The Act of Parliament which inaugurates this period did not entirely extinguish the monopoly of the East India Company; that was reserved for the Act which marked its close. Yet the one promulgated in 1813 was sufficiently wide in its scope to partake of the nature of a revolution; for although the trade with China--chiefly tea--remained on its old close footing, that with India was thrown open to any one who possessed a licence, such licences not to be solely obtainable through the Council of Directors, but also through the Board of Control. But there were two additional clauses in the bill which, though grafted in upon it during its lengthy passage through Parliament, were of more gravity than some of original import. One was the forming of a regular Church Establishment in India--a formal declaration, as it were, of the creed of the new master; the other the inclusion of missionaries as persons to whom a licence to pursue their trade might be given. Taken together, these two clauses went far towards an admission that it was the duty of England to uphold her own faith. The speeches that were delivered for and against these clauses in Parliament are excellent reading; perhaps the most informing of them being one by Sir J. Sutton, who, attempting to hedge, as it were, objected to the open avowal in the clause that persons were to be sent to India for "the introduction of religious and moral improvement," as calculated to alarm and annoy, and suggested that the words "various lawful purposes" should be used instead. The suggestion was treated seriously; Mr Wilberforce, the great speaker on the missionary side, assuring his hearers that it was extremely unlikely that the natives of India would ever read the clause, and ending with an impassioned assertion that unless actual mention of religion was made in the Act it would stand tantamount to a decision that though Christianity was the faith of England, the creeds of Brahma and Vishnu were to be upheld by England in India. There was a strong religious party in the House, representing a stronger one in England. And feeling had been roused by Lord Minto's refusal to allow certain Baptist missionaries to print, publish, and disseminate pamphlets calculated to arouse indignation amongst the people of other faiths. So, despite a very able protest from Mr Marsh, who asserted that it must be remembered that the people "we wished to convert were in the main a moral and a virtuous people, not uninfluenced by such ideas as give security to life, and impart consolation in death," the clause was passed.
There is also an excellent speech made by Mr Tierney on the Commerce question, in which he pertinently remarks that amongst all the benefits which he was told were to accrue to the people of India from free trade, he had never heard even of a proposal to allow one manufacture of India to be freely imported into Great Britain! But such remarks were of no more avail then than they are nowadays, when the manufactures of India are stinted by the duty on cotton twists, and her markets glutted by free Manchester muslins.
The whole history of the cotton trade, in truth, is grievous. At this time, when Parliament was piously purposing to preach to so-called heathen the religion which claims first place as teaching the duty of doing to others as you would be done by, the woven goods of India could have been sold in England at rates 50 and 60 per cent. cheaper than similar goods manufactured in England. What then? Were they so sold? or sold at a price which would have brought wealth to the miserably poor Indian craftsman? No! The mills of Paisley and Manchester were protected by a duty of 70 and 80 per cent. on these Indian goods, thus sacrificing those to whom we wished to teach Christianity to those who, at any rate, said they had that faith.
Ere going on to the events of the next few years it must be mentioned that the East India Company, while vehemently protesting, had some sops thrown to it by this Act. One was that the "commercial profits of the Company were not in future to be liable for any territorial payments until the dividend claims had been satisfied." This was extremely comforting. Furthermore, £1,000,000 sterling was to be set aside from the surplus revenue (when it existed, but up to the present it had not) to meet any failure.
With this, and a few more scraps of comfort, H.M.E.I.C.S. had to be satisfied and start fair with a new Governor-General, Earl Moira. One is irresistibly reminded, when following this history of English dealings with India, of the fable concerning King Log and King Stork; for after a calm, there comes invariably a storm. How many governor-generals have not sailed out to India, loudly protesting peace, prepared at all points to uphold the non-interference clause? How many have sailed back again with reputations either marred, in English eyes, by change of policy, or kept intact by leaving behind to their successors a state of affairs out of which war was the only escape?
Earl Moira, therefore, suffered from Lord Minto's efforts after economy by his undue reduction of the army, by his refusal to see what was going on around him. So the first thing to be faced was the necessity for war in Nepaul if the boundaries of Oude were to be preserved intact. Hitherto Great Britain had been pacific over invasion to the point of pusillanimity, dreading, and not without just cause, a campaign amid the ascending peaks and passes of the Himalayas, backed by the unknown regions of its eternal snows.
But at last these dangers had to be faced. It took a whole year of hill-fighting in the finest scenery in the world, and in a climate which must have been some compensation for other hardships, ere a treaty of peace was signed at Segowlie, by which England gained in perpetuity the magnificent provinces of Kumaon and Gharwal.
Meanwhile, India was not happy. The well-meaning Western attempt to raise money by a house-tax in large cities had nearly brought about an insurrection in Benares, where the pandits had, not without cause, claimed the whole city as a place for worship, and as such exempt; while an assessment for municipal police led to hard fighting at Bareilly.
But by this time Earl Moira's eyes had been opened. On every side he saw dangers to the State-politic which could not be averted save by action. The predatory system, so often the curse of divided India, was in full swing. In truth, no power wielded sufficient authority to keep the others in order. What was happening in 1815 was what would happen in 1915 if the alien rulers of India were to adopt a policy of non-interference. The Pindârees were the chief offenders; since time immemorial their hordes of free-booting horsemen had been a terror, and of late years they had aided and abetted the Mahrattas. But, despite growing atrocities, it was not until 1816 that Parliament would permit them to be coerced.
Meanwhile, Râjputana was smouldering. After the murder of the Emperor Farokhsîr the various states fell into the hands--as did almost all India--of the Mahrattas; not without hard fighting, not without bitter beatings, and still more bitter upbraiding, as when after one defeat the Rana of Oudipore made a common courtesan carry the Great Sword-of-State, avowing that in "such degenerate times it was no better than a woman's weapon."
So matters had gone on from bad to worse, while Scindiah, dissociating himself from the Peishwa, became paramount, until in 1778 Râjah Bhîm came to the throne of Mêwar (Oudipore, Chitore). During his reign Scindiah and Holkar fought almost continuously over the hills and dales of Râjputana, and the former threw the weight of his savage influence into the pitiful tragedy of Kishna Kumari, the Virgin Princess. Her story is well known, but if only for the strangeness of such an incident being possible in the nineteenth century, and in a court where Englishmen came and went, it may be given here.
Kishen Kumari, the Virgin Kishen, was beautiful exceedingly. She was promised in marriage to the chief of Jeypore. Scindiah, incensed at non-payment of a claim by the latter, opposed this in favour of the chief of Marwar; and in the ensuing struggle to the death, Bhîm Singh, seeing ruin before him, determined to sacrifice his daughter's life as the only way of ending the strife.
They tried to poniard her, she standing calm; but the dagger fell from the hand of the brother appointed, as one of sufficient rank, to the deed. Then they tried poison. She drank it three times calmly, bidding her grief-distracted mother remember that Râjput women were marked out for sacrifice from birth, and that she owed her father gratitude for letting her live so long. But the poison refused its work; so, as calmly, she asked for a kasumba draught to make her sleep. It was prepared. Sweet essence of flowers, sweet syrup of fruits, concealed the deadly dose of opium; she laid herself down and slept, never to wake.
A terrible tale, which merits the comment made on it by old Sagwant Singh, chief of Karrâdur, who, riding hard for Oudipore, flung himself breathless from his horse with the quick query: "Does the princess live?" And hearing the negative, went on without a pause up the stone steps of the palace, through the wide courtyard, adown the passage, till he found Mâhârâjah Bhîm upon his throne. Then he unbuckled his sword.
"My ancestors," rang out the passionate, protesting old voice, "have served yours for thirty generations. To you, my king, I dare say nothing, but never more will sword of mine be drawn in your service."
So, laying it with his shield at the feet of the weakling, he left.
A fine old Râjput was Sagwant Singh; one feels glad he said his say.
This, however, is by the way. Nine years after it happened--that is to say, in 1819--after the war with the Pindârees (which, of course--since war is ever bred of war in India--involved hostilities with the Peishwa, with Holkar, with Scindiah, with all the native states, briefly, who tried to bar the progress of the new master), Râjputana found itself eager to claim alliance with a power which, instead as of old protesting against protection, was now not only willing to grant it, but prepared to make its promise good against all comers.
For once, then, in the sweeping changes which the year ending in 1819 brought about, the English gave as good as they got. No great battle had been fought, but Scindiah was humbled, Holkar's aggressions had been stopped, the Peishwa's very name had disappeared, and on all sides alliances had been formed--durable alliances, which would no longer require the sword to enforce them.
And all this arose out of Parliament's hesitating admission that certain predatory robbers must be restrained, and Earl Moira's wise interpretation of that scant assent into action which, after two weary years, settled the great territorial question of India as only it could be settled; that is to say, as the Earl (afterwards Lord Hastings) phrases it: "by the establishment of universal tranquillity under the guarantee and supremacy of England."
But the Gurkha or Nepaulese war, and the third and final Mahratta war, unfortunately, only form part of Lord Hastings' work. He was not so happy in dealing with the question of Oude. It had simmered for long: the Nawâb, who had been encouraged by Lord Minto, complaining of the interference of the Resident; the Resident complaining of obstinate obstruction on the part of the Nawâb. In the middle of the quarrel Sa'adut-Ali died, leaving treasure, despite his plea of poverty, to the amount of £13,000,000. He was succeeded easily, quietly, with the help of British influence, by his eldest son, who, to show his gratitude, offered one of his father's millions to the Company as a gift. It was accepted as a loan at the usual rate of interest, 6 per cent.
But the young Nawâb was even more turbulent than his father, and when a second million was asked for on the same terms as the first, took the opportunity of practically demanding the withdrawal of the Resident. Now it is impossible to be harsh with a potentate who has just loaned you two millions of money out of his private purse. Without for a moment doubting the decision that Major Baillie the Resident had been wanting in respect, the fact remains that he went to the wall, and that the Nawâb was set free of all control in his administration. Furthermore, after a treaty signed in 1816, by which the loan of the second million was written off against the cession of a piece of territory scarcely worth the sum, the Nawâb was further encouraged and advised to assume the title of King; thus once for all asserting his equality with, and not his dependence on, the shadow of the Great Moghul at Delhi.
So, to the extreme indignation of the latter's sham Court and the scandal of all true Mahomedans, he proclaimed himself "Ghâzi-uddin-Hyder, King of Oude, the Victorious, the Upholder of Faith, the Monarch of the Age."
Not such a very poor specimen at that, whether taken at native or English estimate; for he was at least amiable--a kind, not overclever princeling, who cultivated the Arts in a dilettante fashion.
For the rest, though the long service--over nine years--of the Marquis of Hastings was eminently successful, it was not likely that one who rode rough-shod over the faddists' cry for noninterference at home could escape without censure. But regular impeachment was impossible towards one who had actually augmented the public revenues by £6,000,000 a year! So he escaped the fate of Clive and Warren Hastings.
He was succeeded by William Pitt (Lord Amherst) after an interregnum during which a Mr John Adams, armed with supreme, if brief authority, carried on a crusade against the press which, in view of recent occurrences, is singularly informing. The censorship had been abolished by Lord Hastings in rather bombastical language, which scarcely matched the severe inhibitions that followed against anything like criticism; the actual result being, that while the name of an invidious office was abolished, the press was left to face prosecution. In the case of the Calcutta Journal, against which Mr Adams tilted, the end was deportation of the editor to England!
The Burmese war, however, occupied Lord Amherst until 1826, when various minor campaigns became necessary; one against a Sikh mendicant, who announced himself as the last of the Avatârs of Krishna, incarnated for the express purpose of ousting all foreigners from India. Bhurtpore, also, had to be finally taken, a usurper expelled, and a six-year-old râjah established on the throne, under the guidance, naturally, of a British resident. Such things had to be if the standard of Western ethics was to be enforced in Government.
There remained also Oude, that perennial thorn in the side of those who had created it. Ghâzi-ud-din-Hyder had lent a million and a half more money to the Company--had lent it at 5 per cent.!--but yet, he complained, there was no pleasing the English master! There is something pitiful about the good-natured king's plea that misgovernment could not exist, because Oude from one end to the other was cultivated like a garden; there was not even a waste place in it whereon an army might encamp! And as for the disturbances on the British borders, was he responsible for the landholders being Râjputs by tribe, soldiers by profession, and so refusing to pay except by force? And for what did he pay English soldiers, except to use force?
There was force, anyhow, in his arguments, but his grievances remained unredressed at his death in 1827, when he was succeeded by his son, Nâsir-ud-din-Hyder.
So, without any great excitement save the Burmese war, Lord Amherst's Governor-Generalship came abruptly to an end, owing to sudden illness in his family, which prevented his awaiting any arrangement for his successor. This is somewhat typical of one who never seems to have taken any personal interest in Indian questions, who, in fact, seems to have wearied of the East. He was the first Governor-General who found a Capua at Simla.
Then, after much striving, Lord William Bentinck, who had been deprived of the Government of Madras in 1807 in consequence of the mutiny at Vellore, was appointed in Lord Amherst's place. It was a great triumph for him, being, as it were, an admission that he had been unjustly dismissed in the first instance. His administration, however, did much to justify his early treatment, for there can be no question that he showed an almost phenomenal want of tact. Indeed, but for the fact that the final extinction of the monopoly of trade did not take place until 1835, this chapter would end on the assumption of office by Lord William Bentinck in 1828, since there can be no doubt that many of his well-meaning efforts should be included amongst the causes which led up to the mutiny of 1857. The best plan, therefore, will be to catalogue them briefly here, and discuss them in connection with others of a like nature after 1835. The first, which brought him great disfavour with the military, was not, strictly speaking, his action, but that of England. His only responsibility for what is called the half-batta (extra allowance) order is that he did not, as Lord Hastings and Lord Amherst had done, refuse to obey his superiors. It was a silly retrenchment, since for the sake of a paltry £20,000 a year it gave umbrage to a very deserving body of men, who could ill afford to lose the money. The scheme was condemned by all competent judges in India as "unwise and inexpedient, fraught with mischief, and unproductive of good."
But Lord William Bentinck had come out bound hand and foot to economy, social reform, and missionary effort, so he spent his years in adding up and subtracting, in framing laws, such as that against suttee, and the forfeiture which, under Hindu law, followed on conversion to a different faith.
For political work he had but one catchword; the catchword of his employers--non-interference. The puppet-emperor at Delhi complained bitterly; his complaint being unheard, he actually sent an agent--no less a person than Râm-Mohun-Rao, the founder of the Brahma-Somâjh, the modern Theistical sect of India--to plead his cause in England. But he also was unheard. His mission had been kept secret, and so his credentials were "out of order."
In Oude, Nâsir-ud-din, realising this policy of non-interference, began a series of petty aggressions against Âga-Mîr, the finance minister, whom the British Government supported. These ended unsatisfactorily for all parties by the minister being conveyed out of the reach of Nâsir-ud-din's vindictive hatred. The Nawâb then refused to appoint any one in Âga-Mîr's place, and, being totally unfit, by reason of his dissolute habits, to manage the state himself, everything fell into confusion. Finally, driven, for once, out of non-interference by the effect of it, Lord William Bentinck not only refused friendly intercourse if a responsible minister were not appointed, but told the drunken, disreputable occupier of the throne himself in so many words, that if he did not mend his ways he would be deposed.
So far well; but when, appalled by this prospect, Nâsir-ud-din besought advice how to govern, this was refused. The policy of which the Governor-General was the mouthpiece would not allow him to interfere!
Humanity is at times hard to understand; in this instance peculiarly so, unless, as was stated at the time by the respectable courtiers--and even in that sink of iniquity, Lucknow, there were some just men--the real object of the English was not to improve government, but to find an excuse for usurping it.
But in Jeypore, in Jodhpore, in Bundi, in Kotah, and many another minor state, to say nothing of larger ones, the almost slavish adherence of Lord William Bentinck to the order he had received brought strained relations. And yet all the while he was attempting purely diplomatic râpprochements with outlying states. The Russian scarecrow had begun to trouble the slumbers of Indian statesmen, and this curious creature, destined to remain a nightmare for generations, led to interest in the affairs of Kâbul. In Lord Minto's time Mr Mountstuart Elphinstone had, with great difficulty, met the then Ameer Shâh-Sujah at Peshâwar, and arranged the terms of a treaty with him, but ere this could be ratified Shâh-Sujah himself had been turned out of his throne. He had pleaded for help to recover it; but Lord Minto being one of the non-interference faction, aid had been refused. The Ameer had, however, been allowed a pension, on which he had lived in Ludhiâna, a Sikh town on the Sutlej river.
Here Lord William Bentinck found him in 1832, when he had an interview with Runjeet-Singh, the Sikh king of the Punjâb.
There can be little doubt that the question of aiding Shâh-Sujah to recover his throne was mooted by Runjeet-Singh, and was negatived by the Governor-General; there is also little doubt, however, that too much cold water was not thrown over the scheme, since Dost-Mahomed, the Kâbul usurper, was suspicioned with Russian proclivities and was being watched.
But these are minor points compared to the changes which were coming over the East India Company at home. Its charter expired in 1834, and the question as to whether that charter should be renewed had to be answered. It was answered in the negative, and on the 22nd April 1834 India ceased to be a land of restrictions. It was thrown open to the wide world. During the course of the twenty years which had passed since the semi-extinction of the Company's power, but 1,324 licences to go to India had been issued. What proportion of these had been issued to those whose object was "the introduction of religious and moral improvements" is unknown, but in 1833 mission work had begun almost all over India; indeed, the concluding years of the period between 1813 and 1833 were marked by greatly increased efforts and results in proselytising the natives. One cause of this being the shortening of the ocean passage to India by the adoption of the Red Sea route. On the 20th March 1830 the Hugh Lindsay, a small steamer, left Bombay harbour, arriving in Suez in thirty-two days, and on her next voyage reduced the time to twenty-two. Thus, before the year 1836, despatches from London arrived in Bombay in two instead of six months; the time taken now is twelve days.
It may seem extravagant to say that the lessening of sea-sickness brought about the Indian Mutiny, but taken seriously, it is true. That is to say, the sudden letting loose on a country which had hitherto been reserved to especially licensed persons, of all and sundry, the dregs as well as the cream of the West, together with the removal of the great personal discomfort and expense of a six months' journey round the Cape, which had hitherto militated against travel in India, combined to produce such a change in that country as was bound to create alarm, distrust, and resentment, amongst the most Conservative people in the world.