The Act of Parliament which inaugurates this period did not entirely extinguish the monopoly of the East India Company; that was reserved for the Act which marked its close. Yet the one promulgated in 1813 was sufficiently wide in its scope to partake of the nature of a revolution; for although the trade with China--chiefly tea--remained on its old close footing, that with India was thrown open to any one who possessed a licence, such licences not to be solely obtainable through the Council of Directors, but also through the Board of Control. But there were two additional clauses in the bill which, though grafted in upon it during its lengthy passage through Parliament, were of more gravity than some of original import. One was the forming of a regular Church Establishment in India--a formal declaration, as it were, of the creed of the new master; the other the inclusion of missionaries as persons to whom a licence to pursue their trade might be given. Taken together, these two clauses went far towards an admission that it was the duty of England to uphold her own faith. The speeches that were delivered for and against these clauses in Parliament are excellent reading; perhaps the most informing of them being one by Sir J. Sutton, who, attempting to hedge, as it were, objected to the open avowal in the clause that persons were to be sent to India for "the introduction of religious and moral improvement," as calculated to alarm and annoy, and suggested that the words "various lawful purposes" should be used instead. The suggestion was treated seriously; Mr Wilberforce, the great speaker on the missionary side, assuring his hearers that it was extremely unlikely that the natives of India would ever read the clause, and ending with an impassioned assertion that unless actual mention of religion was made in the Act it would stand tantamount to a decision that though Christianity was the faith of England, the creeds of Brahma and Vishnu were to be upheld by England in India. There was a strong religious party in the House, representing a stronger one in England. And feeling had been roused by Lord Minto's refusal to allow certain Baptist missionaries to print, publish, and disseminate pamphlets calculated to arouse indignation amongst the people of other faiths. So, despite a very able protest from Mr Marsh, who asserted that it must be remembered that the people "we wished to convert were in the main a moral and a virtuous people, not uninfluenced by such ideas as give security to life, and impart consolation in death," the clause was passed.
There is also an excellent speech made by Mr Tierney on the Commerce question, in which he pertinently remarks that amongst all the benefits which he was told were to accrue to the people of India from free trade, he had never heard even of a proposal to allow one manufacture of India to be freely imported into Great Britain! But such remarks were of no more avail then than they are nowadays, when the manufactures of India are stinted by the duty on cotton twists, and her markets glutted by free Manchester muslins.
The whole history of the cotton trade, in truth, is grievous. At this time, when Parliament was piously purposing to preach to so-called heathen the religion which claims first place as teaching the duty of doing to others as you would be done by, the woven goods of India could have been sold in England at rates 50 and 60 per cent. cheaper than similar goods manufactured in England. What then? Were they so sold? or sold at a price which would have brought wealth to the miserably poor Indian craftsman? No! The mills of Paisley and Manchester were protected by a duty of 70 and 80 per cent. on these Indian goods, thus sacrificing those to whom we wished to teach Christianity to those who, at any rate, said they had that faith.
Ere going on to the events of the next few years it must be mentioned that the East India Company, while vehemently protesting, had some sops thrown to it by this Act. One was that the "commercial profits of the Company were not in future to be liable for any territorial payments until the dividend claims had been satisfied." This was extremely comforting. Furthermore, £1,000,000 sterling was to be set aside from the surplus revenue (when it existed, but up to the present it had not) to meet any failure.
With this, and a few more scraps of comfort, H.M.E.I.C.S. had to be satisfied and start fair with a new Governor-General, Earl Moira. One is irresistibly reminded, when following this history of English dealings with India, of the fable concerning King Log and King Stork; for after a calm, there comes invariably a storm. How many governor-generals have not sailed out to India, loudly protesting peace, prepared at all points to uphold the non-interference clause? How many have sailed back again with reputations either marred, in English eyes, by change of policy, or kept intact by leaving behind to their successors a state of affairs out of which war was the only escape?
Earl Moira, therefore, suffered from Lord Minto's efforts after economy by his undue reduction of the army, by his refusal to see what was going on around him. So the first thing to be faced was the necessity for war in Nepaul if the boundaries of Oude were to be preserved intact. Hitherto Great Britain had been pacific over invasion to the point of pusillanimity, dreading, and not without just cause, a campaign amid the ascending peaks and passes of the Himalayas, backed by the unknown regions of its eternal snows.
But at last these dangers had to be faced. It took a whole year of hill-fighting in the finest scenery in the world, and in a climate which must have been some compensation for other hardships, ere a treaty of peace was signed at Segowlie, by which England gained in perpetuity the magnificent provinces of Kumaon and Gharwal.
Meanwhile, India was not happy. The well-meaning Western attempt to raise money by a house-tax in large cities had nearly brought about an insurrection in Benares, where the pandits had, not without cause, claimed the whole city as a place for worship, and as such exempt; while an assessment for municipal police led to hard fighting at Bareilly.
But by this time Earl Moira's eyes had been opened. On every side he saw dangers to the State-politic which could not be averted save by action. The predatory system, so often the curse of divided India, was in full swing. In truth, no power wielded sufficient authority to keep the others in order. What was happening in 1815 was what would happen in 1915 if the alien rulers of India were to adopt a policy of non-interference. The Pindârees were the chief offenders; since time immemorial their hordes of free-booting horsemen had been a terror, and of late years they had aided and abetted the Mahrattas. But, despite growing atrocities, it was not until 1816 that Parliament would permit them to be coerced.
Meanwhile, Râjputana was smouldering. After the murder of the Emperor Farokhsîr the various states fell into the hands--as did almost all India--of the Mahrattas; not without hard fighting, not without bitter beatings, and still more bitter upbraiding, as when after one defeat the Rana of Oudipore made a common courtesan carry the Great Sword-of-State, avowing that in "such degenerate times it was no better than a woman's weapon."
So matters had gone on from bad to worse, while Scindiah, dissociating himself from the Peishwa, became paramount, until in 1778 Râjah Bhîm came to the throne of Mêwar (Oudipore, Chitore). During his reign Scindiah and Holkar fought almost continuously over the hills and dales of Râjputana, and the former threw the weight of his savage influence into the pitiful tragedy of Kishna Kumari, the Virgin Princess. Her story is well known, but if only for the strangeness of such an incident being possible in the nineteenth century, and in a court where Englishmen came and went, it may be given here.
Kishen Kumari, the Virgin Kishen, was beautiful exceedingly. She was promised in marriage to the chief of Jeypore. Scindiah, incensed at non-payment of a claim by the latter, opposed this in favour of the chief of Marwar; and in the ensuing struggle to the death, Bhîm Singh, seeing ruin before him, determined to sacrifice his daughter's life as the only way of ending the strife.
They tried to poniard her, she standing calm; but the dagger fell from the hand of the brother appointed, as one of sufficient rank, to the deed. Then they tried poison. She drank it three times calmly, bidding her grief-distracted mother remember that Râjput women were marked out for sacrifice from birth, and that she owed her father gratitude for letting her live so long. But the poison refused its work; so, as calmly, she asked for a kasumba draught to make her sleep. It was prepared. Sweet essence of flowers, sweet syrup of fruits, concealed the deadly dose of opium; she laid herself down and slept, never to wake.
A terrible tale, which merits the comment made on it by old Sagwant Singh, chief of Karrâdur, who, riding hard for Oudipore, flung himself breathless from his horse with the quick query: "Does the princess live?" And hearing the negative, went on without a pause up the stone steps of the palace, through the wide courtyard, adown the passage, till he found Mâhârâjah Bhîm upon his throne. Then he unbuckled his sword.
"My ancestors," rang out the passionate, protesting old voice, "have served yours for thirty generations. To you, my king, I dare say nothing, but never more will sword of mine be drawn in your service."
So, laying it with his shield at the feet of the weakling, he left.
A fine old Râjput was Sagwant Singh; one feels glad he said his say.
This, however, is by the way. Nine years after it happened--that is to say, in 1819--after the war with the Pindârees (which, of course--since war is ever bred of war in India--involved hostilities with the Peishwa, with Holkar, with Scindiah, with all the native states, briefly, who tried to bar the progress of the new master), Râjputana found itself eager to claim alliance with a power which, instead as of old protesting against protection, was now not only willing to grant it, but prepared to make its promise good against all comers.
For once, then, in the sweeping changes which the year ending in 1819 brought about, the English gave as good as they got. No great battle had been fought, but Scindiah was humbled, Holkar's aggressions had been stopped, the Peishwa's very name had disappeared, and on all sides alliances had been formed--durable alliances, which would no longer require the sword to enforce them.
And all this arose out of Parliament's hesitating admission that certain predatory robbers must be restrained, and Earl Moira's wise interpretation of that scant assent into action which, after two weary years, settled the great territorial question of India as only it could be settled; that is to say, as the Earl (afterwards Lord Hastings) phrases it: "by the establishment of universal tranquillity under the guarantee and supremacy of England."
But the Gurkha or Nepaulese war, and the third and final Mahratta war, unfortunately, only form part of Lord Hastings' work. He was not so happy in dealing with the question of Oude. It had simmered for long: the Nawâb, who had been encouraged by Lord Minto, complaining of the interference of the Resident; the Resident complaining of obstinate obstruction on the part of the Nawâb. In the middle of the quarrel Sa'adut-Ali died, leaving treasure, despite his plea of poverty, to the amount of £13,000,000. He was succeeded easily, quietly, with the help of British influence, by his eldest son, who, to show his gratitude, offered one of his father's millions to the Company as a gift. It was accepted as a loan at the usual rate of interest, 6 per cent.
But the young Nawâb was even more turbulent than his father, and when a second million was asked for on the same terms as the first, took the opportunity of practically demanding the withdrawal of the Resident. Now it is impossible to be harsh with a potentate who has just loaned you two millions of money out of his private purse. Without for a moment doubting the decision that Major Baillie the Resident had been wanting in respect, the fact remains that he went to the wall, and that the Nawâb was set free of all control in his administration. Furthermore, after a treaty signed in 1816, by which the loan of the second million was written off against the cession of a piece of territory scarcely worth the sum, the Nawâb was further encouraged and advised to assume the title of King; thus once for all asserting his equality with, and not his dependence on, the shadow of the Great Moghul at Delhi.
So, to the extreme indignation of the latter's sham Court and the scandal of all true Mahomedans, he proclaimed himself "Ghâzi-uddin-Hyder, King of Oude, the Victorious, the Upholder of Faith, the Monarch of the Age."
Not such a very poor specimen at that, whether taken at native or English estimate; for he was at least amiable--a kind, not overclever princeling, who cultivated the Arts in a dilettante fashion.
For the rest, though the long service--over nine years--of the Marquis of Hastings was eminently successful, it was not likely that one who rode rough-shod over the faddists' cry for noninterference at home could escape without censure. But regular impeachment was impossible towards one who had actually augmented the public revenues by £6,000,000 a year! So he escaped the fate of Clive and Warren Hastings.
He was succeeded by William Pitt (Lord Amherst) after an interregnum during which a Mr John Adams, armed with supreme, if brief authority, carried on a crusade against the press which, in view of recent occurrences, is singularly informing. The censorship had been abolished by Lord Hastings in rather bombastical language, which scarcely matched the severe inhibitions that followed against anything like criticism; the actual result being, that while the name of an invidious office was abolished, the press was left to face prosecution. In the case of the Calcutta Journal, against which Mr Adams tilted, the end was deportation of the editor to England!
The Burmese war, however, occupied Lord Amherst until 1826, when various minor campaigns became necessary; one against a Sikh mendicant, who announced himself as the last of the Avatârs of Krishna, incarnated for the express purpose of ousting all foreigners from India. Bhurtpore, also, had to be finally taken, a usurper expelled, and a six-year-old râjah established on the throne, under the guidance, naturally, of a British resident. Such things had to be if the standard of Western ethics was to be enforced in Government.
There remained also Oude, that perennial thorn in the side of those who had created it. Ghâzi-ud-din-Hyder had lent a million and a half more money to the Company--had lent it at 5 per cent.!--but yet, he complained, there was no pleasing the English master! There is something pitiful about the good-natured king's plea that misgovernment could not exist, because Oude from one end to the other was cultivated like a garden; there was not even a waste place in it whereon an army might encamp! And as for the disturbances on the British borders, was he responsible for the landholders being Râjputs by tribe, soldiers by profession, and so refusing to pay except by force? And for what did he pay English soldiers, except to use force?
There was force, anyhow, in his arguments, but his grievances remained unredressed at his death in 1827, when he was succeeded by his son, Nâsir-ud-din-Hyder.
So, without any great excitement save the Burmese war, Lord Amherst's Governor-Generalship came abruptly to an end, owing to sudden illness in his family, which prevented his awaiting any arrangement for his successor. This is somewhat typical of one who never seems to have taken any personal interest in Indian questions, who, in fact, seems to have wearied of the East. He was the first Governor-General who found a Capua at Simla.
Then, after much striving, Lord William Bentinck, who had been deprived of the Government of Madras in 1807 in consequence of the mutiny at Vellore, was appointed in Lord Amherst's place. It was a great triumph for him, being, as it were, an admission that he had been unjustly dismissed in the first instance. His administration, however, did much to justify his early treatment, for there can be no question that he showed an almost phenomenal want of tact. Indeed, but for the fact that the final extinction of the monopoly of trade did not take place until 1835, this chapter would end on the assumption of office by Lord William Bentinck in 1828, since there can be no doubt that many of his well-meaning efforts should be included amongst the causes which led up to the mutiny of 1857. The best plan, therefore, will be to catalogue them briefly here, and discuss them in connection with others of a like nature after 1835. The first, which brought him great disfavour with the military, was not, strictly speaking, his action, but that of England. His only responsibility for what is called the half-batta (extra allowance) order is that he did not, as Lord Hastings and Lord Amherst had done, refuse to obey his superiors. It was a silly retrenchment, since for the sake of a paltry £20,000 a year it gave umbrage to a very deserving body of men, who could ill afford to lose the money. The scheme was condemned by all competent judges in India as "unwise and inexpedient, fraught with mischief, and unproductive of good."
But Lord William Bentinck had come out bound hand and foot to economy, social reform, and missionary effort, so he spent his years in adding up and subtracting, in framing laws, such as that against suttee, and the forfeiture which, under Hindu law, followed on conversion to a different faith.
For political work he had but one catchword; the catchword of his employers--non-interference. The puppet-emperor at Delhi complained bitterly; his complaint being unheard, he actually sent an agent--no less a person than Râm-Mohun-Rao, the founder of the Brahma-Somâjh, the modern Theistical sect of India--to plead his cause in England. But he also was unheard. His mission had been kept secret, and so his credentials were "out of order."
In Oude, Nâsir-ud-din, realising this policy of non-interference, began a series of petty aggressions against Âga-Mîr, the finance minister, whom the British Government supported. These ended unsatisfactorily for all parties by the minister being conveyed out of the reach of Nâsir-ud-din's vindictive hatred. The Nawâb then refused to appoint any one in Âga-Mîr's place, and, being totally unfit, by reason of his dissolute habits, to manage the state himself, everything fell into confusion. Finally, driven, for once, out of non-interference by the effect of it, Lord William Bentinck not only refused friendly intercourse if a responsible minister were not appointed, but told the drunken, disreputable occupier of the throne himself in so many words, that if he did not mend his ways he would be deposed.
So far well; but when, appalled by this prospect, Nâsir-ud-din besought advice how to govern, this was refused. The policy of which the Governor-General was the mouthpiece would not allow him to interfere!
Humanity is at times hard to understand; in this instance peculiarly so, unless, as was stated at the time by the respectable courtiers--and even in that sink of iniquity, Lucknow, there were some just men--the real object of the English was not to improve government, but to find an excuse for usurping it.
But in Jeypore, in Jodhpore, in Bundi, in Kotah, and many another minor state, to say nothing of larger ones, the almost slavish adherence of Lord William Bentinck to the order he had received brought strained relations. And yet all the while he was attempting purely diplomatic râpprochements with outlying states. The Russian scarecrow had begun to trouble the slumbers of Indian statesmen, and this curious creature, destined to remain a nightmare for generations, led to interest in the affairs of Kâbul. In Lord Minto's time Mr Mountstuart Elphinstone had, with great difficulty, met the then Ameer Shâh-Sujah at Peshâwar, and arranged the terms of a treaty with him, but ere this could be ratified Shâh-Sujah himself had been turned out of his throne. He had pleaded for help to recover it; but Lord Minto being one of the non-interference faction, aid had been refused. The Ameer had, however, been allowed a pension, on which he had lived in Ludhiâna, a Sikh town on the Sutlej river.
Here Lord William Bentinck found him in 1832, when he had an interview with Runjeet-Singh, the Sikh king of the Punjâb.
There can be little doubt that the question of aiding Shâh-Sujah to recover his throne was mooted by Runjeet-Singh, and was negatived by the Governor-General; there is also little doubt, however, that too much cold water was not thrown over the scheme, since Dost-Mahomed, the Kâbul usurper, was suspicioned with Russian proclivities and was being watched.
But these are minor points compared to the changes which were coming over the East India Company at home. Its charter expired in 1834, and the question as to whether that charter should be renewed had to be answered. It was answered in the negative, and on the 22nd April 1834 India ceased to be a land of restrictions. It was thrown open to the wide world. During the course of the twenty years which had passed since the semi-extinction of the Company's power, but 1,324 licences to go to India had been issued. What proportion of these had been issued to those whose object was "the introduction of religious and moral improvements" is unknown, but in 1833 mission work had begun almost all over India; indeed, the concluding years of the period between 1813 and 1833 were marked by greatly increased efforts and results in proselytising the natives. One cause of this being the shortening of the ocean passage to India by the adoption of the Red Sea route. On the 20th March 1830 the Hugh Lindsay, a small steamer, left Bombay harbour, arriving in Suez in thirty-two days, and on her next voyage reduced the time to twenty-two. Thus, before the year 1836, despatches from London arrived in Bombay in two instead of six months; the time taken now is twelve days.
It may seem extravagant to say that the lessening of sea-sickness brought about the Indian Mutiny, but taken seriously, it is true. That is to say, the sudden letting loose on a country which had hitherto been reserved to especially licensed persons, of all and sundry, the dregs as well as the cream of the West, together with the removal of the great personal discomfort and expense of a six months' journey round the Cape, which had hitherto militated against travel in India, combined to produce such a change in that country as was bound to create alarm, distrust, and resentment, amongst the most Conservative people in the world.
What was the cause which led England to refuse a continuance of its charter to the East India Company?
It was the price of tea. Before this, all considerations as to whether the Company had done its duty to India or not vanish into thin air. As Mr Mill the historian says succinctly: "The administration of the Government of India by the East India Company was too exclusively a matter of interest to India to excite much attention in England." But with tea it was different. That was a question for every Englishman's breakfast table. Hitherto China had been debarred from free trade, and the price of tea was high; therefore monopoly was a bad thing for the consumer of tea. Q.E.D.
So on the 22nd April 1834, India was thrown open to the world, and though "John-Company" still ruled its destiny, it did so on a different footing. For the rest, the story of the dispute concerning territorial and commercial assets, the haggling over bargains between the Court of Directors and Parliament, is not edifying, as may be judged by the fact that the latter suggested the abolition of the salt-monopoly, not from the slightest consideration for the taxed native of India, but from a desire to secure a new market for Cheshire!
One of the first results of the new arrangement was an unseemly struggle over the filling up of the Governor-Generalship made vacant by Lord William Bentinck's retirement from ill-health. That the appointment should have been bestowed on Sir Charles Metcalfe is certain; he had served India well in many capacities. But parties objected. Then Mr Mountstuart Elphinstone came into the running, also Sir Henry Fane, Lord Heylesbury, Lord Glenelg, until at last a perfectly colourless appointment was made in the person of Lord Auckland, a most amiable and estimable nobleman, with no experience of India. He arrived in Calcutta in 1836, the interregnum, during which Sir Charles Metcalfe had carried on the work, having lasted for over a year. He immediately started on judicial reform with the aid of a law commission, of which Mr, afterwards Lord Macaulay, was president. It was he who drafted the Indian Penal-Code, which, founded on common-sense and the old Roman Law, remains to this day practically unaltered, a standing challenge of concise clearness to the confused medley of old precedent and new practice which so often does duty for equity in England. While this work was in progress unexpected trouble in Oude occurred. Nawâb Nâsir-ud-din-Hyder died suddenly, leaving no children. It may be remarked that the constant occurrence of heirlessness amongst the reigning families of India at this time tells its tale all too clearly. There were two boys favoured by the Queen-mother, whom the Nawâb had once acknowledged, but had since formally disavowed. He himself had no brothers, and the succession therefore reverted to the heirs-male of Sa'adut-Ali, his grandfather. Under British law the next-of-kin would have been the children of an elder son; under Mahomedan law it was the younger but still living son. Of this there can be no possible doubt. Looking back on Indian history, though, as a rule, the failure of direct heirs-male brought about a general free fight over the succession, a younger uncle has always claimed above a cousin. Thus in Oude there were instantly three claimants in the field. The Queen-mother's boy Mura-Jân, the younger uncle Nâsir-ud-daula, and Yamîn-ud-daula, who claimed to be son of an elder uncle, and was therefore a first cousin.
Naturally, the British supported Nâsir-ud-daula. Legally, he was the heir, though after a time another first-cousin-pretender, asserting that he and he only was the rightful Nawâb, actually travelled to England in order to urge his title. Meanwhile, on the Nawâb's sudden death, old Nâsir-ud-daula, the English nominee, had been dragged out of bed, promptly conveyed to the palace, and left to take an hour or two's sleep before the fatiguing ceremony of being installed on the cushion of State.
This was the Queen-mother's opportunity. She nipped in from her palace at Dilkusha with half the loose riffraff of the town (which in Lucknow floats about aimlessly awaiting such an opportunity), seized on the person of old Nâsir-ud-daula-it is a wonder they did not murder him--and promptly put Mura-Jân on the throne; he occupied it for about one hour and forty-five minutes. Then the British troops having returned and cleared a way with a few charges of grape, the coronation of the poor, miserable, by this time nerve-collapsed old uncle went on in due course!
Small wonder that he signed every obligation which he was asked to sign. This does not, however, in any way exonerate those who, taking undoubted advantage of the position, made him sign an unconditional engagement of submissiveness.
Still, signed it was; and for a very distinct and palpable "good consideration." Therefore its legality is beyond question.
The year 1836, however, brought up another political question for decision. The Râjah of Sattârah, quite a small princeling, had given trouble ever since the English had most unwisely rescued him from poverty and imprisonment and placed him in power. His proceedings, eventually, became so outrageous, that the Government deposed him, and elevated his brother to the vacant throne.
This is mentioned because the incident is made use of as evidence for the "annexation at any price policy" of the English. In this case, at any rate, they did not err.
But now, over the horizon of a fairly peaceful India, its statesmen saw, looming in the distance, the shadow of Russia, and all thought, all energies, turned to the north-west frontier. Between it and the territory already swayed by Calcutta lay the Sikh nation and the five fruitful Doabas of the Punjâb. Of these England knew little, save what she had learnt from Megasthenes the Greek, and Arrian's Anabasis.
One or two courteous interviews had passed with Runjeet-Singh, the Sikh king, but that was all. It was sufficient, however, to show him able, a man not to be easily swayed. His life-history confirms this. Left king at the age of twelve, with a profligate mother who for years had carried on an intrigue with the chief Minister-of-State, and an exceedingly ambitious mother-in-law, he managed to rid himself speedily of their influence, and ere long take his position as monarch of a far larger kingdom than he had inherited. His conquests eastwards were, indeed, only checked by meeting with British-protected states, and he kept an eye steadily on both Kâbul and Kashmîr. The former he hoped to gain by using Shâh-Sujah, the deposed Ameer, as a stalking-horse; and as a bribe for help promised, but never given, he succeeded in extorting from the latter the celebrated Koh-i-nur diamond. The latter, and Peshawar, he wrested from the Afghâns, with the aid of two French officers who opportunely arrived on the scene. So much for the Punjâb. Below it, still on the western border, lay Scinde, an independent state. Beyond it, Persia, with which England already had relations. But what of Afghanistan? There Mr Elphinstone's attempt to establish connection had ended with Shâh-Sujah's flight.
It was determined, therefore, to attempt an embassy to Dost-Mahomed, his usurping successor, and Sir Alexander Burnes was chosen as the delegate.
He was a man who had travelled all over Central Asia, who was in every way qualified for his task. Unfortunately, or fortunately, he was too well qualified for carrying out the simple commercial instructions with which the English Government had tentatively, perhaps timidly, entrusted him. But the discovery of Russian intrigues in full swing at the Kâbul court sent commerce to the right-about. Burnes was in the thick of diplomacy without delay, and ere long formal questioning and reply was going on between Russian and English ambassadors regarding the former's influence on the Indian borderland, which elicited a categorical denial of any ulterior object on the part of Russia.
But Dost-Mahomed for all that refused to accede to England's somewhat impertinent request, that he should dismiss the Russian agent from his court. And so began a quarrel which is barely settled to-day.
Sir Alexander Burnes left Kâbul in dudgeon, and almost immediately after his departure matters came to a crisis by the Persians--avowed allies of Russia--besieging Herât. Now, Herât was considered by diplomatists and the military alike the key of India, and in 1838, after many pour parlers, manifestoes, and embroglios, the combined armies of the tripartite alliance, that is to say, the British, the Sikhs, and Shâh-Sujah, marched on the Punjâb to reinstate the latter on his long-vacated throne in Kâbul. In all the long history of India no more unwarrantable invasion was ever undertaken, though half a hundred good reasons were given for it at the time, and could be found for its defence even now by those who fail to see that Dost-Mahomed was, as Eastern potentates go, quite a decent ruler. There is but one possible excuse. England chose her career deliberately, thinking not at all of Afghânistân, but of Russia.
After a halt at Ferôzepore, where the allies assembled and where festivities were held, Runjeet-Singh, an old man now, blind of one eye, desperately marked with smallpox, and inconceivably ugly, tripped over a carpet, to the horror of his court (who considered it an evil omen), and fell flat on his nose at the feet of a big English gun he was examining; and where, also, Henry Havelock, one of the new school of the Church-Militant, exclaimed in horror at "the ladies of a British Governor-General 'watching' choral and dancing prostitutes" (surely a somewhat over high-toned description of that deadliest of dull and decorous entertainments, an Indian nautch). After all this a fairly-triumphant march was made through Scinde (where the Ameer of that country, after a distinct promise that no riverside forts should be touched, was fairly diddled out of the one at Bukkhur, on the shameless plea that it stood on an island), through Quetta to Kandahâr and Ghuzni (which made a good resistance); so to Kâbul, which was entered on the 7th August 1839, when Shâh-Sujah ran about the passages of the Bâla-Hissâr palace like a child, clapping his hands with delight at finding himself back again after thirty years' absence.
So far good. But, meanwhile, Runjeet-Singh had died, and our rear was endangered by the almost open enmity of his successor. Thus a limited garrison, only, had to be left in Kâbul; and in addition, Dost-Mahomed's first flight had proved to be but a prelude to desperate resistance. Still, armed occupation was held of the town of Kâbul, cantonments were built for the British regiments and sepoys which formed the garrison, in which the troops passed the winter and summer of 1841 in comfort. Then came disaster.
What caused the outbreak is a mystery. So far as one can judge, it began in private revenge upon Sir Alexander Burnes. His house was the first attacked on the 2nd November 1841 by a mob thirsting for blood and plunder. He attempted to calm them by harangue. He offered large sums for his own and his brother's escape, but they were both cut down, every sepoy murdered, every man, woman, or child on the premises brutally killed.
And here follows in petto an anticipation of what occurred some fifteen years later, when a like massacre broke out at Meerut in 1857. A general paralysis seems to have attacked those in authority. Here, there, everywhere, in isolated posts, Englishman and sepoy fought together and fell together bravely; but at headquarters decision disappeared, and Brigadier Shelton finally settled, weakly, to hold the cantonments, instead of retiring on the fortified and almost impregnable Bâla-Hissâr, where there was a plentiful store of provision. The mistake was fatal. Within a month a treaty had to be signed which was practically unconditional surrender. Dost-Mahomed was to be reinstated; Shâh-Sujah allowed to follow his friends back to India. "The terms secured," writes Sir William McNaghten, "were the best obtainable." At any rate, at the time, it was hoped that they would save the lives of some fifteen thousand human beings. But fate was against it. Sir William McNaghten, failing in a side-intrigue which, even had it succeeded, would have been barely possible with honour, was foully murdered, and on the 6th of January about four thousand five hundred fighting-men and twelve thousand camp followers, men, women, and children, were driven out into the inclement winter cold to find their way, as best they could, over peak and pass back to Hindustan.
The horrors of that terrible march will scarcely bear telling. Over three thousand found freedom at once by being massacred, wantonly massacred by mountain tribes in the first pass; the rest, without food, without fuel, without tents, pressed on, fighting fiercely as they forced their way eastwards.
It was on the 13th of January that the English garrison at Jellalabad, looking out up the passes, saw one man swaying in his saddle, scarce able to keep his seat, urging his jaded, outworn pony eastward, still eastward!
It was Dr Bryden, the only man who came through. But he brought the welcome news that some women and children, and a few men, were prisoners, and so far safe.
Naturally, there was no more question now as to the rights or wrongs of war. These captives had to be rescued, and punishment meted out to many murderers. Both objects were accomplished within the year, but not by Lord Auckland; for Lord Ellenborough succeeded him at the time of the Kâbul disaster, when matters were at their worst. There was some difficulty in finding a candidate for the throne. Shâh-Sujah himself had in the interval been shot through the head, and his son, whom the mob of Kâbul had first set up as a puppet-king and then imprisoned, had no stomach for further sovereignty. A younger member of the family was, however, eventually found willing to face assassination for the sake of a doubtful crown.
His kingship, which only lasted till the British forces were withdrawn, at least secured the preservation of the Bâla-Hissâr, which otherwise, as a punishment to Kâbul, would have been razed to the ground; as it was, the Great Bazaar, a building entirely devoted to commerce, was destroyed instead, possibly because Sir William McNaghten's body had been exposed upon it.
Thus, in 1843, the first Afghân war came to an end with the absurd incident of the Gates of Somnâth. These were supposed to be still hung at the entrance of Mahomed-the-Despoiler's tomb at Ghuzni. So, with an odd mixture of sham Orientalism and latter-day romanticism, they were taken down, carried back to India to form the subject of a most marvellous effusion addressed to the chiefs and peoples of India, which goes by the name of "Ellenborough's Song of Triumph," in which these gates, "so long the memorial of your national humiliation," are said to have "become the proudest record of your national glory!"
And after all, they were not the Gates of Somnâth!
Almost immediately after this the relations with Scinde became strained. The Ameer had, in truth, just cause of complaint in a breach of treaty regarding the passage of troops across the Indus, and after much discussion the sword became the only possible arbiter. So Sir Charles Napier commenced the war which, conducted by consummate skill throughout, ended virtually with the victory of Miani and the annexation of Scinde.
It was towards the end of the next little war, this time with Scindiah, that Lord Ellenborough was recalled, and Sir Henry Hardinge, being sent to govern in his stead, found himself instantly plunged in a war of far greater magnitude with the Sikhs, with whom, after the death of old Runjeet-Singh, friendly relations had ceased. In truth, the kingdom was in a state of tumult. The army, which consisted of almost the whole nation (since every Sikh is by birth and faith a fighter), realising that the whole power was virtually in its hands, clamoured for new conquests. Dhuleep-Singh, the heir, was a minor; his mother, nominally guardian, had no influence, and finally, forced by circumstances, gave her consent to an invasion of British territory. It was an unprovoked, and yet not altogether unwelcome assault, and it met with instant and overpowering reply. On the 13th December 1845 the Sikh army crossed the Sutlej in force, and on the very same day a British proclamation was issued, formally declaring that all possessions of Mâhârâjah Dhuleep-Singh, on the British bank of the river, were annexed. Swift battle followed. At Moodki on the 18th December, on the 22nd at Ferozeshâh, on the 20th January at Aliwâl; finally, the 10th February saw the last stand made at Sobrâon, a village which stood then on the eastern bank of the sliding river. It stands now on the western, for the Sutlej has shifted.
Swift, and short, and sure, was the campaign, curiously enough leaving little of rancour behind it amongst the tall, upstanding Sikhs. "You were so much better than we were," said an old Sikh worthy, who had gone through the four defeats, as he showed an infinitesimal slice of his little finger tip; "just so much--no more! but you were better led." And the keen old eyes ranged cheerfully over the wide wheat plain, intersected by silver-shining streaks of sliding river, that had once been the battle-field of Sobrâon, and the old voice went on exultingly over the tale of how he had knelt to receive the British cavalry at Aliwâl, and knelt on, through three consecutive charges, until he had fallen unconscious amongst his dead comrades.
A treaty of peace was signed at Lahôre twelve days after Sobrâon, which stipulated for the formal cession of the whole Cis-Sutlej country and an indemnity of £1,500,000, £500,000 of which was to be paid immediately, and the remaining £1,000,000 to be discharged by the cession of Kashmîr and Hazâra.
This practically ended Lord Hardinge's Governor-Generalship, and late in 1847 Lord Dalhousie took up the office.
The whole of the next year was taken up with a war in Scinde which spread to the northern half of the Punjâb beyond Lahôre, which--despite the cession of Hazâra--still remained practically unsubdued. After the taking of Multân and the defeat of Mulrâj's troops, Lord Gough marched northwards against Shere-Singh, defeated him at Râmnuggar, fought an indecisive battle against him at Chillianwâla, and finally, on the 21st February 1849, at Gujerât, completely annihilated the Sikh army, taking all their guns.
Resistance was thus at an end, and the Punjâb as far as Peshawar was coloured red in the map of India.
The proclamation of the Governor-General in announcing the fact is worthy of quotation as a finish to the long history of English dealings with Hindustan.
"The Government of India formerly declared that it decreed no further conquest, and it proved by its acts the sincerity of its profession. The Government of India has no desire for conquest now; but it is bound in its duty to provide fully for its own security and to guard the interests of those committed to its charge. To that end, and as the only sure mode of protecting the state from the perpetual recurrence of unprovoked and wasting wars, the Governor-General is compelled to resolve upon the entire subjection of a people whom their own Government has long been unable to control, and whom (as events have now shown) no punishment can deter from violence, no act of friendship can conciliate to peace."
The question arises, how much of this admirable effusion is strictly true? In the case of the Punjâb there can be no doubt that the Sikhs began the struggle by wanton and unprovoked assault. But was this always so? Certainly not always. Yet once begun, there was no possibility of turning back in England's career of annexation. She had put her hand to the plough, she was driving a Western furrow over the uncultivated wilds of the East, and as she sowed and scattered seed, the necessity for protecting the crop-scanty though it was at first--arose immediate and insistent.
People say England has brought poverty to India. Perhaps she has. Poverty is the handmaid of so-called civilisation. But she has also brought peace--and population!
Beyond the second Burmese war and the annexation of Oude there is little to be recorded in this short period of seven years. The former passed on, as did every war, to annexation; yet once again there seems little doubt that this was brought about by obstinate refusal to keep the treaty which ensured "the utmost protection and security" to British ships trading to Burmese ports.
The question of the annexation of Oude, however, falls into another category, and is so often cited as one of the chief causes of the Great Mutiny of 1857, that it is best discussed among the many other reasons for resentment and rebellion which undoubtedly existed in India at this time. One of these was the change of manners in the ruling white-faced race.
In the old days of a good year's voyaging and sea-sickness round the Cape few women had been found to face it; and so the Englishmen in India had formed irregular connections with native women, often of very good birth. These connections, though, of course, contrary to our marriage laws, were not exactly immoral; they were, indeed, often as regular as the differing codes of Christianity, Hinduism, and Mahomedanism would allow. And, naturally, they greatly bridged over the gulf between the rulers and the ruled.
The short sea-passage changed all this. English ladies came out in crowds, and seeing themselves surrounded by native sister-subjects who thought differently to what they did on almost every conceivable social subject, held up holy hands of horror at everything they saw, oblivious, apparently, of the obvious fact, that if the native sister appeared a bogey to them, they also must have been a bogey to the native sister.
She, however, by her very seclusion, was prevented from airing her opinion. Not so the Englishwomen and young girls who began to come to live amongst those who were generally called the heathen. There is no more charitable and kindly soul than the average British matron, and in the days before '57 she was beyond measure romantic. This was the time when, escaping from the stern rule of papa and mama, who had been ready with bread and water for "miss" if she refused an eligible parti, the English girl looked on Love with a big L, as something only a trifle less divine than the God whom she worshipped. She was not, therefore, likely to find anything but militant pity and charity for a social system which began by ignoring love as synonymous with passion. Thus the Englishwoman was no factor for peace in the new order of things. Then the changes inaugurated by the inclusion of the "introduction of religious and moral improvement" as a licensable trade had borne much fruit. One has only to read missionary reports to find out how enormously organised effort to convert the people of India had increased since 1813, and still more from 1833. In the year 1840 Dr Duff's Christian college at Calcutta numbered over six hundred pupils, and in 1845 came the added interest to the cause of Missions brought by the great Evangelical movement, not only in the Church of England, but throughout all Europe. This wave of religiosity left no Christian sect untouched, and part of its result was the introduction into India of a race of Church-Militant officials, admirable in character, in work, who, despite their faithful performance of duties to Cæsar which demanded absolute impartiality, could not divest themselves absolutely of their other duty (as they held it) to God; that is to say, to influence the natives for good--in other words, to Christianity. Without attempting praise or blame, it is impossible to deny that the example of such strong and militant Christians as the Lawrences, as Havelock, as half a hundred other well-known names, to say nothing of the hundreds of lesser-known ones who in civil stations and cantonments were encouraging mission work with all their might and main, must inevitably have attracted the attention of pandits and moulvies, whose profession, whose bare living, was bound up in so-called heathendom.
Then, ever since the days of Lord William Bentinck, legislation had favoured the new faith. It will be remembered that he was mixed up with the mutiny at Vellore--a mutiny, if ever there was one, caused by abject fear of enforced conversion. His abolition of suttee, his tinkering with Indian law so as to free Hindu converts to Christianity from disabilities in succession (or as it has been put, "to free them from the trammels of their former superstitions and secure them in the full possession of Christian freedom"), had passed muster at the time, but as their effects became palpable, their interference in matters of custom and religion was resented. The very inauguration of female education was an offence, and as the years went on, bringing ever more and more missionary effort, and, above all, more support to that effort on the part of the ruling race, fear of wholesale conversion sprang up amongst the ignorant people, and was carefully fostered by the priests and preachers who had all to gain and nothing to lose by revolt.
And behind all this lay slumbering a great resentment. Say what folk would, be the excuse what it might, the fact remained that the last hundred years had seen every Indian prince reduced to the position of a pensioner, his land annexed. And the years between 1850 and 1857 produced a large crop of such annexations and usurpations. To begin with the petty state of Sattârah. When Pertâp-Singh the ruler (given his chiefship by the British who hunted him up, prisoned, poverty-stricken) had to be deposed childless, England forebore to annex, and placed a brother on the cushion of State; but when that brother, also childless, adopted a son but a few hours before his death, she refused to recognise his right to do so in regard to the succession. Such a son was legal heir to personal property, but Sattârah, being a dependency, could not by Indian law pass by adoption without the permission of the lord-paramount, which in this case had not been asked. Legally, she was right; but the sting of annexation rankled.
Then the case of Kerowli occurred, in which adoption was made without permission; but here the Governor-General's order was over-ruled by the Directors, who held that though "Sattârah had been originally a gift and creation of the British Government, Kerowli was one of the oldest Râjput states, and merited different treatment." Annexation was not, therefore, carried out; but the very considerateness of the decision intensified feeling in the other case.
Following this came the Jhânsi case, involving an area of about 2,000 square miles. Here, again, no issue--almost no collateral relationships--was the cause of an unauthorised adoption which, because the chiefship was, again, a creation of the English, was held inadmissible.
Then, as if these three almost forced annexations, occurring in 1849,1852, and 1853 respectively, were not enough to damn British policy in the eyes of disaffection, yet another case came up for settlement in 1853; for on the 11th of December died Râgoji-Bônsla, the Râjah of Berâr. He left neither issue nor collateral heir, neither had he attempted to supply their place by adoption; thus the question of the state lapsing to the Crown arose in its simplest and clearest form. The decision was, naturally, that by the Râjah's "death without any heir whatever, the possession of his territories has reverted to the British Government which gave them"; a decision without any doubt legal.
Now, ere passing on to the annexation of Oude, which stands on a totally different footing, it is as well to notice the drift of what may be read between the lines of this long record of principalities passing by lack of heirs of the body to the lord-paramount. What does it mean? Doubtless, it points first to degeneracy, to the fading away of families which is due to dissolute life. But this life in high places was no new thing; the English had found it rampant when they came. Therefore some other reason for the necessity of State interference must be found. What was this?
Plainly, on the very face of things, the answer is to be found. It was the order, the law, the freedom from conspiracy, assassination, self-aggrandisement, which English protection had ensured. In the old times an heirless râjah of past fifty would have been the centre of a snatching crowd of nobles, and the strongest would have asserted his right, and possibly hurried on the death of the dying king, or ever the lord-paramount had time to interfere; and then a payment in gold would have satisfied authority! So degeneracy did not matter; a new family always took the place of the dead one.
Now there was a hard and fast law which had to be obeyed by king and subject alike; a bitter lesson for any Oriental to learn, whose very idea of kingship is its superiority to order.
The trouble in Oude began--when did it not begin!
In 1760 Sûjah-ud-daula, its hereditary wazîr, well beaten by the Company for aggression on Bengal, ceded Allahabad and Korah, but was left undisputed master of the rest of his territories. In 1768, again in consequence of defeat, he was bound over to reduce his army. In 1773 he once more bound himself to further dependence in return for troops. In 1775 Sûjah-ud-daula died, and his son Asâf-ud-daula, in return for "good consideration," ceded territory as perpetual payment of the said troops, and afterwards, by various treaties, promised, in return for the guarantee of the possession, protection, and administration of Oude, to govern "in such a manner as would be conducive to the prosperity of his subjects"; also, to act on the advice of the British Government. Sa'adut-Ali, his successor, ratified these treaties, and showed, by the mere fact of his amassing treasure to the amount of £14,000,000 during his reign of fifteen years, that they were not, at least, pecuniarily hard. Ghâzi-ud-din, the next Nawâb or wazîr, regained a certain independence, not by treaty, but by loaning out his father's millions to the Company. The sop of being allowed to assert his independence of Delhi and call himself King was thrown to him; but he was no ruler, and the aid of British troops being refused him, "except in support of just and legitimate demands," he defied the treaty which limited his own army, and kept sixty thousand native troops, two-thirds of whom were entirely without discipline, living naturally by rapine and robbery. His son Nâsir-ud-din, hopeless debauchee, continued and increased these evils, drawing down on himself the solemn warning of Lord William Bentinck in 1829, that deposition must surely follow on such misrule. Unfortunately, however, advice how to rule was refused, and on Nâsir-ud-din's death--of course without issue--advantage was taken of the accession of the old man--almost in his dotage--Nâsir-ud-daula, to obtain a fresh and still more stringent treaty, by which, if misrule continued, the British Government reserved the 'right to administer, rendering account to the Nawâb,' and so far as possible maintaining existing forms so as to 'facilitate the future restoration of power to its rightful owner.' In other words the Nawâb was, if contumacious, to be put under trustees for the time. This was in 1837. At Nâsir-ud-daula's death in 1842 his son succeeded, and in 1847 another son rose to the throne by his brother's death--of course without issue. Now Wajîd-Ali-Shâh, the last Nawâb or King of Oude, was utterly worthless. One has but to read the journal of the Resident, General Sleeman, to recognise how hopeless was the problem of peace, prosperity, or progress, under his rule. Surrounded by fiddlers, prostitutes, poetasters, eunuchs, he wasted half the revenues on these creatures, by whom he was led about, a silly imbecile, with drugged brain and diseased body.