CHAPTER VI.

Financial and judicial arrangements in Bengal - Death of Colonel Monson gives the governor-general a majority in council—His supposed resignation - Proceedings thereupon in England and in Bengal The supreme court decides as referee General Clavering dies and is succeeded by Sir Eyre Coote Questions as to the jurisdiction of the supreme court A new appointment given to Sir Elijah Impey—Parliament interferes- Sir Elijah Impey is recalled.

For some time personalities had taken precedence of public business in the council-chamber of Calcutta; but when, in consequence of the execution of Nuncomar, informers were terror-struck, and the charges of corruption against Mr. Hastings were suddenly hushed, the members of council were able to give more attention to their proper duties. One of the most important subjects brought under consideration was the mode of realizing the revenue. In 1772, the lands, or more properly the revenue derived from the lands, had been farmed out on leases of five years. Preparatory to this, a committee of circuit had made the tour of the country, and formed estimates of the value of the lands, to be used as guides in letting them. The task assigned to the committee was too difficult and extensive, and the time allowed for the execution of it far too short to enable them to do more than form approximations to the truth. In following out this process they leaned too much to the views which they knew would be most acceptable to their employers, and fixed far higher values than could ever be realized. The consequences were very pernicious. Though a preference was given to the zemindars or hereditary collectors of the revenue, many of them, sooner than promise rents which they knew they could not pay, preferred the pension of ten per cent, allowed to them as a compensation when they were ousted, and thus made way for numbers of new tenants of a very indifferent description. It had been supposed that when the lands were put to auction, capitalists would be induced to come forward and lay out money in improvements. This may have happened in some cases, but in general the terms were not sufficiently tempting, and instead of capitalists, mere adventurers gained possession, and kept it only so long as they could make it profitable, by cheating the revenue, or practising extortion on the ryots. As soon as the first payments under the leases became due, it was seen that the revenue obtained would fall short of what was legally exigible. From an “Abstract of Remissions to the Farmers, and Balances in Arrears for the Five Years’ Settlement,” drawn up by the accountant-general to the revenue department, and inserted in the work published by Mr. Francis, under the title of “Original Minutes of the Governor-general and Council of Fort William on the Settlement and Collection of the Revenues of Bengal,” it appears that the remissions amounted, in 1772-3 to 1,294,758 rupees; in 1773-4 to 1,581,545; in 1774-5, to 2,567,419; in 1775-6, to 3,025,853; and in 1776-7 (estimated but unadjusted), to 3,410,000. The aggregate remissions for the whole five years were thus 11,879,575, or £1,187,957. The actual balance remaining unpaid at the end of the same period amounted to £1,292,691.

Mr. Hastings, who had originated, or at least identified himself with the plan which had produced these results, was naturally anxious to account for them in the way which would do least discredit to his judgment and foresight; and as early as the 10th of January, 1775, only three months after the new government had been established, lodged a minute, in which he said, “The plan for letting the lands has not miscarried, and is still, in our opinion, the best that could be adopted. What deficiencies have happened in it have proceeded from eventual causes, which have been fully explained, and which no general plan could prevent.” In opposition to this minute, Messrs. Clavering, Monson, and Francis, on the 25th of February, lodged one, in which, while displaying a captious and quibbling spirit, they stated some important truths. Placing the above words, “The plan of letting the lands has not miscarried, and is still, in our opinion, the best that could be adopted,” at the head of their minute as a kind of motto or text, on which they proposed to comment, they began with a remark which is, to say the least of it, paltry and undignified, and which if made, as is now generally supposed, by the author of the Letters of Junius, is certainly not in his style. “We do not know,” they say, “whose opinion Mr. Hastings means by the word our to unite with his own. We do not doubt, however, of proving in due time that it is a mistaken opinion, by facts which he cannot deny, and by authorities which we presume he will not dispute.” After showing that the deficiency in the revenue was not owing to any eventual cause, such as the famine, “which was antecedent to the leasing of the lands, and should not be admitted as a plea for their falling short of their estimated value in 1773,” they proceed as follows: “This deficiency must be found in collateral causes, or in a defect in the system—a system which tends to alienate the affections of the people, and to destroy all confidence in government. The zemindar, or proprietor of the land, is deprived by it of his influence, and of the management of his zemindary, and becomes a pensioner. The amount of these pensions is an accumulated burden on government of more than twelve lacs of rupees per annum. The izardars, or farmers who occupy the place of zemindars, are in general persons taken from the dregs of the people—the banyans of Calcutta, or people protected by them, who take the farms at any rate, depending on the influence of their masters to screen them from the just demands of government, provided their farms should not prove an advantageous bargain. These people, to make good their engagements, extort the last anna from the ryot, and when they can get no more, and their masters’ influence is on the wane, they flee, leaving a depopulated and impoverished country behind. To a system which produces these effects, the cause of the balance in arrear may be truly imputed.”

Much of what is here asserted could not be gainsayed; and could Mr. Hastings have so far mastered his self-love as to confess an error, he would at once have admitted that the plan, at least in the way in which it had been carried out, was a failure. If, as he asserted, the plan was “the best that could be adopted,” it necessarily followed that there could not be a better, and therefore the only proper course was to persist in it. Instead of this, little more than three months after the date of the former minute asserting the superlative excellence of the plan, he produced another of an entirely different nature. This new plan, concurred in by Mr. Barwell, was arranged in a series of proposals, each of them accompanied with a commentary. The most important of them were as follows:—Proposal 1, “That all new taxes, which have been imposed upon the ryots in any part of the country, since the commencement of the Bengal year 1172 (or 1764-5), being the year in which the Company obtained the dewanne, be entirely abolished.” In the commentary appended to this proposal, it is stated that “whenever any occasion or any pretence has been found to levy a new tax upon the ryots, it has been the custom of the zemindars and aumils to continue to collect it, whether the occasion has remained or not;” and that the amount of taxes thus permanently and oppressively imposed since the acquisition of the dewanne, “could not be less than fifteen lacs of rupees” (£150,000).

Proposal 2. “That the twenty-four pergunnals be sold as zeminaries by public auction, in lots not exceeding a jumma or rent roll of 20,000 or 30,000 rupees a year.” These pergunnals, which were granted to the Company by Meer Jaffier as a zeminary, and afterwards became better known under the name of “Clive’s Jaglire,” had hitherto been under the Company’s own management. In the commentary the proposed sale of them is justified on the ground that it “would raise a large sum of money, and there is no doubt that the lands would be greatly improved in the hands of zemindars on the permanent footing which we have recommended. It would then be their interest to attend to the cultivation of the most valuable articles of husbandry, which require time to bring them to perfection, and submit to present expenses for the sake of future profit.” Another recommendation raises a question which has been much debated, and in regard to which Mr. Hastings, both in earlier and in after life, held a different opinion from that here expressed in the following terms:—“We would recommend, too, that Europeans be allowed to be purchasers, provided they can be made amenable to the revenue courts, and subject to the same regulations as the natives, with respect to the payments of their rents and the treatment of their ryots; being of a more enterprising spirit than the natives, they would be more likely to introduce new manufactures, and even to import an accession of inhabitants from foreign countries; and they would in time become an addition of strength to the British empire in India.”

The most important proposals were the tenth and the eleventh. They were as follows:—10. “That all the other districts of Bengal be farmed out on leases for life, or for two joint lives, to such responsible people as shall offer the most advantageous terms, allowing a preference to the zemindars, provided they have attained the age of eighteen years, if their offers are equal or nearly equal to those of the others, or if they are equal to what the council shall judge to be the real value of the lands.” 11. “That it be expressly stipulated that no attention shall be paid to any proposals for an annual increase, it being meant that the same revenue shall be paid for the first year as for the subsequent years; that no increase be levied or deduction allowed, on any account or pretence whatever.” These leases, though said to be for life, were meant for perpetuity, as it was provided that possession should, on the death of the party holding it, devolve to his heirs, with the option on the part of the government to exact the same rent as before, or a rent equal to the average of the actual collections of the three preceding years, it being understood, however, that the new should in no case be less than the old rent, nor more than ten per cent. in excess of it. Where the zemindar from any cause did not farm the lands, he was to receive an allowance fixed at ten per cent. on the amount of the revenue settled by the government; and each zemindar or farmer in possession was “to exercise a fougedary jurisdiction, and be made answerable for murders and robberies committed in his district, agreeable to the old constitution of the empire.”

The concluding proposal was in the following terms:—“That these regulations, or any others which the honourable court of directors shall think fit to add to them, be passed into fixed law by their express command; that it shall not be in the power of the governor and council to change or deviate from them on any occasion or for any pretence whatever; and that copies thereof, in the English, the Persian, and Bengal languages, be affixed to all the cutcheries of the provinces, with the same authority declared for their establishment and duration.” The commentary on this proposal contains a candid confession which speaks volumes as to the grievous oppression under which the ryots, forming the great mass of the population, had hitherto been suffering. It deserves to be quoted verbatim:—“The continual variations on the mode of collecting the revenue, and the continual usurpation on the rights of the people, which have been produced by the remissness or the rapacity of the Mogul government, and in the English, by the desire of acquiring a reputation from a sudden increase of the collection, without sufficient attention to remote consequences, have fixed in the minds of the ryots so rooted a distrust of the ordinances of government, that no assurances, however strong, will persuade them that laws which have no apparent object but the ease of the people and the security of property, can be of long duration, unless confirmed by a stronger pledge than the resolution of a fluctuating administration. Even with the honourable court of directors, time will be required to reconcile their belief to so extraordinary a revolution in the principles of this government.”

This plan, which furnishes the outline of a permanent settlement of revenue, and gives the matured views of one so thoroughly versed in Indian affairs as Mr. Hastings is universally admitted to have been, deserves all the space which has here been given to it, though it was not destined to come into operation. The reception given to it by the majority of the council appears from a minute, of which Mr. Francis himself has published the following extract: “Since our arrival in this country, and during all our debates with our colleagues, we have not met with a circumstance that has filled us with greater astonishment than the terms and purport of the plan proposed by the governor-general and Mr. Barwell, for the new settlement of the provinces at the expiration of the present leases. That gentlemen who have contributed to subvert the constitution of this country and the rights of the natives, should wish to revert to that government they have so lately overset, and should so far forget themselves as to recommend the abolition of the very system which they every day support which the governor-general has declared, in one of his late minutes, to be still, in his opinion, the best that could be adopted, and our disapprobation of which is constantly the subject of their censure–is only to be explained by themselves. This conduct in other persons might appear inconsistent. In them it is uniform, and consonant to that instability which characterizes their government.” There is far too much of this pointless vituperation. The plan, however defective it may have been, was certainly a great improvement on any that had previously been acted upon, and was therefore entitled to a full and calm discussion. Compared with this the consistency or inconsistency of the proposers of the plan was unworthy of a moment’s consideration. If they were formerly in the wrong, it was surely so far to their credit that they were now willing to follow a better course. At this time, however, Mr. Hastings, though at the head of the government, had no power whatever in the administration of it, and the disapproval of his plan by the majority sealed its fate.

When Mr. Hastings proposed his plan for a new settlement of the revenue, he called upon the other members of council to do the same. None of them, with the exception of Mr. Barwell, who concurred with him, considered themselves “sufficiently qualified by local observation and experience to undertake so difficult a task,” and therefore contented themselves for the time with criticisms and objections similar to those of which a specimen has been given in the above extract. At last, however, Mr. Francis set himself manfully to the work, and by the aid, it is said, of Sir John Shore, afterwards Lord Teignmouth, than whom no man was better qualified to instruct his ignorance, submitted his views at great length in a paper which he transmitted to the directors, on the 22d of January, 1776, and afterwards published in the “Original Minutes” already mentioned. The plan of Mr. Francis is based on the opinion he had adopted, that the zemindar, instead of being merely a collector of the revenue of lands, holding his office and various powers and privileges accompanying it by inheritance, but liable to be displaced by the government, was proprietor of the lands themselves in a sense differing little from that which Europeans attach to the term. This view of the zemindar’s position is the key to his whole plan, which in substance was as follows: “The whole demand upon the country, to commence from April, 1777, should be founded on an estimate of the permanent services which government must indispensably provide for, under the great heads of civil and military establishments and investment, with an allowance of a reasonable reserve for contingencies. The gross sum required being thus determined, “each zemindary should be assessed its proportion,” as ascertained by “the actual receipts of the three previous years,” and this sum should be “declared the quit rent of those lands in perpetuity.” Besides this general assessment applied to each zemindary as a whole, the proportions to be paid by its constituent parts, as pergunnahs, villages, &c., should also be fixed in perpetuity, so as to leave no doubt as to “the quit-rent of government for every portion of land in all future sales or transfers of property.” The quit-rents being fixed, “the zemindar must be informed that the due discharge of his rent is the tenure by which he holds his lands, with every possible assurance that no further demands will be made upon him.” If he incurs a balance, “a part of his zemindary should be invariably sold to make it good.” This regulation should be enforced without “delay or indulgence,” as the only effectual means of rousing the zemindars “from their present supine and hopeless state, to exert every endeavour for the preservation and improvement of their estates, now rendered of real value to them.” The plan, it is said, “will at first require nursing and indulgence,” but as the new establishment gains strength, “the zemindars should be gradually replaced in the exercise of all their ancient duties,” criminal and civil. In regard to the latter, it is stated as “one essential reason why government should endeavour to restore the zemindars to a state of competence at least, if not of affluence,” that they are not merely the stewards or collectors of the public revenue, but “are or ought to be the instruments of government in almost every branch of the civil administration. If this medium be removed, government then acts directly upon its subjects by its own officers, without the assistance of those intermediate gradations of rank by which all great civil societies are held together.”

The rights of the zemindar being secured, Mr. Francis says, “The next step is to make a similar provision for their tenants.” Here, however, a serious difficulty occurs. “The land,” according to his view “is the hereditary property of the zemindar. He holds it by the law of the country, on the tenure of paying a certain contribution to government. When this condition is complied with, he is master of the land, to re-let it to whom he thinks proper.” Where, then, is the security of the ryot? Mr. Francis answers, In his lease; for “the same security which government gives to the tenant in chief, should, for the same reasons, descend to the under-tenants in their several gradations, so that every rank of society, and every member of it, may have something to call his own.” This looks plausible, but how is it to be reconciled with the dogma that the zemindar “is master of the land, to re-let it to whom he will?” When a ryot has no lease, or his lease expires, what becomes of the “something” which he is still “to call his own?” Here Mr. Francis suggests two remedies of a very opposite description. The one is to call in the aid of government, and not only compel the zemindar to grant a pottah, but dictate its terms so rigidly that no other shall be deemed “legal” or “valid.” This is surely rather singular treatment to one who is just before declared “master of the land, to re-let it to whom he thinks proper.” It is here that the flaw in Mr. Francis’ theory of zemindary property becomes apparent, and he is obliged to admit that the right to possess in perpetuity belongs as much to the ryot as to the zemindar. If so, it is evident that when he speaks, as he invariably does, of the zemindar as landholder and owner, he must use the words in an unusual and restricted sense. The zemindar is to hold his property under the “indispensable condition” that in the course of a stated time he shall grant new pottahs (leases) to his tenants, either on the footing of his own quit-rents, that is, as long as the zemindar’s rent remains the same, or for a term of years, as they may agree. The latter alternative is not likely to be adopted by the tenant while perpetuity of possession is in his option; and hence the result at which Mr. Francis at last arrives, is that the ryot shall receive a lease which is to last as long, and ought to be as sacred as the zemindar’s quit-rent.

The other remedy is rather hinted at than explained. It would scarcely do to give full utterance to it, and therefore we are only left to infer that after all the best security for the ryot would be to throw himself on the zemindar’s mercy. “I know not,” says Mr. Francis, “whether in ancient times the ryots constantly took out pottahs or not. They derived a better security against ill-treatment from the natural interest and relation by which they and the zemindars were mutually bound to each other. This security, so much superior to any formal engagements, the present system (i.e. his new plan) promises to restore. By establishing a quit-rent for each zemindary, we make it the interest of the zemindar to extend his cultivation to the utmost, which can only be done by encouraging the resort of the ryots, and by letting his lands on such favourable terms as may excite their industry. I have heard it asserted that, formerly, when a ryot quitted any zemindar’s land, he followed him, and used every motive of persuasion to prevail on him to return; and that zemindars were accustomed to bribe away each other’s tenants.” Such being the case, why talk of providing security for the ryot? He is only too secure already. It is only in the west that landlords can exercise undue influence; in the east the influence is all the other way, and zemindars, so far from being able to oppress, are under the necessity of courting their ryots.

When these competing plans were submitted to the directors, the adoption of either would have been premature, as a full year of the existing leases was still to run. The council, therefore, returned to other business of a more pressing nature. For a time the members were divided as before—three against two; but a change in this respect was about to take place. Colonel Monson’s health had given way, and obliged him frequently to absent himself from the council-chamber. Latterly he had been unable to attend at all, and Mr. Hastings was able, by his casting vote, to establish an ascendency as complete as that which the majority in numbers had previously possessed. General Clavering seems not to have borne his altered position with much equanimity, for on the 23rd of September he addressed a letter to the directors, in which, after mentioning Mr. Monson’s continued illness, and deploring that the administration was in consequence in the hands of men whose conduct and principles obliged him to declare that he did not hold himself “responsible for the safety of these provinces while the government continues conducted as it now is” he concluded by intimating his intention to resign his office of councillor and commander-in-chief in November or December, 1777. Colonel Monson’s recovery must at this time have been hopeless, for the above letter was written only two days before his death. Mr. Hastings’ ascendency, which had till then been only precarious, was now permanently established. He lost no time in turning it to account. Returning to the subject of revenue settlement, on the 1st of November, 1776, he lodged a minute, in which, after premising that whatever might be the plan adopted on the expiration of the present leases, “accurate states of the real value of the lands” must be previously furnished; and that the preparation of them requiring “uniformity in the design, authority in the execution, and an extraordinary share of responsibility to animate the zeal of those who are intrusted with the charge of it,” could neither be conducted by the board, nor be left wholly to the provincial councils, he proposed “that a temporary office be constituted to execute this business, under the conduct of one or two covenanted servants of the Company, assisted by a dewan and other officers, either selected from the officers of the khalsa (revenue office), or occasionally chosen for special commissions; that, for the sake of despatch, all orders issued for the execution of such particular services as shall have received the general sanction of the board, be written in the name of the governor-general, and the control of it be committed to his immediate charge.” Besides the immediate duties of this office, “many other points of inquiry,” he said, “will be also useful to secure to the ryots the perpetual and undisturbed possession of their lands, and to secure them against arbitrary exactions. This is not to be done by proclamations and edicts, nor by indulgences to the zemindars and farmers. The former will not be obeyed unless enforced by regulations so framed as to produce their own effect, without requiring the hand of government to interpose its support; and the latter, though it may feed the luxury of the zemindars, or the rapacity of the farmers, will prove no relief to the cultivator, whose welfare ought to be the immediate and primary care of government.” The attempt to establish new pottahs for the ryots, with the failure of which the late administration had been reproached, had failed still more egregiously in the hands of the present administration in the case of Burdwan, where, “notwithstanding the solemn engagement of the zemindar, and the peremptory injunctions of government, not a pottah has yet been granted, nor will be granted, of a different tenure from those which have been customary for some years past, unless more regular means be taken to produce them.” The reason was obvious. “It is the interest of the zemindar to exact the greatest rent he can from the ryots, and it is as much against his interest to fix the deeds by which they hold their lands and pay their rents.” Mr. Hastings therefore proposed that, as “the foundation of such a work must be laid by government itself,” it should be part of the duty of the new office “to collect the materials for it by obtaining copies of the present pottahs, and of the nerricbundee, or rates of land, by which they are regulated in each district, and every other information which may throw a light on this subject, and enable the board hereafter to establish a more permanent and regular mode of taxation.”

The proposal, supported almost as a matter of course by Mr. Barwell, was strongly opposed by Messrs. Clavering and Francis, the former denouncing it with more fury than judgment, while the latter, whose tone appears to have become somewhat softened since he was placed in a minority, argued the question calmly, but very pedantically, quoting at large from Adam Smith, Sir James Stewart, and Montesquieu, and appending to his minute footnotes in French from Mirabeau. The chief points laboured by Mr. Francis were that the information sought to be obtained was superfluous, as it had been, or at least ought to have been, furnished by the committee of circuit; that it could not be obtained without applying to sources unworthy of credit, and having recourse to measures tyrannical and oppressive; and that even if attainable, it would be useless, “except for the single purpose of levying the greatest possible revenue,” a purpose which he hoped and believed was not in contemplation. In regard to the procuring of information, in order “to secure to the ryots the perpetual and undisturbed possession of their lands,” he objected to the language, both as a kind of clap-trap, and as conveying an erroneous idea. “Before we give perpetual possession, we ought,” he said, “to determine the property;” but it is not true “that the ryot is proprietor of the land.” On the contrary, “the property and inheritance of the land” is vested “in the zemindars,” and if zemindars and ryots “are left to themselves, they will soon come to an agreement, in which each party will find his advantage. The pottah is the evidence and security of this voluntary agreement. In the present state of the country the ryot has, in fact, the advantage over the zemindar.” After repeating this extravagant assertion in various forms, he concludes that “to dictate the specific terms of every lease is an invasion of the rights of property,” and that “government, after assessing the zemindar or landlord according to his portion of the public revenue,” is not entitled “to prescribe to him the rates at which he shall be obliged to parcel it out to his tenants.” It is not out of place to give Mr. Hastings’ description of these zemindars, for whom Mr. Francis reserves all his favour. Commenting on the above assertion, that zemindars and ryots if left to themselves “will soon come to an agreement, in which each party will find his advantage,” he says, “This would be a just conclusion, if the zemindars were all capable of distinguishing what is for their advantage. But it is a fact, which will with difficulty obtain credit in England, though the notoriety will justify me in asserting it here, that much the greatest part of the zemindars, both of Bengal and Behar, are incapable of judging or acting for themselves, being either minors, or men of weak understandings, or absolute idiots.” Mr. Francis himself appears to have been at one time of a similar opinion, for in his plan of a new settlement, setting at naught all his own declamation about the “rights of property,” he proposes that, “as many of the zemindars will at first be incapable of managing their lands themselves, they should be obliged to retain a dewan (or steward) of sufficient ability and good character, who should be intrusted with the management of the lands, and be answerable for the rent due to government, without whose approbation he ought not to be dismissed during four or five years at least after the first settlement.”

Whatever objections there may have been to the new office, the governor-general’s casting vote outweighed them all, and he proceeded to take the uncontrolled management of it. This was, in fact, the most objectionable part of his scheme, because it gave him a power the legality of which was very questionable, and the assumption of which, after the reprimand he had received in the similar case of the Oude residency, looked very much like an open defiance of the directors. In reviewing that case they distinctly told him that he had culpably exceeded his powers; and as he had reason to believe that the party opposed to him in the court had gained an accession of strength, it is strange that he should of his own accord have taken a step which could not but subject him anew to severe animadversion. It would almost seem as if the sweets of restored power, after a painful exclusion from it, had intoxicated him, and disposed him to grasp at every kind of patronage which could be brought within his reach. This view derives some confirmation from the manner in which he proceeded to undo some of the acts of the majority, which were personally most offensive to him. One of the first acts of the majority, as soon as the intestine war in the council commenced, was, it will be remembered, abruptly to recall Mr. Middleton from his residency in Oude, because Mr. Hastings regarded him as his private agent, and on that ground refused to communicate his whole correspondence. After a time Mr. Bristow was appointed to the vacant office. On the 2d of December, the governor-general moved in the council that Mr. Bristow should be recalled, and Mr. Middleton restored. In supporting the motion he was at least ingenuous. Mr. Bristow, he admitted, had performed the duty so well as to command his esteem, but Mr. Middleton had more of his confidence, and he therefore preferred him. After an altercation with Messrs. Clavering and Francis, his casting vote enabled him to carry his point. On the same day the governor-general moved the recall of Mr. Francis Fowke, whom the majority had sent on a kind of embassy to the Rajah of Benares, whose zemindary they had recently succeeded in extorting from Asof-ul-Dowlah, the Nabob of Oude. Mr. Fowke had probably owed his appointment to the zeal his father, Mr. Joseph Fowke, had displayed, in common with Nuncomar and others, in discovering or inventing charges of corruption, for which he was held to bail on a charge of conspiracy. It was not deemed prudent or becoming to connect the recall of the son with this charge; and as his conduct appears to have been unexceptionable, the only ground alleged for annulling his commission was that “the purposes therefor had been accomplished.” This motion was carried, like the other, by the casting vote. Only twenty days later Mr. Thomas Graham was appointed resident at Benares, and Mr. Daniel Octavius Barwell his assistant.

While Mr. Hastings was thus revelling in his newly-acquired ascendency, a curious scene, deeply affecting his interest, was being transacted in England. In a communication to the directors, after he felt, as he expressed it, “that a majority had been formed against him, not by an accidental occurrence, but by a decided and permanent combination,” he declared that “he would not quit the ground on which he stood,” and that “it was his determined resolution to retain the place which the court’s favour originally assigned to him, and which the legislature had so honourably confirmed.” In another letter to the same quarter, after affirming of the majority that, “from the moment of their landing, their aim was, by personal indignities, to provoke me to resign my station, and leave them uncontrolled masters of the government, or by accumulated attacks to blast my character, and to effect the same end by alienating your confidence from me,” he concluded thus: “Prompted equally by duty and gratitude, I have hitherto resolved to bear my part in this distracted scene, and if I live I will see the end of it.” This letter was written on the 8th of September, 1775. Up to this date he had been cordially supported by the directors; but shortly after their sentiments underwent a change, and resolutions condemnatory of the Rohilla war were passed both by the directors and the proprietors—the latter, however, qualifying the censure by a declaration that “the court had the highest opinion of the services and integrity of Warren Hastings, Esq., and could not admit a suspicion of corrupt motives operating on his conduct without proof.” The general court of proprietors, at which the Rohilla war was condemned, was held on the 6th December, 1775. It is difficult to say what effect it might have had in changing the determination he had above expressed to maintain his seat, as it could not possibly have been known to him at the time when a Colonel Lachlan Maclean, who possessed his confidence, quitted India. This gentleman, whom Mr. Hastings had intrusted with a writing relative to his resignation, arrived in England in February, 1776, and therefore could not possibly have been the bearer of any decision which Mr. Hastings had formed in consequence of proceedings in England in the previous December. Hence all the attempts to connect the supposed resignation of Mr. Hastings with the unfavourable view taken of his conduct by the directors and proprietors are mere anachronisms. It is certain, however, that he had become disgusted with the irksome struggle in which he was engaged, and had, both in writing and in private conversation, declared that unless some concessions were made, for the purpose of strengthening the hands of the governor-general, he would resign.

Colonel Maclean had business of his own to take him to Leadenhall Street. He had come home as the unauthorized agent of the Nabob of Arcot, and he was also a petitioner to the directors respecting some personal grievance, by which, according to his own declaration, “he is and must continue to be a great sufferer, unless the court should be pleased to take his case into consideration, and grant him relief.” While acting in these double capacities, as an agent and a petitioner, he had ample opportunity of becoming well acquainted with the light in which the administration of Mr. Hastings was viewed at the India House, in parliament, and by the country generally. The unfavourable impression thus produced appears to have convinced him that he could not do Mr. Hastings a greater service than by obtaining the acceptance of his resignation. On the 8th of May, 1776, the directors, though unable to dismiss any of the councillors named by the Regulating Act, took advantage of the other alternative which it left them, and resolved to petition his majesty for the removal of the governor-general and Mr. Barwell. The proprietors immediately took up the question, and a general court was summoned for the 15th of May. The greatest interest was taken in the result. The ministry in particular exerted all their influence in support of the directors, and crowded the court with peers, privy councillors, and other adherents. The strength of parties was first tried, after a protracted debate, by a motion for adjournment to next day. The friends of Mr. Hastings, who made the motion, were defeated, but succeeded two days after, when, on an appeal to the ballot, a motion that the directors should reconsider their resolution to address his majesty was carried by 377 to 271. Accordingly, in the following July, after stormy discussions, the resolution was rescinded, and for the time the question of removal ceased to be entertained. Had the question of removal been carried, he could not have been restored to the service by less than three-fourths of the directors; whereas, if he merely resigned, a majority would suffice. This consideration may have weighed with Colonel Maclean in inducing him to take the extraordinary step of addressing the following letter to the directors:

“GENTLEMEN,—Mr. Hastings, seeing the necessity of unanimity in the supreme council in Bengal for conducting the affairs of the Company there, and for establishing any permanent system of government for the good and prosperity of that country, and finding from the unhappy divisions which have subsisted in the supreme council, that such union is not likely to subsist, and having anxiously, on every occasion, studied to promote the welfare of the Company—a conduct which he will ever continue—has, from these motives, authorized, employed, and directed me to signify to you his desire to resign his office of Governor-general of Bengal, and to request your nomination of a successor to the vacancy which will thereby be occasioned in the supreme council.

“London, 10th October, 1776.”

L. MACLEAN

Colonel Maclean appears to have been fond of intrigue, and, before addressing the directors, had been for some time in communication with a Mr. Robinson, a confidential servant of the Treasury. His object was to make the descent of Mr. Hastings from his high office as easy and dignified as possible. He had proposed honours; but finding that these would not be conferred, had made a series of stipulations. One of them was “that all retrospect and prosecution previous to the late act of parliament cease and determine, and in case any informer infringe this article, the administration shall give their aid to defeat it;” another was “that Mr. Hastings shall be well received at his return, a vote of thanks promoted if moved for, and nobody to be displaced.” This is Mr. Maclean’s account; but as the negotiation was never recognized by the ministry, and the stipulations proved a dead letter, it is impossible to say how far he has confined himself to facts, or mingled his own fancies along with them.

On the 18th of October the court of directors took the letter into consideration, and having called in Colonel Maclean, asked him to produce his authority for writing it. His answer was that the papers conferring it contained matters “of a nature extremely confidential,” which precluded him from laying them bodily before the court; but that he was ready to give every satisfaction, by submitting them to the inspection of any three directors who might be appointed for that purpose. This answer might have justified a suspicion that there was some mistake. Was it conceivable that Mr. Hastings, if he had really resigned, would have left it to be inferred from papers which could not be submitted to full inspection without betraying confidence? In fact, Mr. Maclean, in his own letter, had not ventured to do more than speak of “a desire to resign,” and of a “vacancy which will thereby be occasioned.” It was obvious, therefore, that at the utmost nothing more could be made out than a constructive resignation; in other words, a resignation which, not being made in direct terms, but only inferred from facts and circumstances, could never amount to the resignation which the Regulating Act required before action could be taken on it. This consideration should have restrained the directors from taking the undignified and unbusiness-like step of deputing a committee to sit in judgment on Colonel Maclean’s papers. Their conduct can only be accounted for by their wishes. They longed for the resignation, and were determined, if possible, to prove that they had obtained it.

The chairman, deputy-chairman, and Mr. Richard Becher, the committee appointed, reported, on the 23rd of October, that “having conferred with Mr. Maclean, they find that from the purport of Mr. Hastings’ instructions, contained in a paper in his own handwriting, he declares he will not continue in the government of Bengal unless certain conditions therein specified can be obtained.” Of this, they add, “there is no probability.” Assuming that they were correct in this opinion, what follows? “That Mr. Hastings has resigned,” say the chairman and deputy-chairman only, for Mr. Becher refused to concur with them; but in order to show that nothing can be more illogical than this conclusion, it is necessary only to put the argument into the form of a syllogism—Mr. Hastings will resign unless certain conditions can be obtained; of this there is no probability: ergo, Mr. Hastings has resigned! Instead of this syllogism, in which the conclusion has no visible connection with the premises, it is clear that the true syllogism should stand thus—Mr. Hastings will resign unless certain conditions can be obtained: of this there is no probability: ergo, there is every probability that Mr. Hastings will resign. By no possible squeezing can anything more be extracted from this part of the committee’s report. But it seems that the committee allowed their zeal to carry them farther than their instructions. Besides interrogating Mr. Maclean, and inspecting his papers, and volunteering their own opinion as to probabilities, they examined Mr. George Vansittart, who was present when Mr. Hastings gave Mr. Maclean his instructions and empowered him to declare his resignation, and Mr. Stewart, who had heard Mr. Hastings declare that he had given Mr. Maclean such instructions. On this it is obvious to remark that this evidence, in so far as it agrees with the instructions, is superfluous, because the instructions speak for themselves; and in so far as it goes beyond the instructions, is worthless, because a resignation not established by writing could not possibly be eked out by hearsay. These considerations, palpable as they are to common sense, were ignored by the directors, who at once resolved to accept of what they called the “proposed resignation” of Mr. Hastings, and named Mr. Wheler, one of their own number, to the seat in the council thus rendered vacant. The consent of the crown, necessary to give effect to this nomination, was easily obtained, as all the proceedings of the directors in this business had been countenanced and cordially supported by the ministry. It is not so easy to account for the harmony which prevailed among the directors themselves. Several of them were strenuous supporters of Mr. Hastings, and yet their resolution was unanimous. The explanation given is, that while his enemies voted in accordance with their inclinations, his friends refrained from opposition, because they were as yet ignorant of the ascendency which he had acquired in the council by the death of Colonel Monson, and perhaps also believed that a resignation accepted as voluntary was more conducive to his interests than the forcible expulsion which had been attempted, and, though defeated, would in all probability be attempted again.

Intelligence of these proceedings was received in Bengal on the 19th of June, 1777, and took all parties by surprise. No time, however, was lost in forming a decision. General Clavering, whose right to the office of governor-general, in the event of a vacancy, was expressly declared by the Regulating Act, at once asserted his new dignity. On the 20th of June, Mr. Barwell, while on his way to the council-chamber, received a note, signed “J. P. Auriol, secretary,” requesting his presence at the council, “by order of General Clavering, governor-general;” and Mr. Hastings received another note, similarly signed, requiring him to deliver up the keys of Fort William and of the Company’s treasury. His reply was that, not having resigned, he was governor-general by act of parliament, and would not allow any one to usurp his authority. He therefore summoned a council, and instructed the secretary to issue orders in his name only. Each of the competing governors-general had a partizan. Mr. Francis obeyed the summons of General Clavering, Mr. Barwell that of Mr. Hastings, and thus two rival councils were constituted.

The proceedings were in themselves ludicrous, but must have been productive of fatal results, had not a third party been permitted to interpose and settle the dispute. Mr. Hastings offered to submit to the decision of the supreme court, and General Clavering could not in decency refuse. The result might easily have been foreseen. The judges, after perusing the instructions of the directors and the other relative papers, had no difficulty in giving their opinion, “unanimously, clearly, and decidedly, that Mr. Hastings had not resigned.” After stating the grounds of their opinion at length, they concluded thus: “We have given the papers and the subject several hours’ consideration, wishing to deliver such an opinion as from the reasoning of it, not from its authority, might claim sufficient weight to prevent the fatal consequences of a divided government; but we do assure you that none of the time has been taken up in settling a difference of opinion. There is not one point of it, from the first to the last, in which we have not entirely concurred.”

Hitherto, in this extraordinary dispute, Mr. Hastings had justice, reason, and common sense on his side, but nothing could be more paltry and vindictive than the use he attempted to make of his victory. On the 22d of June, having met in council with Mr. Barwell, he gave a detail of the acts of General Clavering, and concluded with moving a series of resolutions, to the effect that by these acts General Clavering “had relinquished, resigned, and vacated” his offices both of second member of council and of commander-in-chief. As Mr. Barwell was the only other member present, these resolutions passed of course, and it was determined, under the pretext of its being necessary for the preservation of the legality of their proceedings, that General Clavering “shall not in future be summoned or admitted as a member of council.” On the 24th of June, Mr. Francis attended the council, and lodged a minute, in which, after remarking that “everything has been hazarded by some degree of passion and a great degree of precipitation,” and taking credit to himself for having given a signal example of “prudence and moderation,” not only by his “immediate and implicit acquiescence in the decision of the judges,” but in his “present attendance here,” he concluded thus: “Let me have the honour and happiness of assuming the character of mediator.” Mr. Hastings must have been inwardly delighted at seeing his most relentless enemy in this supplicating posture, and ought to have embraced the opportunity it gave him of retiring gracefully from a false and untenable position. Unfortunately for himself, he persisted in maintaining it, till he was forced to yield by another appeal to the judges, who decided, again unanimously, that the council had no power to remove one of their members or declare his seat vacant. He had thus no alternative but to retrace his steps, by moving, on the 25th, “That, under the advice of the judges, the council do recede from putting into execution all their resolutions passed since the 20th instant, and that all parties shall be placed in the same situation in which they stood before the receipt of these orders.”

The crisis, brought on mainly by the rash and undignified proceedings adopted at the India House, and sanctioned, if not prompted, by the ministry, was now past. Mr. Hastings, however, felt that explanation was still due, and on the 15th of August addressed a letter to the directors on the subject. This letter commenced as follows:—“No event of my life ever befell me for which I was so little prepared as the news of the notification made by Colonel Maclean. Your acceptance of that notification, your nomination of Mr. Wheler, your application to the king for its approval, and his majesty’s approval thereof—acts so solemn in their profession, so important in respect to their object, and concluded by an authority so sacred, that although I knew them to be invalid, the grounds on which they were built being defective, yet my confidence forsook me, and I thought of nothing but to submit to the hard lot imposed upon me.” After dwelling upon the difficulties of his position, his reluctance “to disavow the declaration made by Colonel Maclean,” who, “even in this instance, in which he exceeded his powers, had been actuated, I knew, by a sincere and honest, though a mistaken and too precipitate, zeal to serve me,” or “to arraign the justice of those whose approbation I have ever sought as the first reward of my fidelity and incessant toils in their service”—his aversion, on the one hand, to refuse effect “to an instrument having his majesty’s royal signature,” however obtained, and his inability, on the other hand, to ratify it “without making an ungrateful return to the Company” for their honourable support, and “without branding my own character with falsehood and deception, after the repeated protestations publicly and loudly made by me, that no consideration of private convenience nor impatience of injury should prevail upon me to make a voluntary surrender of the trust which had been committed to me”—he endeavours to come to an impartial decision, and ends by saying, “I am compelled to declare that I do not hold myself bound by the notification of Mr. Maclean, nor by any of the acts consequent upon it.”

This letter is not satisfactory. There is too much rhetoric in it, and too little of plain ingenuous statement. Who that knows anything of Mr. Hastings’ career will be imposed upon by these protestations of almost nervous delicacy? He cannot hurt the feelings of his friend Mr. Maclean, and therefore, in order to spare them, is half-inclined to allow himself to be humiliatingly deprived of what he calls “a trust of the first importance, perhaps, under the British empire.” He shudders at the idea of withholding effect to a document rendered sacred in his eyes by the signature of his majesty. He is burdened with a load of gratitude to the Company; and, therefore, how can he be so ungrateful as to allow them to deprive themselves of the benefit of his services? Lastly, what does he not owe to himself? and how can he, after protestations publicly and loudly made to the contrary, even entertain the idea of resignation, without branding his character with falsehood and deception? The hollowness of all this is too manifest to require exposure; but one is tempted to ask, when the very idea of resignation is thus disclaimed, What, then, was the purport of the paper of instructions given to Mr. Maclean? Did it say nothing of resignation? Did it not declare it to be the only alternative if certain conditions were not obtained? In the whole of Mr. Hastings’ conduct in regard to the resignation there is so much appearance of duplicity that it looks as if he had contemplated the misunderstandings which afterwards arose, and made his arrangements so as to be able to pursue any course which might happen at the time to be most convenient. He seems, indeed, to have loved and practised mystification for its own sake. Writing Mr. Sullivan, on the 29th of June, 1777, he says, “I have now no channel to Lord North, nor encouragement to write to him; yet I wish it were possible to make him acquainted with the late proceedings.” On this very day he had written, or was about to write, a long letter to Lord North on the subject with which he wishes it were possible to make him acquainted. In this letter he does not deny the sufficiency of Colonel Maclean’s powers, and makes the following startling statement: – “I was not pleased with the engagement made for me by Mr. Maclean; I will candidly own it; but I held myself bound by it, and was resolved to ratify it. This was my resolution.” Why, then, was it not executed? Because “General Clavering himself has defeated it, by the attempt to wrest from me by violence what he could claim only as a voluntary surrender.” This account, though it shifts the ground previously taken, is plausible, and there may be some truth in it; but it serves very imperfectly to dispel the cloud of mystery in which Mr. Hastings has enveloped everything connected with his real or proposed resignation.

Mr. Hastings, in the above letter to the directors, speaks of “the hard lot which had been imposed” upon him. It appears, however, that he was compensating himself for it in another way. At this time intelligence arrived that the collusive divorce so long pending in the Franconian court had been brought to a close, and that the Baron and Baroness Inhoff were no longer man and wife. The baron accordingly took his departure to purchase an estate in Germany, with the wages which, by a dishonourable and immoral compact, Mr. Hastings had become bound to pay him, and the baroness took her place at the head of the governor-general’s table, as Mrs. Hastings. Considering the circumstances, common decency might have suggested that this extraordinary transition should be made with the least possible publicity; but Mr. Hastings, as if he imagined that the purchase of a woman from her lawful husband was an achievement to boast of, was not to be satisfied with anything less than a round of splendid festivities. So completely had the joyous event opened his heart, that his animosities were for the time forgotten; and he succeeded, by a personal visit at General Clavering’s house, in carrying him off in triumph to the marriage banquet. The poor general was loath to go, for he had a very solemn work before him. His health had given way, and he died, after an illness of fourteen days, on the 30th of August, 1777.

Mr. Wheler arrived at Calcutta shortly after General Clavering’s death, and took his seat in the council. His original commission had appointed him to succeed to the place rendered vacant by Mr. Hastings’ proposed resignation. As the case turned out, there would have been no such vacancy, and Mr. Wheler would have come out on an empty errand. It happened, however, that when he was on the point of sailing, intelligence of Colonel Monson’s death arrived; and Mr. Wheler, wisely preferring certainty to the hope of a resignation which he probably regarded as problematical, landed from the vessel, hastened to London, and procured a new commission, which appointed him to Colonel Monson’s place. In the interval between General Clavering’s death and Mr. Wheler’s arrival, Mr. Hastings, having no opponent but Mr. Francis, was able to carry all his measures without having recourse to his casting vote; but Mr. Wheler, though he began with professing neutrality, generally voted with Mr. Francis, and thus the casting vote became necessary as before. Mr. Hastings might now have seen the necessity of acting with the utmost circumspection. He had received from the directors two very significant intimations, showing how little disposed they were to view his measures with favour, or even treat him with personal civility. One of these intimations was the eagerness with which they had hastened to take advantage of his supposed resignation; the other was a severe censure passed on some of his recent proceedings. In their general letter to Bengal, dated 4th July, 1777, commenting on the new office which had been created for the purpose of procuring information with regard to a final revenue settlement, they say—“Our surprise and concern were great on finding, by our governor-general’s minute of the 1st November, 1776, that, after more than seven years’ investigation, information is still so incomplete as to render another innovation, still more extraordinary than any of the former, absolutely necessary, in order to the formation of a new settlement.” A little further on they add—“We by no means disapprove the attempt to obtain further information, if it be necessary; but are sorry that the conduct of the majority of the council on the occasion has been such as must have our utter disapprobation. We should have hoped that, when you knew our sentiments respecting the conduct of our late administration, in delegating separate powers to the president, it would have been sufficient to prevent us further trouble on such occasions; but, to our concern, we find that no sooner was our council reduced, by the death of Colonel Monson, to a number which rendered the president’s casting vote of consequence to him, than he exercised it to invest himself with an improper degree of power in the business of the revenue, which he could never have expected from other authority.” There is much more to the same purpose in the letter; but perhaps the most stinging paragraph of all is that in which the censure administered to himself is brought into contrast with the praise bestowed on his opponents. The paragraph runs thus:—“The minutes of General Clavering and Mr. Francis leave us little to add on this disagreeable subject. Their reasons against delegating a separate power of control to the governor are solid and judicious, and we are happy in declaring that their conduct on this occasion meets with our approbation.”

In the above letter the directors did not confine their censure to the establishment of the new office, but referring to the recall of Mr. Bristow from Oude, and the re-appointment of Mr. Middleton, declared their “strongest disapprobation of the whole of that transaction,” and peremptorily directed that “Mr. Bristow do forthwith return to his station of resident at Oude, from which he has been so improperly removed.” In a later letter, dated 30th January, 1778, they were equally decided in their disapprobation of the removal of Mr. Fowke from Benares. “If it were possible,” they say, “to suppose that a saving to the Company had been your motive for annulling Mr. Fowke’s commission, we should have approved your proceedings; but when we find two persons appointed immediately afterwards, with two salaries, to execute an office which has been filled with reputation by Mr. Fowke alone, we must be of opinion that Mr. Fowke was removed without just cause, and therefore direct that Mr. Francis Fowke be immediately reinstated in his office of resident and post-master at Benares.” Mr. Hastings could not now doubt that he had entirely lost the favour of the directors; but the fact seems rather to have emboldened than discouraged him, and he began to act as if he had determined that if he could not obtain their consent to his measures, he would dispense with it or set them at defiance. Peremptory as were the orders for the restoration of Mr. Fowke, Mr. Hastings moved, on the 20th of July, 1778, that the execution of them should be suspended. “Their execution,” he said, “would be adequate to his own resignation of the service, because it would inflict such a wound on his authority as it could not survive.” General Clavering’s death, too, he added, was unknown to the directors when the orders were issued; and as their nomination to the vacancy, and other resolutions which might seriously affect his position, were daily expected from England, he moved delay, and carried it, by the aid of Mr. Barwell and his own casting vote, against Messrs. Wheler and Francis. The offices of General Clavering, both as a member of council and as commander-in-chief, were supplied by Sir Eyre Coote. When this distinguished officer had taken his seat, Mr. Fowke brought the subject of his restoration again before the council by a petition, in which he prayed that effect should be given to the orders of the court. Mr. Francis made a motion to this effect, and took it upon him to announce beforehand that it would be carried, as he was sure of the new member’s support. Whether because he was offended that his vote should be thus forestalled, or because Mr. Hastings had succeeded in gaining him over, Sir Eyre Coote declared that had he been present when the court’s orders arrived he should have voted for their immediate execution, but that now he would wait the result of the reference to the home authorities. Victory, accordingly, remained once more with Mr. Hastings.

In another matter in which the governor-general thought his honour interested in undoing the work of the majority, he was equally successful. After Mahomed Reza Khan was declared innocent of all the charges which Nuncomar had maliciously fabricated against him, the directors felt that some reparation was due, and gave orders that the situation held by Gourdass, Nuncomar’s son, in the nabob’s establishment, should be conferred on him. In mentioning this office they committed a misnomer, and this furnished an opportunity for much keen wrangling in the council, the minority asserting that a very subordinate office was meant, whereas the majority insisted that he was to unite in his person the joint authorities of both Gourdass and Muny Begum. This view accordingly prevailed. Even this, however, seemed to fall short of what was desirable, and they proceeded formally to reinvest Mahomed Reza Khan with the office of naib subah, which Mr. Hastings flattered himself had been abolished for ever, when the court of nizamut aluwut was removed from Moorshedabad to Calcutta. It was therefore not without a feeling of indignation he saw himself outvoted on this important subject, and an attempt made to restore the native government by changing the seat of the nizamut aluwut to Moorshedabad, and conferring on Mahomed Reza Khan the superintendence of all the native penal courts throughout the country. “All the acts of policy,” he said, and said truly, “cannot conceal the power by which these provinces are ruled, nor can all the arts of sophistry avail to transfer the responsibility to the nabob, when it is as visible as the light of the sun that they originate from our own government, and that the nabob is a mere pageant, without the shadow of authority, and even his most consequential agents receive their appointments from the recommendation of the Company and the express nomination of their servants.” Originally Mr. Hastings bore no grudge to Mahomed Reza Khan. On the contrary, he was charged by Nuncomar with having acted from corrupt motives in declaring him innocent. His favour for him appears to have been extinguished when he was taken under the patronage of the majority. No appointment conferred upon him could have been so personally offensive to Mr. Hastings as his substitution for Muny Begum. She had lost her office on charges of corruption, which might never have been made had they not been expected to furnish ground of accusation against the governor-general himself; and he probably considered it as a point of honour not to allow her to be a sufferer on his account. An opportunity of gratifying his feelings in this respect was now afforded. On the 23rd of July, 1778, the governor-general moved in council that a letter from the Nabob Mobarick-u-Dowlah should be read. It complained bitterly of the management of Mahomed Reza Khan, and prayed that as he had now attained his twentieth year, which by Mahometan law was that of majority, he should be set free from a tutelage all the more oppressive and degrading that the individual who exercised it was not bound to him by any ties of nature and affection. Mr. Wheler moved that as the directors had both ordered and confirmed the appointment of Mahomed Reza Khan, it was incompetent to make any change without their sanction. Mr. Hastings, on the contrary, proposed that the nabob’s request should be immediately complied with. In advocating this proposal he took very high ground, and forgetting his former assertion, that the nabob was “a mere pageant, without the shadow of authority,” argued that his “demands are grounded on positive rights, which will not admit of discussion.” Had he only insisted that “he has an incontestable right to the management of his own household,” he could hardly have been gainsayed; but he contradicted himself, and gave ground to suspect that he was swayed by something else than reason and justice, when he went the length of saying that the nabob “has an incontestable right to the nizamut” (the whole administration of justice within the provinces of Bengal, Bhar, and Orissa)—it is his by inheritance; the dependants of the nizamut adawlut and of the fougedary have been repeatedly declared, by the Company and by this government, to appertain to the nizamut.” When the subject was first discussed Mr. Barwell was absent, and Mr. Wheler carried his motion for delay. Mr. Hastings did not allow himself to be thus baffled, and resumed the subject on a future day, when his casting vote was available. Mahomed Reza Khan was accordingly displaced, and his various offices shared among the nabob’s relatives and dependants, the household management being given chiefly to Munny Begum, and his own mother, Baboo Begum, while the judicial department was committed to an individual of the name of Sudder-al-Hok. How little prudence had been exercised in this appointment became so manifest in less than three months from its date, that Mr. Hastings was obliged to address a letter to the nabob, complaining that “the affairs of the fougedary and adawlut were in the greatest confusion imaginable;” that “daily robberies and murders were perpetrated throughout the country;” and that “his dependants and people, actuated by selfish and avaricious views, had by their interference so impeded the business of justice, as to throw the whole country into a state of confusion.”

The above proceedings, with reference both to Mr. Fowke and Mahomed Reza Khan, could not but be displeasing to the directors, who accordingly commented upon them with great severity. In regard to the latter they thus expressed themselves, in a letter dated 4th February, 1779:—“The nabob’s letters leave us no doubt of the true design of this extraordinary business being to bring forward Munny Begum, and again to invest her with improper power and influence, notwithstanding our former declaration, that so great a part of the nabob’s allowance had been embezzled or misapplied under her superintendence.” In another passage they say they observe with equal surprise and concern, “the nabob’s ostensible rights so solemnly asserted at this period by our governor-general; because, on a late occasion, to serve a very different purpose, he has not scrupled to declare it as visible as the light of the sun, that the nabob is a mere pageant, and without even the shadow of authority. No circumstance has happened since that declaration was made to render the nabob more independent, nor to give him any additional degree of power and independence; you must therefore have been well apprised that your last concessions to Mobarick-u-Dowlah were unnecessary, and as such unwarrantable.” Their decision therefore is, that “as we have no reason to alter our opinion of Mahomed Reza Khan, we positively direct that you forthwith signify to the Nabob Mobarick-u-Dowlah our pleasure, that Mahomed Reza Khan be immediately restored to the office of naib soubahdar.” On the subject of Mr. Fowke their language was, if possible, stronger, and even menacing. In a letter dated 27th May, 1779, they wrote, “We have read with astonishment your formal resolution to suspend the execution of our orders relative to Mr. Francis Fowke. Your proceedings at large are now before us. We shall take such measures as appear necessary for preserving the authority of the court of directors, and for preventing such instances of direct and wilful disobedience in our servants in time to come. At present we repeat the commands contained in the sixty-seventh paragraph of our letter of the 30th January, 1778, and direct that they be carried into immediate execution.”

It is a singular fact, that while the directors were thus censuring and even menacing their governor-general, they failed to avail themselves of the expiry of the period fixed for his tenure of office by the Regulating Act, to insist on a new appointment, and that by act of parliament 19 George III. c. 61, Mr. Hastings was continued in his office of governor-general for another year. The ministry seemed to have proposed this act because they were not yet prepared to take any decisive steps for fixing the future relations between the government and the Company, and the directors to have acquiesced in it, both because the period of prolongation was so short, and because they were aware that their hostility to Mr. Hastings was not shared by a majority of the proprietors, and consequently that any extreme measure taken against him would in all probability recoil upon themselves. Soon after this renewal of the tenure of office, an attempt was made by mutual friends to effect a reconciliation between Mr. Hastings and Mr. Francis. It was less difficult than might have been supposed. Mr. Hastings, threatened with the loss of the support of Mr. Barwell, who was bent on returning to Europe, was in danger of being again left in a minority; and Mr. Francis, who had so long been consigned to that unenviable position, was not unwilling to escape from it though it should cost him some sacrifice of consistency. A kind of arrangement was accordingly patched up. The terms cannot be exactly stated, for ere long they became the subject of acrimonious dispute, each giving his own version of them, and endeavouring to fix a charge of deceitful dealing on his adversary. Mr. Hastings had probably the better reason to complain, though he did not give the best proof of it, by losing his temper and using language which no provocation could justify. Not in a moment of excitement and ungovernable passion, but in a deliberately penned minute, he wrote as follows:—“I do not trust to Mr. Francis’ promises of candour, convinced that he is incapable of it. I judge of his public conduct by his private, which I have found to be void of truth and honour.” This language led to the result which Mr. Hastings evidently contemplated; and according to a practice which still exists, as if to remind us that, with all our boasted civilization, we have not yet entirely escaped from barbarism, a duel was fought, in which Mr. Francis was shot, and nearly lost his life. Mr. Hastings acted throughout in the way which is called honourable, and not only made repeated inquiries after his adversary’s health, but offered him a visit. This was more than Mr. Francis could allow himself to accept, and he declared that henceforth they could only meet at the council table. They did meet there on several occasions, and were usually found, as before, on opposite sides; but Mr. Francis having profited so little by the strife, was the first to lose heart in it, and took his departure for England.

Though the council was freed by the departure of Francis from intestine strife, it had previously become involved in controversy of a more serious description. The Regulating Act had established in India two independent powers, forming a kind of imperium in imperio, and had not accurately defined their limits. The intent of the act certainly was, that all the powers of government should belong exclusively to the governor and council, but that in administering justice the supreme court should be entirely beyond their control. The judges were appointed by the crown, for life, from barristers of a certain standing, and all that the Company had to do with them was to pay their salaries, in accordance with a compulsory enactment made for that purpose. The jurisdiction of the court was limited, as has been already shown, to the British subjects resident in Bengal, Behar, and Orissa, and to any persons whatsoever who were directly or indirectly in the service of the Company or of British subjects at the time when the cause of action on which they were sued had arisen. Except over British subjects so resident, and natives so employed, the supreme court had no authority whatever. This was made still plainer in regard to natives by a special clause, which enacted that they should be amenable to the court at the instance of British subjects only when in a written contract for more than 500 rupees they had agreed that in case of dispute they should be so amenable. Even in regard to resident British subjects there were some important restrictions. The supreme court could not try the governor-general or a member of council for any offence not being treason or felony; nor could it arrest or imprison upon any action, suit, or proceeding before it, either the governor-general, or a member of council, or the chief-justice, or any of the judges.

The judges, however, were not content with the jurisdiction which the act had conferred upon them. They began to stretch it, and to interpret the clause relating to persons in the service of the Company in a manner so loose and so comprehensive as to include all natives resident within its limits. The governor-general had himself not only acquiesced in this forced interpretation, but profited by it, and was therefore the less able to resist when the supreme court began to employ similar means for the purpose of supporting other encroachments. Shortly after the Nuncomar tragedy, Mr. Stuart, who had been dismissed from the office of secretary to the council, brought an action against Mr. Auriol, his successor, for a month’s salary, which, he alleged, ought to have been paid to himself. In this case the jurisdiction of the court was undoubted, but the proceedings raised a difficult and important question. The plaintiff, in calling for the production of papers, included among them letters from the directors and portions of the consultations of government. The governor-general and council refused to give the papers. On this the assistant-secretary, to whom the requisition had been made, was served with a subpoena, and on appearing without the papers, was told that he had made himself liable for the whole sum in the suit. Having answered that the board prohibited him from bringing the papers, he was asked whether the board in refusing were unanimous, and if not, who were the members constituting the majority. An objection by the defendant’s counsel, that these questions could not be answered without a breach of trust, was overruled, and it was distinctly laid down by the court, that the refusal of the papers was a denial of justice, and that as the board was no corporation, the individual members who had voted for the refusal were personally liable. This extravagance was only a first step. Others which soon followed made it almost be forgotten.

The clause of the act empowering the court to try and determine any suit, action, or complaint, against any person who shall, at the time when such debt or cause of action or complaint may have arisen, have been employed by, or shall then have been directly or indirectly in the service of the said united Company, or of any its subjects, is very loosely worded, and admitted of being interpreted so as to entangle almost every native of the least consequence in the meshes of the court. Direct service gave jurisdiction at once over all persons, civil and military, however subordinate the office they held—judges of every kind and degree, revenue officers, menial servants, and even common soldiers. Indirect service could be made still more sweeping, and not merely zemindars and farmers, from their connection with the revenue, but all persons under obligation to the Company by any kind of contract, might be included. The first fault undoubtedly was in the act itself, which, from not using language sufficiently specific, left room for such extravagant interpretations; but the next fault was in the judges, who must have been aware that a power so tremendous and so liable to abuse, if really given to them, must have been given by mere oversight, and who ought therefore to have done what in them lay to moderate the power, instead of stretching it to the utmost, mainly for the purpose of magnifying their own importance.

When the nature of the jurisdiction claimed by the supreme court was made palpable to the natives by some of the processes which it sanctioned, a real reign of terror commenced. No man, however great his respectability, or undoubted his solvency, felt safe from the indignity of arrest, and the still greater indignity of imprisonment, when the enormous bail demanded as a security for claims, which often had not even the shadow of a foundation, could not be obtained or was refused. This was bad enough when the writs were directed only against males, but when they began to be directed against females also, and attempts were made to serve them, by violating sanctuaries held sacred even during the ravages of war, it was evident that a crisis had become inevitable. The judges, who ought to have maintained tranquillity, were throwing the country into confusion, and as argument seemed to be lost upon them, the only other alternative was to deny effect to their proceedings. To show how completely the government was justified in adopting this alternative, a specimen of the processes sanctioned by the court must be given.

Cossinaut Baboo, the Calcutta agent of the Rajah of Cossijurah, sued his employer in the supreme court in a question of accounting; and, in order to show that the court had jurisdiction, made oath that the rajah was in the service of the Company as a collector of revenue. He was, in fact, merely zemindar of his district. On this affidavit a capias was issued, with a permission to take bail for 300,000 rupees (£30,000). The rajah, made aware of the issue of the writ, kept out of the way, and the writ was returned unexecuted. On this a new writ was issued to sequester his land and effects. Meanwhile the governor-general and council had taken the alarm, and consulted their legal advisers. The opinion given by Sir John Day, the advocate-general, was to the effect that zemindars, merely as such, were not amenable to the supreme court; that the rajah, therefore, should be advised not to plead, or in any way recognize their jurisdiction; and that in this and all similar cases government should refuse to aid the court in the execution of its processes. This opinion was adopted; and, in accordance with it, the officer at Midnapore was instructed, if applied to by the sheriff for military aid, to refuse it. The court was not to be thus baffled; and one of their officers set out for Cossijurah with an armed force of sixty men, mostly furnished by Cossinaut Baboo, who, conformably to a common practice among opulent natives, had them in his pay. On this government ordered Colonel Ahmuty, the officer in command at Midnapore, to preserve the peace of the country, by apprehending any armed force of the kind described. He sent out a small detachment for this purpose, but it did not arrive in time to prevent a gross outrage. The officers of the court had already effected an entrance into the rajah’s house, forced their way into the zenana or female apartments, defiled his temple, beaten and wounded some of his servants who resisted, and carried off his dewan or steward as prisoner. On the arrival of the troops from Midnapore, the sheriff’s party were all taken into custody. After this decided step there was no longer room for hesitancy, and the governor-general and council, in the end of 1779, published a notification to all zemindars and other natives similarly connected with land, that they were not in that capacity amenable to the supreme court, and were not bound to acknowledge its jurisdiction, unless they had voluntarily agreed to do so by a written contract, or unless they were or had been British servants. All provincial authorities were ordered to circulate this notice, and give effect to its object, by not aiding in the execution of any process that contravened it.

On the 18th of January, 1780, the supreme court began to retaliate, by granting a rule to show cause why an attachment should not issue against Lieutenant Bamford, the officer who commanded the Company’s troops, Mr. Swanston, collector’s assistant at Midnapore, and Mr. Naylor, the Company’s attorney, for the part they had taken in order to defeat the course of process. Ultimately the rule was made absolute against Mr. Naylor; and on his refusal to answer a string of interrogatories, he was committed to jail for contempt. When the imprisonment was proposed, Mr. Naylor’s counsel remarked to the bench, “I hope your lordship does not mean that Mr. Naylor shall answer in vinculis?” “Why not?” replied Sir Elijah Impey, in the brutal style of the notorious Judge Jeffries; “why not? Mr. Naylor will have more time to think of his conduct, and prepare his answer.” During these proceedings, the governor and council were served with a summons for trespass, at the instance of Cossinaut Baboo. As the nature of the trespass did not clearly appear on the face of the summons, they entered appearance, but on learning that they were sued for things done by them in their public capacity, they refused to plead. This was immediately declared to be “a clear contempt of his majesty’s law and of his court.” It is difficult to say how far the extravagance of the bench would have carried them, and the public were waiting in suspense and anxiety for the next steps that were to be taken, when it was abruptly announced that Cossinaut Baboo’s action, and all the proceedings taken upon it, were quashed.

Most desirable as this result was in itself, the pleasure which it gave was damped by a suspicion that the means which had been employed to produce it were not honourable. No proper explanation was ever volunteered or extorted, but a transaction which took place a few months afterwards throws much light on the subject. The refusal of the governor-general and council to plead, and the denunciation of this refusal by the judges as “a clear contempt,” occurred about the middle of March, 1780. On the 11th of April, on the motion of the governor-general, a considerable change was made in the constitution of the native civil courts. By the regulations of 1773, the duties of these courts were performed by the provincial council sitting as the dewannee adawlut, in which cognizance was taken of all civil causes, whatever their nature might be. By the new arrangement, the provincial councils were to judge in revenue cases only, and the dewannee adawlut proper, withdrawn entirely from their jurisdiction, and made competent to determine all civil cases arising between individuals, was placed under the superintendence of a covenanted servant, who was not member of the provincial council, nor dependent upon it. This was probably intended as a preliminary step to another of greater importance. On the 22d of September the governor-general lodged a minute, in which he stated that the above change had not proved satisfactory. Troublesome and alarming competition had already taken place between the new courts and the provincial councils, and much of the precious time of the board was in consequence wasted in discussing appeals brought into the sudder dewannee adawlut, in which the governor general and council were the presiding judges. Their other avocations left them no time for the proper discharge of this duty. The remedy he suggested was, that the sudder dewannee adawlut ought to be entirely changed. Instead of merely receiving appeals from the district civil courts, it ought to have a general superintendence of all their proceedings, and the power of remedying their defects, by forming “such new regulations and checks as experience shall prove to be necessary,” and instead of being presided over by the governor and council, who neither had the leisure nor possessed the qualifications necessary for the discharge of these important duties, should be placed under a single judge, of whose fitness there could not possibly be any doubt, as the individual he meant to propose was the chief-justice of the supreme court, Sir Elijah Impey!

A key was now given to the mystery which hung over the abrupt termination of the jurisdiction controversy. Cossinaut Baboo had been bribed to withdraw his suit, and the chief-justice was now to be bribed to lower his claims to jurisdiction, or keep them in abeyance. “The chief-justice,” said Mr. Hastings, “being invested with the superintendence of the native courts of dewannee adawlut, would regulate, and consequently have no occasion to question their jurisdiction; his closer connection with the government, while holding an important office under it, and drawing, in addition to his previous emoluments, a salary of about £8000 a year, payable by the Company and revocable at their pleasure, would be the means of lessening the distance between the council and the court; in this way might be prevented those dangerous consequences to the peace and resources of the government which would inevitably result from a continuance of the contest in which they had been unfortunately engaged.” Recollecting the many occasions on which Mr. Hastings had shown his readiness to sacrifice principle to expediency, one is not much surprised at his having made this offer to Sir Elijah Impey; the only wonder is how the chief-justice agreed to accept of it. In replying to an application in favour of Nuncomar from the majority of the council, he had taken occasion to give utterance to the maxim, that “it is not sufficient that courts of justice act independently; it is necessary for the good government of a country that they should be believed, and known to be above all influence,” and here he is fleeing in the very face of this maxim, and placing himself as a judge “under influence,” simply because he was to be handsomely paid for it. He had claimed jurisdiction because, as he alleged, a sense of duty compelled him, and he now enters into a compact by which he, virtually at least, engages to withdraw the claim, because, though the sense of duty may remain, the stronger sense of personal interest overpowers it. By an honourable-minded man the very arguments which Mr. Hastings employed in advocating the appointment would have been felt to be insulting, but Sir Elijah Impey saw nothing but the money, and blindly grasped at it. We say blindly, because, however little restrained by principle, he might have foreseen that he was throwing away a substance, and snatching a shadow. The grossness of the bargain would not allow it to pass without animadversion, and the probable consequence was that parliament would interfere and decide that, instead of being entitled to draw the salaries of two judges, he had dishonoured the bench, and proved himself unworthy of being a judge at all.

Mr. Hastings’ proposed reconstruction of the sudder dewannee adawlut, and the appointment of Sir Elijah Impey as its sole judge, was strongly opposed in the council, but his casting vote once more availed him. There was, however, another ordeal to be passed. While the jurisdiction controversy was raging, and threatening to throw everything into confusion, petitions had been presented to parliament from the Company, from the governor and council and the British inhabitants in Bengal, praying for legislative interference, and representing that unless relief were given “the Company would have ports without trade, possessions without revenue, and provinces without inhabitants.” These petitions were referred to a select committee on the 12th of January, 1781, and an act was passed to define the jurisdiction of the supreme court, and keep it within due bounds. By this act (21 Geo. III. c. 70) it was enacted that “the governor-general and council of Bengal shall not be subject, jointly or severally, to the jurisdiction of the supreme court of Fort William, in Calcutta, for or by reason of any act or order, or any other matter or thing whatsoever, counselled, ordered, or done by them in their public capacity only; that persons implicated in any action or process, civil or criminal, in the said supreme court, for any act or acts done by the order of the said governor and council in writing,” may give the order in evidence, and this order, with proof that the act or acts complained of were done in accordance with it, “shall amount to a sufficient justification;” that the supreme court “shall not have or exercise any jurisdiction in any matter concerning the revenue, or concerning any act or acts ordered or done in the collection thereof, according to the usage and practice of the country, or the regulations of the governor-general and council; and that “no person shall be subject to the jurisdiction of the supreme court for or by reason of his being a landowner, landholder, or farmer of land, or of land rent,” or by reason “of his being employed by the Company, or the governor-general and council, or by any person deriving authority under them,” or on account of “his being employed by a native, or a descendant of a native of Great Britain,” except in actions for wrongs or trespasses, and also except in any civil suit, where the parties have agreed in writing that the supreme court shall decide.

The question of jurisdiction was thus settled, as it only could be, by the authority of the legislature; and therefore the greater was the dissatisfaction felt with the very different kind of settlement which had been attempted without legislative interference. The directors, before taking any step in the matter, determined to have the highest legal advice, and laid the case before the attorney-general, the solicitor-general, Mr. Dunning, and their standing counsel, Mr. Rous. The first three concurred in an opinion which would now find few supporters. It was as follows:—“The appointment of the chief justice to the office of judge of sudder dewanne adawlut, and giving him a salary for the latter office, besides what he is entitled to as chief-justice, does not appear to us to be illegal, either as being contrary to 13 Geo. III. (the Regulating Act), or incompatible with his duty as chief-justice, nor do we see anything in the late act, 21 Geo. III., which affects the question.” Mr. Rous differed, and Mr. Mansfield, one of the three who had signed the opinion, intimated that he now doubted whether the acceptance of a salary to be held at pleasure was not against the spirit of the act, or at least the reason of the case. The lawyers had viewed the question in the spirit of their profession, and had decided nothing but the legality. The select committee of parliament took higher ground; and in their report, which was presented on the 18th of April, 1782, looked beyond the mere question of law, and judged Sir Elijah Impey’s appointment on its own merits. They objected to the power which it conferred as exorbitant, and all the more dangerous that it was undefined. He was to decide on the fortunes of the whole natives of Bengal, with nothing to guide him but his own will, and subject to no appeal which might have corrected him when he went astray. To his judicial was superadded legislative power, for the regulations which he might be pleased to frame were to have all the force of law. On seeing all this power concentrated in a single individual, it was not out of place to ask whether he was the kind of person who might be expected to use it with moderation. Just before receiving the appointment, he had been stretching his jurisdiction beyond all reasonable bounds, and would to all appearance be stretching it still, had not his moderation been purchased by bestowing upon him a large salary. Such a compact reflected dishonour both on “the public justice” and on “the executive administration of Bengal.” Sir Elijah Impey is seen “one day summoning the governor-general and council before his tribunal for acts done as council, and the next accepting emoluments nearly equal to his original appointment, to be held during the pleasure of the same council.” To secure his independence the crown had made him chief-justice, and fixed his salary for life; and to deprive him of his independence the governor-general and council had made him judge of the sudder dewannee adawlut, and given him a still larger salary, to be held only during their pleasure. The two offices are incompatible. “By the dependence of one tribunal both are rendered dependent—both are vitiated, so far as a place of great power, influence, and patronage, with near £8000 a year of emoluments, held at the pleasure of the giver, can be supposed to operate on gratitude, interest, and fear.” On these and similar grounds parliament decided, in accordance with the recommendation of the committee, that the appointment should be declared null and void, and that the directors should order it to be rescinded. This they did without delay, and on the 9th of May the House of Commons moved an address to the crown, for the recall of Sir Elijah Impey from India. The result, which might have been anticipated, was thus realized; and he found, when too late, that in attempting to double his emoluments by an unworthy compact, he had made a fearful sacrifice of both character and fortune. In order to bring these internal transactions to a close, it has been necessary to advance a few years beyond the period to which we had brought the narrative of public events. This must now be resumed.

CHAPTER VII

A rupture with the Mahrattas—A force sent overland from the Bengal to the Bombay presidency—Expedition from Bombay to assist Ragobah—Disastrous results—Negotiation with Moodajee Bhonsla, Rajah of Berar—Goddard’s campaign against the Mahrattas—Treaty with the Rana of Gohud—Campaign of Popham—Capture of Gwalior—Capture of Bassein—Hostilities with Scindis—Peace with the Mahrattas.

The treaty of Poorundhur, concluded with the Poonah ministry by Colonel Upton, not being much relished either by the Company or the Mahrattas, had received a very imperfect execution, each party endeavouring to evade his obligations under it, and lay the blame of non-fulfilment on the other. In this state of feeling very little was required to produce a rupture. The more immediate occasion of it was as follows. In the middle of March, 1777, a French ship, laden with military and marine stores, cloth, and other articles of European export, arrived at Choul or Chowal, a Mahratta port about twenty-three miles south of Bombay, and landed several Frenchmen, who proceeded towards Poonah. One of them announced himself as a French ambassador, and was received in that character by the Mahratta ministers. This ambassador proved to be the Chevalier St. Lubin, who, it will be recollected, formed part of the train of the field-deputies whom the council of Madras during the war with Hyder had the folly to send to the army, as a kind of check on the movements of their own general. This chevalier pretended to have lived long among the Mahrattas, to be intimately acquainted with their leading chiefs as well as with Hyder, and to be thus able, by the accuracy of his knowledge and the extent of his influence, to be of essential service during the campaign. Credit was given to his statements, but subsequent inquiry proved that they were without foundation, and that he was a mere adventurer. He had now succeeded in palming his impostures on the French, who, mortified at the ascendency which the British had established in India, and in daily expectation that a new war between the two nations was about to commence, were anxious to obtain some locality which might facilitate their naval and military operations, and serve as a nucleus from which new conquest might be made. On the east coast the retention of what they already possessed was the utmost that they could venture to hope for; the west coast presented a more favourable prospect. It was much nearer to the Mauritius, which had become the chief place of rendezvous for their European armaments, and the hostile feelings of the Mahrattas towards the British would make negotiation with them comparatively easy. Entertaining these views, they gave a willing ear to St. Lubin, and sent him on a mission to Poonah. As soon as his arrival and reception were known at Bombay, the greatest alarm was excited; and the council, who had been mortified above measure, both at the terms of the treaty of Poorundhur, and the manner in which it had been concluded, would at once, had their power been as absolute as it formerly was, have begun to prepare for war. Under the restrictions which the Bengal government had imposed upon them, they were obliged to proceed more cautiously. Their freedom of action had, however, been in a great measure restored to them by a letter from the directors, disapproving of the manner in which they had been interfered with by the governor-general and council, giving it as their opinion “that an alliance originally with Ragobah would have been more for the honour and advantage of the Company, and more likely to be lasting than that at Poonah,” and summing up their views on the subject thus:—“His (Ragobah’s) pretensions to the supreme authority appear to us better founded than those of his competitors; and therefore, if the conditions of the treaty of Poonah have not been strictly fulfilled on the part of the Mahrattas, and if, from any circumstance, our governor-general and council shall deem it expedient, we have no objection to an alliance with Ragobah, on the terms agreed upon between him and you.”

Shortly after they had obtained this sanction to their proceedings, the Bombay council received an application which at once decided their future course. The dissensions which had long prevailed in the court of Poonah at last came to such a height that one of the parties, despairing of being able to establish their own ascendency, resolved to espouse the cause of Ragobah. At the head of this party was Moraba Furnavese, the cousin and rival of Nana Furnavese, the acting prime minister. The latter, not satisfied with showing favour to St. Lubin, had put many petty affronts on Mr. Mostyn, the Company’s resident at Poonah, and it was therefore concluded that he had finally committed himself to the French, and was even prepared to give them a permanent footing in the country. Hence when Moraba, the head of the rival party, opened a communication with the Bombay council, and formally proposed that they would take means to reinstate Ragobah at Poonah, the request was so much in accordance with their own views and wishes, that they determined to comply with it without delay. Having formed this resolution, they lost no time in conveying intelligence of it to Bengal. Here, as usual, a serious difference of opinion arose. Messrs Wheler and Francis opposed the Bombay resolution as illegal, because adopted without the previous sanction required by the Regulating Act; as dishonourable, because in violation of a still subsisting treaty; and as impolitic, because involving the Company, without necessity or any adequate cause, in a war of the most formidable description. On the other hand, Messrs. Hastings and Barwell argued that the resolution, which might otherwise have been illegal, was fully justified by the suddenness of the emergency, and its conformity to the views expressed by the directors; that it could not be considered as a breach of the Poorundhur treaty, since one of the principal parties to that treaty was in favour of the application which had been made for assistance; and that it was in accordance with true policy, since it would not only frustrate the ambitious schemes of their great European rival, but secure their future ascendency in Mahratta councils, besides giving accessions of territory which would more than compensate for all the expense. This opinion, by means of the governor-general’s casting vote, prevailed, and it was resolved to assist the Bombay presidency both with money and with troops.

The transmission of the money was a simple process, but the conveyance of troops presented obstacles of no ordinary nature. The Company’s brigades were stationed far to the north and west, near the frontiers of Oude, and not only would much time be required to bring a sufficient detachment down to Calcutta, but a long and tedious voyage at an unfavourable season would intervene before it could reach the field of action. Mr. Hastings suggested the bold idea of an overland journey. It was adopted, and a force consisting of six battalions of sepoys, a proportionate artillery, and a corps of cavalry, was directed to assemble at Calpee, on the right bank of the Jumma. This place is nearly equidistant in a direct line from Calcutta and Bombay, being about 600 miles W.N.W. of the one, and 680 miles N.N.E. of the other. In the latter direction, the distance by any practicable route cannot be less than 1000 miles, and thus was the march about to be undertaken through a country only half explored, and for the most part unfriendly, if not actually hostile, by a force mustering in all 103 European officers, and 6234 native troops, with a cumbersome mass of followers estimated at not less than 30,000. The command was given to Colonel Leslie, whose orders were to proceed across India towards Bombay, and place himself at the disposal of that presidency.

During these preparations the aspect of affairs at Poonah had undergone another change. Moraba, whose talents and honesty were far less than his ambition, no sooner believed that his own ascendency was established, than he began to repent of the invitation to reinstate Ragobah, and showed an evident anxiety to evade the subject when it was pressed by his English friends. A majority of the Bombay council seeing this change, resolved, on 22d April, 1778, to countermand Colonel Leslie’s detachment. A letter, received immediately after, from the Bengal government, induced them to alter this resolution, and on the 3d of May another order was despatched, directing Colonel Leslie to advance. Meanwhile another sudden revolution at Poonah had issued in the overthrow of Moraba and his party. Moraba himself was imprisoned in the fortress of Ahmednuggur; Sukaram Bapoo, through whom chiefly the treaty of Poorundhur was concluded, and who had throughout all changes steadily supported Ragobah, was carried off to end his days in a dungeon, loaded with chains so heavy, that though a powerful man he could scarcely lift them, and so scantily supplied with food and water, that they barely sufficed to maintain him in life for fourteen months, without satisfying his hunger or quenching his thirst; and Nana Furnavese, who had played his part with consummate art, was once more at the head of the ministry without a rival. On this change of administration, the Bombay council applied to know whether the new ministers held the Mahratta state to be still bound by the treaty of Poorundhur.

At an earlier period the Company’s resident at Poonah had made application to the ministers there, and to Scindia and Holkar, for passports to the British troops during the overland march. The object of their expedition was stated to be to counteract the designs of the French. On this subject the Mahratta chiefs were rather incredulous. “They probably considered,” says Duff, “that if it had been intended to send troops to Bombay, they would have been embarked from the coast of Malabar or Coromandel, and replaced from Bengal, an opinion,” he adds, “in which many competent judges among our own countrymen coincided.” Scindia and Holkar, who were at Poonah when the application was made, naturally desired that during their absence the British force should pass as friends rather than enemies, and therefore readily granted the passports. Nana Furnavese was not so complying. When he saw that the favour shown to St. Lubin at Poonah was made the ground of serious complaint, he dismissed him without difficulty, because he was too clear-sighted not to have discovered his true character, but he made this dismissal the ground of a very plausible argument. If the object of Colonel Leslie’s expedition really was to counteract the designs of the French, this object was already gained by their dismissal, and the expedition being thus rendered unnecessary, there was no occasion for passports. To the important question, whether the new ministers held themselves bound by the treaty of Poorundhur, the reply was, that “the English should keep that treaty faithfully, and then they would do the same.”

About the time when this decisive reply was given, intelligence arrived that the expected war with France was actually declared. This seemed to the Bombay council an additional reason for taking decisive steps. They accordingly entered into a new agreement with the opposition party at Poonah. It differed considerably from the former, inasmuch as under it Ragobah was only to assume the regency, and retain it till the majority of Gunga Bye’s son, Madhoo Row Narrain, who was thus acknowledged to be the legitimate peishwa. This agreement had scarcely been concluded, when the party with whom it had been made was completely overthrown. The Bombay council, however, had gone too far to recede, and they determined to carry out their plans.

Colonel Leslie had commenced his march in the end of May, 1778, and was expected by the Bengal government to advance with so much rapidity as to be able to cross the Nerbudda before the rains. Instead of this he allowed himself to be retarded by some petty Rajpoot chiefs, whom the Mahrattas had instigated to throw obstructions in the way, and in desultory warfare with them wasted the time which might have carried him far in advance. In the middle of August he had only reached Mhow, a town of Bundelcund, a little west of Chatterpore; and in the course of five months, while the estimated expense of his army amounted to more than twelve lacs, the whole distance accomplished did not exceed 120 miles. His incapacity, which had been previously suspected, was now considered proved, and an order was issued for his recall. Before it reached him he had died of fever, on the 3rd of October, 1778. The command of the detachment was assumed by the next senior officer, Colonel Goddard, who a few days after quitted Rajegurh, and proceeded towards the Nerbudda. The Mahratta officer stationed at Sagur, after many professions of friendship, made a perfidious attempt on the baggage of the army; the Nabob of Bhopaul, on the contrary, gave it every assistance in his power, and greatly facilitated its progress. On the 2d of December, the Nerbudda was forded at Hoosingabad.

Colonel Goddard, after crossing the Nerbudda, remained for some time on its south bank, awaiting some communications on which his future operations depended. Mr Hastings had conceived it possible to detach Moodajee Bhonsla, the Rajah of Berar, from his connection with the ministers of Poonah, and enlist him in the interests of the Company. His views of the means by which this desirable object was to be accomplished were at first somewhat indefinite. When questioned on the subject by the party opposed to him in the council, he stated two methods by which the friendship of the rajah might be secured. The one was to assist him in recovering certain territories which had been wrested from him by Nizam Ali; the other was to support his claim to the Mahratta rajahship. The former pageant rajah had recently died at Sattarah without issue, and Moodajee Bhonsla, without pretending to be the nearest heir, was disposed to put in a claim to the succession, on the ground of his being a descendant of Sevajee. Before determining in which of these two modes the rajah’s friendship was to be courted, it was resolved to send an embassy to him. Mr. Elliot, who was at the head of the embassy, died on the 12th of September, before reaching Nagpore, the capital of Berar, and further proceedings were in consequence deferred. The rajah, whose vanity had been flattered by the court paid to him, professed great sorrow at the death of the ambassador, and wrote a letter to the governor-general, in which, after lamenting the event, he expressed a hope that the plan of friendship would not thereby be frustrated. On the same day the governor-general received a despatch from Colonel Goddard, dated 22d October, detailing the progress he had made towards the Nerbudda. It was now necessary to come to some decision, and the governor-general had nothing better to propose than that the negotiation with the rajah should be resumed, and conducted through Colonel Goddard. This motion, though strenuously opposed, was carried by the usual casting vote, and Colonel Goddard received the necessary powers to act in a double capacity. It was this which kept him halting on the banks of the Nerbudda.

The state into which affairs had thus been brought was very complicated. The Bombay government were under agreement to secure the regency at Poonah for Ragobah, till such time as the young peishwa should be able to act for himself; and the Bengal government were negotiating another agreement, which was totally incompatible with it. Moodajee Bhonsla’s object was to be a real, not a pageant rajah; and if he succeeded there would obviously be no room for any peishwa, at least in the sense in which the term was now understood, and the Bombay council and Ragobah and his friends understood it when they incurred their mutual obligations. Mr. Hastings, when twitted with the inconsistency, did not attempt to deny it. He merely argued that the proposed agreement with the rajah would, if adopted, be by far the more valuable of the two, and that at all events the detachment ought to continue its march, whether its service should ultimately be employed in restoring Ragobah, or in raising Moodajee Bhonsla to the rajahship, or in counteracting the schemes of the French. On the 7th of December, when the complete overthrow of Ragobah’s party at Poonah became known at Calcutta, the governor-general held that the object originally contemplated in sending the detachment to Bombay was defeated, and that it therefore ought not to remain any longer under the orders of that presidency. His object in advising the Bengal government to resume authority over it, was to prevent the employment of it in a manner which would defeat his favourite negotiation with the Rajah of Berar. On this occasion he carried the whole council along with him, though their votes were given on very different grounds; the opposition hoping that the result would be to secure the object for which they had all along been contending—the recall of the detachment to Bengal. Meanwhile, the negotiation with the rajah made little progress, as he was evidently anxious not to commit himself so long as there was room to doubt which of the two would prove the winning side.

Colonel Goddard, while still halting on the banks of the Nerbudda, received the order which withdrew him from the authority of the Bombay government, and a few days after received an order from this government to advance with all expedition to the aid of their army, which had taken the field in the cause of Ragobah. This was a dilemma from which an officer satisfied with performing the ordinary routine of duty could easily have extricated himself. He would simply have remained at Hoosingabad, and pleaded the authority of his superiors. Colonel Goddard was not an officer of this cast. Fearing, from the terms of the Bombay letter, that much more might be at stake than appeared on the face of it, he resolved without hesitation to hasten westwards. He accordingly started about the 26th of January, 1779, and on the 30th reached Burhanpoor. In order to refresh his men, he remained here till the 6th of February, when he resumed his march. Surat, towards which he was proceeding, was 300 miles distant. He reached it in twenty days. By this extraordinary expedition he avoided a body of horse which had been sent from Poonah to intercept him.

Though Colonel Goddard had regularly transmitted full accounts of his progress to Bombay, he had received no information. Why he was thus kept in the dark has not been satisfactorily explained. It may have been merely culpable negligence, though another hypothesis is that the Bombay authorities, confident in their own resources, believed that they were a match for the Mahrattas without his aid, and were therefore unwilling to give him a share of the glory, which they hoped to appropriate entirely to themselves. If they acted from such selfish and vain-glorious motives, they were now paying the penalty. They had brought disgrace on themselves, disaster on the Company, and dishonour on the British name. The course of events which terminated in this result must now be explained.

In the end of August, 1778, the Bombay government learned for the first time, from the governor-general and council, that there was some intention of forming an alliance with Moodajee Bhonsla, and were directed in consequence not to enter into any engagement hostile to the government at Poonah. This information and direction were too vague to stay the majority of the Bombay council from following up the measures into which they had now entered with their whole soul, and they resolved that Moodajee was so totally unconnected with their design of securing the regency to Ragobah, that the intimation given them could not be intended to interfere with it. Their preparation, however, did not keep pace with their resolutions, and they remained inactive till the 12th of October, when Mr. John Carnac, one of the members of council, and the declared successor of Governor Hornby, lodged a minute, urging the necessity of adopting vigorous measures without further delay. Mr. Carnac, though ranked as a civilian, was the very same individual whom we formerly saw figuring in Bengal in the days of Clive as Brigadier-general Carnac. His opinion on a military question was therefore supposed to be entitled to some weight; and though Mr. Draper urged a delay of two months, and gave good reasons for it, his caution only subjected him to a smile of contempt from the ancient brigadier, who carried the majority along with him, and obtained the first reward of his zeal by being appointed president of a committee to settle the preliminaries with Ragobah.

The council gave the command of their army to Colonel Charles Egerton. His health was so infirm as to unfit him for active service, and on this account the place properly belonging to him had been taken in the former expedition by Colonel Keating. Strange to say, this fact, which furnished the best ground for excluding him still, was urged as the main reason for now appointing him, and an individual confessedly unfit was placed at the head of the army on the eve of a formidable war, merely in order that he might be able to draw the emoluments attached to the office. In some measure to counteract the foreseen consequences of such an appointment, the absurdity of field-deputies, which proved so mischievous in the Carnatic during the war with Hyder, was repeated, and two members of council, Mr. Carnac, the ex-brigadier-general, and Mr. Mostyn, lately resident at Poonah, accompanied the camp, to form, with the commander-in-chief, a committee empowered to regulate everything of importance, except the mere detail of duty and march. Colonel Egerton alleged that he had assented to the proposal of a committee under the impression that it was intended solely for the purpose of settling the preliminary arrangements with Ragobah, but afterwards, on finding how much more extensive its powers were, he not only made repeated objections, but protested against the whole measure “as contrary to the orders of the court of directors, and derogatory to his situation as commanding officer.” This was an ominous commencement, and ought to have opened the eyes of the Bombay government to the blundering and fatal course they were pursuing.

Though it was well known that Nana Furnavese was exerting himself to the utmost to meet the coming storm, a spirit of procrastination prevailed at Bombay, and it was late in November before the preparations were pronounced to be complete. On the evening of the 22d, an advanced party, consisting of six companies of native grenadiers and some light artillery, sailed from Bombay, and landing at Aptee, gained possession of the Bhore Ghaut, a mountain pass on the road from Bombay to Poonah, and nearly equidistant from both, being about forty miles south-east of the former and north-west of the latter. The main body sailed on the following day, and disembarked at Panwell on the 25th. Including the advanced party under Captain Stewart, the whole force mustered 3900 men, of whom 591 were Europeans, 2278 sepoys, and 500 gun lascars. At Panwell a proclamation, declaring the objects of the expedition, was issued in Ragobah’s name. Some time was lost at Panwell, and before leaving it, Colonel Egerton and Mr. Carnac had quarrelled on a point of etiquette, the knotty point in dispute being the military honours claimed by the latter. A matter of more serious consequence was the illness of Mr. Mostyn, who, without once attending the committee, returned to Bombay, where he shortly after died. The great benefit which the expedition might have derived from his local knowledge, and the influence which he had acquired by personal acquaintance with the Mahratta chiefs, were thus lost. On his illness Colonel Egerton declared that the powers of the committee were suspended; but in thus endeavouring to throw off a galling yoke, he only rivetted it more firmly. The Bombay council, when appealed to, overruled his objections, and as there were now only two members, and Mr. Carnac as president had the casting vote, the effect was to make him virtually sole master.

The army, which did not reach the top of the Ghauts till the 23rd of December, was there divided into two brigades, the one commanded by Colonel Cay, and the other by Lieutenant Cockburn, while the advance under Captain Stewart was still kept up as a separate corps. There were thus three divisions moving in succession, the one always occupying the ground which the other had occupied, and the whole creeping on at such a sluggard pace that eleven days were spent in reaching Karlee, a village only eight miles in advance of the Bhore Ghaut. This extraordinary mode of warfare was attributed to the imperfection of the commissariat. The effect of it was to encourage the enemy, who kept harassing the march by infantry, rockets, and guns. In the skirmishes thus occasioned, both Colonel Cay, who was an excellent officer, and Captain Stewart, who had given great promise of future eminence, lost their lives. The Mahrattas meanwhile had full leisure to assemble their army, in which the chief commands were held by Mahadajee Scindia, Hurry Punt Plurkay, and Tookajee Holkar, the latter, however, who was known to have a leaning for Ragobah, being stationed so as to make it extremely hazardous to attempt to join him.

On the 9th of January, 1779, when the British army reached Tullygaom, the enemy appeared in force, and seemed prepared for resistance. This was merely a feint; for when battle was offered then, they suddenly retired. At this time Colonel Egerton, disabled by sickness, had resigned the command to Colonel Cockburn; but as he still remained in the camp—for the very good reason that he durst not venture to quit it, because a body of the enemy had cut off the communication with Bombay—his counsels and those of Mr. Carnac still prevailed. The distance from Tullygaom to Poonah was only eighteen miles, and a determined effort might have accomplished it. Despondency, however, had now taken the place of overweening confidence, and two fatal resolutions were taken in one breath. The first was to open a negotiation with some of the chiefs, the second to retreat. Colonel Cockburn, on being asked his opinion, said he had no doubt of being able to carry the army to Poonah, though not without the sacrifice of the baggage, provisions, and cattle. The last, in bullocks alone, were 19,000. Whether it was that the sacrifice was deemed too expensive, or that some other inexplicable motive weighed with Messrs. Egerton and Carnac, the resolution to retreat was persisted in, in the face of an earnest remonstrance from Ragobah, who saw but too clearly what the result would be. When unable to change the resolution, he prayed only that the execution might be deferred. This was refused, even for a single day, and “at eleven o’clock on the night of the 11th of January,” says Duff, “the heavy guns having been thrown into a large tank, and a quantity of stores burned, an army of 2600 British troops began its retreat, secretly, as was supposed, before 50,000 Mahrattas. They had not made a single march before receiving too good proof that they were discovered. At two o’clock in the morning, the advanced guard under Captain Gordon was fired upon by a party of horse. As soon as the firing was heard, Colonel Cockburn ordered two companies of Europeans to support the advance, but before any respite was obtained the rear also was attacked, and part of the baggage plundered. At daylight the army discovered that they were completely surrounded. A halt immediately took place, the line was formed, and a desperate struggle commenced. In the rear, where the onset was fiercest, the six grenadier companies of sepoys, under command of Captain Hartley, fought with perfect enthusiasm, and set an example which, if followed, might have secured an unmolested retreat. As it was, Hartley’s intrepidity so far succeeded in keeping the enemy at bay, that the advanced guard made some progress, and halted at the village of Wurgaom. The main body, however, was in great confusion. The followers crowded in between the troops so as greatly to impede their movements, and when the village was neared, rushed forward for shelter from the rockets which the enemy were showering upon them. The case, not yet hopeless, was soon made so by the pusillanimity of the commanding officer, who, instead of repressing despondency, encouraged it. Though a considerable loss had been sustained in entering the village, the troops had extricated themselves, the enemy’s horse were driven off, and the guns were placed in commanding positions. In the afternoon of the 12th some respite was thus obtained, but on the following day, when the enemy’s guns opened on the village, and a large body of infantry advanced to attack it, the resistance grew feebler and feebler, many desertions took place and the most alarming reports were circulated. The loss of the preceding day amounted to 56 killed, 151 wounded, and 155 missing—the last, the heaviest item of all, was supposed to be mostly owing to desertion. Among the killed and wounded were fifteen European officers.

A loss of 352 in a single day was a fearful deduction from so small a force, and a further retreat being deemed impracticable, Mr. Farmer, the secretary of the committee, was sent to negotiate. The first demand was that Ragobah should be given up. This would have been complied with, had he not previously made a better arrangement for himself by agreeing to surrender to Scindia. The next demand was that the committee should enter into a new treaty, surrendering all that the Bombay government had acquired since the death of Madhoo Row, together with the revenues drawn by the Company from Baroach and Surat. When this demand was made known by a note from Mr. Farmer, a consultation was held. Colonel Cockburn’s opinion, given in writing, as he was called upon to do, was that retreat was impracticable, and that he could not undertake the responsibility of it. Captain Hartley manfully combated this opinion, and even showed a plan by which retreat might be insured. Colonel Cockburn refused to alter his opinion, and Mr. Carnac acquiesced in it, though according to his own account he rather agreed with Captain Hartley that a retreat might be accomplished, and ought to be attempted, sooner than submit to the humiliating terms proposed. Ultimately the answer of the committee was that they had no power to enter into any treaty without the sanction of the supreme government. No sooner was this answer returned than Mr. Carnac did the very thing which it was said he had no power to do, and sent Mr. Holmes to Scindia to conclude a treaty. His apology for this double-dealing was, that if the Poonah ministers, after he had told them he could not treat, chose to be duped, it was their own fault, and that so far from intending the good faith he pledged, he gave Mr. Holmes his powers under a mental reservation that they were to be of no validity.

Some dexterity was shown in sending Mr. Holmes to Scindia. Between him and Nana Furnavese great jealousy and rivalry had long subsisted, and he felt greatly flattered when a separate negotiation was opened with him. His vanity, however, did not blind him so far as to make him lower the original demands. The convention settled with Mr. Holmes, restored everything to the Mahrattas as held by them in 1773, gave Scindia the Company’s share of Baroach, besides a sum of 41,000 rupees in presents to his servants, and bound the committee to send on the spot an order countermanding the advance of the Bengal troops. Humiliating as these conditions were, the committee expressed their gratitude to Scindia for having obtained them, and in security of fulfilment on their part, left Mr. William Gamul Farmer and Lieutenant Charles Stewart as hostages. On descending the Ghauts, the first act of the committee was to commit a breach of faith by countermanding the order they had sent to Colonel Goddard, when under the dictation of the Mahrattas they forbade him to advance. This explains the cause of the contradictory messages which puzzled that officer, and determined him to make his celebrated march to the west. When the army arrived at Bombay, the first thing which occupied the attention of government was the distribution of punishment and reward. Colonels Egerton and Cockburn they suspended from the service; of the conduct of Mr. Carnac, a worse culprit than either, they took no notice. The directors, when they reviewed these proceedings, distributed justice more impartially, by placing Mr. Carnac in the same category with the colonels, and dismissing the whole three. The only officer particularly entitled to reward was Captain Hartley, on whom the council immediately conferred the rank of lieutenant-colonel. Unfortunately this was a violation of the rule of rising by seniority, and excited so much clamour among those who considered themselves defrauded of a step of promotion, that the directors virtually deprived Captain Hartley of his colonelcy by suspending his pay as lieutenant-colonel, and his further promotion, till all those formerly his seniors should in the usual routine be promoted over him.

Nothing could exceed the mortification and distress of the Bombay government. Eager to show the Bengal government what Bombay could do without their assistance, they had disdained to wait for the arrival of the detachment, and “desperately,” as Duff well expresses it, “sent a handful of men against the strength of the Mahratta empire.” This enterprise, “practicable only by celerity, address, and resolution,” they committed to men totally unfit for such a charge. The consequence was that “their army had returned defeated, their treasury was exhausted, their credit insignificant, and their reputation sullied.” Under these disastrous circumstances, a most judicious course was pursued by Governor Hornby. He advised his colleagues to abstain from recrimination, leaving it to their superiors to decide on their motives and measures, and in the meanwhile giving their whole minds to the consideration of the means best fitted to prevent or surmount the evils which seemed to be impending. The disgraceful treaty or convention of Wurgaom they could never think of ratifying, but as this was a question which they could not of themselves decide, nothing could be gained by repudiating it at once, and thus publishing a defiance to the Mahrattas. Their best policy was to begin anew with their preparations, and strain every nerve to recruit and improve their army.

Such was the position of affairs at Bombay, when the joyful tidings were received of Colonel Goddard’s arrival at Surat. The government, besides expressing their liveliest gratitude for the honourable and generous motives which had induced him to hasten to their relief, testified their sense of his merits by offering him a seat in their council, and recommending that he should be appointed their commander-in-chief. During a visit which he paid to Bombay, the esteem which they previously felt for his character was greatly increased by personal acquaintance, but at the same time, some facts were communicated which awoke the jealousy of the council, and threatened to produce some degree of misunderstanding. The Bengal government, on learning that the Bombay army had taken the field, had decided on sending forward the detachment to their support, but declined to relinquish their own control over it. At a later period, they had taken the still more decided step of not only retaining Colonel Goddard under their orders, but of conferring upon him distinct powers to negotiate as their plenipotentiary with the court of Poonah. On being made acquainted with the disasters which were crowned by the disgraceful convention of Wurgaom, they first provided for their own safety by ordering a brigade to the banks of the Jumna, and sending Sir Eyre Coote, their commander-in-chief, to inspect and prepare their military resources on the north-west frontier, where an attack was most to be apprehended. This done, they gave their attention to the Bombay presidency, and manifested a spirit worthy of all praise. In this respect Mr. Hastings particularly distinguished himself. In a minute lodged on the 24th of May, 1779, he remarked, “Whatever our resolutions, I hope the board will see with me the propriety of conveying them in such a form and temper, as may give encouragement and confidence to the presidency of Bombay, instead of adding to their depression.” Again: “To mark our want of confidence in them by any public act, would weaken theirs in us; to load them with harsh and unoperating reproaches, would indispose them to our authority, at the same time that it would absolve them from its effects; and to bind their deliberations by absolute and unconditional orders, might eventually disable them from availing themselves of any fortuitous advantages which the confusion of the Mahratta government is more likely to offer them, than any plan which we could prescribe to them, or which they could form on the letter of our instructions.” His advice therefore was, “Let us rather excite them to exert themselves for the retrieval of their past misfortunes, and arm them with means adequate to that end; restricting their powers where the object is determinate, and permitting a more liberal extension of them in cases which are too variable and uncertain for positive injunctions.”

Liberal and moderate as these views are, Mr. Hastings, when he came to the practical application of them, did not succeed in giving entire satisfaction. The Bombay government thought themselves slighted when the rank of brigadier-general was conferred on Colonel Goddard by the governor-general and council, and not as they thought it ought to have been only through them; they also complained of his being appointed to negotiate separately with the Poonah ministers, and objected in particular to the stationing of a military force within their limits, and independent of their authority, as an invasion of their rights and highly unconstitutional. The governor-general and council refused to give way on any of these points, and the Bombay government had the good sense to promise that a difference of opinion would not prevent them from co-operating heartily in whatever measures might be adopted. On the 15th of April, 1779, General Goddard had been directed to endeavour to negotiate a peace on the terms of the treaty of Poorundhur, with the addition of an article excluding the French from any establishment within the Mahratta dominions. In the end of May he received more detailed instructions, directing him, if peace on the above terms could not be obtained, to adopt a plan suggested by Governor Hornby, and form an alliance with Futteh Sing as the acknowledged head of the Baroda or Guicowar territories. After the disaster at Wurgaom, little hope was entertained of an effective alliance with Moodajee Bhonsla, and therefore General Goddard was instructed to tender specific conditions, the rejection of which would put it in his power to declare the negotiation at an end.

There was still another proposed alliance, from which at one time great things were expected. This was an alliance with Scindia. The rivalry subsisting between him and Nana Furnavese was well known. While apparently acting cordially together, they were constantly counterworking and endeavouring to out-manoeuvre each other. In playing this double game, Scindia had repeatedly acted in a manner which seemed to imply that he would willingly come to a separate understanding with the Company. One marked instance had recently occurred. By the convention of Wurgaom, Ragobah had been committed to his custody. His real object in undertaking this office was to employ it as a means of working upon the fears of Nana Furnavese. With this view he had caused a jaghire worth twelve lacs to be settled on Ragobah in Bundelcund. Ragobah was thus induced to believe that Scindia was his friend; and Nana was also satisfied, because Scindia, on obtaining the jaghire, became security to him that Ragobah would no more molest his government. Shortly after this arrangement Ragobah was sent off to his jaghire. He was very imperfectly guarded, and in the latter end of May, just before he reached the Nerbudda, a hint was given him that it was intended to confine him in the fortress of Jhansi. He therefore watched his opportunity, and when about to ford the river made his escape, and fled with all speed to seek an asylum with his English friends at Baroach. The whole was believed to be a scheme of Scindia, who thus at once widened the breach between Nana and the English, and led the latter to believe that he himself might be induced to co-operate with them in their scheme of establishing Ragobah at Poonah.

All Scindia’s professions of friendship proved vain, and Nana Furnavese, after the negotiation with him had been protracted for several months, virtually put an end to it, by declaring, when General Goddard demanded from him explicit answers, that the surrender of Salsette and the person of Ragobah were preliminaries to any treaty which the English might wish to conclude with the Mahratta state. Previous to this, Ragobah with his two sons, Amrut Row and Bajee Row, the latter a child of four years old, had visited General Goddard in his camp, and received from him an allowance of 50,000 rupees a month. This was censured by the Bengal government as lavish expenditure, the more especially after it had been resolved to make no more use of him politically. The discovery, though late, had at last been made, that nothing could be more impolitic than an attempt to force into the Mahratta government a person to whom the whole nation, instead of rising in his favour, as expected during the late expedition, had manifested indifference or aversion. Now, therefore, that the declaration of Nana Furnavese had made war inevitable, it was to be carried on not in his name, but by the Company themselves as principals.

General Goddard, on receiving the above answer from Nana, set out for Bombay, where he arrived on the 1st of November. The object of his visit was twofold—to consult on the future plan of operations in connection with the proposed alliance with the Guicowar Futteh Sing, and more especially to urge the immediate preparation and despatch of a reinforcement. The council would have preferred delay, but could not resist his urgency, and a detachment under Colonel Hartley, consisting of 100 European artillery, 200 European infantry, and two battalions of sepoys, was immediately embarked for Gujarat. From Madras a detachment, under Colonel Browne, of 100 artillery, 500 Europeans, and a battalion of sepoys, was expected. On the side of Bengal a detachment of 2000 sepoys, which had been prepared to follow the overland route previously, was diverted to a different purpose, which will afterwards be explained. On returning to Surat, where the main body of his army was stationed, General Goddard dismissed the envoys of Nana, and opened a negotiation with Futteh Sing. On perceiving that this chief, afraid to commit himself, evaded a definite engagement, he put his army in motion, and crossed the Taptee on the 1st of January, 1780. He advanced slowly northward till joined by his battering train and stores from Baroach, and then hastened to attack the fort of Dubhoy, which was held by an officer for the peishwa, with a garrison of 2000 men. This place, situated fifteen miles south-east of Baroda, and seventy-eight miles north-east of Surat, was believed by the natives to be of great strength, and had certainly a very imposing appearance. It formed a quadrangle of two miles in circuit, enclosed by a rampart built of large hewn stones, and surmounted by fifty-six towers. General Goddard arrived before it on the 18th of January, and on the 20th, when ready to open upon it from a battery of three eighteen-pounders, within two hundred yards, found that the garrison had evacuated it during the night. Leaving it in charge of a company of sepoys and a few irregulars, under the charge of a civil officer, Mr. James Forbes, author of the Oriental Memoirs, he continued his march in the direction of Baroda. He was met by Futteh Sing, who showed how completely the sudden capture of Dubhoy had changed his views, by entering at once into an offensive and defensive alliance, by which, in addition to other advantages ceded to the Company, he agreed to furnish a body of 3000 horse. One of the stipulations in his favour was that he should be put in possession of Ahmedabad. For this place, therefore, the army now directed its march.

Ahmedabad, the capital of Gujarat, situated on the left bank of the Saburmuttee, about sixty miles above its mouth in the Gulf of Cambay, though greatly declined from its ancient splendour, was still a place of great importance, with a population estimated at upwards of 100,000. Its lofty turreted walls, about six miles in circuit, were remarkably strong, and it was at this time held for the peishwa by a Brahmin commandant, with a garrison of 6000 Arab and Sindee infantry, and 2000 Mahratta horse. General Goddard arrived before it on the 10th of February, and on the 12th opened a battery, by which a practicable breach was effected on the evening of the 13th. After the delay of a day in expectation of a surrender, the assault took place on the morning of the 15th, and was completely successful. Duff justly observes, that “the most honourable part of this gallant assault was the subsequent steadiness and good conduct of the troops. No excesses were committed, and two only of the inhabitants not composing the garrison lost their lives.” The loss of the captors was only 106 killed and wounded. Among the latter were twelve European officers, two of whom, volunteers, died of their wounds.

Immediately after the capture of Ahmedabad, intelligence was received of the approach of Mahadajee Scindia and Tookajee Holkar, who forded the Nerbudda with upwards of 20,000 horse, and proceeded to the neighbourhood of Baroda. General Goddard crossed the Myhie on the 6th of March, to give them battle. They showed no inclination to accept of it, and retired as he approached. Scindia even professed the greatest friendship, and as a proof of it, set at liberty the two Wurgaom hostages, Messrs. Farmer and Stewart, who arrived in the British camp. Their account of Scindia’s conduct, and the arrival of an envoy, with great professions of friendship for the English, and hatred for Nana Furnavese, gave some ground for belief that he really desired an alliance. General Goddard, however, suspected that the real object was to keep him inactive during the fair weather; and therefore, while reciprocating the expressions of friendship, sent back the envoy, and left Scindia only three days to make his proposals. On the 16th of March the envoy returned with terms, which were in substance that Ragobah should retire to Jhansi, and live on his jaghire of twelve lacs, that the government should continue, in the name of Madhoo Row Narrain as peishwa, and that Bajee Row, Ragobah’s son, should be appointed the peishwa’s dewan. The most essential part of the proposed arrangement, though mentioned last, was that as Bajee Row, who was only a child of four years, could not act as dewan, Scindia should take him with him to Poonah, and manage for him. General Goddard answered that as these proposals amounted to nothing less than that the Company should assist Scindia in acquiring the entire power of the state, it was necessary that he should on his part consent, in the name of the peishwa, to certain concessions in favour of British interests. Scindia, seeing the negotiation which he probably meant to spin out for months brought to a point in a few days, made no further overtures, and entered into a communication with Govind Row, the brother of Futteh Sing, and his rival claimant for the office of Guicowar, with the view of putting him in possession of Gujarat. General Goddard, on being made acquainted with this new intrigue, had no other wish than to bring on an action with the least possible delay.