The History of the Indian Revolt and of the Expeditions to Persia, China and Japan 1856-7-8

2. Having in documents which have been presented to parliament expressed their sentiments fully on all the general features of the subject, the Court refrain from offering any further arguments on points upon which the government and the House of Commons seem to have pronounced a decided opinion. The joint government of a minister and a council, composed in majority of persons of Indian experience, deriving their appointments only partially from ministerial nomination, and all of them holding office on a tenure independent of the minister, is a combination which fulfils to a considerable extent the conditions of a good organ of government for India. The Court would have much preferred that in the constitution of the council more extensive recourse had been had to the elective principle. But if they cannot hope that this course will be adopted, they see many advantages in the provision by which one-half the number, instead of being named by the government, will be selected by a responsible body, intimately connected with India, to whom the qualification of candidates will in general be accurately known, and who will be under strong inducements to make such a choice as will tend to increase the credit and consideration of the body.

3. With regard to the qualifications prescribed for members of council, the Court desire to offer a suggestion. Her Majesty’s present government have, on many occasions, expressed a desire to secure the Crown appointments against the evils of abuse of patronage. The security against such abuse has hitherto consisted in the strict limitation of the appointments to persons who have served a considerable number of years in India. While the Court fully agree with her Majesty’s government in recognising the desirableness of an English element, it does not seem to them advisable that this element should extend to nearly half the council, only a bare majority being reserved for persons of Indian experience. Knowledge of India is, after all, the most important requisite for a seat in the Indian Council; while it is chiefly in the English nominations that there is any present danger lest appointments should be obtained through political or parliamentary influence – from which influence, unless introduced through that channel, the council, like the Court of Directors, may be expected to be altogether free. The Court, therefore, recommend that the qualification of ten years’ Indian service or residence be made imperative on at least two-thirds instead of a mere majority of the fifteen members of council. They also think it questionable if the interests of India will be promoted by the exclusion of the whole of the members of the council from seats in parliament. These are the only modifications which we are requested to suggest in the provisions respecting the composition of the council.

[The remaining objections made by the Directors were little more than a repetition of those made against the first and second bills (given in extenso in a preceding page); and need not be reproduced here. The Directors expressed a dislike or apprehension of the subordinate position in which the Council would be placed; of the autocratic power to be possessed by the Secretary for India; of the transference of the powers of the Secret Committee wholly and solely to him; of the proposed mode of making appointments and exercising patronage; of any disturbance in the mode of auditing accounts; and of the appointment of any Commission of Inquiry in India which should appear derogatory to the dignity of the local governments. Many of these objections were listened to, and were productive of modifications during the discussion of the bill. The result will be seen in the next article of this Appendix.]

Abstract of Act for the Better Government of India – 21 and 22 Vict. cap. 106. – Received Royal Assent August 2, 1858. (See p. 573.)

Transfer of Governing Powers

I. Governing powers transferred from the East India Company to the Crown.

II. All rights, territories, revenues, and liabilities similarly transferred.

III. A Secretary of State to exercise all the governing powers heretofore exercised by Court of Directors, Court of Proprietors, and Board of Control.

IV. Provision concerning sitting of secretary and under-secretary in House of Commons.

V. Concerning re-election of secretaries to House of Commons.

VI. Secretary of State for India to receive salary equal to those of other secretaries of state.

Council of India

VII. A Council of India, of 15 persons, to be formed.

VIII. Court of Directors to elect 7 members of this Council, from among persons possessing certain qualifications; and the Crown to appoint the other 8.

IX. Vacancies among the 8 to be filled up by the Crown; and among the other 7, by election by the Council.

X. Nine members of the Council, at least, must have had not less than ten years’ experience in India.

XI. Members to hold office for life, or during good behaviour.

XII. Members not to sit in parliament.

XIII. Annual salary of £1200 to each member.

XIV. Members may resign; if after ten years’ service, on a pension of £500, subject to certain conditions.

XV. Secretaries and other officers of Company to become officers of Council of India – subject to any changes afterwards made by Privy Council and sanctioned by parliament.

XVI. Secretary in Council to make all subsequent appointments in the home establishment.

XVII. Compensation to such officers of the Company as are not retained permanently by the Council.

XVIII. Any officer of the Company, transferred to the service of the Council, to have a claim to the same pension or superannuation allowance as if the change of government had not taken place.

Duties and Proceedings of the Council

XIX. Council to conduct affairs of India in England; but all correspondence to be in the name of the Secretary of State.

XX. Secretary of State may divide the Council into committees.

XXI. Secretary of State to sit and vote as president, and appoint vice-president.

XXII. Five to be a quorum; meetings convened by Secretary of State not fewer than one each week.

XXIII. Secretary of State to decide questions on which members differ. Any dissentient member may require his opinion to be placed upon record.

XXIV. Secretary’s proceedings to be open to all the Council, except in ‘secret service’ dispatches.

XXV. Secretary to give reasons for any exercise of his veto against the decision of the majority.

XXVI. Secretary allowed to overrule the two preceding clauses in urgent cases.

XXVII. Functions of the ‘secret committee’ transferred to Secretary of State.

XXVIII. Dispatches marked ‘secret’ not to be opened by members of Council.

Appointments and Patronage

XXIX. Of the high appointments in India, some to be made by the Crown, some by the Council, and some by the Governor-general.

XXX. Inferior appointments to be made as heretofore, except transference of patronage from Court of Directors to Council.

XXXI. Special provision for civil service in India.

XXXII. Secretary in Council to make rules for examination of persons intended for junior situations in civil service of India.

XXXIII. Appointments to naval and military cadetships to vest in the Crown.

XXXIV. Competitive examinations for engineers and artillery of the Indian army.

XXXV. A certain ratio of cadetships to be given to the sons of persons who have served in India.

XXXVI. All the other cadetships to be in the gift of the members of the Council, subject to approval; the Secretary of State to have twice as many nominations as an ordinary member.

XXXVII. In all unchanged rules concerning appointments, power of Court of Directors to be vested in Council.

XXXVIII. The same in reference to any dismissal from service.

Transfer of Property

XXXIX. Company’s property, credits, and debits, to revert to the Crown – except the East India Stock and the dividends thereon.

XL. Secretary in Council may buy, sell, or borrow, in the name of the Crown, for the service of India.

Revenues

XLI. Expenditure of revenues in India wholly under Secretary in Council.

XLII. Liabilities of Company, and dividends on India stock, to be borne by Secretary in Council out of revenues of India.

XLIII. Secretary in Council to keep a cash account with the Bank of England, and to be responsible for all payments in relation to India revenue.

XLIV. Transfer of cash balance from the Company to the Council.

XLV. A stock account to be opened at Bank of England.

XLVI. Transfer of stock accounts.

XLVII. Mode of managing Council’s finances at the Bank.

XLVIII. Transfer of Exchequer bills, &c., from Company to Council.

XLIX. Power of issuing bonds, debentures, &c.

L. Provisions concerning forgery.

LI. Regulations of audit department.

LII. The Crown to appoint auditor of Indian accounts, to whom all needful papers are to be sent by Secretary in Council.

LIII. Annual accounts to be furnished to parliament of the revenue and expenditure of India; accompanied by reports on the moral and material progress of the several presidencies.

LIV. War in India to be made known to parliament within a specified period.

LV. India revenues not to pay for wars unconnected with India.

Existing Establishments

LVI. Company’s army and navy transferred to the Crown, but with all existing contracts and engagements holding good.

LVII. Future powers as to conditions of service.

LVIII. All commissions held under the Company to be valid as under the Crown.

LIX. Regulations of service to be subject to future change, if deemed necessary.

LX. Court of Directors and Court of Proprietors cease to hold power in reference to government of India.

LXI. Board of Control abolished.

LXII. Records and archives of Company to be given up to Council – except stock and dividend books.

LXIII. Powers of Governor-general, on assuming duties of that office.

LXIV. Existing enactments and provisions to remain in force, unless specially repealed.

Actions and Contracts

LXV. Secretary in Council may sue and be sued as a body corporate.

LXVI. And may take the place of the Company in any still-pending actions.

LXVII. Treaties and covenants made by the Company to remain binding.

LXVIII. Members not personally liable for such treaties or covenants.

LXIX. A Court of Directors still to exist, but in smaller number than before, and having powers relating only to the management of the Company’s dividend and a few minor subjects.

LXX. Quarterly courts not in future obligatory.

LXXI. Company’s liability ceases, on all matters now taken under the care of the Council.

Saving of Certain Rights of the Company

LXXII. Secretary in Council to pay dividends on India stock out of India revenue.

LXXIII. Dividends to constitute a preferential charge.

Commencement of the Act

LXXIV. Commences thirty days after day of receiving royal assent.

LXXV. Company’s orders to be obeyed in India until the change of government shall have been proclaimed in the several presidencies.

The Indian Mutiny Relief Fund. (See p. 226.)

This noble manifestation of kind feeling towards the sufferers in India, which originated in a public meeting held in London on the 25th of August 1857, assumed munificent proportions during the next following year, when the colonists and Englishmen residing abroad had had time to respond to the appeal made to them. In a report prepared by the Committee, on the 1st of November 1858, it was announced that the sum placed in their charge amounted, up to that time, to £434,729. They had remitted £127,287 to India, there to be distributed by auxiliary local committees; they had assisted sufferers after their return to, or during their residence in, the home country, to the extent of £35,757; and their management expenses had amounted to £6224. There remained, invested at interest, the sum of £265,461, applicable to further cases of need. It is interesting to notice the kind of persons to whom relief was afforded, on account of the varied privations to which the mutiny had subjected them. The sum of £35,757 expended in England, was mostly in donations to the following numbers and classes of persons:

Queen Victoria’s Proclamation to the Princes, Chiefs, and People of India. – Read in the principal Cities of India, November 1, 1858. (See p. 612.)

Victoria, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and of the Colonies and Dependencies thereof in Europe, Asia, Africa, America, and Australasia, Queen, Defender of the Faith.

Whereas, for divers weighty reasons, we have resolved, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons in Parliament assembled, to take upon ourselves the government of the territories in India, heretofore administered in trust for us by the Honourable East India Company:

Now, therefore, we do by these presents notify and declare that, by the advice and consent aforesaid, we have taken upon ourselves the said government; and we hereby call upon all our subjects within the said territories to be faithful and to bear true allegiance to us, our heirs and successors, and to submit themselves to the authority of those whom we may hereafter from time to time see fit to appoint to administer the government of our said territories, in our name and on our behalf.

And we, reposing especial trust and confidence in the loyalty, ability, and judgment of our right trusty and well-beloved cousin and councillor, Charles John Viscount Canning, do hereby constitute and appoint him, the said Viscount Canning, to be our first Viceroy and Governor-general in and over our said territories, and to administer the government thereof in our name, and generally to act in our name and on our behalf: subject to such orders and regulations as he shall, from time to time, receive from us through one of our principal Secretaries of State.

And we do hereby confirm in their several offices, civil and military, all persons now employed in the service of the Honourable East India Company, subject to our future pleasure, and to such laws and regulations as may hereafter be enacted.

We hereby announce to the native Princes of India that all treaties and engagements made with them by or under the authority of the Honourable East India Company, are by us accepted, and will be scrupulously maintained; and we look for the like observance on their part.

We desire no extension of our present territorial possessions; and while we will permit no aggression upon our dominions or our rights to be attempted with impunity, we shall sanction no encroachment on those of others. We shall respect the rights, dignity, and honour of native princes as our own; and we desire that they, as well as our own subjects, should enjoy that prosperity and that social advancement which can only be secured by internal peace and good government.

We hold ourselves bound to the natives of our Indian territories by the same obligations of duty which bind us to all our other subjects; and those obligations, by the blessing of Almighty God, we shall faithfully and conscientiously fulfil.

Firmly relying ourselves on the truth of Christianity, and acknowledging with gratitude the solace of religion, we disclaim alike the right and the desire to impose our convictions on any of our subjects. We declare it to be our Royal will and pleasure that none be in anywise favoured, none molested or disquieted, by reason of their religious faith or observances, but that all shall alike enjoy the equal and impartial protection of the law; and we do strictly charge and enjoin all those who may be in authority under us that they abstain from all interference with the religious belief or worship of any of our subjects, on pain of our highest displeasure.

And it is our further will that, so far as may be, our subjects, of whatever race or creed, be freely and impartially admitted to offices in our service, the duties of which they may be qualified, by their education, ability, and integrity, duly to discharge.

We know and respect the feelings of attachment with which the natives of India regard the lands inherited by them from their ancestors, and we desire to protect them in all rights connected therewith, subject to the equitable demands of the State; and we will that, generally, in framing and administering the law, due regard be paid to the ancient rights, usages, and customs of India.

We deeply lament the evils and misery which have been brought upon India by the acts of ambitious men, who have deceived their countrymen by false reports, and led them into open rebellion. Our power has been shewn by the suppression of that rebellion in the field; we desire to shew our mercy by pardoning the offences of those who have been thus misled, but who desire to return to the path of duty.

Already in one province, with a view to stop the further effusion of blood, and to hasten the pacification of our Indian dominions, our Viceroy and Governor-general has held out the expectation of pardon, on certain terms, to the great majority of those who in the late unhappy disturbances have been guilty of offences against our government; and has declared the punishment which will be inflicted on those whose crimes place them beyond the reach of forgiveness. We approve and confirm the said act of our Viceroy and Governor-general, and do further announce and proclaim as follows:

Our clemency will be extended to all offenders, save and except those who have been or shall be convicted of having directly taken part in the murder of British subjects.

With regard to such, the demands of justice forbid the exercise of mercy.

To those who have willingly given asylum to murderers, knowing them to be such, or who may have acted as leaders or instigators in revolt, their lives alone can be guaranteed; but in appointing the penalty due to such persons, full consideration will be given to the circumstances under which they have been induced to throw off their allegiance; and large indulgence will be shewn to those whose crimes may appear to have originated in a too credulous acceptance of the false reports circulated by designing men.

To all others in arms against the government, we hereby promise unconditional pardon, amnesty, and oblivion of all offences against ourselves, our crown and dignity, on their return to their homes and peaceful pursuits.

It is our Royal pleasure that these terms of grace and amnesty should be extended to all those who comply with their conditions before the first day of January next.

When, by the blessing of Providence, internal tranquillity shall be restored, it is our earnest desire to stimulate the peaceful industry of India, to promote works of public utility and improvement, and to administer its government for the benefit of all our subjects resident therein. In their prosperity will be our strength, in their contentment our security, and in their gratitude our best reward. And may the God of all power grant unto us, and to those in authority under us, strength to carry out these our wishes for the good of our people.

Viscount Canning’s Proclamation. – Issued at Allahabad, November 1, 1858. (See p. 612.)

Her Majesty the Queen having declared that it is her gracious pleasure to take upon herself the government of the British territories in India, the Viceroy and Governor-general hereby notifies that from this day all acts of the government of India will be done in the name of the Queen alone.

From this day, all men of every race and class who, under the administration of the Honourable East India Company, have joined to uphold the honour and power of England, will be the servants of the Queen alone.

The Governor-general summons them, one and all, each in his degree, and according to his opportunity, and with his whole heart and strength, to aid in fulfilling the gracious will and pleasure of the Queen, as set forth in her royal proclamation.

From the many millions of her Majesty’s native subjects in India, the Governor-general will now, and at all times, exact a loyal obedience to the call which, in words full of benevolence and mercy, their Sovereign has made upon their allegiance and faithfulness.

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE

1

The visitor to the British Museum, in one of the saloons of the Ethnological department, will find a very remarkable series of figures, modelled by a native Hindoo, of the individuals forming a gang of Thugs; all in their proper costumes, and all as they are (or were) usually engaged in the successive processes of entrapping, strangling, and burying a traveller, and then dividing the booty.

2

A young native princess was sent to England from this district to be educated as a Christian lady; and Queen Victoria became a sponsor for her at a baptismal ceremony.

3

Our Anglo-Indian Army.

4

Leitch Ritchie. British World in the East.

5

Edinburgh Review, No. 216.

6

When General Nott returned to India after his victorious campaign in Afghanistan in 1842, he brought away with him the gates of Somnauth, which, according to the tradition, had remained at Ghiznee since the days of Mahmoud. This and other trophies gave occasion to an address from Lord Ellenborough to the native princes of India, conceived in somewhat bombastic language, in which the recapture of the gates was characterised as an achievement ‘avenging the insult of eight hundred years.’ The chiefs and princes of Sirhind, Rajwarra, Malwah, and Gujarat, were enjoined to transmit, ‘with all honour,’ the gates to Somnauth. The address was much ridiculed in England; but those on the spot believed it to be calculated to make an impression on the natives. The home government, however, would not permit the gates – even if the genuine sandal-wood originals, which is not free from doubt – to be sent to the still-existing temple of Somnauth; they considered such an act would identify the Company injuriously with one of the two great parties of religionists in India, and deeply offend the other.

7

Quarterly Review, No. 204.

8

Rightly did the governor-general, when officially informed of this achievement, speak of ‘the noble and cool soldiership of the gallant defenders’ of the magazine: ‘The governor-general in council desires to offer his cordial thanks to Lieutenants Raynor and Forrest, and the other survivors among the brave men mentioned in this report, and to express the admiration with which he regards the daring and heroic conduct of Lieutenant G. D. Willoughby and the warrant and non-commissioned officers by whom he was supported on that occasion. Their names are Lieutenants Raynor and Forrest, Conductors Shaw, Buckley, Scully, Sub-conductor Crow, Sergeants Edwards and Stewart. The family of the late Conductor Scully, who so devotedly sacrificed himself in the explosion of the magazine, will be liberally provided for, should it be ascertained that they have survived him.’

9

By Mr Knighton, author of Forest Life in Ceylon.

10

Lacs or lakhs of rupees: a lac being 100,000, value about £10,000.

11

The word telegram, denoting a message sent, as distinguished from the telegraph which sends it, has been a subject of much discussion among Greek scholars, concerning the validity of the grammatical basis on which it is formed; but as the new term is convenient for its brevity and expressiveness, and as it has been much used by the governor-general and the various officers connected with India, it will occasionally be employed in this work.