TRADE IN INDIA THROWN OPEN--WAR WITH NEPAUL. 215 1813.] Minto resigned in 1813, and proceeded to England. He came at a time when a material alteration was at hand in the position of the East India Company. By the Statute of Queen Anne, and by successive Acts of Parliament, the Company had the exclusive privilege, as regarded English subjects, of trading to all places east of the Cape of Good Hope, as far as the Straits of Magalhaens. In March, 1813, the House of Commons resolved itself into a Committee to consider the affairs of the East India Company. The Government proposed that the charter of the Company should be renewed for twenty years, during which term they should retain the exclusive trade to China, but that the trade to India should be thrown open on certain conditions. The Government also proposed to appoint a bishop for India, and three archdeacons. The Committee examined various witnesses. The first witness was Warren Hastings, then eighty years of age. He expressed his decided opinion that the settlement of Europeans would be fraught with danger to the peace of the country and the security of the Company, and that the trade between India and England, as then regulated, was far more beneficial than if perfectly free. On the subject of the propagation of Christianity in India, and the proposed episcopal establishment, his evidence is described as having evinced "a most philosophic indifference." The debates in both Houses. on the Resolutions occupied four months of the session. A Bill was finally passed by which the trade to India was thrown open as proposed, the territorial and commercial branches of the Company's affairs were separated, and the king was empowered to create a bishop of India, and three archdeacons, to be paid by the Company. Lord Minto was succeeded as Governor-General by the earl of Moira, afterwards marquess of Hastings, who took possession of the government on the 4th of October, 1813. During 1814 and 1815 there was war between the British and the Nepaulese. This is sometimes called the Gorkha war, from that portion of Nepaul which surrounded Gorkha, the capital, and which was originally subject to the separate rule of one of the princes of the Nepaul dynasty. The Gorkhas at the period of the government of the marquess of Hastings were subjecting all the smaller states to their dominion, and were able to maintain an army of twelve thousand disciplined men, who were clothed and accoutred like the British sepoys. As they advanced towards the British possessions on the northern frontier, they manifested a desire to try their strength against the Company's troops, and exhibited their ill-will in 1814 by attacking two police-stations in the districts of Goruckpoor and Sarun, and by massacreing all the troops in the garrisons there. The first operations of the British troops were unsuccessful; but in 1815 Sir David Ochterlony was enabled to dislodge the Gorkhas from their hill-forts, and to compel their commander, Ammer Singh, to capitulate. A treaty of peace was concluded at the end of 1815, but its ratification by the Rajah being withheld, a large British army advanced to Khatmandu, the present capital of Nepaul. The treaty was ratified and the war concluded at the beginning of 1816. Some portions of territory were ceded to the Company; but for the most part the chiefs who had been expelled by the conquering Gorkhas were restored to their ancient possessions. * Thornton, "British Empire in India," vol. iv. p. 228. 216 WAR WITH THE PINDAREES. (1816. The province of Malwa was the chief seat of a body of freebooters, the Pindarees, who carried on a war of devastation with peaceful neighbours, and were more formidable from their want of that political organization which constitutes a state. They lived in separate societies of one or two hundred, governed each by its chief, but they were always ready to combine under one supreme chief for the purposes of their marauding expeditions. In 1814 fifteen thousand horsemen were assembled on the north bank of the Nerbudda, under a leader named Cheetoo. In October, 1815, they seized the opportunity of our troops being engaged in the Nepaulese war to cross the Nerbudda, and having plundered and devastated a territory of our ally, the Nizam of the Deccan, recrossed the Nerbudda to prepare for another raid with a greater force. Between the 5th of February and the 17th of May, 1816, they had again collected an immense booty, with which they retired, not only having devastated the lands of our allies, but within the Company's frontiers having plundered more than three hundred villages and put to death or tortured more than four thousand individuals. These fierce and successful attacks of the Pindarees were not solely instigated by their own desire for the rich booty of peaceful provinces. They would scarcely have ventured to defy the British power had they not been secretly supported by a confederacy of Mahratta potentates. The Governor-General had obtained certain informa tion that the Peishwa, the Rajah of Nagpore, Scindia, Holkar the younger, and Ameer Khan, were preparing in concert with the Pindarees to invade the Company's territories whilst our troops were engaged in the Nepaulese war. The Governor-General, at the conclusion of the peace with Nepaul, applied to the authorities at home for permission to carry on the war with the Pindarees upon a great scale. Till this permission should arrive he had only to keep the Bengal army in advanced cantonments. When his warrant for extended operations did arrive, the marquess of Hastings was ready with an army in each of the three presidencies to take the field against the Pindarees, and against all their open or secret supporters. The immensity of his preparations, says a French writer, was determined by the importance of his designs. "The Governor-General took the resolution to complete the plan conceived long before and pursued without relaxation by his predecessors -the absolute conquest of the Peninsula."* Whether or no such a design, which was regarded at home as a dream of ambition, had urged the marquess of Hastings to undertake a war of enormous magnitude, it is quite certain that the issue of that war was another most decided advance in the assertion of our supremacy, which manifestly tended to "the absolute conquest of the Peninsula." At the end of September, 1817, orders were issued for a simultaneous movement of the army of Bengal under the command of the GovernorGeneral, of the army of the Deccan under the command of sir Thomas Hislop, and of various corps from different stations, each marching to points from which the Pindarees could be surrounded, and at the same time their Mahratta and other supporters prevented from uniting their forces. It is not within our limits to attempt any detail of this very complicated warfare. The war with the Pindarees was terminated in the spring of 1818, with the entire destruction or dispersion of these terrible marauders. The best "Annuaire Historique," 1818, p. 357. 1818.] THE MAHRATTA CONFEDERACY BROKEN UP. 217 historian of the events which led to this most desirable result is sir John Malcolm, who was himself one of the most active and sagacious of the British commanders. Their complete extinction has been graphically described by him: “Within five years after their name had spread terror and dismay over all India, there remained not a spot that a Pindaree could call his home. They had been hunted like wild beasts, numbers had been killed, all ruined, those who espoused their cause had fallen. Early in the contest they were shunned like a contagion,—the timid villagers whom they had so recently oppressed were among the foremost to attack them." * On the 5th of November the Governor-General had extorted by the presence of his powerful army a treaty with Scindia, in which that Mahratta chief engaged to aid in the destruction of the Pindarees. That army was at this moment attacked by an enemy far more dangerous than any which it would be likely to encounter in the field. It was encamped in low ground, on the banks of a tributary of the Jumna. The Indian cholera morbus, which had broken out at Jessore, had ascended the valley of the Ganges, and reaching the camp of the main British army destroyed in little more than a week one-tenth of the number there crowded together. The camp was broken up, and the army marched on in the hope of reaching some spot where the disease would be less fatal. It was the end of November before the remnant of this fine army having reached Erech, on the Bettwa river, the pestilence seemed to have exhausted its force. During its rage the marquess of Hastings fully expected to be a victim; for his personal attendants were dropping all around him. Bury me in my tent, he said, lest the enemy should hear of my death, and attack my disheartened troops. Scindia had seized the opportunity, not to render aid against the Pindarees, but to invite them to come into his territory. The cholera passed away, and the GovernorGeneral hurried back to his former position to cut off the possible junction between the marauding bands and Scindia's troops. In the remaining months of 1817 and the beginning of 1818 the Mahratta confederacy was utterly broken up by the successes of the British. The Rajah of Nagpore, after a battle of eighteen hours, was defeated, and his town of Nagpore taken on the 26th of November. Holkar was beaten on the 21st of December at the battle of Meehudpoor, and peace was concluded with him on the 6th of January. The Peishwa of the Mahrattas surrendered to the English in the following June, agreeing to abdicate his throne, and become a pensioner of the East India Company. During the period of the administration of the marquess of Hastings Ceylon was entirely subjected to the British dominion. The Dutch had been in possession of the maritime provinces of this island from the beginning of the seventeenth century, whilst the interior, known as the kingdom of Kandy, was governed by native princes, with whom the Dutch were continually at war. In 1796 these maritime provinces were wrested from the Dutch by a British armament, and our establishments there were rendered more secure by the acquiescence of the King of Kandy in this occupation of the coast districts. The British administration of Ceylon was not connected with that of the East India Company; it was a distinct possession of the Crown, having been formally 218 CONQUEST OF CEYLON-SINGAPORE-MALACCA. [1819. ceded by the Treaty of Amiens. In 1815 the king of Kandy had rendered himself so obnoxious to his subjects by a series of atrocities, such as causing a mother to pound her children to death in a mortar,-that his deposition took place, and the British were invited by Kandian chiefs to take possession of his dominions. The conquest of the island was thus effected, and the natives had begun to taste the value of a just and merciful rule, when, in 1817, a rebellion broke out in the eastern provinces, and was with difficulty suppressed after a costly and sanguinary warfare of two years' duration. From 1819 to 1848 complete tranquillity prevailed in that island, and its material and moral condition were greatly advanced under intelligent and zealous governors. At Singapore, in 1819, sir Thomas Raffles established a factory on the south shore of the island, and in 1824, a cession in full sovereignty of this and the neighbouring islands was obtained by purchase from a person who claimed to be king of Jahore, and was afterwards raised to that throne. Malacca was ceded to the British in 1824 by treaty with the government of the Netherlands. Had Mr. Canning become Governor-General of India when his appointment as successor of the marquess of Hastings was resolved upon, it may be doubted whether he could have carried through the policy which, as President of the Board of Control, he avowed in Parliament in 1819, upon the vote of thanks to the marquess of Hastings and the army in India:-"Anxious as I am for the prosperity and grandeur of our Indian empire, I confess I look at its indefinite extension with awe. I earnestly wish that it may be possible for us to remain stationary where we are; and that what still exists of substantive and independent power in India may stand untouched and unimpaired. But this consummation, however much it may be desired, depends not on ourselves alone. Aggression must be repelled, and perfidy must be visited with its just reward. And while I join with the thinking part of the country in deprecating advance, who shall say that there is safety for such a power as ours in retrogradation ?"* Of the prudence and wisdom of the theory of policy thus set forth, the nation at large, the East India Company, the great Indian administrators, never appeared to entertain the slightest doubt. But, practically, it was invariably found that without advance there would be retrogradation. It was in vain that those who led the British armies in India must have felt what Mr. Canning expressed with how much jealousy the House and the country are in the habit of appreciating the triumphs of our arms in India; how our military operations, however successful, have always been considered as questionable in point of justice.† Lord Amherst, who in March 1823 embarked for India as Governor-General, had to pass through this almost inevitable process of entering upon a war of conquest with the most sincere desire to remain at peace. Within six or seven months after his arrival in India he had to write to a friend at home:-"I have to tell you that I most unexpectedly find myself engaged in war with the king of Ava." This was the war with the Birman empire, which involved us in hostilities from March 1824 to February, 1826. Before the middle of the eighteenth century the name of Birman signified a great warlike race that had founded various "Hansard," vol. xxxix. col. 882. + Ibid., col. 866. "Diary of Lord Colchester," vol. iii. p. 316. 1823.] WAR WITH THE BIRMAN EMPIRE. 219 kingdoms, amongst which were Siam, Pegu, Ava, and Aracan. The kingdoms of Ava and of Pegu were in a continued state of warfare, in which the Peguers were ultimately victorious. Ava had been conquered by them, when, in 1753, a man of humble origin but of great ability, who has been called "the Napoleon of the Hindo-Chinese peninsula,"* raised a small force, which, constantly increasing, expelled the conquerors and placed Alompra on the Birman throne. It has been remarked as equally curious and instructive, that "the last restoration of the Birman empire, and the foundation of ours in India, were exactly contemporaneous. Clive and Alompra made their conquests at the same moment." For nearly seventy years the British from the Ganges, and the Birmese from the Irawaddi, pushed their conquests, whether by arms or negotiation, till they met. Their inevitable rivalry soon led to hostilities. The Birmese had gradually subjugated the independent states which formerly existed between their frontiers and those of the Company. Lord Amherst, in the letter we have already quoted, describes how they seized an island on which we had established a small military post, and when the GovernorGeneral mildly complained to the king of Ava of this outrage, attributing it to the mistake of the local authorities, a force came down from Ava, "threatening to invade our territory from one end of the frontier to the other, and to re-annex the province of Bengal to the dominions of its rightful owner, the Lord of the White Elephant." At the beginning of April the Bengal army embarked for Rangoon, the chief seaport of the Birman dominions, situated at the embouchure of the Irawaddi-according to lord Amherst "the Liverpool and Portsmouth of Ava." This important place was taken possession of almost without striking a blow; but the hope of the Governor-General that from thence he should be able to dictate the terms of a moderate and therefore lasting peace, was not very quickly realised. The British had to deal with the most warlike of their neighbours. The king of Ava called his people to arms. During the rainy season they had abundant time for preparation; and sir Archibald Campbell, who occupied Rangoon, felt the immediate necessity of fortifying it against the probable attack of a bold and persevering enemy. An enormous pagoda, more than three hundred feet high, became a citadel, garrisoned by a battalion of European troops, and the smaller Bhuddist temples assumed the character of fortresses. During June and July the Birmese made repeated attacks upon the British positions, but were as constantly repelled. On the night of the 30th of August, when the astrologers had decided that an attack upon this sacred place would free the country from the impious strangers, a body of troops called Invulnerables advanced to the northern gateway. A terrible cannonade was opened upon these dense masses, and they fled at once to the neighbouring jungle. The Birmese were more successful in their offensive operations in Bengal. Under the command of an officer called Maha Bandoola, the Aracan army advanced to Ramoo, and completely routed a detachment of native infantry. The alarm was so great in Calcutta that the native merchants were with difficulty persuaded to remain with their families, and the peasants almost * "Annuaire Historique," 1824, p. 537. |