Chapter XXI: Part 21

"In 1770 Bengal was desolated by perhaps the most terrible of
the many terrible famines that have darkened its history, and
it was estimated that more than a third part of its
inhabitants perished. Yet in spite of all these calamities, in
spite of the rapidly accumulating evidence of the inadequacy
of the Indian revenues, the rapacity of the proprietors at
home prevailed, and dividends of 12 and 12½ per cent., as
permitted by the last Act, were declared. The result of all
this could hardly be doubtful. In July, 1772, the Directors
were obliged to confess that the sum required for the
necessary payments of the next three months was deficient to
the extent of no less than £1,293,000, and in August the
Chairman and Deputy Chairman waited on the Minister to inform
him that nothing short of a loan of at least one million from
the public could save the Company from ruin. The whole system
of Indian government had thus for a time broken down. The
division between the Directors and a large part of the
proprietors, and between the authorities of the Company in
England and those in India, the private and selfish interests
of its servants in India, and of its proprietors at home, the
continual oscillation between a policy of conquest and a
policy of trade, and the great want in the whole organisation
of any adequate power of command and of restraint, had fatally
weakened the great corporation. In England the conviction was
rapidly growing that the whole system of governing a great
country by a commercial company was radically and incurably
false. … The subject was discussed in Parliament, in 1772,
at great length, and with much acrimony. Several propositions
were put forward by the Directors, but rejected by the
Parliament; and Parliament, under the influence of Lord North,
and in spite of the strenuous and passionate opposition of
Burke, asserted in unequivocal terms its right to the
territorial revenues of the Company. A Select Committee,
consisting of thirty-one members, was appointed by Parliament
to make a full inquiry into the affairs of the Company. It was
not, however, till 1773 that decisive measures were taken.
{1721}
The Company was at this time absolutely helpless. Lord North
commanded an overwhelming majority in both Houses, and on
Indian questions he was supported by a portion of the
Opposition. The Company was on the brink of ruin, unable to
pay its tribute to the Government, unable to meet the bills
which were becoming due in Bengal. The publication, in 1773,
of the report of the Select Committee, revealed a scene of
maladministration, oppression, and fraud which aroused a
wide-spread indignation through England; and the Government
was able without difficulty, in spite of the provisions of the
charter, to exercise a complete controlling and regulating
power over the affairs of the Company. … By enormous
majorities two measures were passed through Parliament in
1773, which mark the commencement of a new epoch in the
history of the East India Company. By one Act, the ministers
met its financial embarrassments by a loan of £1,400,000 at an
interest of 4 per cent., and agreed to forego the claim of
£400,000 till this loan had been discharged. The Company was
restricted from declaring any dividend above 6 per cent. till
the new loan had been discharged, and above 7 per cent. till
its bond-debt was reduced to £1,500,000. It was obliged to
submit its accounts every half-year to the Lords of the
Treasury; it was restricted from accepting bills drawn by its
servants in India for above 300,000 a year, and it was obliged
to export to the British settlements within its limits British
goods of a specified value. By another Act, the whole
constitution of the Company was changed, and the great centre
of authority and power was transferred to the Crown. … All
the more important matters of jurisdiction in India were to be
submitted to a new court, consisting of a Chief Justice and
three puisne judges appointed by the Crown. A Governor-General
of Bengal, Behar, and Orissa, was to be appointed at a salary
of £25,000 a year, with four Councillors, at salaries of
£8,000 a year, and the other presidencies were made
subordinate to Bengal. The first Governor-General and
Councillors were to be nominated, not by the East India
Company, but by Parliament; they were to be named in the Act,
and to hold their offices for five years; after that period
the appointments reverted to the Directors, but were subject
to the approbation of the Crown. Everything in the Company's
correspondence with India relating to civil and military
affairs was to be laid before the Government. No person in the
service of the King or of the Company might receive presents,
and the Governor-General, the Councillors, and the judges were
excluded from all commercial profits and pursuits. By this
memorable Act the charter of the East India Company was
completely subverted, and the government of India passed
mainly into the hands of the ministers of the Crown. The chief
management of affairs was vested in persons in whose
appointment or removal the Company had no voice or share, who
might govern without its approbation or sanction, but who
nevertheless drew, by authority of an Act of Parliament, large
salaries from its exchequer. Such a measure could be justified
only by extreme necessity and by brilliant success, and it was
obviously open to the gravest objections from many sides. …
Warren Hastings was the first Governor-General: Barwell,
Clavering, Monson, and Philip Francis were the four
Councillors."

_W. E. H. Lecky,
History of England in the 18th Century,
chapter 13 (volume 3)._

ALSO IN:
_J. Mill,
History of British India,
book 4, chapter 9 (volume 3)._

INDIA: A. D. 1773-1785.
The First English Governor-General.
Administration of Warren Hastings.
Execution of Nuncomar.
The Rohilla War.
Annexation of Benares.
Treatment of the Begums of Oudh.

"The Governor-General was not at once the potential personage
he has since become. The necessity of ruling by a Dictator (a
dictator on the spot, though responsible to superiors at home)
had not yet become obvious; and the Governor-General had no
superiority in council, except the casting vote in case of an
equal division. Whether he could govern or not depended
chiefly on whether he had a party of two in the council. Two
out of the four, with his own casting vote, were enough; and
without it, he was not really governor. This is not the place
in which to follow the history of the first general council
and its factions, apart from the consequences to British
interests. It must suffice to say that at the outset, three
out of four of the council (and those the new officials from
England) were opposed to Hastings. It has been related that
the internal administration of Bengal under Clive's 'double
system' was managed by the Nabob's prime-minister. This
functionary had a salary of £100,000 a year, and enjoyed a
high dignity and immense power. One man who aspired to hold
the office in Clive's time was the great Hindoo, Nuncomar, …
eminent in English eyes for his wealth, and his abilities, and
much more in native estimation for his sanctity as a Brahmin,
and his almost unbounded social power. … The Maharajah
Nuncomar was a great scoundrel—there is no doubt of that;
and his intrigues, supported by forgeries, were so flagrant as
to prevent his appointment to the premiership under the Nabob.
Such vices were less odious in Bengal than almost anywhere
else; but they were inconvenient, as well as disgusting, to
the British; and this was the reason why Clive set aside
Nuncomar, and appointed his rival competitor, Mohammed Reza
Khan, though he was highly reluctant to place the highest
office in Bengal in the hands of a Mussulman. This Mussulman
administered affairs for seven years before Hastings became
Governor-General; and he also had the charge of the infant
Nabob, after Surajah Dowla died. We have seen how dissatisfied
the Directors were with the proceeds of their Bengal
dominions. Nuncomar planted his agents everywhere; and in
London especially; and these agents persuaded the Directors
that Mohammed Reza Khan was to blame for their difficulties
and their scanty revenues. Confident in this information, they
sent secret orders to Hastings to arrest the great Mussulman,
and everybody who belonged to him, and to hear what Nuncomar
had to say against him." The Governor-General obeyed the order
and made the arrests, "but the Mussulman minister was not
punished, and Nuncomar hated Hastings accordingly. He bided
his time, storing up materials of accusation with which to
overwhelm the Governor at the first turn of his fortunes. That
turn was when the majority of the Council were opposed to the
Governor-General, and rendered him helpless in his office; and
Nuncomar then presented himself, with offers of evidence to
prove all manner of treasons and corruptions against Hastings.
{1722}
Hastings was haughty; the councils were tempestuous. Hastings
prepared to resign, though he was aware that the opinion of
the English in Bengal was with him; and Nuncomar was the
greatest native in the country, visited by the Council, and
resorted to by all his countrymen who ventured to approach
him. Foiled in the Council, Hastings had recourse to the
Supreme Court [of which Sir Elijah Impey was the Chief
Justice]. He caused Nuncomar to be arrested on a charge
brought ostensibly by a native of having forged a bond six
years before. After a long trial for an offence which appeared
very slight to Bengalee natives in those days, the culprit was
found guilty by a jury of Englishmen, and condemned to death
by the judges."

_H. Martineau,
British Rule in India,
chapter 9._

"It may perhaps be said that no trial has been so often tried
over again by such diverse authorities, or in so many
different ways, as this celebrated proceeding. During the
course of a century it has been made the theme of historical,
political, and biographical discussions; all the points have
been argued and debated by great orators and great lawyers; it
has formed the avowed basis of a motion in Parliament to
impeach the Chief-Justice, and it must have weighed heavily,
though indirectly, with those who decided to impeach the
Governor-General. It gave rise to rumours of a dark and
nefarious conspiracy which, whether authentic or not, exactly
suited the humour and the rhetoric of some contemporary
English politicians. … Very recently Sir James Stephen,
after subjecting the whole case to exact scrutiny and the most
skilful analysis, after examining every document and every
fact bearing upon this matter with anxious attention, has
pronounced judgment declaring that Nuncomar's trial was
perfectly fair, that Hastings had nothing to do with the
prosecution, and that at the time there was no sort of
conspiracy or understanding between Hastings and Impey in
relation to it. Nothing can be more masterly or more effective
than the method employed by Sir James Stephen to explode and
demolish, by the force of a carefully-laid train of proofs,
the loose fabric of assertions, invectives, and ill-woven
demonstrations upon which the enemies of Hastings and Impey
based and pushed forward their attacks, and which have never
before been so vigorously battered in reply. … It may be
accepted, upon Sir James Stephen's authority, that no evidence
can be produced to justify conclusions adverse to the
innocence of Hastings upon a charge that has from its nature
affected the popular tradition regarding him far more deeply
than the accusations of high-handed oppressive political
transactions, which are little understood and leniently
condemned by the English at large. There is really nothing to
prove that he had anything to do with the prosecution, or that
he influenced the sentence. … Nevertheless when Sir James
Stephen undertakes to establish, by argument drawn from the
general motives of human action, the moral certainty that
Hastings was totally unconnected with the business, and that
the popular impression against him is utterly wrong, his
demonstration is necessarily less conclusive. … On the whole
there is no reason whatever to dissent from Pitt's view, who
treated the accusation of a conspiracy between Impey and
Hastings for the purpose of destroying Nuncomar, as destitute
of any shadow of solid proof. Whether Hastings, when Nuncomar
openly tried to ruin him by false and malignant accusations,
became aware and made use in self-defence of the fact that his
accuser had rendered himself liable to a prosecution for
forgery, is a different question, upon which also no evidence
exists or is likely to be forthcoming."

_Sir A. Lyall,
Warren Hastings,
chapter 3._

"James Mill says, 'No transaction perhaps of his whole
administration more deeply tainted the reputation of Hastings
than the tragedy of Nuncomar.' A similar remark was made by
William Wilberforce. The most prominent part too in Nuncomar's
story is played by Sir Elijah Impey. … Impey, in the present
day, is known to English people in general only by the
terrible attack made upon him by Lord Macaulay, in his essay
on Warren Hastings. It stigmatises him as one of the vilest of
mankind. 'No other such judge has dishonoured the English
ermine since Jefferies drank himself to death in the Tower.'
'Impey, sitting as a judge, put a man unjustly to death, in
order to serve a political purpose.' 'The time had come when
he was to be stripped of that robe which he had so foully
dishonoured.' These dreadful accusations I, upon the fullest
consideration of the whole subject, and, in particular, of
much evidence which Macaulay seems to me never to have seen,
believe to be wholly unjust. For Macaulay himself I have an
affectionate admiration. He was my own friend, and my
father's, and my grandfather's friend also, and there are few
injunctions which I am more disposed to observe than the one
which bids us not to forget such persons. I was, moreover, his
successor in office, and am better able than most persons to
appreciate the splendour of the services which he rendered to
India. These considerations make me anxious if I can to repair
a wrong done by him, not intentionally, for there never was a
kinder-hearted man, but because he adopted on insufficient
grounds the traditional hatred which the Whigs bore to Impey,
and also because his marvellous power of style blinded him to
the effect which his language produced. He did not know his
own strength, and was probably not aware that a few sentences
which came from him with little effort were enough to brand a
man's name with almost indelible infamy. … My own opinion is
that no man ever had, or could have, a fairer trial than
Nuncomar, and that Impey in particular behaved with absolute
fairness and as much indulgence as was compatible with his
duty. In his defence at the bar of the House of Commons, he
said, 'Conscious as I am how much it was my intention to
favour the prisoner in everything that was consistent with
justice; wishing as I did that the facts might turn out
favourable for an acquittal; it has appeared most wonderful to
me that the execution of my purpose has so far differed from
my intentions that any ingenuity could form an objection to my
personal conduct as bearing hard on the prisoner.' My own
earnest study of the trial has led me to the conviction that
every word of this is absolutely true and just. Indeed, the
first matter which directed my attention to the subject was
the glaring contrast between Impey's conduct as ascribed in
the State Trials and his character as described by Lord
Macaulay.
{1723}
There is not a word in his summing-up of which I should have
been ashamed had I said it myself, and all my study of the
case has not suggested to me a single observation in
Nuncomar's favour which is not noticed by Impey. As to the
verdict, I think that there was ample evidence to support it.
Whether it was in fact correct is a point on which it is
impossible for me to give an unqualified opinion, as it is of
course impossible now to judge decidedly of the credit due to
the witnesses, and as I do not understand some part of the
exhibits."

_J. F. Stephen,
The Story of Nuncomar,
pages 2-3, 186-187._

"Sir John Strachey, in his work on Hastings and the Rohilla
War, examines in detail one of the chief charges made against
the conduct of Warren Hastings while Governor-General. The
Rohilla charge was dropped by Burke and the managers, and was
therefore not one of the issues tried at the impeachment; but
it was, in spite of this fact, one of the main accusations
urged against the Governor-General in Macaulay's famous essay.
Macaulay, following James Mill, accuses Warren Hastings of
having hired out an English army to exterminate what Burke
called 'the bravest, the most honourable and generous nation
on earth.' According to Macaulay, the Vizier of Oudh coveted
the Rohilla country, but was not strong enough to take it for
himself. Accordingly, he paid down forty lakhs of rupees to
Hastings, on condition that the latter should help to strike
down and seize his prey. … Sir John Strachey … shows
beyond a shadow of doubt that the whole story is a delusion.
… 'The English army was not hired out by Hastings for the
destruction of the Rohillas; the Rohillas described by Burke
as belonging to the bravest, the most honourable and generous
nation on earth, were no nation at all, but a comparatively
small body of cruel and rapacious Afghan adventurers, who had
imposed their foreign rule on an unwilling Hindoo population;
and the story of their destruction is fictitious.' … The
north-west angle of the great strip of plain which follows the
course of the Ganges was possessed by a clan which fifty years
before had been a mere band of Afghan mercenaries, but which
was now beginning to settle down as a dominant governing
class, living among a vastly more numerous subject-population
of Hindoos. This country was Rohilkhand, the warrior-horde the
Rohillas. It must never be forgotten that the Rohillas were no
more the inhabitants of Rohilkhand than were the Normans fifty
years after the Conquest the inhabitants of England. … But
the fact that the corner of what geographically was our
barrier State was held by the Rohillas, made it necessary for
us to keep Rohilkhand as well as Oudh free from the Mahrattas.
Hence it became the key-note of Warren Hastings' policy to
help both the Rohillas and the Vizier [of Oudh] to maintain
their independence against the Mahrattas. In the year 1772,
however, the Mahrattas succeeded in crossing the Ganges, in
getting into Rohilkhand, and in threatening the Province of
Oudh. … Hastings encouraged the Vizier and the Rohilla
chiefs to make an alliance, under which the Rohillas were to
be reinstated in their country by aid of the Vizier, the
Vizier obtaining for such assistance forty lakhs,—that is, he
coupled the Rohillas and the Vizier, for defence purposes,
into one barrier-State. … If the Rohillas had observed this
treaty, all might have been well. Unhappily for them, they
could not resist the temptation to break faith." They joined
the Mahrattas against Oudh, and it was after this had occurred
twice that Hastings lent assistance to the Vizier in expelling
them from Rohilkhand. "Instead of exterminating the Rohillas,
he helped make a warrior-clan, but one generation removed from
a 'free company,' recross the Ganges and release from their grip
the land they had conquered."

_The Spectator,
April 2, 1892._

_Sir John Strachey,
Hastings and the Rohillas._

"The year 1781 opened for Hastings on a troubled sea of
dangers, difficulties, and distress. Haidar Ali was raging in
the Carnatic, Goddard and Camac were still fighting the
Marathas, and French fleets were cruising in the Bay of
Bengal. … It was no time for standing upon trifles. Money
must be raised somehow, if British India was to be saved.
Among other sources of supply, he turned to the Rajah of
Banaras [or Benares]. Chait Singh was the grandson of an
adventurer, who had ousted his own patron and protector from
the lordship of the district so named. In 1775, his fief had
been transferred by treaty from the Nawab of Oudh to the
Company. As a vassal of the Company he was bound to aid them
with men and money in times of special need. Five lakhs of
rupees—£50,000—and two thousand horse was the quota which
Hastings had demanded of him in 1780. In spite of the revenue
of half-a-million, of the great wealth stored up in his
private coffers, and of the splendid show which he always made
in public, the Rajah pleaded poverty, and put off compliance
with the demands of his liege lord. … Chait Singh had
repeatedly delayed the payment of his ordinary tribute; his
body-guard alone was larger than the force which Hastings
required of him; he was enrolling troops for some warlike
purpose, and Hastings' agents accused him of secret plottings
with the Oudh Begams at Faizabad. … The Rajah, in fact, like
a shrewd, self-seeking Hindu, was waiting upon circumstances,
which at that time boded ill for his English neighbours. The
Marathas, the French, or some other power might yet relieve
him from the yoke of a ruler who restrained his ambition, and
lectured him on the duty of preserving law and order among his
own subjects. … It has often been argued that, in his stern
dealings with the Rajah of Banaras, Hastings was impelled by
malice and a desire for revenge. But the subsequent verdict of
the House of Lords on this point, justifies itself to all who
have carefully followed the facts of his life. … As a matter
of policy, he determined to make an example of a contumacious
vassal, whose conduct in that hour of need added a new danger
to those which surrounded the English in India. A heavy fine
would teach the Rajah to obey orders, and help betimes to fill
his own treasury with the sinews of war. … Chait Singh had
already tried upon the Governor-General those arts which in
Eastern countries people of all classes employ against each
other without a blush. He had sent Hastings a peace-offering
of two lakhs—£20,000. Hastings took the money, but reserved
it for the Company's use. Presently he received an offer of
twenty lakhs for the public service. But Hastings was in no
mood for further compromise in evasion of his former demands.
{1724}
He would be satisfied with nothing less than half a million in
quittance of all dues. In July, 1781, he set out, with
Wheeler's concurrence, for the Rajah's capital. … Traveling,
as he preferred to do, with a small escort and as little
parade as possible, he arrived on the 16th August at the
populous and stately city. … On his way thither, at Baxar,
the recusant Rajah had come to meet him, with a large retinue,
in the hope of softening the heart of the great Lord Sahib. He
even laid his turban on Hastings' lap. … With the
haughtiness of an ancient Roman, Hastings declined his prayer
for a private interview. On the day after his arrival at
Banaras, the Governor-General forwarded to Chait Singh a paper
stating the grounds of complaint against him, and demanding an
explanation on each point. The Rajah's answer seemed to
Hastings' so offensive in style and unsatisfactory in
substance;' it was full, in fact, of such transparent, or, as
Lord Thurlow afterwards called them, 'impudent' falsehoods,
that the Governor-General issued orders for placing the Rajah
under arrest. Early the next morning, Chait Singh was quietly
arrested in his own palace. … Meanwhile his armed retainers
were flocking into the city from his strong castle of
Ramnagar, on the opposite bank. Mixing with the populace, they
provoked a tumult, in which the two companies of Sepoys
guarding the prisoner were cut to pieces. With unloaded
muskets and empty pouches—for the ammunition had been
forgotten—the poor men fell like sheep before their butchers.
Two more companies, in marching to their aid through the
narrow streets, were nearly annihilated. During the tumult
Chait Singh quietly slipped out of the palace, dropped by a
rope of turbans into a boat beneath, and crossed in safety to
Ramnagar. … If Chait Singh's followers had not shared
betimes their master's flight across the river, Hastings, with
his band of thirty Englishmen and fifty Sepoys, might have
paid very dearly for the sudden miscarriage of his plans. But
the rabble of Banaras had no leader, and troops from the
nearest garrisons were already marching to the rescue. …
Among the first who reached him was the gallant Popham,
bringing with him several hundred of his own Sepoys. … The
beginning of September found Popham strong enough to open a
campaign, which speedily avenged the slaughters at Banaras and
Ramnagar, and carried Hastings back into the full stream of
richly-earned success. … The capture of Bijigarh on the 10th
November, closed the brief but brilliant campaign. The booty,
amounting to £400,000, was at once divided among the captors;
and Hastings lost his only chance of replenishing his treasury
at the expense of Chait Singh. He consoled himself and
improved the Company's finances, by bestowing the rebel's
forfeit lordship on his nephew, and doubling the tribute
hitherto exacted. He was more successful in accomplishing
another object of his journey up the country."

_L. J. Trotter,
Warren Hastings,
chapter 6._

"It is certain … that Chait Singh's rebellion was largely
aided by the Begums or Princesses of Faizabad. On this point
the evidence contained in Mr. Forrest's volumes ['Selections
from Letters, Despatches and other State Papers in the Foreign
Department of the Government of India,' edited by G. W.
Forrest] leaves no shadow of reasonable doubt. In plain truth,
the Begums, through their Ministers, the eunuchs, had levied
war both against the Company and their own kinsmen and master,
the new Wazir of Oudh. Some years before, when the Francis
faction ruled in Calcutta, these ladies, the widow and the
mother of Shuja, had joined with the British Agent in robbing
the new Wazir, Asaf-ud-daula, of nearly all the rich treasure
which his father had stored up in Faizabad. Hastings solemnly
protested against a transaction which he was powerless to
prevent. The Begums kept their hold upon the treasure, and
their Jaghirs, or military fiefs, which ought by rights to
have lapsed to the new Wazir. Meanwhile Asaf-ud-daula had to
govern as he best could, with an empty treasury, and an army
mutinous for arrears of pay. At last, with the suppression of
the Benares revolt, it seemed to Hastings and the Wazir that
the time had come for resuming the Jaghirs, and making the
Begums disgorge their ill-gotten wealth. In accordance with
the Treaty of Chunar, both these objects were carried out by
the Wazir's orders, with just enough of compulsion to give
Hastings' enemies a handle for the slanders and
misrepresentations which lent so cruel a point to Sheridan's
dazzling oratory, and to one of the most scathing passages in
Macaulay's most popular essay. There are some points, no
doubt, in Hastings' character and career about which honest
men may still hold different opinions. But on all the
weightier issues here mentioned there ought to be no room for
further controversy. It is no longer possible to contend, for
instance, that Hastings agreed, for a handsome bribe, to help
in exterminating the innocent people of Rohilkhand; that he
prompted Impey to murder Nand-Kumar; that any desire for
plunder led him to fasten a quarrel upon Chait Singh; or that
he engaged with the Oudh Wazir in a plot to rob the Wazir's
own mother of vast property secured to her under a solemn
compact, 'formally guaranteed by the Government of Bengal.'"

_L. J. Trotter,
Warren Hastings and his Libellers
(Westminster Review, March, 1891)._

ALSO IN:
_W. M. Torrens,
Empire in Asia: How we came by it,
chapters 7-11._

_H. E. Busteed,
Echoes from Old Calcutta._

_G. W. Forrest,
The Administration of Warren Hastings._

_G. R. Gleig,
Memoirs of Warren Hastings,
volume 1, chapters 8-14, and volume 2._

INDIA: A. D. 1780-1783.
The second war with Hyder Ali (Second Mysore War).

"The brilliant successes obtained by the English over the
French in Hindostan at the beginning of the war had made all
direct competition between the two nations in that country
impossible, but it was still in the power of the French to
stimulate the hostility of the native princes, and the ablest
of all these, Hyder Ali, the great ruler of Mysore, was once
more in the field. Since his triumph over the English, in
1769, he had acquired much additional territory from the
Mahrattas. He had immensely strengthened his military forces,
both in numbers and discipline. … For some years he showed
no wish to quarrel with the English, but when a Mahratta chief
invaded his territory they refused to give him the assistance
they were bound by the express terms of the treaty of 1769 to
afford, they rejected or evaded more than one subsequent
proposal of alliance, and they pursued a native policy in some
instances hostile to his interest.
{1725}
As a great native sovereign, too, he had no wish to see the
balance of power established by the rivalry between the
British and French destroyed. … Mysore was swarming with
French adventurers. The condition of Europe made it scarcely
possible that England could send any fresh forces, and Hyder
Ali had acquired a strength which appeared irresistible.
Ominous rumours passed over the land towards the close of
1779, but they were little heeded, and no serious preparations
had been made, when in July, 1780, the storm suddenly burst.
At the head of an army of at least 90,000 men, including
30,000 horsemen, 100 cannon, many European officers and
soldiers, and crowds of desperate adventurers from all parts
of India, Hyder Ali descended upon the Carnatic and devastated
a vast tract of country round Madras. Many forts and towns
were invested, captured, or surrendered. The Nabob and some of
his principal officers acted with gross treachery or
cowardice, and in spite of the devastations native sympathies
were strongly with the invaders. … Madras was for a time in
imminent danger. A few forts commanded by British officers
held out valiantly, but the English had only two considerable
bodies of men, commanded respectively by Colonel Baillie and
by Sir Hector Munro, in the field. They endeavoured to effect
a junction, but Hyder succeeded in attacking separately the
small army of Colonel Baillie, consisting of rather more than
3,700 men, and it was totally defeated [September 10], 2,000
men being left on the field. Munro only saved himself from a
similar fate by a rapid retreat, abandoning his baggage, and
much of his ammunition. Arcot, which was the capital of the
Nabob, and which contained vast military stores, was besieged
for six weeks, and surrendered in the beginning of November.
Velore, Wandewash, Permacoil, and Chingliput, four of the
chief strongholds in the Carnatic, were invested. A French
fleet with French troops was daily expected, and it appeared
almost certain that the British power would be extinguished in
Madras, if not in the whole of Hindostan. It was saved by the
energy of the Governor-General, Warren Hastings, who, by
extraordinary efforts, collected a large body of Sepoys and a
few Europeans in Bengal, and sent them with great rapidity to
Madras, under the command of Sir Eyre Coote, who had proved
himself twenty years before scarcely second in military genius
to Clive himself. I do not propose to relate in detail the
long and tangled story of the war that followed. … It is
sufficient to say that Coote soon found himself at the head of
about 7,200 men, of whom 1,400 were Europeans; that he
succeeded in relieving Wandewash, and obliging Hyder Ali to
abandon for the present the siege of Velore; that the French
fleet, which arrived off the coast in January, 1781, was found
to contain no troops, and that on July 1, 1781, Coote, with an
army of about 8,000 men, totally defeated forces at least
eight times as numerous, commanded by Hyder himself, in the
great battle of Porto Novo. … The war raged over the
Carnatic, over Tanjore, in the Dutch settlements to the south
of Tanjore, on the opposite Malabar coast, and on the coast of
Ceylon, while at the same time another and independent
struggle was proceeding with the Mahrattas. … The coffers at
Calcutta were nearly empty, and it was in order to replenish
them that Hastings committed some of the acts which were
afterwards the subjects of his impeachment. … By the skill
and daring of a few able men, of whom Hastings, Coote, Munro,
and Lord Macartney were the most prominent, the storm was
weathered. Hyder Ali died in December, 1782, about four months
before Sir Eyre Coote. The peace of 1782 withdrew France and
Holland from the contest, and towards the close of 1783,
Tippoo, the son of Hyder Ali, consented to negotiate a peace,
which was signed in the following March. Its terms were a
mutual restoration of all conquests, and in this, as in so
many other great wars, neither of the contending parties
gained a single advantage by all the bloodshed, the
expenditure, the desolation, and the misery of a struggle of
nearly four years."

_W. E. H. Lecky,
History of England in the 18th Century,
chapter 14 (volume 5)._

"The centre and heart of the English power lay in Bengal,
which the war never reached at all, and which was governed by
a man of rare talent and organizing capacity. No Anglo-Indian
government of that time could carry on a campaign by war
loans, as in Europe; the cost had to be provided out of
revenue, or by requiring subsidies from allied native rulers;
and it was Bengal that furnished not only the money and the
men, but also the chief political direction and military
leadership which surmounted the difficulties and repaired the
calamities of the English in the western and southern
Presidencies. And when at last the Marathas made peace, when
Hyder Ali died, and Suffren, with all his courage and genius,
could not master the English fleet in the Bay of Bengal, there
could be no doubt that the war had proved the strength of the
English position in India, had tested the firmness of its
foundation. … With the termination of this war ended the
only period in the long contest between England and the native
powers, during which our position in India was for a time
seriously jeoparded. That the English dominion emerged from
this prolonged struggle uninjured, though not unshaken, is a
result due to the political intrepidity of Warren Hastings.
… Hastings had no aristocratic connexions or parliamentary
influence at a time when the great families and the House of
Commons held immense power; he was surrounded by enemies in
his own Council; and his immediate masters, the East India
Company, gave him very fluctuating support. Fiercely opposed
by his own colleagues, and very ill obeyed by the subordinate
Presidencies, he had to maintain the Company's commercial
establishments, and at the same time to find money for
carrying on distant and impolitic wars in which he had been
involved by blunders at Madras or Bombay. These funds he had
been expected to provide out of current revenues, after buying
and despatching the merchandise on which the company's home
dividends depended; for the resource of raising public loans,
so freely used in England, was not available to him. He was
thus inevitably driven to the financial transactions, at
Benares and Lucknow, that were now so bitterly stigmatized as
crimes by men who made no allowance for a perilous situation
in a distant land, or for the weight of enormous national
interests committed to the charge of the one man capable of
sustaining them. When the storm had blown over in India, and
he had piloted his vessel into calm water, he was sacrificed
with little or no hesitation to party exigencies in England;
the Ministry would have recalled him; they consented to his
impeachment; they left him to be baited by the Opposition and
to be ruined by the law's delay, by the incredible
procrastination and the obsolete formalities of a seven years'
trial before the House of Lords."

_Sir A. Lyall,
Rise of the British Dominion in India,
chapter 11, section 2._

ALSO IN:
_Meer Hussein Ali Khan Kirmani,
History of Hydur Naik,
chapters 27-31._

_G. B. Malleson,
Decisive Battles of India,
chapter 8._

_L. B. Bowring,
Haidar Ali and Tipu Sultan,
chapters 14-15._

{1726}

INDIA: A. D. 1785-1793.
State of India.
Extent of English rule.
Administration of Lord Cornwallis.
War with Tippoo Saib (Third Mysore War).
The "Permanent Settlement" of Land Revenue in Bengal,
and its fruit.

"When Warren Hastings left India, the Mogul Empire was simply
the phantom of a name. The warlike tribes of the north-west,
Sikhs, Rajpoots, Jats, were henceforth independent; but the
Rohillas of the north-east had been subdued and almost
exterminated. Of the three greatest Soobahs or vice-royalties
of the Mogul empire, at one time practically independent, that
of Bengal had wholly disappeared, those of Oude and the Deckan
had sunk into dependence on a foreign power, were maintained
by the aid of foreign mercenaries. The only two native powers
that remained were, the Mahrattas, and the newly-risen
Mussulman dynasty of Mysore. The former were still divided
between the great chieftaincies of the Peshwa, Scindia,
Holkar, the Guicowar, and the Boslas of Berar. But the
supremacy of the Peshwa was on the wane; that of Scindia, on
the contrary, in the ascendant. Scindia ruled in the north; he
had possession of the emperor's person, of Delhi, the old
Mussulman capital. In the south, Hyder Ali and Tippoo [son of
Hyder Ali, whom he had succeeded in 1782], Sultan of Mysore,
had attained to remarkable power. They were dangerous to the
Mahrattas, dangerous to the Nizam, dangerous, lastly, to the
English. But the rise of the last-named power was the great
event of the period. … They had won for themselves the three
great provinces of Bengal, Behar, and Orissa, besides
Benares,—forming a large compact mass of territory to the
north-east. They had, farther down the east coast, the
province of the Northern Circars, and farther still, the
jagheer [land grant], of Madras; on the west, again, a large
stretch of territory at the southern extremity of the
peninsula. The two Mussulman sovereigns of Oude and Hyderabad
were their dependent allies; they administered the country of
the Nawab of the Carnatic, besides having hosts of smaller
potentates under their protection. … The appointed successor
to Hastings was Lord Macartney. … He lost his office,
however, by hesitating to accept it, and going to England to
urge conditions. … The great military event of Lord
Cornwallis's government was the third Mysore war. It began
with some disputes about the petty Raja of Cherika, from whom
the English had farmed the customs of Tellicherry, and taken,
in security for advances, a district called Randaterra, and by
Tippoo's attack upon the lines of the Raja of Travancore, an
ally of the English, consisting of a ditch, wall, and other
defences, on an extent of about thirty miles. Tippoo was,
however, repelled with great slaughter in an attack on the
town (1789). Hearing this, Lord Cornwallis at once entered
into treaties with the Nizam and the Peshwa for a joint war
upon Mysore; all new conquests to be equally divided, all
Tippoo's own conquests from the contracting powers to be
restored. After a first inconclusive campaign, in which,
notwithstanding the skill of General Meadows, the advantage
rather remained to Tippoo, who, amongst other things, gave a
decided check to Colonel Floyd (1790), Lord Cornwallis took
the command in person, and carried Bangalore by assault, with
great loss to both parties, but a tremendous carnage of the
besieged. However, so wretched had been the English
preparations, that, the cattle being 'reduced to skeletons,
and scarcely able to move their own weight,' Lord Cornwallis,
after advancing to besiege Seringapatam, was forced to retreat
and to destroy the whole of his battering-train and other
equipments; whilst General Abercrombie, who was advancing in
the same direction from the Malabar coast, had to do the same
(1791). A force of Mahrattas came in, well appointed and well
provided, but too late to avert these disasters. The next
campaign was more successful. It began by the taking of
several of the hill-forts forming the western barrier of
Mysore. … On the 5th February, 1792, however, Lord
Cornwallis appeared before Seringapatam, situated in an island
formed by the Cauvery: the fort and outworks were provided
with 300 pieces of cannon; the fortified camp, outside the
river, by six redoubts, with more than 100 pieces of heavy
artillery. Tippoo's army consisted of 6,000 cavalry and 50,000
infantry, himself commanding. This first siege, which is
celebrated in Indian warfare, continued with complete success
on the English side till the 24th. 10,000 subjects of Coorg,
whom Tippoo had enlisted by force, deserted. At last, when the
whole island was carried and all preparations made for the
siege, Tippoo made peace. The English allies had such
confidence in Lord Cornwallis, that they left him entire
discretion as to the terms. They were,—that Tippoo should
give up half of his territory, pay a large sum for war
expenses, and give up two of his sons as hostages. The ceded
territory was divided between the allies, the Company
obtaining a large strip of the Malabar coast, extending
eastward to the Carnatic. … Meanwhile, on the breaking out
of war between England and the French Republic, the French
settlements in India were all again annexed (1792). Lord
Cornwallis now applied himself to questions of internal
government. Properly speaking, there was no English Government
as yet. Mr. Kaye, the brilliant apologist of the East India
Company, says, of Lord Cornwallis, that 'he gathered up the
scattered fragments of government which he found, and reduced
them to one comprehensive system.' He organized the
administration of criminal justice, reorganized the police. He
separated the connection of the revenues from the
administration of justice, organizing civil justice in turn.
… He next proceeded to organize the financial system of the
Company's government. … Hence the famous 'Permanent
Settlement' of Lord Cornwallis (22nd March, 1793)."

_J. M. Ludlow,
British India,
lecture 9 (volume 1)._

{1727}

"In 1793 the so-called Permanent Settlement of the Land Revenue
was introduced. We found in Bengal, when we succeeded to the
Government, a class of middle-men, called Zemindars [or
Zamindars-see, also, TALUKDARS], who collected the land
revenue and the taxes, and we continued to employ them. As a
matter of convenience and expediency, but not of right, the
office of zemindar was often hereditary. The zemindars had
never been in any sense the owners of the land, but it was
supposed by Lord Cornwallis and the English rulers of the time
that it would be an excellent thing for Bengal to have a class
of landlords something like those of England; the zemindars
were the only people that seemed available for the purpose,
and they were declared to be the proprietors of the land. It
was by no means intended that injustice should thus be done to
others. Excepting the State, there was only one great class,
that of the ryots or actual cultivators, which, according to
immemorial custom, could be held to possess permanent rights
in the land. The existence of those rights was recognised,
and, as it was supposed, guarded by the law. … There has
been much dispute as to the exact nature of the rights given
to the zemindars, but everyone agrees that it was not the
intention of the authors of the Permanent Settlement to
confiscate anything which, according to the customs of the
country, had belonged to the cultivators. The right of
property given to the zemindars was a portion of those rights
which had always been exercised by the State, and of which the
State was at liberty to dispose; it was not intended that they
should receive anything else. The land revenue, representing
the share of the produce or rental to which the State was
entitled, was fixed in perpetuity. The ryots were to continue
to hold their lands permanently at the 'rates established in
the purgunnah;' when the amount of these rates was disputed it
was to be settled by the courts; so long as rents at those
rates were paid, the ryot could not be evicted. The intention
was to secure to the ryot fixity of tenure and fixity of rent.
Unfortunately, these rights were only secured upon paper. …
The consequences at the present time are these:—Even if it
be assumed that the share of the rent which the State can
wisely take is smaller than the share which any Government,
Native or English, has ever taken or proposed to take in
India, the amount now received by the State from the land in
Bengal must be held to fall short of what it might be by a sum
that can hardly be less than £5,000,000 a year; this is a
moderate computation; probably the loss is much more. This is
given away in return for no service to the State or to the
public; the zemindars are merely the receivers of rent; with
exceptions so rare as to deserve no consideration, they take
no part in the improvement of the land, and, until a very few
years ago, they bore virtually no share of the public burdens.
The result of these proceedings of the last century, to the
maintenance of which for ever the faith of the British
Government is said to have been pledged, is that the poorer
classes in poorer provinces have to make good to the State the
millions which have been thrown away in Bengal. If this were
all, it would be bad enough, but worse remains to be told. …
'The original intention of the framers of the Permanent
Settlement (I am quoting from Sir George Campbell) was to
record all rights. The Canoongoes (District Registrars) and
Putwarees (Village Accountants) were to register all holdings,
all transfers, all rent-rolls, and all receipts and payments;
and every five years there was to be filed in the public
offices a complete register of all land tenures. But the task
was a difficult one; there was delay in carrying it out. …
The putwarees fell into disuse or became the mere servants of
the zemindars; the canoongoes were abolished. No record of the
rights of the ryots and inferior holders was ever made, and
even the quinquennial register of superior rights, which was
maintained for a time, fell into disuse.' … The consequences
of the Permanent Settlement did not become immediately
prominent. … But, as time went on, and population and wealth
increased, as cultivators were more readily found, and custom
began to give way to competition, the position of the ryots
became worse and that of the zemindars became stronger. Other
circumstances helped the process of confiscation of the rights
of the peasantry. … The confiscation of the rights of the
ryots has reached vast proportions. In 1793 the rental left to
the zemindars under the Permanent Settlement, after payment of
the land revenue, is supposed not to have exceeded £400,000;
according to some estimates it was less. If the intentions of
the Government had been carried out, it was to the ryots that
the greater portion of any future increase in the annual value
of the land would have belonged, in those parts at least of
the province which were at that time well cultivated. It is
not possible to state with confidence the present gross annual
rental of the landlords of Bengal. An imperfect valuation made
some years ago showed it to be £13,000,000. It is now called
£17,000,000, but there can be little doubt that it is much
more. Thus, after deducting the land revenue, which is about
£3,800,000, the net rental has risen from £400,000 in the last
century to more than £13,000,000 at the present time. No
portion of this increase has been due to the action of the
zemindars. It has been due to the industry of the ryots, to
whom the greater part of it rightfully belonged, to the
peaceful progress of the country, and to the expenditure of
the State, an expenditure mainly defrayed from the taxation of
poorer provinces. If ever there was an 'unearned increment,'
it is this."

_Sir J. Strachey,
India,
lecture 12._

ALSO IN:
_J. W. Kaye,
The Administration of the East India Co.,
part 2, chapter 2._

_J. Mill,
History of British India,
book 6, chapter 4 (volume 5)._

_W. S. Seton-Karr,
The Marquess Cornwallis,
chapter 2._

_Sir R. Temple,
James Thomason,
chapter 9._

INDIA: A. D. 1785-1795.
The Impeachment and Trial of Warren Hastings.