CHAPTER III.

Arrangements in Bengal consequent on the grant of the dewannee—Verelst succeeds Clive as president—Comparative tranquillity—Financial difficulties—Home proceeding—Dividend—Interference of parliament—Cartier president—Dreadful famine—Discussions in parliament—A crown plenipotentiary—Shah Alum seated on the throne of Delhi—The Mahrattas in Rohilcund.

When Clive was preparing finally to quit Bengal, he availed himself of the authority which he had received from the directors to arrange the mode in which the government should in future be conducted. It had been left to his option to restore the council to their original powers, or to prolong the existence of the select committee. He preferred the latter course; and his friend, Mr. Verelst, accordingly succeeded him as president, while the other places in the committee were filled by Mr. Cartier, Colonel Richard Smith, Mr. Sykes, and Mr. Beecher. As the whole power of the government now centred in the Company, the wisest course probably would have been to throw off all disguises, and openly assume the character which belonged to them as the real sovereigns of the country. A less ingenuous course was followed, and all administrative proceedings continued to be conducted, as before, in the nabob’s name. This double government, if not originally suggested by Clive, was strongly eulogized by him, not so much for its own intrinsic merits, as for certain relative advantages which it seemed to him would be secured by it. Thus, in a letter of instructions addressed to the select committee, on the eve of his departure, he says, “The first point in politics which I offer to your consideration is the form of government. We are sensible that, since the acquisition of the dewannee, the power formerly belonging to the soubah of these provinces is totally, in fact, vested in the East India Company. Nothing remains to him but the name and shadow of authority. This name, however, this shadow, it is indispensable necessary we should seem to venerate. Under the sanction of a soubah, every encroachment that may be attempted by foreign powers can effectually be crushed, without any apparent interposition of our own authority; and all real grievances complained of by them can, through the same channel, be examined into and redressed. Be it therefore always remembered, that there is a soubah; and that though the revenues belong to the Company, the territorial jurisdictions must still rest in the chiefs of the country, acting under him and this presidency in conjunction. To appoint the Company’s servants to the offices of collectors, or indeed to do any act by any exertion of the English power, which can easily be done by the nabob at our instance, would be throwing off the mask, would be declaring the Company soubah of the provinces. Foreign nations would immediately take umbrage; and complaints preferred to the British court might be attended with very embarrassing consequences. Nor can it be supposed that either the French, Dutch, or Danes, would readily acknowledge the Company’s soubahship, and pay into the hands of their servants the duties upon trade, or the quit-rents of those districts which they may have been long possessed of by virtue of the royal phirmauns, or grants from former nabobs.

On such grounds as these it was determined to pursue a dissembling policy, and merely levy the revenues of the country, without undertaking to discharge any of the other proper functions of government. Innumerable abuses, which ought to have been foreseen, immediately followed. Europeans, again permitted to engage in private trade, put down all fair competition by intimidation and violence, and made rapid fortunes by means of real or virtual monopolies; justice ceased to be administered even in form; and the great body of the people, subjected to endless extortion and oppression, became incapable of paying their rents, or endeavoured to compensate themselves by evading the payment of them. According to Clive’s calculation, the Company’s income in Bengal exceeded £2,000,000 per annum; and their civil and military expenses would in future never exceed £700,000 per annum in time of peace, and £1,000,000 in time of war. A clear surplus of at least £1,000,000 sterling ought thus to have been annually poured into the Company’s treasury. If ever such a surplus was to be realized, it ought to have been during the government of Verelst. Though it was necessary to maintain a body of troops on the frontiers to watch the movements of the Mahrattas, and counteract the ambitious designs which the Nabob of Oude was gradually developing, there was no actual war during his government, with the exception of a short and ill-judged expedition to Nepal, to extricate its king from the consequences of hostilities in which he had become involved with the Ghoorkas. The anticipated surplus, however, had never been realized; and at the termination of Mr. Verelst’s government, in the end of 1769, it was found that the revenues had even failed to meet the current expenses. To defray these the government had borrowed to a large amount, and granted bills payable by the directors in England. These could only be met when due by the proceeds of the Company’s investment; but even this was miserably curtailed, as on more than one occasion the funds which were intended to purchase the investment were appropriated by the government of Madras to defray the expenses of their ruinous war.

In the beginning of 1770, when Mr. Cartier succeeded Mr. Verelst, the financial difficulties of the Company were greatly increased by frightful calamities. The crop of rice had failed, and small-pox had begun to rage with the fury of a pestilence. Famine and disease, the two worst scourges of humanity, were thus let loose at once upon the natives of Bengal, who perished by thousands and tens of thousands. The streets and waysides were covered with the dead and dying, till the very air was tainted. It has been calculated that nearly a third of the whole population was destroyed. It would be absurd to blame government for these natural calamities, and yet it is impossible entirely to exculpate them. The failure of the rice crop, in consequence of excessive drought, must have been foreseen; and it was therefore the duty of government, while aware that famine to some extent was inevitable, to have taken the means in their power to mitigate it by storing their granaries. They appear, on the contrary, to have overlooked their duty as a government, and to have speculated as individual merchants on the enormous profits which the foreseen calamity would enable them to realize. Before the famine reached its height, almost all the rice in the country was bought up by the servants of the Company, and when the pressure came, they found little difficulty in selling at ten times the original cost. It has been said that in this way they caused, or at least aggravated the famine. This doubtless is a mistake. As the supply of rice was deficient, the increase of price occasioned by their forestalling was beneficial, inasmuch as it obliged the consumers to practise economy and place themselves on short allowance sooner than they might otherwise have deemed it necessary. In this way their conduct, however selfish and heartless the motives which dictated it, could not be injurious, though it would certainly have been more to their honour had they in a common calamity thought only of the means of mitigating its horrors. Among the victims of disease was the actual Nabob of Bengal, Syoofud-Dowlah, who died of the small-pox, and was succeeded by a younger brother, Mobarek-ud-Dowlah, about ten years of age. The event was too unimportant to attract much notice; and the new appointment appears to have been regarded by the Bengal presidency as a matter of course. The directors, however, actuated by a more mercenary spirit, were not unwilling to take advantage of the circumstance. In a letter to the president and council, after expressing their astonishment that “an event of so much importance as the death of the Nabob Syoofud-Dowlah and the establishment of a successor in so great a degree of nonage, should not have been attended with those advantages for the Company which such a circumstance offered to your view,” they continue thus: “Convinced as we are that an allowance of sixteen lacs per annum will be sufficient for the support of the nabob’s state and rank, while a minor, we must consider every addition thereto as so much wasted on a herd of parasites and sycophants, who will continually surround him; or at least be hoarded up, a consequence still more pernicious to the Company. You are, therefore, during the nonage of the nabob, to reduce his annual stipend to sixteen lacs of rupees.” Thus, by a single stroke of the pen, they unceremoniously relieved themselves of an annual payment of £100,000, which they were under a formal obligation to pay, and to which the nabob’s title was at least as good as theirs was to the grant of the dewannee. The only thing that can be said in excuse for them is, that all their dreams of prosperity had vanished, and their financial difficulties had reached a crisis.

When the grant of the dewannee was obtained, the general belief was that the Company had obtained a clear addition to their income of at least a million sterling. As a necessary consequence the value of their stock rose rapidly in the market, and with it the expectation of a largely-increased dividend. On this subject, however, the directors and the proprietors were not agreed. The former, aware of the heavy obligations which they had incurred, counselled delay, at least till the anticipated addition to their income should be actually realized; the latter were too impatient to wait, and on finding their wishes thwarted, took the initiative into their own hands, and at a single bound raised the dividend from six to ten per cent. Meanwhile the public were not unconcerned spectators of the strife. The right of the Company to make territorial acquisitions for their own behoof was denied, and the directors received a significant intimation from the Duke of Grafton, then prime minister, that the affairs of the East India Company would probably occupy the attention of parliament in the approaching session. Accordingly, on the 25th of November, 1766, about a fortnight after parliament met, a committee of the whole House of Commons was appointed to inquire into the state and condition of the Company; and on the 10th of December the court were ordered to furnish a variety of papers, including copies of all treaties and grants from any native powers, between 1756 and 1766 inclusive, as well as all correspondence relating thereto, and an account of the state of the Company’s territorial revenues, together with a statement of all expenses incurred by government on account of the East India Company during the period to which the order for copies of the treaties and grants applied.

The object of these parliamentary proceedings could not be misunderstood. On the supposition that the dewannee was as valuable as had been represented, the ministry were determined to share in the profits. It was even hinted that the rich acquisitions of the Company in the East might be legitimately employed in relieving the people of England of some of their burdens. This idea, preposterous as it now seems, appears to have been suggested by Clive himself, who, in a letter to Lord Chatham, from which we formerly quoted at some length, wrote as follows:—“I flatter myself I have made it pretty clear to you that there will be little or no difficulty in obtaining the absolute possession of these rich kingdoms, and that with the Mogul’s own consent, on paying him less than a fifth of the revenues thereof. Now, I leave you to judge whether an income yearly of upwards of two millions sterling, with the possession of three provinces abounding in the most valuable productions of nature and art, be an object deserving the public attention; and whether it be worth the nation’s while to take the proper measures to secure such an acquisition—an acquisition which, under the management of so able and disinterested a minister, would prove a source of immense wealth to the kingdom, and might in time be appropriated in part as a fund towards diminishing the heavy load of debt under which we at present labour.” Some such idea was probably entertained by the government; and hence, when the proprietors, undeterred by the opposition of the directors, and the interference of parliament, resolved, on the 6th of May, 1767, that the dividend for the ensuing half year should be at the rate of 12½ per cent. per annum, the ministry at once put a veto on their extravagance, by bringing in a bill which restrained the Company from increasing their dividend beyond 10 per cent. till the next session of parliament, and prohibited the voting of dividends, except by ballot, in general courts specially summoned for that purpose. As this was the first instance in which parliament directly interfered with the Company in the management of their revenues, the bill was strenuously opposed in all its stages, especially in the House of Lords, where the celebrated judge, Lord Mansfield, headed the opposition, and stigmatized the bill as an arbitrary and unjustifiable interference with the rights of property. It was carried notwithstanding, and when about to expire, was continued in force for another year.

The proprietors, thus defeated, were glad to listen to a compromise. Tacitly admitting the claim of the crown to their territorial acquisitions, the Company ultimately became bound, in terms of two successive acts of parliament, to pay over into the public treasury the sum of £400,000 per annum, first for two successive years, and afterwards for five years, commencing in February, 1769. They agreed, moreover, annually to export British merchandise to the amount of £380,837, not to augment their dividends beyond 12½ per cent., by augmentations not exceeding 1 per cent. in one year, and after paying their simple contract debts, bearing interest, and reducing their bonded debt to the sum lent to government, to furnish an additional loan to government of their surplus receipts at 2 per cent. interest. These arrangements were obviously made under the influence of the golden dreams which were at this time almost universally indulged. The only thing in the act which indicates some degree of distrust, is a proviso that if the dividend should fall below 10 per cent. the payment into the exchequer should be proportionably reduced, and that if the dividend should fall to 6 per cent. the payment should entirely cease. A still more unequivocal expression of distrust was given by the directors when, mainly on the ground of the unsatisfactory state of their finances, they adopted the extraordinary measure of sending out to India a commission of supervisors, with complete powers to suspend, if necessary, even the presidents and councils, to investigate every department of affairs on the spot, and frame regulations adapted to the exigency of circumstances. The supervisors appointed were Mr. Vansittart, Colonel Forde, and Mr. Scrafton. They sailed in the Aurora frigate, and reached the Cape of Good Hope in safety, but were never heard of after they left it.

Government, after they had once begun to interfere with the management of the East India Company, seem to have had some difficulty in fixing the point at which they ought to stop. Not satisfied with objecting to the proposed appointment of supervisors on some alleged ground of illegality, they endeavoured, at first openly, and thereafter surreptitiously, to obtain a direct share in the political government of India. The Company had applied to them for two ships of the line and some frigates. The application was favourably received, and the directors were exulting in the addition about to be made to their naval strength, when they were startled by a communication from the ministry, to the effect that the naval officer appointed by the crown to command in India should be invested with full powers as a plenipotentiary, to transact with native states, and decide on all questions of peace and war. This claim on the part of the government was represented as a necessary result of an article in the treaty of Paris, by which his majesty had agreed to acknowledge the legal title of the Soubahdar of the Deccan, and of the Nabob of the Carnatic. Being thus bound by treaty, how could his majesty, it was argued, allow his troops to be at the disposal of third parties, who might choose to employ them in undertakings directly at variance both with the letter and the spirit of the treaty?

The claim thus put forward by the ministry excited the utmost alarm in the Company, who could not fail to perceive that the real question at issue was whether they were to be entirely superseded in their political capacity, and reduced to their original condition of merchants. The opposition to the proposal was so strong and decided, that the ministry expressed a willingness to modify it, and Lord Weymouth, in their name, while requesting that the sense of the general court should be taken on the subject, volunteered the following explanation:—“The difficulty of a sole plenipotentiary, if it ever existed, is removed; the crown does not wish to interfere with the powers of the commission (the supervisors); wants no authority over your servants, nor any direction or inspection of your commercial affairs; disclaims even a recommendation of any person to be employed in it; in short, only wishes to be enabled to assist you effectually; and, in order to that, finds it necessary to have a share in the resolutions and deliberations of the Company, merely with regard to the two objects of peace and war, when his majesty’s forces are to be employed.” The explanation was not satisfactory, and the general court, after long debate, refused to grant even the modified powers thus requested. Sir John Lindsay, on being appointed commander-in-chief of the king’s ships in India, was also appointed by the Company to the command of their ships, and specially authorized to settle some disputes in the Persian Gulf; but authority to interfere in questions of peace and war in India was distinctly refused. As the ministry ceased to insist, the fair inference undoubtedly was, that they acquiesced in the refusal. Nothing, however, was further from their intention. Having failed to accomplish their object with the consent of the Company, they secretly resolved to proceed without it, and stooped to something very like a trick.

The treaty of Paris, by its acknowledgment of Mahomed Ali as lawful Nabob of the Carnatic, seemed to open a wide field to his ambition, and he began to aspire to the sovereignty of all Southern India. While cherishing this extravagant aspiration, he felt galled beyond measure at the control which the Company exercised over all his movements, and he was therefore prepared to hail a proposal which promised to reinstate him in what he conceived to be his sovereign rights. Among his advisers was a Mr. Macpherson, the son of Dr. Macpherson, minister of Sleat, in the Isle of Skye. He had arrived at Madras in 1767, as purser of the Company’s ship Mansfield, commanded by his uncle, Captain Macleod, and having been introduced to the nabob, soon acquired so much of his confidence that he engaged him as his agent, and sent him home to England to prosecute his interests. With this view he was furnished with letters to the prime minister. The course of his proceedings is detailed in a paper which was afterwards drawn up by himself, and entitled “Memorial of Services rendered to the Nabob.” “The object of his commission was,” he says, “to procure relief from the oppressions under which the nabob was labouring; to procure this wished-for relief the means to be employed were, if possible, to raise in the breast of the prime minister a favourable respect for the nabob; then to lay before him the distress of the prince; likewise to show the advantage which would arise to the state from granting him the proper protection.” “Fortunately,” adds Mr. Macpherson, “the favourite and minister (the Duke of Grafton) was a personage of the first distinction—of the noblest and most steady principles; every consideration pointed out his grace as the member of the British empire whose friendship and support, next to those of the sovereign, were the most desirable to the cause of the nabob.” Having been admitted to an interview, Mr. Macpherson proved himself a zealous and unscrupulous advocate. “I expatriated,” he says, “upon the superior merits of the nabob; showed that he was the person to whom Britain owed the rise of her power in India; that his attachment and unsullied honour to the English were unparalleled. I then dwelt upon his personal merits as a statesman and a gentleman; and showed that though he had assurances of protection under the sovereign hand, he was treated with indignity, and even tyranny.” To give force to his eloquence, Mr. Macpherson was emboldened to offer presents, first to the minister and then to his secretary. “Both of them, it seems, had virtue enough to refuse them, but the duke, so far from being offended, spoke feelingly of the oppression under which the princes of India laboured from the usurped authority of the commercial subjects of the state,” and declared his determination to use all his influence as minister in support of Mahomed Ali. While thus pledging himself to the nabob, the Duke of Grafton was generous enough not to overlook the merits of his agent, and rewarded him for his attempt to undermine the Company by sending him back to India, in the beginning of 1770, with the appointment of a writer in their service. To this contemptible intrigue the conduct of the ministry in stealthily carrying out the scheme which they had professedly abandoned, must be ascribed.

Sir John Lindsay, on arriving at Madras, lost no time in acquainting the council with the extraordinary powers with which he had been invested. He had come, he said, as the plenipotentiary of the crown, and had not only full authority to treat with the native powers, but to inquire into the conduct of the late war. He therefore peremptorily ordered them to furnish him with whatever papers and documents he might require in conducting the inquiry. Nor was this all. They had hitherto thought themselves supreme within their own presidency, but they must henceforth content themselves with a subordinate position. The crown had intrusted him with letters and presents to the Nabob of Arcot; and as in delivering them he was about to act as the representative of majesty, it was obviously their duty to follow in his train. The council were taken completely by surprise, but soon recovered from it, and acquainted Sir John Lindsay with their determination not “to degrade themselves.” In their letter to the court they observed—“We must either have delivered to him our papers and records, or not; we must either have rendered him an account of our transactions, or not; we must have admitted him to have shared in our deliberations, or not. There appeared to be no room for hesitation. We were charged with the Company’s affairs—we had no instructions from our constituents. Their rights were attacked; we must either have supported or basely surrendered them. Our fortunes may be at stake in the issue; but were our lives at equal hazard, we should, without a moment’s hesitation, have taken the part we have taken. The die is cast; we must stand the issue.”

This letter, which reached the directors on the 22d March, 1771, was the first intimation they received of Sir John Lindsay’s surreptitious commission. On the 8th of April they addressed a letter to the Earl of Rochford, one of his majesty’s principal secretaries of state, in which—after stating that “Sir John Lindsay, in express contradiction to the assurance given to the Company by his majesty’s secretary of state, your lordship’s predecessor in office, has, under his hand, insisted that he has his majesty’s authority, and plenipotentiary powers from the crown, to execute any treaty with the princes of the country which may be judged necessary to procure peace in India”—they drew a dismal picture of the probable results, and concluded with declaring their apprehensions “that unless some speedy remedy be applied, the ruin of the Company, from the loss of their consequence, influence, and credit, will infallibly ensue.” Lord Rochford’s answer was far from satisfactory. “I must inform you,” he says, “that the repeated complaints made by the Company of the mismanagement and disobedience of their servants in India, which caused them to desire from the legislature more extensive powers for their coercion, and induced them to send out supervisors invested with the highest authority, first suggested to his majesty the expediency of giving his commission to a person of confidence, to procure the fullest information on the spot of the manner in which affairs had been conducted in that country; the thorough knowledge of which the king could not but consider as a principal national concern, as well as of the greatest consequence to the interest of the Company. His majesty was the more called upon in this case, as his honour, pledged for the performance of the engagements entered into by him in the last definitive treaty, was in the hands of the Company’s servants carrying on the government in India.” On the serious charge of having granted the commission “in express contradiction to the assurance granted to the Company,” his lordship deemed it prudent to say nothing, but he plainly intimated the determination of the ministry to persevere in the course which they had commenced. Sir John Lindsay had indeed been recalled, but his commission was to remain in force, for Sir Robert Harland had been appointed to succeed to it. If there was any idea of a contest between the king and the Company, the governor and council of Madras had themselves given rise to it, “by their improper reception of Sir John Lindsay, and their refusal to do the usual honours to the delivery of his majesty’s letter and presents.” On the whole, the Company had no reasonable ground for apprehension. Positive instructions had been given to Sir John Lindsay “to avoid, as far as possible, even the appearance of any dispute;” the king, “in his last letter to the nabob, has been pleased to express his confidence in the Company, and his desire to connect them inseparably with that prince;” and Sir Robert Harland, “beside the particular orders given him to promote, as far as possible, a strict union between the nabob and the servants of the Company, and to remove every suspicion of the Company’s lying under the king’s displeasure, received instructions to make the support of their importance and honour in the eyes of all the powers in India a principal point of his attention.” These instructions had been repeated, and accompanied with explanations which ought to satisfy the Company that Sir Robert Harland’s powers “will, whenever they shall be executed, be a convincing proof of his majesty’s paternal care and regard for their interests, by showing them to be the object of his protection and support.” Such were the vague assurances by which ministers endeavoured to justify a course of policy which they had commenced in fraud, and had not the manliness to abandon when its folly was made manifest.

Whatever may have been the positive instructions given to Sir John Lindsay, he appears to have forgotten them before he reached his destination, and took an early opportunity of showing that he was determined to push his powers to the utmost. By the treaty of perpetual friendship with Hyder, the Company were bound to assist him with troops against any attack that might be made upon him. In reliance on this article, Hyder intimated to the Madras government that he was threatened with an invasion by the Mahrattas, and requested their promised aid. The council were sorely perplexed. They had scarcely begun to recover from the effects of a most disastrous war, and now they were called upon to involve themselves in another war, which would bring them into direct collision with the Mahrattas. As the only means of extricating themselves from the dilemma, they had recourse to a very paltry evasion, and endeavoured to justify their refusal of assistance to Hyder on the ground that he had not been attacked, but had himself provoked the hostilities of the Mahrattas by his own aggressions. This proposed neutrality did not satisfy Mahomed Ali. An implacable enmity existed between him and Hyder, and therefore his proposal was that the Company, instead of remaining neutral, would regard Hyder as the common enemy, and assist the Mahrattas in crushing him. This was too gross a violation of the treaty to be sanctioned by the council; but Sir John Lindsay had no such scruples, and, either in gross ignorance or utter disregard of existing obligations, openly declared himself on the side of Mahomed Ali.

Sir Robert Harland arrived at Madras, with a squadron of his majesty’s ships, on the 2d September, 1771, and immediately showed that he was prepared to indorse every measure which Sir John Lindsay had sanctioned. The nabob immediately availed himself of his assistance, and had little difficulty in convincing him that the true policy of the Company was to make common cause with the Mahrattas. Sir Robert accordingly addressed the council; and, in urging compliance with the nabob’s view, stated that, should a peace be refused to the Mahrattas on the terms which they proposed, they threatened to destroy the whole of the Carnatic with fire and sword, and had a great army on the frontiers to carry their threats into execution. In conclusion, he called upon them to explain particularly what were their reasons “for refusing to acquiesce in what the nabob thinks the only measure for the preservation of his country, and what appears to me to offer the only prospect of security in the present circumstances to the British interests in this part of India.”

The council, in answering this communication, adopted the rather singular expedient of sending two separate letters to Sir Robert Harland—the one addressed to him as plenipotentiary, and the other addressed to him as admiral. In the former, improving upon a remark of the directors, that the rights and privileges of the Company “rested upon as high authority as the king’s commission—royal charters confirmed by repeated acts of parliament,” they observed that though it was their most anxious desire to manifest unfeigned allegiance and inviolable attachment to his majesty’s most sacred person and government, yet they could not render an account of their conduct to any one but a constitutional authority, such as the parliament of Great Britain, and the courts of civil judicature. In the other letter they showed some dexterity in turning Sir Robert Harland’s statement against himself:—“We have it now in the most authentic manner from you, his majesty’s minister plenipotentiary, that they (the Mahrattas) threaten to destroy the whole Carnatic with fire and sword, if certain conditions which they require are not submitted to; which conditions are, as you express it, and as we believe they express it, friendship with the English and the nabob, and a certain assistance from both against Hyder Ali, who is their enemy. Words are only used to convey ideas; and the same words may convey different and even contrary ideas, according to the circumstances that attend them. Thus, if the Mahrattas were to propose friendship with the English and the nabob in the way that states generally propose treaties of friendship, for mutual advantage, we should understand by it what the word in its primitive and natural sense implies, and should most gladly embrace it in any way that might be advantageous to the Company’s commerce, productive of security to their possessions, and consistent with the rights and powers granted to them by charter; but when they require friendship and assistance, and denounce threats of fire and sword if their demands are not complied with, the words change their meaning. It is no more friendship they propose; it is an abject submission they demand to their imperious will—such a submission as is conformable to the usage of the country. The subjected powers are always compelled to attend the haughty conquerors with a certain number of troops. This is not all. It is not only a demand of servile submission they require; they mean to render it still more humiliating: it must be accompanied with the most flagrant breach of national faith. A formal treaty of peace and amity was concluded between this presidency, on the part of the Company, and Hyder Ally Cawn, in the year 1769. He hath committed no act that can give the least attaint to that engagement—at least, that we know of; but, on the contrary, he hath granted to the Company all the privileges and advantages of trade in his country which they enjoyed before the late war with him. The Mahrattas add to their haughty demand this specific condition—that the assistance to be given them by the English and the nabob be expressly employed, in open violation of the faith of that treaty, against Hyder Ally Cawn. We therefore offer it as our opinion, that a submission to such a demand would be in the highest degree derogatory to the honour of the British nation, and contrary to the interests of the Company.”

These arguments could not be answered; and Sir Robert Harland, apparently conscious that he had placed himself in a false position, made a very blustering reply. “Your charge of an unconstitutional act,” he says, “cannot be against me; I do no more than my duty. But it seems to me to be directly pointed at the royal authority and the undoubted rights of the crown; and when you take upon you to censure a measure which is the sacred privilege of majesty and the constitutional rights of your sovereign, let me tell you it is very unbecoming, it is presumptuous, it is arrogant; and I know not whether it may not be looked upon as criminal in the eye of the law, as it is an undoubted maxim in the British government that the privileges of the prince are equally sacred with the liberty of the subject.” While thus blustering, Sir Robert clung tenaciously to his purpose, and announced his intention to enter into a negotiation with the Mahrattas through Madhoo Row, or any one he might appoint. Ultimately he announced that he had proposed to the Mahrattas, in the name of the King of England, a cessation of hostilities between their nation, the English, and the Nabob of the Carnatic, until such time as his majesty’s pleasure should be known; and that he understood the Mahrattas had acceded to the proposal, and withdrawn their troops from the frontiers. This was a very curious kind of armistice. The Mahrattas cross the frontiers of the Carnatic, and commence plundering; the English, who would have marched against them, are held back by the nabob, in the hope that he may yet be able to make them friends; and a British plenipotentiary, yielding to the same pusillanimous spirit, sends them a civil message, simply proposing that they should desist from hostilities till such time as his majesty’s pleasure should be known! The council wisely refused to connect themselves in any way with his absurd proceedings, till he began to seize many of the Company’s European soldiers, on the ground of their being deserters from his majesty’s service. On being interrupted in this petty strife, he denounced their conduct as “diabolically mischievous and flagrantly unjust,” and shortly after, without taking formal leave, sailed away suddenly from the coast.

Though the council had refused to be dragged by the nabob into a new war with Hyder, they did not refuse their assistance to him in a case where they thought he had more justice on his side, and their own revenues were more immediately concerned. The Rajah of Tanjore, during the war with Hyder, had shown great reluctance in assisting the Company with a quota of horse which he was bound to furnish, and made no suitable return for the tranquillity which his territories had enjoyed under the Company’s protection. He was therefore regarded as little better than an enemy in disguise; and accordingly, when the nabob complained that the rajah had marched into the Marawar country, and attacked some polygars who were dependants of the Carnatic, the council at once interfered, and remonstrated with him on the impropriety of his conduct. He answered with disdain—“If I suffer Moravee to take possession of my country, Nalcooty to take my elephants, and Tondeman to injure my country, it will be a dishonour to me among the people to see such compulsions used by the polygars. You are a protector of my government; notwithstanding, you have not settled a single affair. I have finished the affairs relating to Moravee, and confirmed him in his business; the affair with Nalcooty remains to be finished, which I shall also finish.” Though this answer gave little hope of an amicable arrangement, it was resolved to attempt negotiation, and, at the same time, despatch troops and stores to Trichinopoly. The negotiation, conducted by Omdut-ul-Omrah, the eldest son of Mahomed Ali, who had deputed him for that purpose, failed; and General Smith, setting out from Trichinopoly at the head of a force, arrived, on the 16th of September, 1771, before the fort of Vellum, situated eight miles southwest of Tanjore. The siege was immediately commenced; but at midnight of the 20th, after a battery had been opened, the place was evacuated. General Smith immediately invested Tanjore, and had effected a breach which was reported to be practicable, when his operations were suddenly arrested by an intimation from Omdut-ul-Omrah that the rajah had come to terms. In this transaction the nabob, acting on the new ideas of sovereignty with which the British ministers had impressed him, treated the Company with very little ceremony, and concluded a treaty with the rajah in his own name, without their intervention. He simply intimated to the council that Vellum had been ceded to him, and requested them to place a garrison in it, in order to render it an effectual check on the rajah’s conduct.

The proceedings of the Emperor Shah Alum had for some time occasioned considerable uneasiness. The districts of Allahabad and Corah, which had been wrested from the Nabob of Oude, had been conferred upon him; and he was, moreover, entitled to the annual sum of twenty-six lacs of rupees (£260,000), as the portion of revenue which he had reserved, and the Company had become bound to pay him on receiving the grant of the dewannee. It had been hoped that he would sit down contented with these provisions, and cease to dream of regaining the throne of his ancestors at Delhi. He soon showed that his views were of a very different description, and began to intrigue for the possession of his capital. His first application for aid was to the Bengal presidency, from whom he asked two battalions of sepoys and some field-pieces, in virtue, as he alleged, of a promise which Lord Clive had given him. The council, though they had previously resolved not to allow their troops to cross the Caramnassa, somewhat inconsistently resolved to grant his application. They saw they had not influence sufficient to prevent him from making the attempt, and they feared that if he made it without their assistance, any hold which they now had upon him might be lost. When the enterprise was about to be commenced a double mutiny broke out, the one among Shah Alum’s own troops, and the other among the three best battalions of his vizier, the Nabob of Oude. The enterprise was in consequence postponed; but Shah Alum, still bent on executing it, continued to watch for a favourable opportunity. It occurred sooner than was expected.

For some time after the fatal field of Paniput the Mahrattas were too much employed at home to be able to interfere with the politics of Hindoostan; but in 1769 the Peishwa Madhoo Row assembled a powerful army, and sent it northward across the Nerbudda. It consisted of about 50,000 horse, and a large body of infantry, with a numerous artillery. It was headed by celebrated leaders—Visajee Kishen, who held the chief command, Mahadajee Sindia, and Tookajee Holkar. Their first operations were directed against the Rajpoot princes, from whom they extorted ten lacs of rupees, as arrears of tribute. They next invaded the territory of the Jauts or Jats, a powerful tribe, who dwelt to the west of the Jumna, and had been compelled, in self-defence, to abandon the peaceful pursuits of agriculture for that of arms. Though they had gradually extended their territories, and made themselves masters even of Agra, they were unable to cope with the Mahrattas, who defeated them in a pitched battle near Bhurtpoor, overran their country, and compelled them to pay a sum of sixty-four lacs of rupees, ten in ready money, and the rest by instalments. Nujeet-ud-Dowlah, a Rohilla chief, who had made himself master of Delhi, where he administered the government in the name of Prince Jewan Bukht, Shah Alum’s eldest son, suspected that his turn would come next, and endeavoured to save himself by negotiation. This was difficult, as he had incurred the deadly enmity of the Mahrattas, by fighting against them at the battle of Paniput. On this ground Mahadajee Sindia, the moment negotiation was proposed, called loud for vengeance; but Visajee Kishen referred the matter to the Peishwa, who, while admitting that they could never regard Nujeet-ud-Dowlah as a friend, judged it politic to listen to his overtures. The Mahrattas were now intriguing for the withdrawal of the emperor from the protection of the British, and believed that in this object Nujeet-ud-Dowlah might render them valuable assistance. In this, however, they were disappointed; for before the negotiation had made any progress, Nujeet-ud-Dowlah died in October, 1770, and was succeeded in his situation at the capital by his son, Zabita Khan.

The Mahrattas, thus disappointed in the use they expected to make of Nujeet-ud-Dowlah, broke off all friendly relations with the Rohillas, and determined to gratify their revenge. Accordingly, in the beginning of 1771, they proceeded directly into Rohilcund, and meeting with little opposition, overran the whole country. The strong fortress of Etawah fell into their hands, and every place in the Doab, except Furruckabad, yielded almost without a struggle. As their successes increased, their views seemed to expand, and they began to make irruptions into Corah. At the same time they made demands on Sujah Dowlah, the Nabob of Oude, and left little room to doubt that they were prepared, if necessary, to risk a collision with the Company.

The Bengal presidency were very awkwardly situated. Their great object was to stop the progress of the Mahrattas, and yet the very parties in whose