Chapter III: Third Period: Imperial Government (1)

1798-1836.

§1 Lord Mornington (Marquis of Wellesley), 1798-1805: last war
against Tippu, 1799. §2. Carnatic confiscated and annexed to Madras
Presidency. §3. Wellesley's scheme of a paramount power. §4. Second
Mahratta war: successes of Arthur Wellesley and Lake. §5.
Disastrous war with Holkar. §6. Return to non-intervention. §7.
Sepoy mutiny in Madras army. §8. Lord Minto, 1807-13: wars and
alliances against France. §9. Evils of non-intervention in
Rajputana: troubles in Nipal. §10. Lord Moira (Marquis of
Hastings), 1813-23: war with Nipal, 1814-15. §11. Revival of the
paramount power: Pindhari and Mahratta wars, 1817-18. §12. Lord
Amherst, 1823-28: wars with Burma and Bhurtpore. §13. Lord William
Bentinck, 1828-35; abolition of Suttee. §14. Suppression of Thugs.
§15. Administrative reforms. §16. North-West Provinces: Joint
Village Proprietors. §17. Madras and Bombay Presidencies: Ryotwari
Settlements. §18. Changes under the Charter of 1833. §18. Sir
Charles Metcalfe, 1835-36.

[Sidenote: French menaces, 1798.]

In 1798 British India was confronted on all sides by France or Frenchmen. An army of sepoys, drilled and commanded by French officers, was maintained by the Nizam in the Deccan. Another French officered army was maintained by Sindia in Western Hindustan, between the Jumna and the Ganges. Napoleon Buonaparte was invading Egypt, and threatening to conquer the world.

[Sidenote: Asiatic aspirations of Napoleon.]

The successes and crimes of the French Revolution had filled Europe with indignation and despair. Napoleon Buonaparte had risen, like another Chenghiz Khan or Timour, to take the world by storm. He had driven the British from Toulon, conquered Italy, wrested the Netherlands from Austria, threatened to invade the British Isles, and then had landed in Egypt, won the battle of the Pyramids, and proclaimed himself to be a follower of the Prophet. Not a man in Europe or Asia could penetrate the designs of the young Corsican. Alexander of Macedon had invaded Egypt as a prelude to the conquest of Persia and India. Napoleon might follow in his footsteps after the lapse of twenty-two centuries. He might restore the Caliphat of Bagdad on the banks of the Tigris, or resuscitate the sovereignty of the Great Mogul over Northern India, from the banks of the Indus to the mouths of the Ganges.

[Sidenote: Tippu's alliance with France.]

§1. The first duty of Lord Mornington was to get rid of the French sepoy battalions in the Deccan and Hindustan, and to provide for the defence of India against France and Napoleon. Within three weeks of his landing at Calcutta the note of alarm was sounded in Southern India. Tippu, Sultan of Mysore, had formed a hostile alliance with France against Great Britain. It appeared that Tippu had been groaning under his humiliation by Lord Cornwallis, and burning to be revenged on the British government. He hesitated to ally himself with the Mahrattas or the Nizam, and coveted an alliance with a European power. Accordingly he secretly sent emissaries to the French governor of Mauritius, to conclude a treaty with France and Napoleon against Great Britain. The idea fired the imagination of the French at Mauritius, and the fact of the treaty was published in the _Mauritius Gazette_, and republished in the Calcutta newspapers for the edification of the new Governor-General.

[Sidenote: Explanations demanded.]

Lord Mornington naturally concluded that Tippu was in collusion with Napoleon, and that a French fleet might soon be sailing from Egypt down the Red Sea to help Tippu in the invasion of the Carnatic, or to help Sindia to restore the supremacy of the Great Mogul over Oudh and Bengal. In the first instance he called upon Tippu for an explanation, and proposed to send an envoy to Seringapatam to arrange for a better understanding between the two governments.

[Sidenote: Tippu dumbfoundered.]

Meanwhile Tippu was amazed and bewildered. To have his secret designs suddenly published in successive newspapers, and then to be called upon for an explanation, seems to have stupefied him. He replied that the French were liars, and refused to receive an envoy from Lord Mornington. To have overlooked the offence would have been sheer madness. Accordingly Lord Mornington determined to revive the old alliance with the Nizam and the Mahrattas against Tippu; and meanwhile to get rid of the French sepoy battalions.

[Sidenote: French battalions disbanded at Hyderabad.]

The Nizam welcomed a British alliance as offering a means of escape from the crushing demands of the Mahrattas. He was glad enough for the British to disband his French sepoy battalions, which drained his resources, and were threatening to mutiny for arrears of pay. A British force was moved to Hyderabad, the disbandment was proclaimed, and a battle was expected. Suddenly, the French sepoys raised an uproar, and the French officers rushed into the British lines for protection. It was the old Asiatic story of mutiny for want of pay, and when the British advanced the money, the sepoys went away rejoicing, and the French officers were thankful for their deliverance.

[Sidenote: Mahrattas evade a British alliance.]

Lord Mornington next began his negotiations with the Mahrattas, but they raised up a host of difficulties. The Peishwa at Poona was a young Brahman, sharp and suspicious. He was jealous of the British alliance with the Nizam, which boded no good as regarded future payments of chout, but he was anxious to keep on good terms with the British. Accordingly he promised to send a contingent to join the British in the war against Tippu, but at heart he had no intention of doing anything of the kind. With him an alliance with the Christian or the Mohammedan was a mere question of money. He was anxious to sell his alliance to the highest bidder. Accordingly he entertained Tippu's envoys at Poona in the hope that the Sultan might eventually offer higher terms than the British for the services of a Mahratta army.

[Sidenote: Destruction of Tippu, 1799.]

In 1799 Lord Mornington began the war against Mysore. A British army from Madras, under the command of General Harris, invaded it from the east, whilst another force from Bombay invaded it from the west. The two armies soon closed round Tippu. He saw that he was environed by his enemies, and that resistance was hopeless. He sued for terms, but was told to cede the half of his remaining dominions and pay up two millions sterling. He refused to surrender on such crushing conditions, and retired to his fortress at Seringapatam, resolved to die sword in hand rather than become a servant or a pensioner. In May, 1799, Seringapatam was taken by storm, and the dead body of Tippu was found in the gateway.

[Sidenote: Cruelty of Tippu.]

The fate of Tippu might have been regretted but for his cruel treatment of British prisoners in former wars. At Bangalore, British captives were chained together, starved, threatened, and tormented until some were driven to become Mohammedans. The consequence was, that during the advance on Seringapatam British soldiers were burning for revenge, and Sir David Baird, one of the greatest sufferers, begged for the command of the storming party as a relief to his outraged feelings. When the war was over, the death and downfall of the tyrant was celebrated in songs which were reverberated from India to the British Isles, and the old strains are still lingering in the memories of some who are yet living.[17]

[Sidenote: Hindu Raj restored.]

Lord Mornington annexed part of Mysore territory to the Madras Presidency, and gave another share to the Nizam; and he proposed, as will be seen hereafter, to give a third share to the Mahrattas; but he converted the remainder into a Hindu kingdom. Accordingly an infant scion of the Hindu Raja, who had been deposed by Hyder Ali some forty years previously, was placed on the throne of Mysore in charge of a British Resident and a Brahman Minister until he should attain his majority. The subsequent career of the Raja will be brought under review hereafter.

[Sidenote: Annexation of the Carnatic.]

§2. Soon after the capture of Seringapatam a clandestine correspondence was discovered in the palace between the Nawab of the Carnatic and the deceased Tippu. The treachery was undeniable. At the same time the discovery enabled the British to get rid of a dynasty that had oppressed the people and intrigued with the enemies of the East India Company for half a century. Nawab Mohammed Ali, whom the British had placed on the throne of the Carnatic in opposition to the French, had died in 1795. His son and successor had followed in the steps of his father, but no complaints reached him, for he was smitten with mortal disease. Lord Mornington, now Marquis of Wellesley, waited for his death, and then told the family that their rule was over. The title of Nawab was preserved, and pensions were liberally provided, but the Carnatic was incorporated with the Madras Presidency, and brought under British administration like the Bengal provinces.

[Sidenote: Scandals of Nawab rule.]

The annexation of the Carnatic delivered Madras from a host of scandals which had been accumulating for some forty years. The old Nawab had removed from Arcot to Madras, and carried on costly intrigues with the Company's servants in India, and with influential persons in the British Isles, in the hope of getting the revenues into his own hands, and leaving the East India Company to defend his territories out of their own resources. He loaded himself with debt by bribing his supporters with pretended loans, which existed only on paper, bore exorbitant interest, and were eventually charged on the public revenue. All this while, he and his officials were obstructing British operations in the field by withholding supplies, or treacherously informing the enemy of the movements of the British army. Since the annexation of the Carnatic in 1801 all these evils have passed into oblivion, and the public peace has remained undisturbed.

[Sidenote: Wellesley's political system.]

§3. The war with Tippu taught Lord Wellesley that it was impossible to trust the Mahrattas. They would not join the British government against a common enemy unless paid to do so; and they were always ready to go over to the enemy on the same terms. Accordingly Lord Wellesley proposed to maintain the peace of India, not by a balance of power, but by becoming the sovereign head of a league for the prevention of all future wars.

[Sidenote: Subsidiary alliances.]

With these views Lord Wellesley proposed that neither the Nizam nor the Mahrattas should take any French officers into their pay for the future; that neither should engage in any war or negotiation without the consent of the British government; and that each should maintain a subsidiary force of sepoys, drilled and commanded by British officers, which should be at the disposal of the British government for the maintenance of the peace of India.

[Sidenote: Nizam accepts.]

The Nizam accepted the subsidiary alliance. He provided for the maintenance of a Hyderabad Subsidiary Force by ceding to the British government all the territories which he had received on account of the Mysore wars. By this arrangement all money transactions were avoided, and the subsidiary force was paid out of the revenues of the ceded districts.

[Sidenote: Mahrattas refuse.]

The Mahratta rulers utterly refused to accept subsidiary alliances in any shape or form. They did not want British protection, and they would not permit any interference by mediation or otherwise with their claims for chout against the Nizam. The Peishwa would not maintain a subsidiary force, but he was willing to take British battalions of sepoys into his pay, provided he might employ them against Sindia or any other refractory feudatory. He would not pledge himself to abstain from all wars or negotiations without the consent of the British government. He was willing to help the British in a war with France, but he would not dismiss the Frenchmen in his service.

[Sidenote: Sindia refuses British alliance against Afghans.]

Sindia was still more obstinate and contemptuous. Mahadaji Sindia was dead. His successor, Daulat Rao Sindia, was a young man of nineteen, but already the irresponsible ruler of a large dominion in Western Hindustan. He was all-powerful at Delhi, and was bent upon being equally all-powerful at Poona. He collected chout from the princes of Rajputana, and, with the help of his French-officered battalions of sepoys, he had established a supremacy over the valleys of the Jumna and Ganges from the banks of the Sutlej to the frontier of Oudh at Cawnpore. Lord Wellesley would not venture to offer a subsidiary alliance to a prince so puffed up with pride as young Sindia. The Afghans, however, were threatening to invade India, and Lord Wellesley invited Sindia to join in an alliance against the Afghans. But Sindia would not hamper himself with a British alliance. He was not afraid of the Afghans. At any rate he waited for the Afghans to appear before taking any steps to prevent their coming.

[Sidenote: British fears of France and Russia.]

Lord Wellesley was not afraid of Afghans alone, but of French or Russians, who might make their way through Persia, join the Afghans, resuscitate the Great Mogul, and establish a European empire in his name as the rightful representative of Aurangzeb. Accordingly Lord Wellesley sent the once famous Sir John Malcolm on a mission to Persia to persuade the Shah to bar out the French and prevent the Afghans from invading India. Meanwhile, he anxiously waited some turn in Mahratta affairs which would bring their rulers into a more compliant mood towards the British government.

[Sidenote: Provinces taken from Oudh.]

Lord Wellesley, however, determined that the Nawab Vizier of Oudh should contribute something further towards the defence of India against invasion. The Nawab Vizier maintained a rabble army that was costly and useless, and he depended entirely on British troops for his defence against Afghans and Mahrattas. He was urged to disband his rabble army and replace it by battalions of sepoys trained and commanded by British officers; but he was impracticable, and Lord Wellesley got over the difficulty by taking half his territory for the maintenance of the required battalions. This was an arbitrary proceeding, but it was justified on the score of state necessity and self-preservation. It pushed the British frontier westward to Cawnpore on the Ganges, where it was close to Sindia and his French sepoy battalions, and would be face to face with any foreign invasion from the north-west. The new territories were called "ceded provinces," and eventually were incorporated with what are now known as the North-West Provinces.[18]

[Sidenote: Sindia master of Holkar.]

Meanwhile the Mahratta empire was falling into the hands of Sindia. This ambitious feudatory tried to pose as the protector of his suzerain the Peishwa. The two, however, were perpetually plotting against each other; the soldier and the Brahman were each trying to be master. About this time Holkar died, and Sindia hastened to Indore and put an imbecile son of Holkar on the throne, as a preliminary step to appropriating the territory and revenues.

[Sidenote: Rise of Jaswant Rao Holkar.]

At this moment a bandit prince appeared at Indore with an army of predatory horsemen, brigands and outlaws, the scum of Central India. He was a bastard son of the deceased Holkar, and was known as Jaswant Rao Holkar. He was routed by Sindia's French battalions, but the scattered horsemen soon rallied round his banners, and he went off to the south to threaten Poona and the Peishwa.

[Sidenote: Flight of the Peishwa.]

The Peishwa was wild with terror. Under his orders a brother of Jaswant Rao Holkar had been dragged to death by an elephant through the streets, and he had reason to believe that Jaswant Rao was bent on revenge. His army was reinforced by Sindia, but the united forces were utterly routed by Jaswant Rao outside the city of Poona. Accordingly he fled away to the coast, and embarked on board a British ship for the port of Bassein, about twenty miles to the north of Bombay.

[Sidenote: Peishwa accepts subsidiary alliance, 1802.]

The Peishwa was ready to make any sacrifice to procure British help. Accordingly he accepted the subsidiary alliance on the condition that the British restored him to Poona. The terms were soon arranged, and the treaty was signed at Bassein on the last day of December, 1802. The Peishwa ceded territories for the maintenance of a Poona Subsidiary Force, and sacrificed his position as suzerain of the Mahratta confederacy. For the future he was bound to abstain from all wars and negotiations, even with his own feudatories, excepting by the knowledge and consent of the British government.

[Sidenote: Surprise of the Mahratta feudatories.]

§4. The Mahratta feudatories were bewildered and stupefied by the treaty of Bassein. In a single day the British government had become their suzerain in the room of the Peishwa; the Christian governor of Calcutta was lord over the Brahman Peishwa of Poona. True, the Peishwa was restored to his throne at Poona, but only as the creature of the British government, not as the suzerain of the Mahrattas. Sindia's hope of ruling the Mahrattas in the name of the Peishwa was shattered by the treaty. The Raja of Berar was equally down-hearted. The Gaekwar of Baroda accepted the subsidiary alliance, and ceased to play a part in history. Jaswant Rao Holkar was out of the running; he was an outlaw and an interloper.

[Sidenote: Vacillations of Sindia and the Bhonsla.]

The whole brunt of the struggle against the British supremacy, if there was to be any struggle at all, thus fell on Daulat Rao Sindia of Gwalior and the Bhonsla Raja of Berar. Meanwhile the two Mahratta princes moved restlessly about with large armies, drawing nearer and nearer to the Nizam's frontier as if to enforce their claims to chout. They would not accept a subsidiary treaty, and they would not break with the British government. They tried to tempt Jaswant Rao to join them, but the young brigand only played with them. He got them to recognise his succession to the throne of Indore, and then returned to his capital, declaring that he must leave Sindia and the Bhonsla to fight the British in the Deccan, whilst he went away north to fight them in Hindustan.

[Sidenote: Wellesley's campaign in the Deccan, 1803.]

Lord Wellesley was well prepared for an outbreak. His younger brother, Colonel Arthur Wellesley, was watching Sindia and the Bhonsla in the Deccan, whilst General Lake, commander-in-chief of the Bengal army, was watching the French sepoy battalions of Sindia in Hindustan. Sindia was vacillating and irresolute, but his language was growing more hostile. He said he was waiting for Jaswant Rao Holkar; he talked of collecting chout in the Nizam's territory; and he expressed doubts whether there would be peace or war. At last he was told that he was breaking the public peace, and must take the consequences.

[Sidenote: British victory at Assaye.]

The battle of Assaye was fought on the Nizam's frontier on 23rd September, 1803. It was the old story of a British army of five thousand men fighting an Asiatic army of fifty thousand. The Mahratta artillery worked terrible execution on the British army, and one-third of its European force was left dead or wounded in the field. But the Bhonsla Raja fled at the first shot, and Sindia soon followed his example. General Wellesley's victory at Assaye crushed the hopes of the Mahrattas. Sindia especially took his lesson to heart. It was followed by the capture of fortresses and another victory at Argaum; and by the end of 1803 the campaign in the Deccan was over, and Sindia and the Bhonsla came to terms.

[Sidenote: General Lake's campaign in Hindustan.]

Meanwhile, General Lake had fought a brilliant campaign in Hindustan. Directly he heard that war had begun in the Deccan he left Cawnpore, on the British frontier, and pushed his way to Delhi. He defeated the French sepoy cavalry and captured the fortress at Alighur. Next he defeated the French sepoy infantry and entered Delhi in triumph. He was received with open arms by the poor old Padishah, Shah Alam, who once again threw himself upon British protection. He left Delhi in charge of Colonel Ochterlony, marched down the right bank of the river Jumna, captured the city of Agra, and brought the campaign to a close by a crowning victory at Laswari, which broke up the French sepoy battalions for ever, and placed the British government in possession of the relics of the Mogul empire in Hindustan.

[Sidenote: British power paramount.]

The campaigns of Wellesley and Lake established the British government as the paramount power in India. Sindia was driven by Wellesley to the northward of the Nerbudda river, and by Lake to the southward of the Jumna. The Bhonsla Raja was deprived of Berar on one side and Cuttack on the other, and was henceforth known only as the Raja of Nagpore. The British government had acquired the sovereignty of the Great Mogul and that of the Peishwa of the Mahrattas. It took the princes of Rajputana under its protection, and prepared to shut out Sindia and Holkar from Rajput territories. Only one Mahratta prince of any importance remained to tender his submission, and that was Jaswant Rao Holkar of Indore.

[Sidenote: Relations with Holkar.]

§5. The British government was not responsible for the usurpation of Jaswant Rao Holkar. It was willing to accept him as the _de facto_ ruler of the Indore principality, and to leave him alone, provided only that he kept within his own territories, and respected the territories of the British and their allies.

[Sidenote: Holkar's pretensions.]

Jaswant Rao Holkar, however, was a born freebooter, a Mahratta of the old school of Sivaji. He was not ambitious for political power like Sindia, and he wanted no drilled battalions. He was a Cossack at heart, and loved the old free life of Mahratta brigandage. Like Sivaji, he was at home in the saddle, with spear in hand, and a bag of grain and goblet of water hanging from his horse. He and his hordes scoured the country on horseback, collected plunder or chout, and rode over the hills and far away whenever regular troops advanced against them. Indore was his home and Western India was his quarry; and never perhaps did he collect a richer harvest of plunder and chout than he did in Rajputana during the latter half of 1803, when Lake was driving Sindia and the French out of Hindustan, and Wellesley was establishing peace in the Deccan.

[Sidenote: Difficulties as regards "chout".]

Jaswant Rao Holkar looked at the British government from his own individual point of view. He was no respecter of persons; he despised the Peishwa, and had got all he wanted from Sindia and the Bhonsla. The British government was his _bête noire_; it had grown in strength, and was opposed to the collection of chout. He wanted it to guarantee him in the possession of Holkar's principality, and to sanction his levying chout after the manner of his ancestors; and he refused to withdraw from Rajputana until these terms were granted. If his pretensions were rejected, he threatened to burn, sack, and slaughter his enemies by hundreds of thousands. Such was the ignorant and refractory Mahratta that defied the East India Company and the British nation.

[Sidenote: Lake attacks Holkar.]

[Sidenote: Disastrous retreat of Monson, 1804.]

The reduction of Jaswant Rao Holkar was thus a political necessity. In April, 1804, General Lake entered Rajputana, and drove Jaswant Rao Holkar southward into Indore territory. In June the rains were approaching, and General Lake left Colonel Monson to keep a watch on Holkar, with five battalions of sepoys, a train of artillery, and two bodies of irregular horse, and then withdrew to cantonments. Colonel Monson pushed on still further south into Indore territory, but in July everything went wrong. Supplies ran low. Expected reinforcements failed to arrive. Jaswant Rao turned back with overwhelming forces and a large train of artillery. In an evil hour Monson beat a retreat. The rains were very heavy. The British guns sunk in the mud and were spiked and abandoned. Terrible disasters were incurred in crossing rivers. The Rajputs turned against him. His brigade was exposed to the fire of Holkar's guns and the charges of Holkar's horse. About the end of August only a shattered remnant of Monson's brigade managed to reach British territory.

[Sidenote: Reaction against British supremacy.]

For a brief period British prestige vanished from Hindustan, and Jaswant Rao Holkar was the hero of the hour. Sindia forgot his wrongs against Jaswant Rao, and his defeats at Assaye and Argaum, and declared for Holkar. Fresh bodies of bandits and outlaws joined the standard of Holkar to share in the spoil of his successes. With Mahratta audacity Jaswant Rao pushed on to Delhi, to capture Shah Alam and plunder Hindustan in the name of the Great Mogul. He was beaten off from Delhi by the small garrison under Colonel Ochterlony, but the Jhat Raja of Bhurtpore received him with open arms in that huge clay fortress, the stronghold of the predatory system of the eighteenth century, which to this day is the wonder of Hindustan. Holkar left his guns in the fortress and went out to plunder; and Lake, instead of following him up, wasted four months in a futile attempt to capture the Bhurtpore fortress without a siege train.

[Sidenote: Reversal of Lord Wellesley's policy, 1805.]

§6. The retreat of Monson was not only a disastrous blow to British prestige, but ruined for a while the reputation of Lord Wellesley. Because a Mahratta freebooter had broken loose in Hindustan, the Home authorities imagined that all the Mahratta powers had risen against the imperial policy of the Governor-General. Lord Wellesley was recalled from his post, and Lord Cornwallis was sent out to take his place, to reverse the policy of his illustrious predecessor, to scuttle out of Western Hindustan, to restore all the ceded territories, to surrender all the captured fortresses, and to abandon large tracts of country to be plundered and devastated by the Mahrattas, as they had been from the days of Sivaji to those of Wellesley and Lake.

[Sidenote: Death of Lord Cornwallis.]

[Sidenote: Sir George Barlow's half measures, 1806.]

Before Lord Cornwallis reached Bengal the political outlook had brightened. Jaswant Rao Holkar was flying into the Punjab from General Lake, and was soon brought to bay. Daulat Rao Sindia was repenting his desertion from the British alliance. The Jhat Raja of Bhurtpore had implored forgiveness and paid a heavy fine. But Lord Cornwallis was sixty-seven years of age, and had lost the nerve which he had displayed in his wars against Tippu; and he would have ignored the turn of the tide, and persisted in falling back on the old policy of conciliation and non-intervention, had not death cut short his career before he had been ten weeks in the country.

Sir George Barlow, a Bengal civilian, succeeded for a while to the post of Governor-General, as a provisional arrangement. He had been a member of Council under both Wellesley and Cornwallis, and he halted between the two. He refused to restore the conquered territories to Sindia and the Bhonsla, but he gave back the Indore principality to Holkar, together with the captured fortresses. Worst of all, he annulled most of the protective treaties with the Rajput princes on the ground that they had deserted the British government during Monson's retreat from Jaswant Rao Holkar.

[Sidenote: Non-intervention: sad results.]

For some years the policy of the British government was a half-hearted system of non-intervention. Public opinion in the British Isles, as expressed by Parliament and Ministers, was impressed with the necessity for maintaining friendly relations with the Mahrattas, and for abstaining from any measure which might tend to a renewal of hostilities. The fact was ignored that Mahratta independence meant plunder and devastation, and that British supremacy meant order and law. Accordingly the Mahratta princes were left to plunder and collect chout in Rajputana, and practically to make war on each other, so long as they respected the territories of the British government and its allies. The result was that the Peishwa was brooding over his lost suzerainty; Sindia and the Bhonsla were mourning over their lost territories; and Jaswant Rao Holkar was drowning his intellects in cherry brandy, which he procured from Bombay, until he was seized with delirium tremens, and confined as a madman. All this while an under-current of intrigue was at work between Indian courts, which served in the end to revive wild hopes of getting rid of British supremacy, and rekindling the old aspirations for war and rapine.

[Sidenote: Sepoy revolt at Vellore, 1806.]

§7. In 1806 the peace of India was broken by an alarm from a very different quarter. In those days India was so remote from the British Isles that the existence of the British government mainly depended on the loyalty of its sepoy armies. Suddenly it was discovered that the Madras army was on the brink of mutiny. The British authorities at Madras had introduced an obnoxious head-dress resembling a European hat, in the place of the old time-honoured turban, and had, moreover, forbidden the sepoys to appear on parade with earrings and caste marks. India was astounded by a revolt of the Madras sepoys at the fortress of Vellore, about eight miles to the westward of Arcot. The fallen families of Hyder and Tippu were lodged in this fortress, and many of Tippu's old soldiers were serving in the garrison; and these people taunted the sepoys about wearing hats and becoming Christians, whilst some secret intriguing was going on for restoring Mohammedan ascendency in Southern India, under the deposed dynasty of Mysore.

[Sidenote: Slaughter of British officers.]

The garrison at Vellore consisted of about four hundred Europeans and fifteen hundred sepoys. At midnight, without warning, the sepoys rose in mutiny. One body fired on the European barracks until half the soldiers were killed or wounded. Another body fired on the houses of the British officers, and shot them down as they rushed out to know the cause of the uproar. All this while provisions were distributed amongst the sepoys by the Mysore princes, and the flag of Mysore was hoisted over the fortress.

[Sidenote: Suppression of mutiny; recall of Bentinck.]

Fortunately the news was carried to Arcot, where Colonel Gillespie commanded a British garrison. Gillespie at once galloped to Vellore with a troop of British dragoons and two field guns. The gates of Vellore were blown open; the soldiers rushed in; four hundred mutineers were cut down, and the outbreak was over. The Home authorities wanted a scapegoat; and Lord William Bentinck, the governor of Madras, and Sir John Craddock, the commander-in-chief of the Madras army, were recalled. Fifty years afterwards, when the Bengal army broke out in mutiny on the score of greased cartridges, many an old officer wished that a Gillespie, with the independent authority of a Gillespie, had been in command at Barrackpore.

[Sidenote: Lord Minto, 1807-13: lawless condition of Bundelkund.]

§8. In 1807 Lord Minto succeeded Barlow as Governor-General. He broke the spell of non-intervention. South of the river Jumna, between the frontiers of Bengal and those of Sindia and Holkar, are the hills and jungles of Bundelkund. For centuries the chiefs of Bundelkund had never been more than half conquered. They never paid tribute to Mogul or Mahratta unless compelled by force of arms; and they kept the country in constant anarchy by their lawless acts and endless feuds.

[Sidenote: British conquest.]

When the Peishwa accepted the British alliance, he ceded Bundelkund for the maintenance of the Poona Subsidiary Force. Of course the cession was a sham. The Peishwa ceded territory which only nominally belonged to him, and the British were too happy in concluding a subsidiary alliance to inquire too nicely into his sovereign rights over Bundelkund. The result was that the chiefs of Bundelkund defied the British as they defied the Peishwa, and Sir George Barlow sacrificed revenue and ignored brigandage rather than interfere with his western neighbours. Lord Minto found that there were a hundred and fifty leaders of banditti in Bundelkund, who held as many fortresses, settled all disputes by the sword, and offered an asylum to all the bandits and burglars that escaped from British territory. Lord Minto organised an expedition which established for a while something like peace and order in Bundelkund, and secured the collection of tribute with a regularity which had been unknown for centuries.

[Sidenote: Dangers in the Punjab.]

Lord Minto's main work was to keep Napoleon and the French out of India. The north-west frontier was still vulnerable, but the Afghans had retired from the Punjab, and the once famous Runjeet Singh had founded a Sikh kingdom between the Indus and the Sutlej. As far as the British were concerned, the Sikhs formed a barrier against the Afghans; and Runjeet Singh was apparently friendly, for he had refused to shelter Jaswant Rao Holkar in his flight from Lord Lake. But there was no knowing what Runjeet Singh might do if the French found their way to Lahore. To crown the perplexity, the Sikh princes on the British side of the river Sutlej, who had done homage to the British government during the campaigns of Lord Lake, were being conquered by Runjeet Singh, and were appealing to the British government for protection.

[Sidenote: Mission to Runjeet Singh, 1808-9.]

In 1808-9 a young Bengal civilian, named Charles Metcalfe, was sent on a mission to Lahore. The work before him was difficult and complicated, and somewhat trying to the nerves. The object was to secure Runjeet Singh as a useful ally against the French and Afghans, whilst protecting Sikh states on the British side of the Sutlej, namely, Jhind, Nabha, and Patiala.

Runjeet Singh was naturally disgusted at being checked by British interference. It was unfair, he said, for the British to wait until he had conquered the three states, and then to demand possession. Metcalfe cleverly dropped the question of justice, and appealed to Runjeet Singh's self-interest. By giving up the three states, Runjeet Singh would secure an alliance with the British, a strong frontier on the Sutlej, and freedom to push his conquests on the north and west. Runjeet Singh took the hint. He withdrew his pretensions from the British side of the Sutlej, and professed a friendship which remained unbroken until his death in 1839; but he knew what he was about. He conquered Cashmere on the north, and he wrested Peshawar from the Afghans; but he refused to open his dominions to British trade, and he was jealous to the last of any attempt to enter his territories.

[Sidenote: Missions to Persia and Afghanistan.]

About the same time Lord Minto sent John Malcolm on a second mission to Persia, and Mountstuart Elphinstone on a mission to Cabul to provide against French invasion. Neither mission was followed by any practical result, but they opened up new countries to European ideas, and led to the publication of works on Persia and Afghanistan by the respective envoys, which have retained their interest to this day.

[Sidenote: Capture of Mauritius and Java.]

Meanwhile the war against France and Napoleon had extended to eastern waters. The island of the Mauritius had become a French depôt for frigates and privateers, which swept the seas from Madagascar to Java, until the East India Company reckoned its losses by millions, and private traders were brought to the brink of ruin. Lord Minto sent one expedition, which wrested the Mauritius from the French; and he conducted another expedition in person, which wrested the island of Java from the Dutch, who at that time were the allies of France. The Mauritius has remained a British possession until this day, but Java was restored to Holland at the conclusion of the war.

[Sidenote: Anarchy in Rajputana.]

§9. During the struggle against France difficulties were arising in Western Hindustan. The princes of Rajputana had been engaged in wars and feuds amongst themselves from a remote antiquity, but for nearly a century they had been also exposed to the raids and depredations of Mahratta armies. Lord Wellesley had brought the Rajput princes into subsidiary alliance with the British government, but the treaties had been annulled by Sir George Barlow, and war and pillage were as rampant as ever. The evil had been aggravated by the rise of Afghan adventurers, who had conquered territories and founded new kingdoms in central India amidst the prevailing anarchy; whilst a low class of freebooters, known as Pindharies, plundered the villagers in the skirts of the Mahratta armies, or robbed and pillaged the surrounding territories, with a savage ferocity which rendered them a pest and terror.

[Sidenote: The Rana, or suzerain.]

The hereditary suzerain of the Rajputs was a prince known as the Rana of Oodeypore. The Rana claimed descent from Rama, the hero of ancient Oudh, and incarnation of Vishnu or the Sun, whose mythical and divine glory is celebrated in the Ramayana. Unfortunately the living Rana was a weak and helpless prince, who was the dependent of his own feudatories, whilst his territories were at the mercy of Mahrattas and Afghans. He had a daughter who was regarded as a prize and treasure, not on account of her beauty or accomplishments, for she was only an immature girl, but because her high birth would ennoble her bridegroom and her future sons or daughters.

[Sidenote: War for the Rana's daughter.]

From 1806 to 1810 the Rajas of Jeypore and Jodhpore were fighting for the hand of this daughter of the Rana. The girl herself had no voice in the matter. In Rajput traditions a princess is supposed to choose her own bridegroom in an assembly of Rajas, by throwing a garland round the neck of the happy lover. But in modern practice the "choice" has fallen into disuse, and a gilded cocoa-nut is sent by the father of the princess to some selected Raja as typical of an offer of her hand. The cocoa-nut for the Oodeypore princess had been sent to a Raja of Jodhpore, but he died before the marriage, and the cocoa-nut was sent to the Raja of Jeypore. Then followed a contention. The new Raja of Jodhpore claimed the princess, on the ground that the offer had been made, not to the individual, but to the throne of Jodhpore. The Raja of Jeypore, however, had accepted the cocoa-nut, and insisted on his rights. The contention became a war to the knife, and nearly every prince in Rajputana took a part in the contest. Strange to say, the Rana himself, the father of the princess, looked on as a neutral whilst Jeypore and Jodhpore were fighting for his daughter. Meanwhile his territories, known as the garden of Rajputana, were ravaged by Sindia and an Afghan adventurer named Amir Khan, until nothing was to be seen but ruined harvests and desolated villages.

[Sidenote: Non-intervention.]

Amidst this terrible turmoil, the princes and chiefs of Rajputana implored the British government to interfere. They asserted that there always had been a paramount power in India; that such a power had been formerly exercised by the Great Mogul; that the East India Company had acquired that power; and that the British government was bound to stop the war. The Rana of Oodeypore offered to cede half his territories if the British government would protect the other half. Jeypore and Jodhpore offered to submit their claims to British arbitration, and pledged themselves to abide by the decision. Lord Minto had only to declare which bridegroom he recognised, and his dictum would have been accepted. But Lord Minto shrunk from the exercise of a sovereignty which would have been a violation of the sacred dogma of non-interference, and have carried British influence outside British territories. Accordingly, the war was stopped by a tragedy. The Rana settled the marriage dispute by poisoning his daughter. The young princess is said to have drunk the fatal draught with the courage of a heroine, knowing that it would save her father; but the unhappy mother was overpowered by grief, and died broken-hearted.

[Sidenote: Ghorka conquest of Nipal.]

Meanwhile war clouds were gathering on the southern slopes of the Himalayas. Down to the middle of the eighteenth century, the territory of Nipal had been peopled by a peaceful and industrious race of Buddhists known as Newars, but about the year 1767, when the British had taken over the Bengal provinces, the Newars were conquered by a Rajput tribe from Cashmere, known as Ghorkas. The Ghorka conquest of Nipal was as complete as the Norman conquest of England. The Ghorkas established a military despotism with Brahmanical institutions, and parcelled out the country amongst feudal nobles known as Bharadars.

[Sidenote: Ghorka rule.]

Ghorka rule in Nipal was for many years distracted by tragedies in the royal family, and civil wars between the Bharadars for the post of minister. The Newars were more down-trodden than the Anglo-Saxons under the Norman kings. The Ghorka army was all-powerful, but plots and assassinations were common enough in the court and capital at Khatmandu, and the deposition of a minister or a sovereign might be the work of a day.

[Sidenote: Ghorka aggressions.]

During the early years of the nineteenth century the Ghorkas began to encroach on British territory, annexing villages and revenues from Darjeeling to Simla without right or reason. They were obviously bent on extending their dominion southward to the Ganges, and for a long time aggressions were overlooked for the sake of peace. At last two districts were appropriated to which the Ghorkas had not a shadow of a claim, and it was absolutely necessary to make a stand against their pretensions. Accordingly, Lord Minto sent an ultimatum to Khatmandu, declaring that unless the districts were restored they would be recovered by force of arms. Before the answer arrived, Lord Minto was succeeded in the post of Governor-General by Lord Moira, better known by his later title of Marquis of Hastings.

[Sidenote: Lord Moira--Marquis of Hastings, 1813-23.]

§10. Lord Moira landed at Calcutta in 1813. Shortly after his arrival an answer was received from the Ghorka government, that the disputed districts belonged to Nipal, and would not be surrendered. Lord Moira at once fixed a day on which the districts were to be restored; and when the day had passed without any action being taken by the Ghorkas, a British detachment entered the districts and set up police stations.

[Sidenote: Ghorka council of war.]

Meanwhile the Ghorkas had been alarmed by the letter of Lord Moira. A great council of Bharadars was summoned to Khatmandu, and the question of peace or war was discussed in a military spirit. It was decided that, as the British had been unable to capture the mud fortress of Bhurtpore, which was the work of men's hands, they could not possibly capture the mountain fortresses on the Himalayas, which were the work of the Almighty. Accordingly, the council of Bharadars resolved on war, but they did not declare it in European fashion. A Ghorka army suddenly entered the disputed districts, surrounded the police stations, and murdered many of the constables, and then returned to Khatmandu to await the action of the British government in the way of reprisals.

[Sidenote: Ghorkas superior to Mahrattas.]

The war against the Ghorkas was more remote and more serious than the wars against the Mahrattas. The Mahrattas fought in the plains, and trusted in their artillery; but when their gunners were shot or bayoneted, as in the battle of Assaye, they seemed to have lost all life and energy, and were broken up into loose bodies of runaways. The Ghorkas, on the other hand were resolute and hardy mountaineers, with a Rajput pride, and military instincts like the ancient Spartans. Their nerves had not been enfeebled by opium, and they exulted in the strength of their mountain fortresses, which they deemed impregnable against all the world.

[Sidenote: Difficult invasion of Nipal.]

Those who have ascended the Himalayas to Darjeeling or Simla may realise something of the difficulties of an invasion of Nipal. The British army advanced in four divisions by four different routes. They had first to make their way through a belt of marsh and jungle at the foot of the mountains. They had then to climb precipices and shelves which would have daunted the army of Hannibal. Moreover, it was impossible to storm the fortresses without artillery; and dragging up eighteen-pounders in the teeth of snow-storms and mountain blasts, opening up roads by blasting rocks, and battering down obstructions with field guns, were tasks which would have tested the genius of the ablest commanders.

[Sidenote: Successes of Ochterlony 1814-15.]

The operations of 1814 nearly proved a failure. One general took fright at the jungle, and galloped back to the plains, leaving his division behind. General David Ochterlony, who advanced his division along the valley of the Sutlej, gained the most brilliant successes. He was one of the half-forgotten heroes of the East India Company. He had fought against Hyder Ali in the days of Warren Hastings, and beaten back Holkar from the walls of Delhi in the days of Lord Wellesley. For five months in the worst season of the year he carried one fortress after another, until the enemy made a final stand at Maloun on a shelf of the Himalayas. The Ghorkas made a desperate attack on the British works, but the attempt failed; and when the British batteries were about to open fire, the Ghorka garrison came to terms, and were permitted to march out with the honours of war.

[Sidenote: Peace with Nipal, 1816.]

The fall of Maloun shook the faith of the Ghorka government in their heaven-built fortresses. Commissioners were sent to conclude a peace. Nipal agreed to cede Kumaon in the west, and the southern belt of forest and jungle known as the Terai. It also agreed to receive a British Resident at Khatmandu. Lord Moira had actually signed the treaty, when the Ghorkas raised the question of whether the Terai included the forest or only the swamp. War was renewed. Ochterlony advanced an army within fifty miles of Khatmandu, and then the Ghorkas concluded the treaty, and the British army withdrew from Nipal. The Terai, however, was a bone of contention for many years afterwards. Nothing was said about a subsidiary army, and to this day Nipal is outside the pale of subsidiary alliances; but Nipal is bound over not to take any European into her service without the consent of the British government.

[Sidenote: Imperial policy of Lord Hastings.]

§11. Lord Moira, now Marquis of Hastings, next turned his attention to the affairs of Malwa, the homes of Sindia and Holkar, between Bundelkund and Rajputana. Before leaving the British Isles, he had a strong sense of the danger of Lord Wellesley's policy, and a strong faith in the wisdom of non-intervention. But a brief experience of the actual condition of India compelled him to recant. The hordes of Pindharies were swelling into armies. They ravaged the territories of British allies, and threatened those under British rule. Lord Hastings declared that British power would never prosper in India until it assumed the headship of a league like that projected by Lord Wellesley. But the Home authorities were still afraid of the Mahrattas, and Lord Hastings was told that no league was to be formed in India, and no steps taken against the Pindharies, that were likely to be in any way offensive to the Mahrattas.

[Sidenote: Pindhari raids.]

In 1815-16, the last year of the Ghorka war, the Pindharies extended their raids to British territory. The horrors committed by these miscreants are indescribable. Villages were environed by Pindharies, and the inhabitants robbed and tortured. Fathers piled firewood round their dwellings, and perished in the flames with their wives and families, rather than fall into the hands of Pindharies; whilst in some villages, the whole female population threw themselves into wells to escape a worse fate. George Canning described Pindhari atrocities in a speech which aroused parliament to a sense of its duties and responsibilities; and it was resolved to make war on Sindia, Holkar, or any other power in India, which should attempt to shield the Pindharies from the just resentment of the British nation.

[Sidenote: Disaffection of Mahrattas.]

Meanwhile the Mahratta princes had become unruly and disorganised. Lord Wellesley had bound them to the British government by subsidiary alliances; but these ties had been loosened by his successors, excepting in the case of the Peishwa. Accordingly the Mahratta princes were smitten by a common desire to throw off British supremacy, and return to their old life of war and plunder. The Peishwa was labouring to recover his lost suzerainty, with the help of Sindia, Holkar, Nagpore, and the leaders of the Pindharies. Sindia was more amenable to British authority, and would have been guided by the advice of the British Resident at his court, but, under the policy of non-intervention, the Resident had been told to confine his attention to British interests, and not to interfere with Sindia. The result was that Sindia was secretly negotiating with the Peishwa, the Ghorkas, and even with Runjeet Singh of the Punjab, for joint attacks on the British government. Holkar had died of cherry brandy; the army of Indore was in mutiny for arrears of pay, and its leaders were in secret communication with the Peishwa; whilst an infant Holkar and his regent mother had shut themselves up in a remote fortress as a refuge against the disaffected soldiery. Amir Khan the Afghan, the most powerful prince of the period, had established a principality at Tonk, in Rajputana, and commanded a large army of drilled battalions, and a formidable train of artillery.

[Sidenote: Contumacy of the Peishwa.]

Lord Hastings wanted to crush the Pindharies, but to avoid all collision with the Mahrattas. The Peishwa, however, seemed bent on provoking British interference. A Brahman envoy, from the Gaekwar of Baroda, had been sent to Poona, under a British guarantee, to settle some obsolete dispute about chout, and, in spite of the guarantee, the Brahman had been barbarously murdered, under the orders of the Peishwa and his minister. Lord Hastings accepted the explanation of the Peishwa that he was innocent of the murder, but ordered the Mahratta minister to be imprisoned in the fortress of Thanna, near Bombay. Later on the minister escaped from the fortress with the connivance of the Peishwa, and was secretly protected by the Peishwa, and it seemed impossible to condone the offence.

[Sidenote: Elphinstone and Malcolm.]

At this crisis Mr. Mountstuart Elphinstone, one of the ablest of the old Bengal civilians, was Resident at Poona; whilst Sir John Malcolm, of the Madras army, was negotiating with the Mahratta princes for their co-operation in the war against the Pindharies. Elphinstone found that the Peishwa was secretly intriguing with his exiled minister, and levying troops to an extent that meant mischief. Accordingly he threatened the Peishwa with the displeasure of the British government, and required him to deliver up three important fortresses as a pledge for his future good behaviour. The Peishwa then artfully invited Sir John Malcolm to come and see him, and so talked him over that Malcolm believed in his good faith, and advised that the fortresses should be given back. Elphinstone had no such confidence in the Peishwa; nevertheless he restored the fortresses, as he would not throw cold water on Malcolm's good intentions.

[Sidenote: Pindhari war: Mahratta plots.]

By this time Lord Hastings had planned his campaign against the Pindharies. The British force was overwhelming, for it was known that the three predatory powers--Sindia, Holkar, and Amir Khan--were bent on sheltering the Pindharies by enlisting them as soldiers or hiding them in the jungles until the danger had passed away. They had no conception of the scale on which Lord Hastings had planned his campaign. They knew that a force was advancing from the south, and that it would probably comprise an army from Madras, the Hyderabad Subsidiary Force, and the Poona Subsidiary Force; but they fondly imagined that, if the Pindharies were kept out of the way, the British forces would soon return to cantonments, and that the Pindharies would then revenge the attack on their homes by fresh raids on British territories.

[Sidenote: Mortification of Sindia.]

Lord Hastings, however, was bent on disarming Sindia, Holkar, and Amir Khan before exterminating the Pindhari gangs, and thus guarding against the possible revival of the gangs after the conclusion of the war. Daulat Rao Sindia was suddenly asked to give a friendly reception to the Madras army coming from the south. He hesitated, vacillated, and asked for time to consider the proposition. He was told that consideration was out of the question; that he was pledged to co-operate with the British forces against the Pindharies; that a large Bengal army was advancing from the north over the river Jumna, under the direct orders of Lord Hastings in person; and that the Pindharies would be environed and exterminated by the two armies. Sindia was utterly taken by surprise. He knew that it would be sheer madness to fight against the Governor-General. He hastened to receive the Madras army, and was lavish in his professions of loyalty. He was then charged with having violated treaties by carrying on secret negotiations with Nipal and Runjeet Singh. He solemnly protested his innocence, but two of his messengers to Nipal had been arrested on the way, and his own letters addressed to the Ghorka government were placed in his hands in open durbar by the British Resident, who simply stated what they were. The letters in question were damnatory. Sindia had proposed that Ghorkas and Mahrattas should join in a common attack on the British government.

[Sidenote: Sindia submits.]