Chapter III: Third Period: Imperial Government (2)

Sindia bent to his destiny. He saw that he was checkmated at every turn. He was dumbfoundered, and made no attempt to defend himself. Nothing further was done. Lord Hastings left him in possession of his territories, but took the Rajput princes under British protection, and bound over Sindia to co-operate against the Pindharies, and to prevent the formation of any gangs for the future.

[Sidenote: Amir Khan submits.]

Amir Khan was growing old, and was glad to make any terms which would leave him in possession of his principality. He disbanded his battalions and sold his cannon to the British government, on condition of being recognised as hereditary ruler of Tonk. No cause for uneasiness remained, excepting the disaffected Peishwa of Poona, the mutinous army of Holkar, and some suspicious movements on the part of the Bhonsla Raja of Nagpore.

[Sidenote: Destruction of the Pindharies.]

When the rains were over the British armies began to move. There were 120,000 troops under arms, the largest force that had ever taken the field in India under British colours; twice as many as Lord Wellesley assembled in 1803-4, and four times as many as Lord Cornwallis led against Tippu in 1791-92. The Pindharies found themselves abandoned by Sindia and Amir Khan, and environed by the armies from Bengal and Madras. Many were shot down, or put to the sword, or perished in the jungle, or were slain by villagers in revenge for former cruelties. Others threw themselves on British protection, and were settled on lands, and became peaceful and industrious cultivators. Within a few years no traces of the Pindhari gangs were to be found in India.

[Sidenote: Hostility of the Peishwa.]

All this while the Peishwa was at Poona, bent on mischief. He resumed his levy of troops and his secret intrigues with other princes. The Poona Subsidiary Force was called away to the northward to co-operate against the Pindharies, but Mr. Elphinstone obtained a European regiment from Bombay, and posted it at Khirki, about four miles from the British Residency.

[Sidenote: Treachery, defeat, flight.]

The Peishwa was baffled by the European regiment. He affected to regard it as a menace, and threatened to leave Poona unless it was sent back to Bombay, but he was quieted by its removal to Khirki. He was relying on the support of Sindia and Amir Khan, and was assured that the Bhonsla Raja of Nagpore and the army of Holkar were preparing to join him. On the 5th November, 1817, Mr. Elphinstone left the British Residency at Poona, and followed the European regiment to Khirki. That same afternoon the Peishwa attacked the British force at Khirki with an army of 26,000 men, but was beaten back with heavy losses. At night the British Residency was plundered and set on fire, and the magnificent library of Mr. Elphinstone was utterly destroyed. Twelve days afterwards the Subsidiary Force returned to Poona, and the Peishwa was seized with a panic and fled away from his dominions, never to return.

[Sidenote: Plottings at Nagpore.]

The next explosion was at Nagpore. The Bhonsla Raja, who fled from Assaye, was dead, and a nephew named Appa Sahib had succeeded to the throne. Appa Sahib tried to ingratiate himself with the British, but was playing the same double game as Sindia and the Peishwa. Mr. Jenkins was Resident at Nagpore, and when news arrived of the attack on Khirki, Appa Sahib expatiated to him on the treachery of the Peishwa and his own loyalty. All this while, however, he was in secret correspondence with the Peishwa, and levying troops for the coming war against the British.

[Sidenote: British preparations.]

The British Residency was separated from the city of Nagpore by the Sitabuldi hill. On the 25th of November, 1817, eight days after the flight of the Peishwa, all communication with the Residency was stopped by Appa Sahib, and the Raja and his ministers were sending their families and valuables out of the city of Nagpore. Mr. Jenkins foresaw an outbreak, and ordered the Nagpore Subsidiary Force to occupy Sitabuldi hill. There was no European regiment as at Khirki, and only 1,400 sepoys fit for duty, including three troops of Bengal cavalry, and there were only four six-pounders.

[Sidenote: Victory on Sitabuldi hill.]

At evening, 26th December, 1817, Appa Sahib advanced against the hill Sitabuldi with an army of 18,000 men, including 4,000 Arabs and thirty-six guns. The battle lasted from six o'clock in the evening until noon the next day. The British force was literally overwhelmed by the enemy. The Arabs were closing round the Residency, when Captain Fitzgerald charged them with the three troops of Bengal cavalry. The sudden attack surprised and bewildered the Arabs. The British sepoys on the hill saw the confusion, and rushed down the slope and drove the Arabs before them like sheep. The memory of this victory has been preserved down to our own time. The hill Sitabuldi is a monument to the loyalty and valour of the Bengal cavalry. Every visitor to Nagpore makes a pilgrimage to Sitabuldi to behold the scene of one of the most glorious triumphs of the old sepoy army in India. Appa Sahib fled from Nagpore, but Lord Hastings refused to annex the principality; and an infant grandson of the predecessor of Appa Sahib was placed upon the throne, under the guardianship of Mr. Jenkins.

[Sidenote: Defeat of Holkar's army at Mehidpore.]

On the 21st December, five days before the battle of Sitabuldi, the army of Holkar had been defeated by Sir John Malcolm at Mehidpore. Holkar's soldiers had received their arrears of pay from the Peishwa, and declared for the Peishwa. Malcolm approached them with the Madras army, and they murdered the regent mother on suspicion of negotiating with the British, and began the battle of Mehidpore by plundering the British baggage. Holkar's army was defeated; the principality of Indore was placed at the disposal of Lord Hastings. The infant Raja was left on the throne, and Holkar's state was brought into subsidiary alliance with the British government, and required to cede territory for the maintenance of a subsidiary army.

[Sidenote: Peishwa at Satara.]

Nothing remained to complete the pacification of India but the capture of the Peishwa. He had fled southward to Satara, to strengthen his cause by releasing the captive Raja and setting up the old standard of Sivaji. But British prestige had been effectually restored by Lord Hastings, and the restless movements of the Peishwa were little more than feverish efforts to escape from his British pursuers.

[Sidenote: Glorious action at Korygaum.]

One glorious battle was fought on New Year's Day, 1818, a victory of Bombay sepoys which is celebrated in Deccan songs of triumph to this day. A detachment of 800 Bombay sepoys was drawn up at the village of Korygaum, on the bank of the river Bhima, near Satara, under the command of Captain Staunton. On the opposite bank was the army of the Peishwa, numbering 25,000 horse and 6,000 Arab infantry. Staunton had but ten British officers and twenty-four British gunners with two six-pounders. Staunton occupied the village, but was environed by the Peishwa's army, and cut off from all supplies and water. The Mahrattas were mad to capture the village. Three times they tried to storm it with rockets, but were beaten back by sheer pluck and desperation. Raging with hunger and thirst, Bombay sepoys and British officers and gunners fought like heroes, whilst the Peishwa looked on in anger and despair from a neighbouring hill. Staunton lost a third of his sepoys and eight out of his ten officers, but the Mahrattas left six hundred killed and wounded on the field. Next morning the Mahrattas refused to renew the fight, and the army of the Peishwa moved away.

[Sidenote: Extinction of the Peishwa, 1818.]

Such a humiliation must have taken away all hope from the Peishwa. For six months longer he kept out of the reach of his pursuers, but was at last environed by British troops under Sir John Malcolm. He threw himself on the mercy of the British government, and eventually talked over Sir John Malcolm, as he had done a year or two previously in the matter of the three fortresses. From feelings of pity for an Asiatic prince who had ruined himself by his own treachery, Malcolm gave his personal guarantee that the British government would pay a pension to the conquered Peishwa of 80,000_l._ a year. Lord Hastings was extremely angry at such a charge upon the yearly revenue, but would not withhold his sanction to Malcolm's guarantee.[19] Since then there has been no Peishwa of the Mahrattas. The ex-ruler lived in idle luxury near Cawnpore, whilst his dominions were incorporated with the Bombay Presidency. A futile attempt was made by Lord Hastings to revive the extinct Raja of Satara, but in the course of years the Raja was intriguing like the Peishwa, and the principality was eventually annexed by Lord Dalhousie.

[Sidenote: Pacification and protection of Rajputana, 1818.]

The crowning event in the administration of Lord Hastings was the renewal of protective treaties with the princes of Rajputana. The raids of the Mahrattas, which had been the curse and agony of Rajputana for nearly a century, were stopped for ever. The territory of Ajmere, in the heart of Rajputana, which had been successively the head-quarters of Mogul and Mahratta suzerainty, was taken over by the British government, and is to this day the head-quarters of the Agent to the Viceroy for the states of Rajputana, and a centre of British supremacy and paramount power.

[Sidenote: Lord Amherst, 1823-28: demands of Burma.]

§12. Lord Amherst succeeded Lord Hastings as Governor-General in 1823. The wars of 1817-18 had established the peace of India, by breaking up the predatory system which had been a terror to Hindus and Mohammedans for more than a century. But the king of Burma, to the eastward of Bengal, was causing some anxiety by demanding the surrender of political fugitives from his dominions who had taken refuge in British territory. The British government refused compliance. Had the refugees been given up, they would have been crucified, or otherwise tortured to death by the Burmese officials. Common humanity forbade the concession, so the refugees were required to keep the peace within British territory, and to abstain from all plots or hostile movements against the Burmese government.

[Sidenote: Burmese aggressions.]

For years the Burmese officials tried to bully the British government into surrendering these refugees. They knew nothing of the outer world, and treated the British with contempt as a nation of traders, who had paid the Indian sepoys to fight their battles. Conciliation only provoked them to insolence and aggression. They seized an island belonging to the British. They overran the intervening countries of Munipore and Assam, and demanded the cession of Chittagong. Finally, they invaded British territory and cut off a detachment of sepoys, and threatened, with all the bombast of barbarians, to conquer Bengal, and bring away the Governor-General in golden fetters.

[Sidenote: Expedition to Rangoon, 1824.]

At last Lord Amherst sent an expedition under Sir Archibald Campbell to the port of Rangoon, the capital of the Burmese province of Pegu. The Burmese officials were taken by surprise. They sent a mob of raw levies to prevent the British from landing, but the impromptu army fled at the first discharge of British guns. The British landed, and found that all the men, women, and children of Rangoon had fled to the jungle, with all their provisions and grain. The British occupied Rangoon, but the country round about was forest and swamp. The rains began, and the troops were struck down with fever, dysentery, and bad food. No supplies could be obtained except by sea from Madras or Calcutta. Nearly every European in Rangoon who survived the rains of 1824 had reason to remember the Burmese seaport to the end of his days.

[Sidenote: British advance to Ava.]

[Sidenote: Peace.]

When the rains were over a Burmese general of great renown approached Rangoon with an army of 60,000 braves, and environed the place with stockades. There was some severe fighting at these stockades, but at last they were taken by storm, and the braves fled in a panic. The British expedition advanced up the river Irrawaddy, through the valley of Pegu. The people of Pegu, who had been conquered by the king of Burma some sixty years before, rejoiced at being delivered from their Burmese oppressors, and eagerly brought in supplies. The British expedition was approaching Ava, the capital of the kingdom, when the king of Burma came to terms, and agreed to pay a million sterling towards the expenses of a war which cost more than ten millions. The British were content with annexing two strips of sea-board, known as Arakan and Tenasserim, which never paid the cost of administration; and left the valley of Pegu, and even the port of Rangoon, in possession of the king of Burma. But Assam and Cachar, between Bengal and Burma, were brought under British rule, and eventually made up for the expenditure on the war by the cultivation of tea.

[Sidenote: War against Bhurtpore, 1825-26.]

Meanwhile, Lord Amherst had some difficulty with the Jhat state of Bhurtpore in Rajputana, which had defied Lord Lake in 1805, but had eventually been brought under British protection. In 1825 the Raja died, and the succession of an infant son was recognised by the British government. An uncle, however, seized the throne, and shut himself up in the mud fortress which had resisted the assaults of Lord Lake. At first Lord Amherst was disinclined to interfere, but all the restless spirits, who had been reduced to obedience by the wars of 1817-18, were beginning to rally round the usurper, who had openly defied the British government. A British force was sent to Bhurtpore, under Lord Combermere. The mud walls were undermined, and blown up with gunpowder. The British soldiers rushed in, the usurper was deposed, and the young Raja was restored to the throne, under the protection of the paramount power.

[Sidenote: Lord William Bentinck, 1828-35: peace and progress.]

§13. Lord William Bentinck succeeded Lord Amherst in 1828. His administration was emphatically one of progress. He promoted English education amongst Hindus and Mohammedans, and founded a medical college at Calcutta. He laboured hard to establish steam navigation between India and Europe _viâ_ the Red Sea, in the place of the old sailing route round the Cape. He encouraged the cultivation of tea in Assam and Cachar. He sought to open a trade with Central Asia up the river Indus, but was foiled by Runjeet Singh, who was still as friendly as ever, but resolutely bent on keeping the British out of his territories.

[Sidenote: Abolition of Suttee 1829.]

In 1829, the year after the arrival of Lord William Bentinck, he electrified India by the abolition of suttee. In these advanced days it is difficult to understand why British rulers did not suppress this hateful rite the moment they had the power. But for many years toleration and non-intervention were a kind of fanaticism with British administrators; and the Bengalis appeared to exult in the performance of a rite which they knew to be obnoxious to Europeans. As a matter of fact, the number of suttees in Bengal appeared to increase under British rule, and this was most marked in the villages round Calcutta.

[Sidenote: Relief of Hindus.]

The abolition of suttee by treating it as a capital crime was followed by none of the evils which had been anticipated. There was no rising of the sepoys; no discontent on the part of the masses. British rulers were delivered from the odium of sanctioning a barbarous crime under the plea of religious toleration; whilst the living widow was no longer compelled to immolate herself with her dead husband, nor was her son forced by a sense of duty to apply the torch to the funeral pile. The pride of Brahmans and Rajputs may have been wounded when all concerned in the performance of the ancient rite were punished by imprisonment or death, but humanity has triumphed, and suttees have vanished from British India, and from every state owing allegiance to British sovereignty.

[Sidenote: Thug atrocities.]

§14. The suppression of the Thugs was another work of the time. These detestable miscreants appeared to the outer world as honest traders or agriculturists, who occasionally went on pilgrimage or travelled for business or pleasure. In reality they were organised gangs of murderers, having a dialect and signs of their own. They made friends with other travellers going the same way; halted beneath the shade of trees, and suddenly threw their nooses round the necks of their victims, strangled them to death, rifled them of their money and goods, and buried them with a speed which defied detection. Sometimes the unwary traveller was beguiled by a female to a lonely spot, and was never heard of more.

[Sidenote: Hereditary Thug gangs.]

Every boy born of Thugs was brought up in what may be called the religion of the noose. From his cradle he was taught that he was bound to follow the trade of his forefathers; that, like them, he was the blind instrument of the deity of life and death. At first he acted as a scout; then he was allowed to handle and bury the victim; and finally tried his prentice hand at strangling. Before committing his first murder, one of the elders acted as his Guru or spiritual guide, and initiated him in the use of the noose as a solemn rite associated with the worship of the goddess Durga, Bowani, or Kali, the mythical bride of Siva, the incarnation of the mysteries of life and dissolution, who is often represented with a noose in her hand.[20] Throughout his after career he adored the goddess as a tutelar deity; worshipped her in temples where Thugs officiated as priests; and propitiated her with offerings of flesh meat and strong drinks, which were supposed to be most acceptable to female divinity.

[Sidenote: Suppression.]

The Hindus were too fearful and superstitious to suppress the Thugs. The Moguls had no such scruples, and often condemned Thugs to a cruel death; but wealthy Hindus would offer large ransoms to save their lives, or would follow the miscreants to the place of execution and regale them with sweetmeats and tobacco. When, however, the British discovered the secret organisation, they resolved to break up the gangs and put an end to the hereditary association. A department was organised for the suppression of Thugs, and chiefs and princes were called upon to co-operate in the work of extermination. Between 1830 and 1835 two thousand Thugs were arrested, and fifteen hundred were imprisoned for life, or transported beyond the seas, or publicly executed. Many saved their lives by giving evidence against their fellows, but were shut up for the rest of their days to protect them from vengeance, and to prevent their return to a horrible profession which had become an hereditary instinct in Thug families. To this day the children or grandchildren of the old Thug gangs, who were the terror of India within the memory of living men, are manufacturing carpets, or working at some other useful trade, within prison walls.

[Sidenote: Civil and judicial reforms.]

§15. Lord William Bentinck put a finishing touch to the civil and judicial administration which Warren Hastings initiated and Lord Cornwallis reformed. The district was still retained as the unit of Indian administration, with its civil judge, and its collector and magistrate, and necessary establishments of native officials. But the civil judge was invested with the criminal powers of a sessions judge for the trial of prisoners, and henceforth known as the district judge. The four provincial courts of circuit and appeal were swept away, and the supervision of districts was entrusted to commissioners of divisions, each having five or six districts under his control. Henceforth the collector and magistrate was under the control of the commissioner, and was sometimes known as the deputy commissioner.[21]

[Sidenote: Asiatic officials.]

Lord William Bentinck also introduced an Asiatic element into British administration, which was the first real movement in that direction. He appointed natives of India to be "deputy collectors," and created a higher class of native judges to those appointed by Lord Cornwallis. They are known in the present day as "subordinate judges." The further development of these political experiments belong to the later history.

[Sidenote: North-West Provinces.]

§16. Hitherto the "North-West Provinces" had been a mere appendage of Bengal. They were known as the Upper Provinces, whilst Bengal, Behar, and Orissa were known as the Lower Provinces. But a territory which extended from Assam to the Punjab was too vast for the supervision of the Governor-General of Bengal in Council. Accordingly the North-West Provinces were separated from Bengal and placed under a Lieutenant-Governor, without a Council, but with a separate Sudder Court and Board of Revenue.[22]

[Sidenote: Hindu village communities.]

The Hindu people in the North-West Provinces are more masculine and independent than those of Bengal. In Bengal the Hindu village communities had nearly faded away under the domination of zemindars. In the North-West Provinces the village communities had survived every revolution, and have been compared to little commonwealths, each having an individual and domestic life of its own, unchanged by the storms and troubles of the outer world. The village community paid a yearly revenue,--a share of the crops or a commutation in money,--to whatever power might be uppermost, Mogul or Mahratta, Mohammedan or Hindu. The members took a keen interest, individually and collectively, in settling the yearly rate to be paid by the whole village to the government of the day. But otherwise they cared not who was the reigning authority, Sindia or Lord Wellesley; nor who was the French general of the sepoy battalions of Sindia, nor who was the British commander-in-chief of the armies of the Governor-General.

[Sidenote: Constitution of Hindu villages.]

The village community was originally a brotherhood, consisting of a tribe, family, or clan, who settled in a particular locality, and distributed the land, or the produce of the land, amongst themselves. The area was called a village, but was more like an English parish. The village community managed its own affairs, and claimed a joint proprietorship in all the land within the village area. They rented out waste lands to yearly tenants, strangers and outsiders, who were treated as tenants, and shut out from the management. Some of these tenants acquired rights of occupancy by prescription or length of possession, whilst others were only tenants at will.

[Sidenote: Hereditary officials and artisans.]

The village commonwealth had its own hereditary officials, such as a village accountant, who kept a record of all transactions between the joint proprietors, and all accounts between the joint proprietors and their tenants. There was also a village constable or guide, who watched the crops and looked after strangers. Sometimes, when a brotherhood had decayed, a head man ruled the village in their room; and the headman, with the help of the accountant and constable, managed all the domestic affairs of the village, and conducted its relations with the outer world. To these were added hereditary artisans, such as a carpenter, potter, blacksmith, barber, tailor, washerman, and jeweller. In like manner there was an hereditary schoolmaster, astrologer, and priest, who were generally Brahmans. The higher officials were remunerated with hereditary lands, held rent free; but the others were paid by fees of grain or money. Traces of these institutions are still to be found in Behar and Orissa, but in Bengal proper the village life has died out. Hereditary artisans still remain, but hereditary officials have become the servants of the zemindar.

[Sidenote: Land revenue.]

These village communities contributed a yearly revenue to the government of the day, either as joint proprietors or through a head man. In theory they claimed possession of the land because they had cleared the jungle, and cultivated and occupied a virgin soil. But they paid a revenue to the Raja in return for protection, or to satisfy the superior right of the sovereign, or as black-mail to prevent the Raja from carrying off their crops and cattle.

[Sidenote: Talukdars or zemindars.]

After the Mohammedan conquest the mode of collection differed according to circumstances. Sometimes officials were appointed by the sovereign. Sometimes a local magnate, or a revenue farmer, was employed, who collected the revenue from a group of villages, and paid a yearly block sum to the sovereign. They were middle-men, getting what they could out of the village communities, and paying as little as they could to the government of the day. These local chiefs, or revenue contractors, were known in the North-West Provinces as talukdars. They corresponded to the zemindars of Bengal, and often, like them, assumed the rights of ownership over the villages.

[Sidenote: Settlement with joint village proprietors.]

Lord Wellesley ordered that the land revenue in the North-West Provinces should be settled with the talukdars at fixed rates, like the perpetual settlement with the zemindars in Bengal. Fortunately, there was a preliminary inquiry into the conflicting rights of talukdars and village proprietors, which terminated in favour of the villagers. Lord William Bentinck travelled through the North-West Provinces, and eventually the land revenue was settled direct with the joint village proprietors.

[Sidenote: Madras villages: Hindu colonisation.]

§17. The Madras Presidency seems to have been originally distributed into village communities of joint proprietors. A Hindu legend has been preserved to this day, which tells the story of old Hindu colonisation. A Raja of the southern country had a son by a woman of low birth. The people refused to accept the prince as their Raja. Accordingly the young man crossed the river Palar with a band of emigrants, and cleared the forest to the northward, near the site of the modern city of Madras. For six years the emigrants paid no share of the crops to the Raja. In the seventh year they were brought under the revenue administration.[23]

[Sidenote: Joint village proprietors.]

The modern history of this locality is equally interesting. It was ceded by the Nawab of the Carnatic to the East India Company during the wars of the eighteenth century, and was known as the Company's Jaghir. It was found to be in the possession of joint village proprietors of the same constitution as those described in the North-West Provinces, and a settlement of the land revenue was made with these joint proprietors.

[Sidenote: Disappearance.]

During the latter half of the eighteenth century the rights of the joint village proprietors in Southern India faded away under the tyranny of Asiatic rulers, but the hereditary officials, artisans, and professionals still survived. Few, if any, joint village proprietors in their full entirety could be found in any villages under the Nawab's officials; whilst those within the Company's Jaghir had been duly respected and preserved by the British officials. Under such circumstances it was proposed to settle the revenue of the Carnatic territory, acquired in 1801, with individual ryots or landholders under what was afterwards known as the ryotwari system.

[Sidenote: Perpetual settlement ordered.]

Lord Wellesley, however, interfered, and ordered that perpetual settlements should be concluded with zemindars. Somehow this zemindari settlement had a fascination for British statesmen of the period. It was believed that the creation of an aristocracy of landlords would guarantee the permanence of British rule in India. Accordingly, Lord Wellesley was deaf to all arguments in favour of a ryotwari settlement, and threatened to remove any public servant in the Madras Presidency who should hesitate to carry out his orders.

[Sidenote: No zemindars.]

Madras had no alternative but to submit. There were zemindars in the Telugu country to the northward, which had been conquered centuries previously by the Mohammedan Sultans of Golconda; and with these zemindars it was easy to conclude a perpetual settlement. But there were no zemindars in the Tamil country to the southward.

[Sidenote: Zemindars created.]

In this extremity there was no alternative but to manufacture zemindars. Accordingly zemindars were created in the Madras Presidency by the old Bengal process of grouping villages together, selling them by auction, and treating the lucky buyer as a zemindar. But the new zemindars failed to pay the stipulated revenue. The groups of villages were again brought into the market, and as Lord Wellesley had left India, the estates were bought in by the Madras government, and the revenue resettled with individual ryots or cultivators.[24]

[Sidenote: Military bond-holders.]

In Malabar and Canara on the western coast the proprietors of land did not live in villages. They were landholders of the old military type, clinging to their lands with hereditary tenacity, employing serfs or slaves to cultivate them, and paying no revenue except feudal service and homage to their suzerain. Eventually Malabar and Canara were conquered by Tippu of Mysore, and the landholders were compelled to pay revenue, or to surrender their lands.

[Sidenote: Thomas Munro: ryotwari settlement.]

Thomas Munro is the real author of the ryotwari settlement. He was a cadet in the Madras army, who landed at Fort St. George about the time that Hyder Ali was desolating the Carnatic. In 1792 he was employed in settling the revenue in Malabar and Canara, which had been ceded by Tippu to Lord Cornwallis; and there he formed his ideas of a settlement direct with individual landholders. The controversy between Madras and Bengal raged for years, but in the end Thomas Munro was victorious. He converted the Board of Control and Court of Directors to his views. He was knighted, and appointed Governor of Madras. He died in 1827, after having triumphantly introduced the ryotwari. The zemindars in the Telegu country still retain their estates with the proprietary rights of landlords.

[Sidenote: Bombay: Mountstuart Elphinstone.]

Meanwhile the Bombay Presidency had been vastly enlarged by the acquisition of the dominions of the Peishwa. Mr. Mountstuart Elphinstone, the contemporary of Sir Thomas Munro, was appointed Governor of Bombay. He introduced the ryotwari settlement into the Mahratta country, and framed a code of laws which remained in force throughout the Bombay Presidency until 1860, when it was superseded by the Penal Code.

[Sidenote: Madras collectorates.]

Lord William Bentinck's system of commissioners of divisions was introduced into the North-West Provinces and Bombay; but the Madras Presidency was without commissioners or divisions, and was distributed into twenty large districts or collectorates, which on an average are as large as Yorkshire. In Bengal and the North-West Provinces the districts on an average are no larger than Devonshire. In each Madras district there was a collector, who might be described as a proconsul, and a civil and sessions judge, corresponding to those in the other Presidencies. The administration of the Madras Presidency, revenue and judicial, has always been distinguished by a larger element of Asiatic officials than either Bengal, Bombay, or the North-West Provinces.

[Sidenote: Charter Act of 1833: India Thrown open.]

§18. The last and most important changes in the rule of the East India Company were carried out during the administration of Lord William Bentinck, under the charter Act of 1833. Before, however, dealing with this radical reform, it may be as well to review the successive stages in the relations of the East India Company towards parliament and the crown.

[Sidenote: Company and Crown, 1600-1688.]

During the seventeenth century, the first of the Company's existence, it mainly depended on the favour of the crown. It had obtained a charter of exclusive trade from Queen Elizabeth. It prevailed on James I. to send Sir Thomas Roe as ambassador to India, to propitiate the Great Mogul and secure his good offices for the Company's trade. It sold 600,000 lbs. of pepper to Charles I. on the security of bonds on the customs, and enabled that sovereign to raise £60,000 for the expenses of his war with Parliament. Oliver Cromwell however did not approve of trade monopolies. The Lord Protector was willing to help the English Company to fight the Dutch Company, but he was of opinion that every Englishman had as much right as the Company to trade in the Eastern seas. Charles II. and James II. renewed the Company's original monopoly and privileges, and received presents in return, which however rarely exceeded the modest sum of £1,200 a year.

[Sidenote: Parliament interposes, 1688-1708.]

Under William of Orange the monopoly of the East Indies was again in danger. Parliament voted that every Englishman might traffic wherever he pleased. The Directors scattered bribes with a lavish hand; but parliament insisted upon searching the books of the Company. Then discoveries were made which were scandalous alike to the Company and the nation. Every man in power, from the highest to the lowest, had taken money from the India House. In 1693 about £90,000 had been spent in corruption. The Duke of Leeds was impeached in the House of Commons for taking a bribe of £5,000, and £10,000 was traced to the illustrious William. In this extremity the King prorogued parliament, and proceedings were brought to a close.

[Sidenote: The United Company.]

The parliamentary vote however had abolished for a while the monopoly of the trade with the East Indies. A second East India Company was formed and the two rivals nearly ruined each other. At last the two Companies were united into one, and a large loan was advanced to government by the new corporation. Under this new arrangement the trade monopoly was secured to the united Company throughout the eighteenth century.

[Sidenote: Old East India House.]

In those early days every shop in London exhibited a sign or emblem. The first old East India House was a quaint building with a large entablature in front, bearing three ships in full sail and a dolphin at each end. The business was distributed amongst the Directors, and transacted in committees. All the Directors put their names to the letters sent to India, and signed themselves "Your loving friends." To this day the business of the India Office is conducted by committees, but the "loving friends" vanished with the East India Company.

[Sidenote: New India House.]

In the early half of the eighteenth century a new India House was built in Leadenhall Street. It was here that the Directors grew into merchant princes, and administered the affairs of provinces, until they built up our Anglo-Indian empire. Here too began the later conflict between the Company and the House of Commons. George III. was bent on coercing parliament and removing his ministers at will. But during the coalition ministry of Lord North and Charles James Fox, there was a battle royal between parliament and the crown.

[Sidenote: Fox's India Bill.]

In 1783 Fox introduced his bill for abolishing the Court of Directors, and transferring their power and patronage to seven commissioners nominated in the bill. An agitation arose which threw the whole kingdom into a ferment. The King claimed the right of governing all countries conquered by his subjects. Accordingly he claimed the right of nominating the seven commissioners, and thus getting all the power and patronage of the Court of Directors into his own hands. But the House of Commons would not trust the King. Whigs and Tories saw that their liberties would be endangered by such additions to the royal prerogative, and they passed Fox's bill by large majorities.

[Sidenote: Hostility of George III.]

King George was furious. His only hope was that the obnoxious bill would be thrown out by the Lords. He caused a message to be conveyed to every peer, that his Majesty would withdraw his friendship from any one who voted for the bill. Accordingly the bill was thrown out by the Lords. Fox and Lord North were ignominiously dismissed, and William Pitt the younger became prime minister.

[Sidenote: Pitt's India Bill.]

Pitt's India Bill of 1784 was a marvel of statesmanship. The Court of Directors was left in the full exercise of all patronage as regards first appointments in England to the ranks of the Indian civil services, or to cadetships in the armies of the three Presidencies. All promotions in India were left to the local governments and to the Governor-General in Council. Parliament exercised a constitutional control over the whole administration of the Anglo-Indian empire; and the patronage, whether in England or in India, was wisely kept out of the hands of either ministers or the crown.

[Sidenote: Abolition of monopoly.]

Under the charter act of 1813 the trade of the Company with India was thrown open to the British nation, but the Company still retained its monopoly of trade with China. The Company, however, suffered little by the loss of its monopoly as regards India. It was an old-established firm of two centuries standing. Its settlements and shipping were all in full swing, and it continued for twenty years longer to carry on a splendid business, which suffered but little by the rivalry of private interlopers. Meanwhile, as already seen, it had become the paramount power in India by its successful wars against Nepal and Burma, the extinction of the Peishwa, the humiliation of Sindia and Holkar, and the extermination of the predatory system.

[Sidenote: End of Company's trade.]

Under the charter act of 1833 all trading on the part of the East India Company, whether with India or with China, was brought to a close. The East India Docks were emptied of the Company's shipping, and the trade of Europe in the Eastern seas was thrown open to the whole world.

[Sidenote: Licensing system.]

Another radical change was also effected. Ever since the first establishment of the Company's settlements in India, no British born subject, not in the service of the Company, had been permitted by law to reside in India without having previously procured a license from the Court of Directors. This license system was brought to a close in 1833, and any British born subject might take up his residence in India, and trade or travel wherever he pleased.

[Sidenote: Constitutional changes.]

The constitution of the British government in India was remodelled. The Governor-General of Bengal was created Governor-General of India with increased control over Madras and Bombay. The Council of India, which hitherto consisted of the Governor-General as President, two Bengal civilians, and occasionally the commander-in-chief of the Bengal army, was increased by the addition of a law member. Mr., afterwards Lord, Macaulay was appointed to the new post. His labours will be noticed hereafter in dealing with the constitutional changes of 1853.

[Sidenote: Centralisation.]

Henceforth all legislative authority and financial control were centred in the government of India; and the governments of Madras and Bombay were stripped of all power to enact laws, and prohibited from creating any new office or making any grant of money, without the consent of the Governor-General of India in Council, or the sanction of the Court of Directors.

[Sidenote: Stagnation at Madras and Bombay.]

The charter of 1833 was not an unmixed good. It stopped all progress in Madras and Bombay by bringing those Presidencies too closely under the control of Bengal. For twenty years they had no representatives in the Council at Calcutta. They had framed their own systems of land revenue. They were relieved of the cares of trade, which had been a worry to Governors and Governors-General from the days of the Marquis of Wellesley to those of Lord William Bentinck. But after the year 1833 they were more or less paralysed by the loss of all discretion and responsibility in matters of legislation and expenditure. Great events were about to agitate Northern India, but for twenty years Madras and Bombay were without a history, and the work of administration was as lifeless and monotonous as the working of a machine.

[Sidenote: Popular administration of Bentinck.]

Lord William Bentinck left India in 1835. His administration had been eminently popular with all classes of the community; and his memory is preserved to this day as that of a just and able ruler, who paid due regard to the rights and claims of Asiatics as well as of Europeans.

[Sidenote: Sir Charles Metcalfe, 1835-6: coming collisions with Asiatic powers.]

Sir Charles Metcalfe, the Bengal civilian, who was sent on a mission to Runjeet Singh in 1808, and since then had filled some of the most responsible posts in the Anglo-Indian empire, acted as Governor-General between the departure of Lord William Bentinck in 1835 and the arrival of Lord Auckland in 1836. A new era was beginning to dawn upon India. Great Britain was about to appear, not only as mistress of an Anglo-Indian empire, but as an Asiatic power coming more or less into collision with four other Asiatic powers--Persia, Russia, Afghanistan and China.

FOOTNOTES:

[17] The following fragment preserves something of the feeling of the
time:--

"Fill the wine-cup fast, for the storm is past,
The tyrant Tippu is slain at last,
And victory smiles
To reward the toils
Of Britons once again.

"Let the trumpet sound, and the sound go round
Along the bound of Eastern ground;
Let the cymbals clang
With a merry-merry bang,
To the joys of the next campaign."

[18] There was also some show of treaty rights in appropriating the
territory, but the question is obscure and obsolete. In 1775 the Nawab
Vizier had ceded the revenues of the territory for the maintenance of
a British force in Oudh, and Lord Wellesley is said to have only
closed the mortgage by taking over the country.

[19] The ex-Peishwa was born in 1775, when Warren Hastings and Philip
Francis were beginning to quarrel at Calcutta. He ascended the throne
of Poona in 1795. He concluded the treaty of Bassein with Lord
Wellesley in 1802. He was dethroned in 1818. He lived at Bithoor, near
Cawnpore, until he died, an old man of seventy-seven, in 1853. After
his death the notorious Nana Sahib claimed to be an adopted son, and
demanded a continuation of the pension of 80,000_l._ The story will be
found in Chapter VI., of the present volume, in connection with the
massacre at Cawnpore during the sepoy mutinies of 1857.

[20] Kali, the black goddess, is the tutelar deity of Calcutta. By a
strange anomaly, Calcutta is so called after the temple Kali, at the
village of Kali ghat, in the suburbs of the British metropolis. The
temple enclosure, where kids and goats are sacrificed, is not a
pleasant place to look at.

[21] In each district there was a magistrate and collector. The two
duties had been separated by Lord Cornwallis, but were generally
united in one officer, who was the head of the district and
representative of the British government. As magistrate he punished
Asiatic offenders with fine and imprisonment, and committed serious
cases for trial. He controlled the police, managed the jail, and was
generally responsible for the peace and order of the district. As
collector he received the revenues of the district, took charge of the
treasury, and controlled the district expenditure. If anything went
wrong in the district the magistrate and collector was the universal
referee and centre of authority.

The civil judge in each district was raised to the rank of a sessions
judge. He was the judicial head of the district. He heard appeals from
all the subordinate courts, tried all important civil cases, and held
a jail delivery once a month, for the trial of all prisoners committed
by the magistrate and collector. Henceforth he was known as the
district judge.

Lord William Bentinck abolished the four provincial courts of circuit
and appeal which had been established by Lord Cornwallis, declaring
that they had become mere resting-places for those civil servants who
were unfit for higher duties. In their room he appointed commissioners
of divisions, each of whom had five or six districts under his
control. Henceforth the commissioner supervised the civil and judicial
administration throughout the districts within his division. He was
the channel of all communications between the British government at
Calcutta and the district officers. Sometimes he heard appeals from
the civil and sessions judge, but as a rule such appeals went to the
Sudder Courts at Calcutta. In revenue matters he was controlled by the
Board of Revenue at Calcutta.

The district officers had European assistants, as well as
establishments of Asiatic officials.

[22] The North-West Provinces, which extend from Bengal to the Punjab,
were to have been formed into the "Agra" Presidency. The change of
name would have been extremely convenient. Later on, when the Punjab
was annexed, the term "North-West Provinces" became a misnomer. The
Punjab was _de facto_ the furthest province on the north-west. Since
then Oudh has been annexed to the North-West Provinces, and the term
"North-West Provinces and Oudh" has become cumbrous. A single name
like "Agra" would be more appropriate.

[23] See the author's _History of India from the Earliest Ages_, vol.
iii., pages 60, 280, etc.

[24] The villages in the Company's Jaghir shared the same fate. They
were sold by auction in groups, and were mostly bought up by native
servants and dependents of the British officials at Madras. In process
of time the ryotwari settlement was introduced, and then a very knotty
question was raised. Under the ryotwari settlement a certain portion
of the waste lands round a village was given to the villagers in
common for grazing and other purposes; but the culturable waste lands
were taken over by the British authorities, and valued, and rented out
accordingly, to such ryots as were willing to bring them under
cultivation. The buyers of the villages in the Company's Jaghir
claimed, however, to be proprietors of the whole of the waste lands.
For many years the demand was referred by the Board of Revenue to the
Supreme Court, and by the Supreme Court back again to the Board of
Revenue. By this time the question has perhaps been settled.