;

whether the British crown did not possess an inherent right to all provinces conquered by its subjects. The ministers, and especially Lord North, already embarrassed by the American war, were unwilling to attempt the decision of a matter encumbered with so many difficulties but the right of the British parliament to interfere in the affairs of India, was virtually asserted, by passing various acts of regulation, and the establishment of a custom of time-bargains with the company, which were, in fact, mere expedients to escape from difficulties becoming more complicated every hour.

The administration of Mr. Warren Hastings greatly extended the company's territories, and rendered its influence paramount in northern India; but the means which he employed were not always consistent with European notions of equity; and the disputes which arose between him and his council, fixed the attention of the British parliament and the British nation on the affairs of India. Mr. Fox, who was then in power, introduced a bill for transferring the government of India from the court of directors to a parliamentary committee, but the measure was frustrated by the reluctance of the king, and the dismissal of the ministry. We have already noticed the impeachment of Mr. Hastings and his acquittal, after a trial of unparalleled duration, by the house of lords.

At length an important change was made in the government of India, by the establishment of a board of control, according to a plan proposed by Mr. Pitt (A. D. 1784). The principal object of the new measure was to secure the obedience and responsibility of the company's servants to the authorities in England, and to remedy the most glaring abuses of patronage by the court of directors. This measure, though not so stringent as it was originally intended to be, produced very beneficial effects, and introduced a system of subordination, in which the presidencies had long been deficient.

Lord Cornwallis was sent out as governor-general, under the new system; he exerted himself to remedy some of the most flagrant abuses in the administration, and, though opposed by a majority of the supreine court at Calcutta, he partially succeeded. He soon began to look with suspicion on the ambitious projects of Tippoo Sultan, who had inherited his father Hyder's hostility to the English. Tippoo's intrigues were secretly encouraged by the French government, for sufficiently obvious reasons. The French had been the first to try the plan of acquiring territorial possessions by interference in native wars, often excited by themselves; and they had been completely defeated, while the English had as completely succeeded. Anger at this failure, too high an estimate of the injury which the British power had received from the loss of the American colonies, and a confident belief that our empire in the east was as insecure as it had proved in the west, were popular feelings in France, and were just as rife in the court of Versailles as they were at a later period in the jacobin clubs of Paris. The danger which Lord Cornwallis anticipated, seemed more formidable to Mr. Pitt than to the court of directors, and led to a serious dispute between the ministry and the company. The premier, through the board of control, insisted on sending regular British troops to India, and compelling the company to pay for their support. This was re

garded by the court of directors as an indirect effort on the part of the crown to grasp the patronage of the Indian army, and was, of course, strenuously resisted. Mr. Pitt settled the matter by forcing through parliament, with all the influence at his command, an act of explanation; but he had the mortification to encounter a fierce opposition from many who were generally his stanchest supporters. The war with Tippoo, which rendered the English authority supreme from the river Krishna to Cape Comorin, soon followed. Lord Cornwallis having brought it to a prosperous termination, returned home, and was succeeded by Sir John Shore, afterward Lord Teignmouth.

During Sir John Shore's peaceful administration, the organization of the internal government of India was considerably improved; but its most remarkable events were the interference of the English, as arbitrators, in the disputed succession to the throne of Oude; and the commencement of discontents, almost amounting to mutinies, among the officers of the Indian army, in consequence of the reduction of their field allowances by the court of directors. The latter subject soon became one of increasing annoyance, and even danger; but the calamities which it threatened were fortunately averted by judicious measures of conciliation.

Lord Mornington, afterward marquis of Wellesley, was next appointed governor-general. His first efforts were directed to lessen the growing influence of the French in Hindústan; finding Tippoo indisposed to form new engagements with the British government, war was declared against him, which, as we have already stated, ended in the defeat and death of that turbulent monarch. A subsequent war with the Mahratta powers completely established British supremacy in India, and made the company supreme in the Peninsula. But notwithstanding his brilliant services, the marquis of Wellesley was thwarted in many important points of policy by the court of directors. The chief of these were, the employment of India-built ships, the establishment of a college for the education of civil servants at Calcutta, and the patronage of certain appointments, which the court wished to reserve for its favorites. This last difference led to very angry remonstrances, both from the marquis of Wellesley and Lord Clive, who was governor of Madras. Lord Clive resigned his situation; and on quitting Madras, addressed a spirited remonstrance to the court of directors, in which the inefficiency, insubordination, and delinquency of many of their servants, were directly traced to the abuse of patronage, and to the encouragement which the idle and the dissolute, possessing interest with the court, received from authority superior to the local government. Lord Wellesley, supported by the board of control, retained his place in defiance of the court, and, by his successful management of the Mahratta war, bore down all opposition.

The great extent of country gained in the Mahratta war, gave rise to serious embarrassments after the marquis of Wellesley had returned to Europe; his successor, Lord Cornwallis, died before completing the requisite arrangements, and Sir George Barlow, who acted as vicegovernor, adopted a line of policy directly contrary to that which had received the sanction of his predecessor. This change led to an angry controversy with the English ministers (Lord Grenville and Mr. Fox)

respecting the appointment of a successor to the marquis of Cornwallis. The ministers nominated Lord Lauderdale to the vacant office, the court of directors insisted that Sir George Barlow should retain his power. After a very long negotiation, both parties agreed to withdraw the rival candidates, and they finally concurred in selecting Lord Minto as governor-general.

When Lord Minto reached Madras, his attention was directed to certain transactions in that presidency, too important to be omitted even in this brief outline of Indian history. Lord William Bentinck succeeded Lord Clive (afterward earl of Powis) in the government of Madras, and, like his predecessor, was involved in serious disputes with the local council and the subordinate servants of the company. In the midst of these discussions, a dangerous mutiny of the native Indian army at Vellore, furnished a pretext for recalling the obnoxious governor with something like censure. In the Indian army no native could attain the rank of commissioned officer; many of the sepoys were Mohammedans, and they could not forget how very recently the whole peninsula of India was their own; the deposed dynasty of Mysore, including Tippoo's family and several of his ministers, were on the spot, to aggravate these feelings of natural discontent; and the fakirs, or preaching friars of Mohammedanism, lent their aid to fan the flame. A regulation respecting the head-dress of the troops was the pretext for revolt; though the shape of the sepoy turban had no more connexion with the real cause of the mutiny, than the color of the roses with the rival claims of the houses of York and Lancaster. The insurrection was suppressed, but the leniency which Lord William Bentinck was disposed to show toward the mutineers, though sanctioned by Lord Minto, gave such displeasure to many influential persons, that the governor returned home.

When Lord Minto reached Calcutta (A. D. 1809), he prepared to adopt a system of policy, which had long been a favorite scheme with the court of directors and indeed with the great majority of the people of England. This was simply to introduce the European principle of a balance of power in India;-no plan could be more excellent in theory, but it was impossible to reduce it to practice, for no materials existed in the disorganized governments of India, from which such a system could be constructed. The company had ever opposed the colonization of India by Europeans, and had therefore rather occupied than possessed its successive acquisitions; with the exception of its hired servants (and not all of them), there was not a single individuai interested in maintaining its sway; its soldiers were mere mercenaries, its subjects utterly indifferent to the continuance of its rule. In pursuit of this favorite but hopeless project, the establishment of a balance of power, Lord Minto committed many serious errors, but his administration was on the whole very beneficial to England, especially as he was among the first to appreciate the value of the Indian archipelago, with which our commerce is so rapidly increasing, both in extent and importance. His prudence terminated a very serious dispute between the civil and military authorities at Madras, which had nearly produced the most calamitous results: he tried the experiment of neutral policy with greater success than could have attended such a system in less able

hands; and when he at length perceived that "balance of power" was inapplicable to the state of society in India, he acknowledged the change in his opinions with a manly candor which is too rarely met with among modern statesmen.

The earl of Moira, afterward marquis of Hastings, succeeded Lord Minto in the government. He was forced to abandon the neutral line of policy, by which the Goorkas, or wild tribes of the mountains of Nepaul, had been encouraged to encroach upon the territories both of the British and their allies. War was declared; the Goorkas proved more formidable enemies than the company's troops had yet encountered, but they were finally overcome, and the provinces ceded by the Nepaulese, as the price of peace, brought the English dominions into close contact with the frontiers of the Chinese empire. In the meantime central India was devastated by ferocious bands of freebooters, known by the name of Pindarries, and extensive combinations were formed for their suppression. The treachery and duplicity of several of the native powers on this occasion compelled the marquis of Hastings to demand from them considerable cessions of territory; and, at the conclusion of the war, the company felt itself bound to retain those acquisitions, not only as essential to its own interests, but to those of the native inhabitants. Of greater importance than all these provinces was the establishment of a British settlement at Singapore (A. L. 1819), by which its present share in the lucrative commerce of the Indian archipelago was secured to Great Britain.

The earl of Amherst, who had previously been sent on an embassy to China, was the next governor-general (A. D. 1823). In a few months after his arrival, he found himself constrained to adopt active measures for repressing the insults and encroachments of the Burmese. The war was one of more than ordinary difficulty, but it finally terminated to the advantage of the British, who obtained possession of many new and valuable provinces. Scarcely less important was the capture of Bhurtpore, a fortress which, having been on two former occasions assailed in vain by the British, was fondly believed impregnable by the natives of Hindústan (A. D. 1826); its conquest therefore tended not a little to increase that general sense of British superiority on which the security of our Indian empire mainly depends.

Earl Amherst was succeeded by Lord William Bentinck, whose gcaerally peaceful administration is principally remarkable for a series of financial reforms in every department of the government. But the expiration of the company's charter, and the arrangements for its renewal, led to a total change of system (A. D. 1833). The company was deprived of its exclusive right of trade; the commerce with India and China was opened freely to all British subjects: the political government of Hindústan was continued to the company for twenty years, but all its other rights and possessions were ceded to the nation for an annuity of six hundred and thirty thousand pounds, secured by a guarantee fund of two millions sterling.

The East India company was not the only power that profited by the overthrow of the Mogul empire; two new kingdoms, that of the Afghans and that of the Sikhs, were founded on the northwest of Hindústan, and both have risen to great importance. The Afghans

were originally subject to Persia, but toward the close of the seven teenth century they revolted against their rulers and nearly conquered the whole Persian empire. Nadir Shah restored the Persian supremacy, but on his death an Afghan leader proclaimed the independence of his country, and while the Persians wasted their strength in civil wars, founded a new kingdom at Cabul. The Afghan monarchy continued to prosper until the commencement of the present century, when it was distracted by the wars arising out of a disputed succession. Three brothers, Zemán, Mahmúd, and Sujáh, contended for the crown, and each prevailed in turn, according to the will of the chief vizier, who was head of the Baurikzye tribe. At length Zemán was blinded, Sujáh driven into exile, and Mahmúd placed on the throne. Unfortunately he permitted his son Kemrán to assassinate the vizier, upon which the Baurikzye brothers revolted, and compelled Mahmúd to seek shelter in Herat.

rest.

Under the Baurikzye brothers, Afghanistan was divided into a number of petty independent states, each governed by one or more chieftains of this powerful family; the principal being Dost Mohammed, the ruler of Cabul, whose supremacy was nominally recognised by all the Soon after Lord Auckland had succeeded Lord William Bentinck as governor-general of India, an embassy was sent to Cabul for the purpose of forming a commercial treaty which might open the markets of central Asia to British manufactures. When the Persian court, yielding to Russian suggestions, had determined to advance against Herat, the mission to Cabul was changed from a commercial to a political legation, and a treaty was proposed to Dost Mohammed which it was believed might avert the danger of Russian influence being established on the banks of the Indus. The ruler of Cabul demanded as the price of his adhesion that the territory of Peshawer, recently seized by the king of Lahore, should be restored to the Afghans, and when this was refused he manifested a disposition so hostile to English interests that the envoy was recalled, and a resolution formed to restore Shah Sujáh to his throne by the aid of a British army.

The army of the Indus having surmounted all the toils and difficu ties of its march through previously untraversed countries, soon arriver at the capital of Afghanistan, and Shah Sujáh was reinstated upon th❤ throne of his ancesters.

Shah Sujáh's government was not popular, and indeed did not de serve to be so; general dissatisfaction continued to exist, but had not begun to show itself in a dangerous shape when General Elphinstone took the command of the occupying force, in April, 1841. In the following November a formidable insurrection unexpectedly exploded in Cabul; Sir Alexander Burnes, and several other Englishmen, were treacherously massacred, while the most deplorable want of energy and decision was displayed, both by the envoy and the military authorities. The fort in which the provisions for the troops were stored was permitted to fall into the hands of the enemy, without an effort being made to relieve its feeble garrison; and after the means of holding out in Cabul, until relief could be obtained from the other divisions of the army, had been sacrificed, it was resolved to commence a retreat.

The only result from this calamitous war, is the occupation of the