the desertion of the raja, but they satisfied their consciences with an idle lecture on “the necessity of taking care, in all the transactions of Government with the native princes, to preserve its character for fidelity to its allies from falling into disrepute, and to evince a strict regard to the principles of justice and generosity.” The sincerity of these professions would have been less liable to mistrust if they had been accompanied by a change of policy; but the Court distinctly repudiated the idea of taking the raja under their protection at the risk of a war. From the British Government there was, therefore, no prospect of relief for the wretched states of Rajpootana, and the raja of Oodypore was obliged to come to a compromise with Ameer Khan, and to assign him one-fourth of his dominions to preserve the remainder from rapine. He was likewise subjected to the indignity, which no prince in India could feel so acutely as he did, of exchanging turbans, as a token of friendship and equality, with the Patan freebooter. That unscrupulous chief took advantage of the ascendency he had thus acquired at Oodypore to perpetrate one of the foulest murders ever known, even in that land of violence. He suggested to the rana that the only means of quenching the feuds which distracted Rajpootana on account of his daughter, was to put her to death, and he threatened to carry her off by force to Maun Sing if his advice was not followed. Under the influence of an infamous favourite, Ajit Sing, one of his nobles, the father consented to become the executioner of his child. His own sister, Chand bye, presented the poisoned bowl with her own hands to the young and lovely princess, then in her sixteenth year, and urged her in the name of her father to save the honour of the house of Oodypore by the sacrifice of her life.

Death of the princess of Oodypore, 1810

She meekly bowed her head, and exclaimed, “This is the marriage to which I was foredoomed,” and drank off three successive doses, sending up a prayer to heaven with her last breath for the life and prosperity of her father. The news of this tragedy was

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no sooner spread through the capital than loud lamentations burst from every quarter, mingled with execrations on the wretched father and his atrocious adviser. One of the great nobles, on hearing that the deed was in contemplation, galloped to the capital in haste to prevent it, but finding that he was too late, unbuckled his sword and shield, and placing them at the feet of the rana, said, “My ancestors have served yours for thirty generations, but never more shall these arms be used in your service.”

Affairs of Hyderabad, 1806–7

This narrative has carried us beyond the period of Sir George Barlow’s administration, to which we now return. The greatest blot in his policy was the abandonment of Malwa and Rajpootana to anarchy and desolation. On the other hand, he deserves great credit for the resolution with which he maintained the peace of the Deccan, in opposition to the principle of non-intervention. Meer Allum, the able minister of the Nizam, had become obnoxious to his weak master by his steady support of the British alliance, and was threatened with assassination, and obliged to take refuge in the British residency. The Nizam then proceeded to open negotiations with Holkar and Sindia, and to assemble troops on his frontier, and manifested every disposition to dissolve his connection with the Company. Sir George felt that “there was no alternative but either to abandon the alliance altogether, or to make an effort to replace it on a just and proper foundation by a direct and decided interposition ... but, the dissolution of the alliance would subvert the very foundations of British power and ascendency in the political scale in India, and become the signal and the instrument of the downfall of the remaining fabric of our political relations.” He felt that we could not abandon our influence or our power at Hyderabad without finding the ground occupied by our enemies, the result of which would be universal “agitation, and distrust, and turbulence and expense.” He did not therefore hesitate to discard the doctrine of neutrality. The Nizam was ordered to restore Meer Allum to the office of

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minister, to banish from his counsels all who were hostile to the British alliance, and to submit to the more direct interference of the Resident in the management of his affairs.

Affairs at Poona, 1808

The Court of Directors continued to view the treaty of Bassein on the same narrow grounds on which they were at first led to object to it, as the source of multiplied embarrassments. They considered that their government might be relieved from these difficulties if they could withdraw from all interference in Mahratta politics, and leave the Peshwa to resume his position as the head of the Mahratta commonwealth. Sir George Barlow resisted with equal steadiness every proposal to modify the treaty, and had the courage to state that, while he desired to manifest every attention to their wishes, he felt that there was a higher obligation imposed on him, that of maintaining the supremacy of the British rule, which would be compromised by any alteration of the policy established at Poona. It had been affirmed that such a course would be most agreeable to the Mahratta powers, to which he replied with truth that to withdraw from the position we occupied there would be gratifying to the Mahrattas in exact proportion as it afforded them the hope of subverting our authority and supplied the means of prosecuting designs hostile to British interests. The Peshwa advanced claims on the independent chiefs of Bundelkund, from many of whom he claimed chout; as the head of the Mahratta empire, he insisted on his share of the contributions which Holkar and Sindia were levying in Rajpootana, and he requested permission to appoint a representative in Hindostan; in other words, to revive the influence and power of which he had been deprived by the treaty of Bassein. But Sir George Barlow refused to admit any of these pretensions, and determined to maintain, in undiminished vigour, the ascendency which Lord Wellesley had established in the counsels of Poona.

State of the finances, 1806

The state of the finances called for Sir George Barlow’s early attention. From the first establishment of the British Government in India, all its financial difficulties

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had arisen out of the wars in which it was involved. There was no elasticity in a revenue derived almost exclusively from the land, and it became necessary to have recourse to loans whenever the expenditure was found to exceed the income. On the return of peace and the removal of the military pressure, the finances had always, with one exception, resumed their spring. The extensive military operations of Lord Wellesley’s administration had necessarily augmented the public debt, but this pecuniary strain, though manifestly of a temporary character, brought on one of the intermittent fevers of alarm at the India House, and large and comprehensive views of policy were needlessly sacrificed to obtain immediate relief. It appears to have been entirely overlooked that our wars in India had always been marked by this peculiarity, that they terminated in an accession of territory and revenue, which served to balance whatever encumbrance they had entailed. Thus, the increase to the debt during Lord Wellesley’s administration was eight crores and a half of rupees, while the permanent increase of annual revenue was not less than seven crores. The Indian debt has seldom exceeded the income of two years; and this rule of proportion appears indeed to be the normal condition of Indian finance. In the year preceding the arrival of Lord Wellesley the revenue was eight crores, the debt seventeen. At the close of his administration the former had increased to fifteen crores and a half, and the latter to thirty-one. After the lapse of sixty years, the relative proportion remains without alteration. In the present year the revenues of the empire are forty-five crores, and the debt is ninety-two crores. By the cessation of the war and the reduction of the military charges, Sir George was enabled to reduce the annual expenditure, and within two years the deficit was converted into a surplus, which remained steady, with occasional variations, for twenty years, till the first Burmese war again depressed the scale.

Supersession of Sir George Barlow, 1806

The great zeal manifested by Sir George Barlow in carrying out the views of the India House, recommended

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him to the Directors as the fittest successor of Lord Cornwallis, the news of whose death reached England at the end of January, 1806. The death of Mr. Pitt, and the dissolution of his ministry had just introduced the Whigs to power, after an exclusion of more than twenty years. Within twenty-four hours of their accession to office they were called on to make provision for the exercise of the full powers of the Governor-General, and Lord Minto, the President of the Board of Control, agreed, as a temporary measure, to the nomination of Sir George Barlow. His commission was accordingly made out and signed in February, 1806, but only ten days after, the Ministry informed the Court of Directors that they had selected Lord Lauderdale for that office. They passed a high encomium on Sir George Barlow, but his policy was not in accordance with the views of some of the leading members of the new Cabinet. Lord Grenville, more especially, considered the administration of Lord Wellesley the most splendid and glorious that India had ever seen, and he vigorously opposed the appointment, as his successor, of one whose chief merit, in the opinion of the Court of Directors, consisted in a determination to reverse his measures. The Directors strenuously resisted the appointment of Lord Lauderdale, not only as an abrupt and contemptuous rejection of their favourite, but also on personal grounds. He had been a warm admirer of the French revolution, and during the height of its mania had dropped his ancient and noble title. and assumed a costume symbolical of Jacobinism. These follies had passed, but the Court did not forget that he had also been a zealous advocate of Mr. Fox’s India Bill, and, more recently, of Lord Wellesley’s doctrine of free trade with India, which was considered a pestilent heresy in Leadenhall-street. The Act of 1784 had vested in the Crown the right of vacating any appointment in India under the sign manual, and without the consent of the Court of Directors. The Ministry now, for the first time, brought it into exercise, and retaliated on them by a warrant cancelling the commission of Sir George Barlow. The discussion between

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the Board of Control and the India House was carried on for many weeks, with great warmth, inasmuch as it not only involved the immediate question of Lord Lauderdale’s appointment, but the more important point connected with the interpretation of the Act of 1784, of the general right of nomination to the office of Governor-General. In such a contest the ministers of the Crown, being the stronger party, could not fail to triumph, and the difference was accommodated by the appointment of Lord Minto.

The Vellore Mutiny, 1806

In the month of July, the Government was astounded by a portentous event, unprecedented in its annals – the massacre of European officers and soldiers by the sepoys at Vellore. This fortress, situated eighty-eight miles west of Madras, and only forty miles from the frontier of Mysore, had been selected, contrary to the wiser judgment of the Court of Directors, for the residence of Tippoo’s family, and was speedily filled with eighteen hundred of their adherents and three thousand Mysoreans. The princes were treated with the usual liberality of the British Government, and were subjected to little personal restraint. The European troops in the garrison consisted of about 870, and the sepoys amounted to 1,500. One of the native regiments was composed of Mysore Mohamedans, many of whom had been in the service of Tippoo. At three in the morning of the 10th July, the sepoys rose in rebellion, and having secured the main guard and the powder magazine, suddenly assaulted the European barracks. They had not the courage to encounter the bayonets of the soldiers, but poured in upon them volley after volley through the venetian, till eighty-two had been killed and ninety-one wounded. Parties of sepoys then proceeded to the residences of the officers, of whom thirteen fell victims to their treachery. During the massacre, an active communication was kept up between the mutineers and the palace of the Mysore princes, many of whose followers were conspicuous in the assault. Provisions were also sent out to the sepoys, and the royal ensign of Mysore was hoisted on

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the flag-staff amidst the shouts of a large crowd. The remaining Europeans, though destitute of ammunition, maintained their position under cover of a gateway and a bastion, till they were rescued by Colonel Gillespie. He was in garrison at Arcot, eight miles distant, and, on hearing of the outbreak, started without a moment’s delay with a portion of the 19th Dragoons, and arrived in time to save the survivors. The gate was blown open with his galloper guns, and his men rushed in and obtained possession of the fort. Between three and four hundred of the mutineers were put to death, many were taken prisoners, and the remainder escaped by dropping from the walls.

Cause of the mutiny 1806

The searching investigation which was immediately made, clearly revealed the cause of the mutiny. The new Commander-in-chief, Sir John Cradock, soon after his arrival, had obtained permission from the Governor in Council, Lord William Bentinck, to codify the voluminous regulations of the military department, on the condition that no rules should be added to those in force without the express sanction of Government. The code on its completion was submitted to the Governor, and received his sanction, as a matter of form, but several innovations had been introduced by the Adjutant-General, of which no intimation was given to him. The sepoys, for instance, were forbidden to appear on parade with earrings, or any distinctive marks of caste, and they were required to shave the chin, and to trim the moustache after a particular model. These unnecessary orders were sufficiently vexatious, but it was the new form prescribed for the turban, which gave the sepoys the greatest offence, because it was said to bear a resemblance to a European hat. Orientals consider the head dress an object of particular importance, and cling to the national fashion with great tenacity. The Turk, who does not object to a European coat, trousers, and boots, will not relinquish the cap of his nation. The Parsee readily adopts a European costume, but retains his own distinguishing head-dress. Even the Hindoo, who apes European fashions, shrinks from

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the use of the hat, which among Asiatics is an object of instinctive abhorrence. In the present case, this feeling was aggravated by a report industriously circulated in the native army by the Mohamedans who led the movement, that it was the precursor of an attempt to force Christianity on the sepoys. Of all the Presidencies that of Madras had been the most officious in patronising the religions of the country. Forgetting the duty due to their own creed, and to the consistency of their own characters, the Madras functionaries had been in the habit of firing royal salutes on the birthdays of the gods, of constraining their own Christian servants to make offerings at different shrines in the name of the Company, and of employing the police to impress the poor ryots to drag the cars of the idols. At the same time, the ministrations of Christianity were so completely neglected, as to lead the natives to believe that their European conquerors were without a religion. But all these humiliating concessions to native prejudices did not secure the Government from the suspicion of a design to destroy the religion of the people, and to force a foreign faith upon them. A spirit of deep disaffection was diffused through the army, which was diligently fomented by the intrigues of the Tippoo family, who upbraided the sepoys with the badge of the infidel creed, which they were already obliged to wear. It was this family, to whom we had generously, but unwisely, given the large pecuniary resources now turned against us, which applied the torch to the mine which the Government had unconsciously laid. The exasperated sepoys were thus led on to rebellion and massacre. The same feeling of dissatisfaction was also manifested by the troops at Hyderabad, but it was extinguished by the judicious proceedings of the Resident and Colonel Montresor. The members of Tippoo’s family were removed without loss of time to Calcutta, and their pensions were not curtailed, notwithstanding their complicity in these treasons and murders.

Recall of Lord William Bentinck, 1806

The Court of Directors were overwhelmed by the news of this mutiny, and in that spirit of

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vindictiveness which the excess of terror inspires recalled Lord William Bentinck and the Commander-in-chief within a week after the intelligence reached them, before they had received a single line of explanation from either of them. On his return to England, Lord William presented a memorial to the Honourable Court in vindication of his character and proceedings. “I have,” he said, “been removed from my situation, and condemned as an accomplice in measures with which I had no farther concern than to obviate their evil consequences. My dismissal was effected in a manner harsh and mortifying; and the forms which custom has prescribed to soften the severity of a misfortune, at all times sufficiently severe, have in this single instance been violated as if for the express purpose of deepening my disgrace ... I have been severely injured in my character and my feelings. For these injuries I ask reparation, if, indeed, any reparation can atone for feelings so deeply aggrieved, and a character so unjustly compromised in the eyes of the world.” The Court endeavoured to soothe his feelings while they attempted to vindicate the propriety of his recall. They bore testimony to “the uprightness, disinterestedness, zeal, respect for the system of the Company, and, in many instances, success, with which he had acted in the Government – but, as the misfortunes which happened under his administration placed his fate under the government of public events and opinions which the Court could not control, so it was not in their power to alter the effect of them.” The Court little dreamt that in this vain attempt to apologize for their conduct towards him, they were unwittingly shadowing forth their own doom, and the occasion of it. Half a century later, another, and a far more appalling, mutiny broke out in India, for which the East India Company was no more to blame than Lord William Bentinck was for the Vellore mutiny, but – to use the language of the Court – “as the misfortune happened under their administration, and placed their fate under the government of public events and opinions which the Ministry could not control,”

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they were deposed from the Government of the great empire they had built up, and of their magnificent house in Leadenhall-street not one stone was left upon another.

Temple of Jugunnath, 1808

The province of Cuttack acquired in 1803, was attached to the Presidency of Bengal, and the question of dealing with the temple of Jugunnath was forced upon the Supreme Council. Lord Wellesley refused to connect it with his government, but Sir George Barlow determined to assume the management of the establishment to the minutest item, not excluding the three hundred dancing girls, and an army of pilgrim hunters. The pilgrim tax was revived to cover these charges, and the balance was carried to the credit of the Company, as Sir George deemed such a tax a legitimate source of revenue. It is due to the Court of Directors to state that they were opposed to this anomalous and degrading job, but they were overruled by the Board of Control. It was for many years the subject of a bitter contention between the Government of India and those who were anxious to maintain the consistency of our religious character. Under the pressure of public opinion, the tax was at length repealed; and some time after, Lord Dalhousie had the courage to restore the management of the temple, and of the lands which had once belonged to it, to its legitimate guardians, the priesthood of Pooree.

Propagation of Christianity in India, 1806

Far different, however, was the course pursued by Sir George Barlow regarding the diffusion of Christian truth in India, to which we now turn. The first Portuguese settlers had no sooner acquired a political footing in India than they began, in the spirit of the sixteenth century, to persecute the Pagans. They sent to India some of the most able and zealous of their ecclesiastics, of whom St. Francis Xavier was the most illustrious, under whose instructions, though not without some degree of compulsion, a large Roman Catholic community was formed on the Malabar and Coromandel coasts. At the beginning of the eighteenth century several German Protestant missionaries proceeded to

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the Danish settlement of Tranquebar, a hundred and sixty miles south of Madras, under the patronage of the King of Denmark. They were followed by a succession of earnest men, and, among others, by the celebrated Swartz, who was held in honour both by Christians and Hindoos. By their zealous exertions a numerous body of converts was collected on the Coromandel coast. In 1793 Mr. William Carey proceeded to Bengal to establish a Christian mission, and laboured with much devotedness, but little success, for seven years in the district of Malda.

The Serampore Missionaries, 1800

In 1799 two other missionaries, Mr. Marshman and Mr. Ward, went out to his assistance. As they were, however, without a licence from the India House, they were ordered to quit the country the day after their arrival, but obtained an asylum at the Danish settlement of Serampore, in the neighbourhood of Calcutta, and were received under the protection of the Danish crown. Mr. Carey then removed to Serampore, and he and his colleagues established a fraternity which, under the title of the Serampore Missionaries, has attained a historical importance. They opened the first schools for the gratuitous education of native children. They set up printing presses, and prepared founts of types in various Indian languages. They compiled grammars of the Bengalee, Sanscrit, and other languages, into which they likewise translated the Sacred Scriptures. They cultivated the Bengalee language with great assiduity, and published the first works which had ever appeared in it, and thus laid the foundation of a vernacular literature. Their names will long continue to be held in grateful remembrance as the pioneers of civilization in Hindostan, to which they devoted their resources and their lives, at a time when the moral and intellectual improvement of the people was an object of profound indifference to the British Government. They, and the converted natives who had joined their establishment, itinerated through the districts of Bengal, and met with no small measure of success in preaching the doctrines of Christianity.

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Opposition of Government, 1806

Their missionary labours were, however, viewed by the Company in England and the Company’s servants in India with great mistrust and jealousy. All previous conquerors, the Hindoos, the Boodhists, and the Mohamedans, had identified their religion with their policy, and supported it with the whole weight of their political and military power, and subjected those who professed a different creed to severe persecution. The English were the first conquerors who left their native subjects the unrestricted exercise of their own religion; partly, from that principle of religious toleration which had always distinguished the East India Company, but, chiefly, from the apprehension that an opposite course might rouse a fanatic opposition to their rule, and expose it to danger. It was under the impulse of this morbid feeling of dread that the Court of Directors set their faces sternly against all missionary efforts. They were thus placed in the false position of hostility to their own creed, which, among a people of strong religious sensibilities like the Hindoos, was calculated to create a feeling of contempt, or, what was worse, a dangerous suspicion that so unnatural a procedure must be intended to conceal some sinister design. The mutiny at Vellore was traced to an interference with the religious prejudices of the sepoys, and under the panic which it created, Sir George Barlow considered it necessary for the security of the Company’s interests in Bengal, to put a stop to the labours of the Serampore Missionaries, lest the natives should regard them as an interference with their religion. He was not in a mood to reflect that it is only when the agency of the state is employed to enforce a change of religion that there is either disaffection or danger; that the natives of the country had been accustomed for centuries to religious discussions and conversions, and that during the seven years in which the Serampore Missionaries had been labouring in Bengal, the Hindoos who had become Mussulmans greatly outnumbered those who had embraced Christianity, and, without creating any alarm. The missionaries themselves were convinced that

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the truths of the Gospel would only be embraced in sincerity when they were placed before the country separate from all political influences. They, therefore, repudiated all aid from the state, and deprecated the intrusion of the public authorities into their province. But their labours were at once and peremptorily interdicted. They prudently bent to the storm, the Vellore panic died out, and the restrictions laid on them were quietly removed.

This collection transcribed by Chris Gage
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