India Under British Rule

Sindia refuses British alliance against Afghans.

Sindia was still more obstinate and contemptuous. Mahadaji Sindia was dead. His successor, Daulat Rao Sindia, was a young man of nineteen, but already the irresponsible ruler of a large dominion in Western Hindustan. He was all-powerful at Delhi, and was bent upon being equally all-powerful at Poona. He collected chout from the princes of Rajputana, and, with the help of his French-officered battalions of sepoys, he had established a supremacy over the valleys of the Jumna and Ganges from the banks of the Sutlej to the frontier of Oudh at Cawnpore. Lord Wellesley would not venture to offer a subsidiary alliance to a prince so puffed up with pride as young Sindia. The Afghans, however, were threatening to invade India, and Lord Wellesley invited Sindia to join in an alliance against the Afghans. But Sindia would not hamper himself with a British alliance. He was not afraid of the Afghans. At any rate he waited for the Afghans to appear before taking any steps to prevent their coming.

British fears of France and Russia.

Lord Wellesley was not afraid of Afghans alone, but of French or Russians, who might make their way through Persia, join the Afghans, resuscitate the Great Mogul, and establish a European empire in his name as the rightful representative of Aurangzeb. Accordingly Lord Wellesley sent the once famous Sir John Malcolm on a mission to Persia to persuade the Shah to bar out the French and prevent the Afghans from invading India. Meanwhile, he anxiously waited some turn in Mahratta affairs which would bring their rulers into a more compliant mood towards the British government.

Provinces taken from Oudh.

Lord Wellesley, however, determined that the Nawab Vizier of Oudh should contribute something further towards the defence of India against invasion. The Nawab Vizier maintained a rabble army that was costly and useless, and he depended entirely on British troops for his defence against Afghans and Mahrattas. He was urged to disband his rabble army and replace it by battalions of sepoys trained and commanded by British officers; but he was impracticable, and Lord Wellesley got over the difficulty by taking half his territory for the maintenance of the required battalions. This was an arbitrary proceeding, but it was justified on the score of state necessity and self-preservation. It pushed the British frontier westward to Cawnpore on the Ganges, where it was close to Sindia and his French sepoy battalions, and would be face to face with any foreign invasion from the north-west. The new territories were called "ceded provinces," and eventually were incorporated with what are now known as the North-West Provinces.18

Sindia master of Holkar.

Meanwhile the Mahratta empire was falling into the hands of Sindia. This ambitious feudatory tried to pose as the protector of his suzerain the Peishwa. The two, however, were perpetually plotting against each other; the soldier and the Brahman were each trying to be master. About this time Holkar died, and Sindia hastened to Indore and put an imbecile son of Holkar on the throne, as a preliminary step to appropriating the territory and revenues.

Rise of Jaswant Rao Holkar.

At this moment a bandit prince appeared at Indore with an army of predatory horsemen, brigands and outlaws, the scum of Central India. He was a bastard son of the deceased Holkar, and was known as Jaswant Rao Holkar. He was routed by Sindia's French battalions, but the scattered horsemen soon rallied round his banners, and he went off to the south to threaten Poona and the Peishwa.

Flight of the Peishwa.

The Peishwa was wild with terror. Under his orders a brother of Jaswant Rao Holkar had been dragged to death by an elephant through the streets, and he had reason to believe that Jaswant Rao was bent on revenge. His army was reinforced by Sindia, but the united forces were utterly routed by Jaswant Rao outside the city of Poona. Accordingly he fled away to the coast, and embarked on board a British ship for the port of Bassein, about twenty miles to the north of Bombay.

Peishwa accepts subsidiary alliance, 1802.

The Peishwa was ready to make any sacrifice to procure British help. Accordingly he accepted the subsidiary alliance on the condition that the British restored him to Poona. The terms were soon arranged, and the treaty was signed at Bassein on the last day of December, 1802. The Peishwa ceded territories for the maintenance of a Poona Subsidiary Force, and sacrificed his position as suzerain of the Mahratta confederacy. For the future he was bound to abstain from all wars and negotiations, even with his own feudatories, excepting by the knowledge and consent of the British government.

Surprise of the Mahratta feudatories.

§4. The Mahratta feudatories were bewildered and stupefied by the treaty of Bassein. In a single day the British government had become their suzerain in the room of the Peishwa; the Christian governor of Calcutta was lord over the Brahman Peishwa of Poona. True, the Peishwa was restored to his throne at Poona, but only as the creature of the British government, not as the suzerain of the Mahrattas. Sindia's hope of ruling the Mahrattas in the name of the Peishwa was shattered by the treaty. The Raja of Berar was equally down-hearted. The Gaekwar of Baroda accepted the subsidiary alliance, and ceased to play a part in history. Jaswant Rao Holkar was out of the running; he was an outlaw and an interloper.

Vacillations of Sindia and the Bhonsla.

The whole brunt of the struggle against the British supremacy, if there was to be any struggle at all, thus fell on Daulat Rao Sindia of Gwalior and the Bhonsla Raja of Berar. Meanwhile the two Mahratta princes moved restlessly about with large armies, drawing nearer and nearer to the Nizam's frontier as if to enforce their claims to chout. They would not accept a subsidiary treaty, and they would not break with the British government. They tried to tempt Jaswant Rao to join them, but the young brigand only played with them. He got them to recognise his succession to the throne of Indore, and then returned to his capital, declaring that he must leave Sindia and the Bhonsla to fight the British in the Deccan, whilst he went away north to fight them in Hindustan.

Wellesley's campaign in the Deccan, 1803.

Lord Wellesley was well prepared for an outbreak. His younger brother, Colonel Arthur Wellesley, was watching Sindia and the Bhonsla in the Deccan, whilst General Lake, commander-in-chief of the Bengal army, was watching the French sepoy battalions of Sindia in Hindustan. Sindia was vacillating and irresolute, but his language was growing more hostile. He said he was waiting for Jaswant Rao Holkar; he talked of collecting chout in the Nizam's territory; and he expressed doubts whether there would be peace or war. At last he was told that he was breaking the public peace, and must take the consequences.

British victory at Assaye.

The battle of Assaye was fought on the Nizam's frontier on 23rd September, 1803. It was the old story of a British army of five thousand men fighting an Asiatic army of fifty thousand. The Mahratta artillery worked terrible execution on the British army, and one-third of its European force was left dead or wounded in the field. But the Bhonsla Raja fled at the first shot, and Sindia soon followed his example. General Wellesley's victory at Assaye crushed the hopes of the Mahrattas. Sindia especially took his lesson to heart. It was followed by the capture of fortresses and another victory at Argaum; and by the end of 1803 the campaign in the Deccan was over, and Sindia and the Bhonsla came to terms.

General Lake's campaign in Hindustan.

Meanwhile, General Lake had fought a brilliant campaign in Hindustan. Directly he heard that war had begun in the Deccan he left Cawnpore, on the British frontier, and pushed his way to Delhi. He defeated the French sepoy cavalry and captured the fortress at Alighur. Next he defeated the French sepoy infantry and entered Delhi in triumph. He was received with open arms by the poor old Padishah, Shah Alam, who once again threw himself upon British protection. He left Delhi in charge of Colonel Ochterlony, marched down the right bank of the river Jumna, captured the city of Agra, and brought the campaign to a close by a crowning victory at Laswari, which broke up the French sepoy battalions for ever, and placed the British government in possession of the relics of the Mogul empire in Hindustan.

British power paramount.

The campaigns of Wellesley and Lake established the British government as the paramount power in India. Sindia was driven by Wellesley to the northward of the Nerbudda river, and by Lake to the southward of the Jumna. The Bhonsla Raja was deprived of Berar on one side and Cuttack on the other, and was henceforth known only as the Raja of Nagpore. The British government had acquired the sovereignty of the Great Mogul and that of the Peishwa of the Mahrattas. It took the princes of Rajputana under its protection, and prepared to shut out Sindia and Holkar from Rajput territories. Only one Mahratta prince of any importance remained to tender his submission, and that was Jaswant Rao Holkar of Indore.

Relations with Holkar.

§5. The British government was not responsible for the usurpation of Jaswant Rao Holkar. It was willing to accept him as the de facto ruler of the Indore principality, and to leave him alone, provided only that he kept within his own territories, and respected the territories of the British and their allies.

Holkar's pretensions.

Jaswant Rao Holkar, however, was a born freebooter, a Mahratta of the old school of Sivaji. He was not ambitious for political power like Sindia, and he wanted no drilled battalions. He was a Cossack at heart, and loved the old free life of Mahratta brigandage. Like Sivaji, he was at home in the saddle, with spear in hand, and a bag of grain and goblet of water hanging from his horse. He and his hordes scoured the country on horseback, collected plunder or chout, and rode over the hills and far away whenever regular troops advanced against them. Indore was his home and Western India was his quarry; and never perhaps did he collect a richer harvest of plunder and chout than he did in Rajputana during the latter half of 1803, when Lake was driving Sindia and the French out of Hindustan, and Wellesley was establishing peace in the Deccan.

Difficulties as regards "chout".

Jaswant Rao Holkar looked at the British government from his own individual point of view. He was no respecter of persons; he despised the Peishwa, and had got all he wanted from Sindia and the Bhonsla. The British government was his bête noire; it had grown in strength, and was opposed to the collection of chout. He wanted it to guarantee him in the possession of Holkar's principality, and to sanction his levying chout after the manner of his ancestors; and he refused to withdraw from Rajputana until these terms were granted. If his pretensions were rejected, he threatened to burn, sack, and slaughter his enemies by hundreds of thousands. Such was the ignorant and refractory Mahratta that defied the East India Company and the British nation.

Lake attacks Holkar.

Disastrous retreat of Monson, 1804.

The reduction of Jaswant Rao Holkar was thus a political necessity. In April, 1804, General Lake entered Rajputana, and drove Jaswant Rao Holkar southward into Indore territory. In June the rains were approaching, and General Lake left Colonel Monson to keep a watch on Holkar, with five battalions of sepoys, a train of artillery, and two bodies of irregular horse, and then withdrew to cantonments. Colonel Monson pushed on still further south into Indore territory, but in July everything went wrong. Supplies ran low. Expected reinforcements failed to arrive. Jaswant Rao turned back with overwhelming forces and a large train of artillery. In an evil hour Monson beat a retreat. The rains were very heavy. The British guns sunk in the mud and were spiked and abandoned. Terrible disasters were incurred in crossing rivers. The Rajputs turned against him. His brigade was exposed to the fire of Holkar's guns and the charges of Holkar's horse. About the end of August only a shattered remnant of Monson's brigade managed to reach British territory.

Reaction against British supremacy.

For a brief period British prestige vanished from Hindustan, and Jaswant Rao Holkar was the hero of the hour. Sindia forgot his wrongs against Jaswant Rao, and his defeats at Assaye and Argaum, and declared for Holkar. Fresh bodies of bandits and outlaws joined the standard of Holkar to share in the spoil of his successes. With Mahratta audacity Jaswant Rao pushed on to Delhi, to capture Shah Alam and plunder Hindustan in the name of the Great Mogul. He was beaten off from Delhi by the small garrison under Colonel Ochterlony, but the Jhat Raja of Bhurtpore received him with open arms in that huge clay fortress, the stronghold of the predatory system of the eighteenth century, which to this day is the wonder of Hindustan. Holkar left his guns in the fortress and went out to plunder; and Lake, instead of following him up, wasted four months in a futile attempt to capture the Bhurtpore fortress without a siege train.

Reversal of Lord Wellesley's policy, 1805.

§6. The retreat of Monson was not only a disastrous blow to British prestige, but ruined for a while the reputation of Lord Wellesley. Because a Mahratta freebooter had broken loose in Hindustan, the Home authorities imagined that all the Mahratta powers had risen against the imperial policy of the Governor-General. Lord Wellesley was recalled from his post, and Lord Cornwallis was sent out to take his place, to reverse the policy of his illustrious predecessor, to scuttle out of Western Hindustan, to restore all the ceded territories, to surrender all the captured fortresses, and to abandon large tracts of country to be plundered and devastated by the Mahrattas, as they had been from the days of Sivaji to those of Wellesley and Lake.

Death of Lord Cornwallis.

Before Lord Cornwallis reached Bengal the political outlook had brightened. Jaswant Rao Holkar was flying into the Punjab from General Lake, and was soon brought to bay. Daulat Rao Sindia was repenting his desertion from the British alliance. The Jhat Raja of Bhurtpore had implored forgiveness and paid a heavy fine. But Lord Cornwallis was sixty-seven years of age, and had lost the nerve which he had displayed in his wars against Tippu; and he would have ignored the turn of the tide, and persisted in falling back on the old policy of conciliation and non-intervention, had not death cut short his career before he had been ten weeks in the country.

Sir George Barlow's half measures, 1806.

Sir George Barlow, a Bengal civilian, succeeded for a while to the post of Governor-General, as a provisional arrangement. He had been a member of Council under both Wellesley and Cornwallis, and he halted between the two. He refused to restore the conquered territories to Sindia and the Bhonsla, but he gave back the Indore principality to Holkar, together with the captured fortresses. Worst of all, he annulled most of the protective treaties with the Rajput princes on the ground that they had deserted the British government during Monson's retreat from Jaswant Rao Holkar.

Non-intervention: sad results.

For some years the policy of the British government was a half-hearted system of non-intervention. Public opinion in the British Isles, as expressed by Parliament and Ministers, was impressed with the necessity for maintaining friendly relations with the Mahrattas, and for abstaining from any measure which might tend to a renewal of hostilities. The fact was ignored that Mahratta independence meant plunder and devastation, and that British supremacy meant order and law. Accordingly the Mahratta princes were left to plunder and collect chout in Rajputana, and practically to make war on each other, so long as they respected the territories of the British government and its allies. The result was that the Peishwa was brooding over his lost suzerainty; Sindia and the Bhonsla were mourning over their lost territories; and Jaswant Rao Holkar was drowning his intellects in cherry brandy, which he procured from Bombay, until he was seized with delirium tremens, and confined as a madman. All this while an under-current of intrigue was at work between Indian courts, which served in the end to revive wild hopes of getting rid of British supremacy, and rekindling the old aspirations for war and rapine.

Sepoy revolt at Vellore, 1806.

§7. In 1806 the peace of India was broken by an alarm from a very different quarter. In those days India was so remote from the British Isles that the existence of the British government mainly depended on the loyalty of its sepoy armies. Suddenly it was discovered that the Madras army was on the brink of mutiny. The British authorities at Madras had introduced an obnoxious head-dress resembling a European hat, in the place of the old time-honoured turban, and had, moreover, forbidden the sepoys to appear on parade with earrings and caste marks. India was astounded by a revolt of the Madras sepoys at the fortress of Vellore, about eight miles to the westward of Arcot. The fallen families of Hyder and Tippu were lodged in this fortress, and many of Tippu's old soldiers were serving in the garrison; and these people taunted the sepoys about wearing hats and becoming Christians, whilst some secret intriguing was going on for restoring Mohammedan ascendency in Southern India, under the deposed dynasty of Mysore.

Slaughter of British officers.

The garrison at Vellore consisted of about four hundred Europeans and fifteen hundred sepoys. At midnight, without warning, the sepoys rose in mutiny. One body fired on the European barracks until half the soldiers were killed or wounded. Another body fired on the houses of the British officers, and shot them down as they rushed out to know the cause of the uproar. All this while provisions were distributed amongst the sepoys by the Mysore princes, and the flag of Mysore was hoisted over the fortress.

Suppression of mutiny; recall of Bentinck.

Fortunately the news was carried to Arcot, where Colonel Gillespie commanded a British garrison. Gillespie at once galloped to Vellore with a troop of British dragoons and two field guns. The gates of Vellore were blown open; the soldiers rushed in; four hundred mutineers were cut down, and the outbreak was over. The Home authorities wanted a scapegoat; and Lord William Bentinck, the governor of Madras, and Sir John Craddock, the commander-in-chief of the Madras army, were recalled. Fifty years afterwards, when the Bengal army broke out in mutiny on the score of greased cartridges, many an old officer wished that a Gillespie, with the independent authority of a Gillespie, had been in command at Barrackpore.

Lord Minto, 1807-13: lawless condition of Bundelkund.

§8. In 1807 Lord Minto succeeded Barlow as Governor-General. He broke the spell of non-intervention. South of the river Jumna, between the frontiers of Bengal and those of Sindia and Holkar, are the hills and jungles of Bundelkund. For centuries the chiefs of Bundelkund had never been more than half conquered. They never paid tribute to Mogul or Mahratta unless compelled by force of arms; and they kept the country in constant anarchy by their lawless acts and endless feuds.

British conquest.

When the Peishwa accepted the British alliance, he ceded Bundelkund for the maintenance of the Poona Subsidiary Force. Of course the cession was a sham. The Peishwa ceded territory which only nominally belonged to him, and the British were too happy in concluding a subsidiary alliance to inquire too nicely into his sovereign rights over Bundelkund. The result was that the chiefs of Bundelkund defied the British as they defied the Peishwa, and Sir George Barlow sacrificed revenue and ignored brigandage rather than interfere with his western neighbours. Lord Minto found that there were a hundred and fifty leaders of banditti in Bundelkund, who held as many fortresses, settled all disputes by the sword, and offered an asylum to all the bandits and burglars that escaped from British territory. Lord Minto organised an expedition which established for a while something like peace and order in Bundelkund, and secured the collection of tribute with a regularity which had been unknown for centuries.

Dangers in the Punjab.

Lord Minto's main work was to keep Napoleon and the French out of India. The north-west frontier was still vulnerable, but the Afghans had retired from the Punjab, and the once famous Runjeet Singh had founded a Sikh kingdom between the Indus and the Sutlej. As far as the British were concerned, the Sikhs formed a barrier against the Afghans; and Runjeet Singh was apparently friendly, for he had refused to shelter Jaswant Rao Holkar in his flight from Lord Lake. But there was no knowing what Runjeet Singh might do if the French found their way to Lahore. To crown the perplexity, the Sikh princes on the British side of the river Sutlej, who had done homage to the British government during the campaigns of Lord Lake, were being conquered by Runjeet Singh, and were appealing to the British government for protection.

Mission to Runjeet Singh, 1808-9.

In 1808-9 a young Bengal civilian, named Charles Metcalfe, was sent on a mission to Lahore. The work before him was difficult and complicated, and somewhat trying to the nerves. The object was to secure Runjeet Singh as a useful ally against the French and Afghans, whilst protecting Sikh states on the British side of the Sutlej, namely, Jhind, Nabha, and Patiala.

Runjeet Singh was naturally disgusted at being checked by British interference. It was unfair, he said, for the British to wait until he had conquered the three states, and then to demand possession. Metcalfe cleverly dropped the question of justice, and appealed to Runjeet Singh's self-interest. By giving up the three states, Runjeet Singh would secure an alliance with the British, a strong frontier on the Sutlej, and freedom to push his conquests on the north and west. Runjeet Singh took the hint. He withdrew his pretensions from the British side of the Sutlej, and professed a friendship which remained unbroken until his death in 1839; but he knew what he was about. He conquered Cashmere on the north, and he wrested Peshawar from the Afghans; but he refused to open his dominions to British trade, and he was jealous to the last of any attempt to enter his territories.

Missions to Persia and Afghanistan.

About the same time Lord Minto sent John Malcolm on a second mission to Persia, and Mountstuart Elphinstone on a mission to Cabul to provide against French invasion. Neither mission was followed by any practical result, but they opened up new countries to European ideas, and led to the publication of works on Persia and Afghanistan by the respective envoys, which have retained their interest to this day.

Capture of Mauritius and Java.

Meanwhile the war against France and Napoleon had extended to eastern waters. The island of the Mauritius had become a French depôt for frigates and privateers, which swept the seas from Madagascar to Java, until the East India Company reckoned its losses by millions, and private traders were brought to the brink of ruin. Lord Minto sent one expedition, which wrested the Mauritius from the French; and he conducted another expedition in person, which wrested the island of Java from the Dutch, who at that time were the allies of France. The Mauritius has remained a British possession until this day, but Java was restored to Holland at the conclusion of the war.

Anarchy in Rajputana.

§9. During the struggle against France difficulties were arising in Western Hindustan. The princes of Rajputana had been engaged in wars and feuds amongst themselves from a remote antiquity, but for nearly a century they had been also exposed to the raids and depredations of Mahratta armies. Lord Wellesley had brought the Rajput princes into subsidiary alliance with the British government, but the treaties had been annulled by Sir George Barlow, and war and pillage were as rampant as ever. The evil had been aggravated by the rise of Afghan adventurers, who had conquered territories and founded new kingdoms in central India amidst the prevailing anarchy; whilst a low class of freebooters, known as Pindharies, plundered the villagers in the skirts of the Mahratta armies, or robbed and pillaged the surrounding territories, with a savage ferocity which rendered them a pest and terror.