Chapter VII: Part II (3)

The receipt of this note was not even acknowledged; and it was, of course, the last communication I made to Sir George Barlow. When Lord Minto arrived at Madras, I laid every part of my conduct before him. I gave him every information I could regarding the actual state of affairs; and submitted with freedom my sentiments of those principles which should govern his final judgment on the important points that remained for his decision. He expressed no dissatisfaction at my conduct; he thanked me for my information; and though he differed with me in many of the opinions I stated, he did not condemn me for that difference: on the contrary, he appeared pleased with the liberty I took in offering my advice with such boldness and freedom. The whole of the manner, as well as the substance of the conduct, which this able and virtuous nobleman observed towards me on this occasion, had the effect of reconciling my mind to further exertions in the public service; from which, I confess, it was, before his arrival, much, if not wholly alienated. I had been employed, as I have shown, in a confidential manner, without being trusted. I had been deputed on a delicate and arduous mission, and recommended to pursue a system which mixed firmness with conciliation, while it proposed to reclaim by reason more than by terror; and before any time was given for the operation of the measures I had taken, a new course was adopted, grounded _on coercion_ alone: and because I had not by inspiration divined that such would be the ultimate result, I now discover that I have been most unjustly censured, as disappointing the expectations of the Government: and it has been insinuated (a direct charge would have been too bold) that I acted contrary to orders. I trust I have refuted every charge of this nature: and if some should continue to think I have committed errors; none, I am assured, can accuse me of crimes. Let it be recollected that I was placed, throughout all the transactions I have described, in a most painful and difficult situation. I had no prescribed or distinct duty to perform; I was called upon by Sir G. Barlow to exert, in the manner I thought best adapted to the end, all the influence of my character to reclaim men with whom he thought I had great weight; and he appeared for a period to give me his confidence, and to trust implicitly to my discretion and judgment. I was all along sensible to the full danger of the situation in which I placed myself; but was too earnest in the cause to attend to prudence: and I may conscientiously add, that I never was more assured of meeting approbation from Sir George Barlow than at that moment when I found myself estranged from all share in his confidence, and treated with the most pointed neglect. But I had myself to reproach. I should certainly have foreseen that my efforts would have been useless, when combined with a system of measures to which they bore little or no affinity; and I was (I must confess it,) wrong in supposing, for a moment, that my advice, or any arguments I could adduce, could, under any circumstances, permanently divert the Governor of Fort St. George into a course that mixed feeling, and consideration for human failings, with the established maxims of his ordinary rule. I should have known better; and in fact I did, as my letters[68] before I went to Madras prove: but, when on the spot, my heart conquered my head, and I tried an impossibility: but I never shall regret the attempt, nor blush for having recommended principles of action that are congenial to the best feelings of human nature, that are calculated to make Government an object of rational attachment, and to give the mind a generous pride in submission and obedience; and which, so far from being of dangerous example, and subversive of order, are familiar in the practice to every free state, and have never been rejected in the most despotic, when such have been governed by great and wise rules.

FOOTNOTES:

[40] These were the persons who fabricated those reports that were circulated and believed by numbers, respecting promises of aid and support from the officers of Bengal and Bombay.

[41] _This fear of being thought afraid_, is, perhaps, of all motives of human action one of the weakest, though it wears a mask of boldness, and under that is often productive of infinite mischief.

[42] I thought so at that period, though I have been since convinced I was mistaken.

[43] Sir George Barlow not only thought so, but must, from the Governor General's letter to the secret committee of the 12th of October 1809, have conveyed the same impression to Lord Minto. The merit of foresight will not assuredly be claimed as one among the talents that were displayed by the Governor of Fort St. George upon this memorable occasion.

[44] See Lieutenant-Colonel Malcolm's letter to General Gowdie, in the Appendix.

[45] Lieutenant Maitland, the dismissed quarter-master, was ordered to command the marines; and Lieutenant Forbes, who had been banished to Condapilly, was directed to proceed to relieve an officer of the regiment on duty at Prince of Wales's Island. This second punishment was a torturing revival of those wrongs, of which not only the parties, but all the officers of the corps, had before, with some justice, complained.

[46] Lieutenant-Colonel Barclay afterwards returned me the original note.

[47] The following paragraph of a letter from Lieutenant-Colonel Montresor to Lieutenant-Colonel Doveton, dated Secundrabad, the 10th July, 1809, is a proof of the light in which this measure was viewed, and the use made of it to reclaim the most violent to duty and submission.--"When the address was forwarded from Jaulnah, the officers could not have known that the Government of Madras had taken such steps as were most likely to quiet the public mind, in consequence of the unpleasant state of affairs at Masulipatam. Lieutenant-Colonel Malcolm, whose sound sense, knowledge of the army, and conciliatory manners, peculiarly qualified him for the difficult task of allaying the ferment in the northern division of the army, has already arrived at Masulipatam, and a committee has been ordered to inquire into the late occurrences, composed of three officers among the most popular in the army: therefore I am sure the officers of Jaulnah will see the bad effects of forwarding an address, at this moment, of any nature whatever, as it could only tend to add to the irritation of the public mind." Vide printed Correspondence, No. 2, page 35.

[48] Two days after I went away, and when no event had occurred of any consequence, he was persuaded (as has been before shown) to commence the plan for placing the native corps under check of his Majesty's regiments, and the orders were sent to Hyderabad for the march of the 2d of the 10th to Goa.

[49] Instead of sending this letter, the order for the march of a battalion from Hyderabad to Goa, in prosecution of the plan for dividing the sepoy corps, was sent two days after my departure, and provoked (as was, under such circumstances, to have been expected) open resistance and rebellion.

[50] This irritating and imprudent order (which has been before noticed) was sent to Hyderabad a day or two after I sailed; and the same influence that obtained the adoption of this measure, prevented the dispatch of the letter to the commanding officers of Hyderabad and Jaulnah, which I drafted, and which Sir George Barlow at the moment approved, and _assured me he would send_.

[51] The Major-General assured me of this fact.

[52] Vide Appendix.

[53] All the letters from this officer to me while I was at Masulipatam, are in the printed Correspondence.

[54] One of the chief objects for which this proceeding was recommended and adopted, was to gain time.

[55] See Appendix.

[56] Vide Appendix.

[57] See a copy of that order in the Appendix, in a letter to Sir George Barlow, dated 5th July.

[58] See Appendix.

[59] I always thought, and always must think, that there is a wide difference between the seditious combination of a body of officers and a mutiny of soldiers, and that the two cases require a distinct treatment. With the latter there can hardly be two modes of proceeding; with the former there may be various, and all equally safe. They may be restored by the influence of reason, and subdued by the operation of their own feelings. Their minds may be reclaimed by many modes that could not be applied to their men; and there is, in the worst extremes, a character in their opposition that admits more of the application of such remedies than the mad and instinctive action of a mutinous soldiery. These two cases were certainly confounded at Madras; and most of the evils that arose may be imputed to the fallacy of treating a seditious combination of officers as a mutiny of soldiers.

[60] The danger that had been incurred was sufficient to authorize Government to take the most decisive measures to guard against the revival of such combinations against authority: and though numbers who might have merited punishment had escaped, _not one object of benefit to either individuals or the army at large had been attained_; and it is therefore quite extravagant to assert such a termination could ever have tended to encourage future proceedings of a similar nature.

[61] The account of what occurred at this station on the day General Close made the noble effort he did to carry the orders of the Government of Madras into execution, shows the desperate hazard that was incurred. If, says an officer of high rank, during the period that between four and five thousand troops were in a state of mutinous violence and uproar, "one musket had gone off by accident, not a man of his Majesty's 33d regiment would have been left alive, and a general massacre of almost all Europeans would have been the most certain result."

[62] No consideration of this question can be local or limited. If a successful example of disobedience or rebellion was exhibited by our native troops on the Madras establishment, its baneful effects would not be limited to that part of our possessions.

[63] I spoke to Colonel Barclay before I wrote upon this subject, and he said he would show my note to Sir G. Barlow, and obtain me an answer that would vindicate my character from the charge to which the Governor's change of resolution had made me liable. This circumstance left me without a doubt that the cautious reply I received from that officer was by the direction of Sir G. Barlow. Indeed, I was satisfied that this excellent and respectable officer, for whom I have always entertained the same sentiments of esteem and friendship, never acted in any part of those transactions, in which his name appears, _but by the specific instructions or orders the Governor_.

[64] Post.

[65] See a copy of this in the Appendix.

[66] The officers of that force had signed the test.

[67] It was considered, at the moment when this note was written, that almost the whole of the two corps from Chittledroog had been destroyed.

[68] Vide letters to Lords Wellesley and Wellington, pages 64, 65.