His own regulations had strictly forbidden that
the banyan (or agent) of a collector should "be allowed to farm
lands or directly or indirectly hold any concern in any farm".
the banyan (or agent) of a collector should "be allowed to farm
lands or directly or indirectly hold any concern in any farm".
Cambridge History of India - v5 - British India
It was now
in ill repute, for while the Company itself was in serious financial
straits, its servants were returning to England with great fortunes.
For its failure in India we have to go no further than the admissions
of some of the Company's servants who were endeavouring to
administer it.
"It must give pain to an Englishman", wrote Becher, Resident at Murshi-
dabad in 1769, "to have reason to think, that since the accession of the Com-
pany to the Diwani, the condition of the people of this country has been worse
than it was before; and yet I am afraid the fact is undoubted. . . . This fine
country, which flourished under the most despotic and arbitrary government,
is. verging towards its ruin, while the English have really so great a share in
the administration. "2
And again :
I well remember this country when Trade was free and the flourishing
state it was then in; with concern I now see its present ruinous condition. . . . 3
Furthermore, the directors strongly suspected that the naib diwans
were intercepting a great part of the revenue that ought to have
reached the Company's exchequer.
Such was the state of things which Hastings was called upon
to deal. He was definitely appointed to put an end to the dual
system. He was, in fact, selected to take the place of the three super-
visors, Scrafton, Forde and Vansittart, to whose tragic end we have
just referred. "We now arm you with our full powers”, wrote the
Company, "to make a complete reformation. ” 4 The responsibility
therefore was very great. Though he was given definite instructions
on most points, it is to a certain extent true, as Lord Thurlow says,
that he was ordered “to destroy the whole fabric of the double
government . . . he was to form a system for the government of
Bengal, under instructions so general, that I may fairly say the whole
plan was left to his judgment and discretion”. 5 So, too, Hastings
claimed for himself: "The first acts of the government of Bengal,
when I presided over it, were well known at the time to have been of
my formation, or formed on principles which I was allowed to
dictate". For good or ill, then, the internal reforms in Bengal prior
.
1. Idem, p. 89. Idem, p. 85. 3 Idem, p. 83. 4 Idem, p. 145.
5 Debates of the House of Lords, on the evidence delivered in the trial of
Warren Hastings. London, 1797, p. 132.
6 Selections from the State. Papers of the Governor-General Warren
Hastings, Ed. Horrest, II, 63.
## p. 208 (#236) ############################################
208
EARLY REFORMS OF HASTINGS IN BENGAL
"
1
1
to 1774 are mainly in their details at any rate the work of Warreu
Hastings and bear the stamp of his personality.
He had great difficulties to confront. Something like an Indian
Empire had grown up, but it had no administrative framework.
"The new government of the Company consists of a confused heap
of undigested materials, as wild as the chaos itself. " i "Our consti-
“
tution is nowhere to be traced but in ancient charters, which were
framed for the jurisdiction of your trading settlements, the sales of
your exports, and the provision of your annual investment. " 2 "I
found this government in possession of a great and rich dominion,
and a wide political system which has been since greatly extended,
without one rule of government, but what descended to it from its
ancient commercial institutions. " 3
He had to attack strong vested interests, and, what is more, he
had to try to strengthen an overweakened central government against
a too-powerful exterior ring of provincial powers. The political centre
of gravity had got seriously displaced. The government of the coun-
try, he wrote, consisted of the supervisors, the boards of revenue at
Murshidabad and Patna, the governor and council at Calcutta. Hast-
ings is, of course, naming these powers in exactly the reverse of their
theoretical position in the hierarchy of administration, but, as he
says, "the order in which I have named them is not accidental, but
consonant to the degree of trust, power and emolument which they
severally possess”. 4 In the government of Bengal "all trust, power
and profit are in the hands of its deputies, and the degree of each
proportionate to their want of rank in the service”. : He tells us else-
where that “every man capable of business runs away to the col-
lectorships or other lucrative stations. . . . . At the Presidency, where
the best assistance is required, the worst only can be had. . . ".
The reforms themselves fall under three heads, first the commer-
cial reforms, secondly, the reform of the judicature and the settlement
of land revenue, dealt with elsewhere, and thirdly, all those measures
which followed on the abolition of the dual government in pursuance
of the Company's professed intention "to stand forth as Diwan".
Hastings's commercial reforms involved the following changes.
He abolished in March, 1775, the fraudulent use of the dystuck or
free pass under which the goods of the Company's servants or their
agents were exempted from dues. Thus the old problem which had
haunted so disastrously the administrations of Vansittart and Verelst
was at last settled. He suppressed the custom-houses (or chokeys)
in the zamindaris, which were a great impediment to the free circu-
lation of goods. Only five central custom-houses were henceforth
maintained, at Calcutta, Hugli, Murshidabad, Patna and Dacca. Lastly,
he carried out a uniform lowering of the duties to 242 per cent. on ail
1 Gleig, op. cit. I, 317.
? Idem, p. 368.
3 Idem, d, 148.
4 Monckton Jones, Warren Hastings in Bengal, p. 148.
5 Idem, p. 146.
Gleig, op. cit. I, 300.
6
## p. 209 (#237) ############################################
MUHAMMAD REZA KHAN
209
2
goods, except the monopolies of salt, betel-nut and tobacco, to be
paid by all Europeans and Indians alike. These reforms were entirely
beneficial. It is true they were all ordered by the court of directors,
but Hastings entirely assented, carried out the details with expert
knowledge and adroitness, and smoothed away all opposition by his
tactful methods. They did much to revive the decaying internal trade
of Bengal. Hastings could with some justice boast that “goods pass
unmolested to the extremities of the province”. 1
Hastings's modification of the land revenue system and the reform
of the judicature will be dealt with elsewhere. But something must
be said of the abolition of the dual government. Formally it meant
no more than that the Company should henceforth collect the revenues
through the agency of its own servants. But in reality, and in the
peculiar political and economic position of Bengal, it meant becoming
responsible for the whole civil administration. Hastings hardly
exaggerated when he described it as “implanting the authority of
the Company, and the sovereignty of Great Britain, in the constitu-
tion of this country”. The first step was the abolition of the offices
of naib diwan of Bengal and Behar, and the prosecution of Muham-
mad Reza Khan and Shitab Rai for peculation. After undergoing a
long trial and being kept in custody for rather more than a year they
were both acquitted. Shitab Rai was entirely cleared, and Hastings
declared he scarce knew why he was called to account. He was
reappointed to high office in Patna as rai-raian of Bihar, but died soon
afterwards, largely it was supposed from illness brought on by the
anxieties and discredit of his imprisonment. Hastings recorded his
epitaph and revealed his own regret for the whole proceeding when
he wrote:
He ever served the Company with a fidelity, integrity and ability which
they can hardly expect to experience in any future officer of government, whom
they may choose from the same class of people. 2
Muhammad Reza Khan was also acquitted, but Grant held that he
had for years intercepted much of the revenue due to the Company.
Hastings believed that he was culpable but that it was impossible in
view of his wide connections and past precautions to bring him to
account. The whole incident is a curious one and not very easy to
understand. The least reputable feature of it was the expedient of
using "the abilities, observation and active malignity of Maharaja
Nandakumar" to attack Muhammad Reza Khan, but the responsi-
bility for that lies with the court of directors and not with Hastings.
It is clear that the latter looked upon the whole business with the
greatest distaste. “These retrospections and examinations”, he wrote,
"are death to my views”. 4 He was eager to get on with his work of
reformation, and he could foresee clearly enough that he would not
1 Gleig, op. cit. I, 304.
2 Idem, II, p. 30.
3 Monckton Jones, Warren Hastings in Bengal, p. 199.
4 Gleig, op. cit. , I, 283.
14
## p. 210 (#238) ############################################
210
EARLY REFORMS OF HASTINGS IN BENGAL
escape censure for having brought the trials “to so quiet and unim-
portant an issue". 1 In this he was not mistaken. Among the charges
afterwards brought against him by Nandakumar was one that the
two accused men had offered Hastings and himself enormous bribes
for an acquittal.
A third reform was the reduction from thirty-two to sixteen lakhs
of rupees of the sum paid to the nawab from the revenue of Bengal.
This was the third reduction of this tribute; originally in 1765 it had
been fifty-three lakhs, in 1766 it had been reduced to forty-one, and
in 1769 to thirty-two. As this change was carried out under direct
orders of the court of directors, neither credit nor discredit can fairly
be attributed to Hastings for the principle involved, but the skill
with which he so reformed the administration that the nawab actually
received more than before for his personal requirements, is all his
own.
Fourthly, we have a reform which in the eyes of Hastings was of
the greatest importance, namely, the removal of the treasury or
khalsa from Murshidabad to Calcutta. This was the method taken
by Hastings to rectify that displacement of the political gravity of
the British administration which has been already referred to.
“The Board of Revenue”, write Hastings, “at Murshidabad, though com-
posed of the junior servants of the Company, was superior before this alteration,
to the governor and council of the presidency. Calcutta is now the capital of
Bengal, and every office and trust of the province issues from it. ” 2
Again :
The seat of government [is] most effectually and visibly transferred from
Murshidabad to Calcutta, which I do not despair of seeing the first city in
Asia, if I live and am supported but a few years longer. 3
Fifthly, we come to an expedient which is much more difficult to
judge. In reorganising the household of the nawab of Bengal, who
was still in his minority, Hastings decided to appoint as his guardian
not only a princess, which considering the secluded position of women
in the East was itself unusual, but one who was not even the nearest
relative to the nawab. He passed over the prince's mother and he
appointed the widow of a former nawab, Mir Ja'far, who was known
as the Munni Begam. Rajah Gurdas, son of Nandakumar, was at the
same time appointed steward of the household. For these appoint-
ments Hastings was afterwards vehemently censured, and indeed
they do seem to require justification. The princess was said, appa-
rently with truth, to have been originally a dancing girl in the court.
Burke stigmatised Hastings's act as "violent, atrocious and corrupt”,
and one of Hastings's own justifications that the begam's “interest
must lead her to concur with all the designs of the Company, and to
solicit their patronage” 5—may itself be described as of a highly
1 Gleig, op. cit. I, 391.
2 Idem, p. 271. 3 Idem, p. 285.
4 Bond, Speeches in the Trial of Warren Hastings, I. 32.
5 Gleig, op. cit. I, 254.
## p. 211 (#239) ############################################
EXTENT OF REFORMS
211
questionable nature. Lord Thurlow afterwards protested against the
attacks on the princess :
“Whatever situation”, he said, “she may have filled in her very early life,
she held the rank of the first woman in Bengal for nearly forty years, the
wife of one prince, the mother of another and the guardian of two other
princes. ” 1
It may be said at any rate that Hastings's choice received the approval
of the court of directors. The evidence is conflicting as to the begam's
treatment of the young nawab. When in 1775 the majority of the
council divested the begam of her guardianship and appointed
Muhammad Reza Khan, the British officer who carried out the
change reported that the nawab was rejoiced to recover his freedom,
and complained that he had been stinted of his proper allowance,
and debarred from all opportunity of learning the work of adminis-
tration. The officer expressed his personal belief in the truth of these
statements, but the facts and the deductions from them were disputed
by the Resident at Murshidabad. 2
Before pronouncing a final verdict on the work of these two years,
1772-4, we may for a moment consider the question how far Hastings
secured for the future a real purification of the British administration
in Bengal-how far the moral of the Company's servants was raised
and improved. Undoubtedly he effected much. Recent writers have
maintained that, when Hastings returned to England in 1785, the
whole system of administration had been purified, clarified and
reorganised, and, to support this contention, we have on record an
early letter of Sir John Shore, then a junior servant of the Company,
written in 1782, in which he says:
The road to opulence grows daily narrower, and is more crowded with com-
petitors . . . . the court and directors are actuated with such a spirit of reforma-
tion and retrenchment, and so well seconded by Mr. Hastings, that it seems
the rescission of all our remaining emoluments will alone suffice it. The Com-
pany's service is in fact rendered an employ not very desirable,3
But we can only accept the theory that Hastings purified the ad-
ministration with considerable qualifications. In contrast to such
contention we must set the fact that the nearer we get back to
Hastings's own time, the less belief do we find in this theory of
the entire reformation of the Company's service. Sir John Malcolm
is probably much nearer the truth when he writes that Hastings's
“most strenuous advocates . . . while they defend his personal inte-
grity, are forced to acknowledge that the whole system of the govern-
1 Debates of the House of Lords in the Evidence. . . , p. 145.
2 Forrest, Selections from Letters, Despatches and other State Papers pre-
served in the Foreign Department of the Government of India, 1772-1785, I,
381, 385.
8 Lord Teignmouth, Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of John Lord
Teianmouth,, I, 39
## p. 212 (#240) ############################################
212
EARLY REFORMS OF HASTINGS IN BENGAL
ment over which he presided was corrupt and full of abuses". 1 Had
there been a complete purification of the service, there would
surely have been nothing for Lord Cornwallis to do, when he came
to India in 1786, but we know that there was abundant material for
his reforming hand. The quotation from Sir John Shore proves, if
any proof were needed, that a vigorous attempt at reform was made,
but as regards results, it probably records the exaggerated apprehen-
sion of a junior servant of the Company, rather than an actual fact.
Certainly we may say that the effects anticipated by Shore did not
follow.
All this, however, is consistent with the assumption that Hastings
made a strenuous and loyal endeavour, as far as in him lay, to amend
and purify the service. Probably, short of staking his retention of
office upon the question, he did as much at first as was humanly
speaking possible. He may well have argued that to quarrel with the
court and to throw up his office, because more power was not allowed
him, would merely have ruined his own career without improving
the service. The trouble was that he got no consistent support from
home. One party among the directors were genuinely desirous of a
reform, but there was always another party from time to time in the
ascendant, who were prepared to connive at misconduct in their
servants, provided that the value of their own patronage was not
diminished. The plunder was to be had, and, as Cornwallis said, they
hoped in their struggle with Hastings to secure the greater part of
it. 2 Hastingsoin 1772 gives as one reason for abandoning his desire to
remove the collectors altogether, that,
there were amongst them so many sons, cousins, or élèves of Directors, and
intimates of the members of the Council, that it was better to let them remain
than provoke an army of opponents against every act of administration.
They continue, but their power is retrenched. 3
In the end, therefore, Hastings seems to have compromised to a
certain extent with evil, and to bind men to his interests, he freely
used the means of patronage at his disposal. To some extent he gave
up the struggle for reformation.
“I will neither be responsible", he wrote in 1772, "for the acts of others,
nor stand forth as the general reformer, and make every man whose friendship
and confidence are necessary for my support my inveterate enemy. ” 4
Again we find him writing of Wheler in 1781 : “I have made it a rule
to give him the first option in most vacant appointments, and have
provided handsomely for all his friends”. 5 It seems likely, too, that
having been obliged, if he wished to retain his power, in the days of
Francis's ascendancy in the council, to use questionable means to
1 Malcolm, Sketch of the Political History of India, ed. 1811, p. 40.
? Ross, Correspondence of Marquis Cornwallis, 1, 306.
3 Gleig, op. cit. 1, 269.
4 Idem, p. 319.
5 Idem, , 384.
## p. 213 (#241) ############################################
SALARIES AND ALLOWANCES
213
win support, his finer feelings became blunted. His carelessness in
money matters and his incapacity to keep any kind of accounts, or
to recognise the need of doing so, were proverbial, and amounted
to a grave fault.
His own regulations had strictly forbidden that
the banyan (or agent) of a collector should "be allowed to farm
lands or directly or indirectly hold any concern in any farm". Yet
his own banyan was found, with his knowledge and consent, to be
farming the revenues on a large scale. In regard to contracts and
commissions, Hastings undoubtedly entangled himself in financial
transactions of so questionable a nature, that it taxed the abilities of
his counsel to the utmost to defend him at the impeachment. There
can be no doubt, too, that by the end of his administration many
of his supporters among the Company's servants were enjoying
emoluments entirely disproportionate to the services they rendered.
Francis pointed out in parliament in 1785 that the cost of the civil
establishment of Bengal had risen from £251,533 in 1776 to £927,945
eight years later. There can be no possible doubt about these figures,
for Major Scott, who rose later in the debate to answer Francis, was
not able to call them in question, and, if it had been possible, he
would surely have done so. The rise was largely due to the enormous
emoluments of many of the Company's servants. The chief of thº
board that controlled the salt office received £18,480 a year. The
salaries of five other members ranged from £13,183 to £6257. Again,
salaries at the Board of Customs amounted to £23,070 among three
persons, and at the Conimittee of Revenue to £47,300 among five
persons. These statements are corroborated by a later speech of
Pitt in which it is mentioned that among the offices which were at
that time open to the servants of the East India Company, apart
from the governor-generalship and the office of councillor, were one
place of £25,000 a year, one of £15,000, five of £10,000 and five of
£9000. 2 . Now Hastings's defence in the case of the salt office was
that down to 1780 the Company had gained no profit from its salt
monopolies, but that after he had hit upon the expedient of allowing
10 per cent. on the profits, the Company in spite of the huge com-
missions paid to its servants acquired a net revenue of £540,000. It
seemed to him that these facts were a complete answer to Francis's
charge, but there was surely reason in the latter's contention that
before the commissions had risen to this height they ought, while still
being fixed at a generous scale, to have been retrenched. Apart from
this, it may well be asked at what cost to the ryots were these enor-
mous revenues derived from one of the prime necessities of life.
To return to the reforms of 1772-4. In judging them it is not
always easy to specify how many were due to the initiative of Hastings
himself, how many to the suggestions of others, and how many to the
direct orders of the court of directors. It is certainly clear that the
1
1 Parliamentary History, XXV, 146.
2 Idem, p. 538.
## p. 214 (#242) ############################################
214
EARLY REFORMS OF HASTINGS IN BENGAL
majority of them were enjoined from home. “I am little more”,
said Hastings on one occasion, “than the compiler of other men's
opinions. ” But what is also clear beyond any doubt, is the immense
ability, the cact, the urbanity with which they were carried. In every
period of history any notable political or social improvements, if
carefully investigated, will be found to be largely derived from a
common stock of enlightened contemporary opinion. Many of them
are in the air of the time. But to argue from this that credit must be
withheld from the statesman who finally carries them into actuality
is extremely unfair. The general impression forced upon any enquirer
by a perusal of the innumerable minutes, letters, consultations and
dispatches of these two years is that Hastings carried along parallel
lines, and contemporaneously, a great series of reforms, economic,
fiscal, judicial and social. They form a fine record of devoted and
laborious work and reveal in their author administrative capacities
of a unique kind. He is master of every branch of the enquiry, end-
lessly fertile in resource, convincing in argument, reasonable in
discussion. He toiled ceaselessly and encountered all opposition
dauntlessly. Yet the bitter tragedy of the whole thing was that,
before the work could be completed, power and authority were
snatched away from him, and years that would naturally have been
devoted to the further development of his great task were spent in
a desperate and sometimes almost a despairing effort to protect his
position, career and honour against a vindictive and cruel assault. He
speaks of his work by the metaphor of an unfinished building, “a
great and weighty fabric, of which all the parts were yet loose and
destitute of the superior weight, which was to give them their mutual
support and their . . . collateral strength". 2
1 Monckton Jones, Warren Hastings in Bengal, p. 151.
2 Selections from the State Papers of the Governors-General
Hastings, ed. Forrest, II, 64.
Warren
## p. 215 (#243) ############################################
CHAPTER XII
EXTERNAL RELATIONS AND THE
ROHILLA WAR
HAVING abolished the dual government set up by Clive,
Hastings had next to overhaul the system of relations established with
Indian princes. Clive's policy in this field had worked well for five
years, but changing circumstances had made revision necessary. At
the time of Clive's settlement northern India had been temporarily
free from the Maratha terror. It was the imminent renewal of that
menace which entirely altered the whole situation. The Marathas,
who in 1761 had been driven headlong into the Deccan after their
terrible rout at Panipat at the hands of Ahmad Shah, once more
recrossed the Narbada in 1769, and came surging northward again
to occupy Delhi in 1771. They offered to restore Shah 'Alam to his
throne and make his imperial title a reality. The emperor consulted
the English, who implored him to reject so dangerous and deceptive
a proposal. In spite of this, he agreed to the Maratha terms, and left
Allahabad in May, 1771. Though the English had protested, they
parted with him amicably. It was to prove a momentous and
calamitous decision, and the misguided emperor was never again to
return to British territory. For thirty-two years he was practically
a state prisoner in the hands of the Marathas or the Afghans. A year
after his restoration, the Marathas forced upon him a minister of
their own choice, and obliged him to make over to them the districts
of Kora and Allahabad. A new and delicate problem now con-
fronted the Company's servants. To continue to pay the tribute was
practically to subsidize its most formidable enemies. The Company
was bound to suffer for its own quixotic generosity. It had bound
itself to pay tribute, as Hastings said, to an idol of its own creation,
"not one of his natural subjects offered any kind of submission to his
authority, when we first fell down and worshipped it”. 1 With regard
to the districts there were four possible courses; to let the Marathas
occupy them, to take them ourselves, to keep them for Shah 'Alam,
or to give them back to Oudh. It was finally decided to discontinue
paying the tribute of twenty-six lakhs to Shah 'Alam on the ground
that "his desertion of us, and union with our enemies, leaves us
without a pretence to throw away more of the Company's property
upon him", and to restore Kora and Allahabad to the nawah of Oudh
(by the treaty of Benares) for fifty lakhs of rupees.
Hastings had no doubts and no reservations as to the desirability
2
1 Strachey, Hastings and the Rohilla War, p. 59.
2 Gleig, op. cit. I, 360.
## p. 216 (#244) ############################################
216
EXTERNAL RELATIONS AND THE ROHILLA WAR
of this course : “I am not apt to attribute a large share of merit to my
own actions, but I own that this is one of the few to which I can with
confidence affix my own approbation”. 1 He thus sums up the
advantages of his policy :
By ceding them to the (Nawab of Oudh), we strengthen our alliance with
him, we make him more dependent upon us, as he is more exposed to the
hostilities of the Marathas; we render a junction between him and them, which
has been sometimes apprehended, morally impossible, since their pretensions to
Korah will be a constant source of animosity between them; we free ourselves
from the expense and all the dangers attending either a remote property, or a
remote connection; we adhere literally to the limited system laid down by the
Honourable Court of Directors we provide effectually for the protection of
our frontier, and reduce the expenses of our army, even in employing it; and
lastly we acquire a nett sum of 50 lacs of rupees most seasonably obtained for
the relief of the Company's necessities. 2
This solution met with the support both of the council and the
directors, and it is difficult to see what other course was possible.
Yet it has been condemned, and was opposed by Sir Robert Barker.
Burke described it as a “shocking, horrible, and outrageous breach
of faith". 3 Mill says:
Generosity, had it any place in such arrangements, pleaded with almost
unexampled strength in behalf of the forlorn Emperor, the representative
of so illustrious a race, who now possessed hardly a roof to cover him. Justice
too, or something not easily distinguished from justice, spoke on the same side. 4
But Hastings and his council clearly require no defence. The districts
and the tribute, which was purely eleemosynary, had only been
granted to Shah 'Alam to support his imperial dignity while under
the protection of the British. When he handed them over to the
Marathas, morally—if not legally–ha forfeited his right to retain
them. The Company's course would no doubt have been clearer, and
its case stronger, if it had definitely warned the emperor, as it might
well have done, when he marched away to Delhi, that it would not
continue to pay tribute or allow him to retain the districts, should
he become dependent upon its enemies. It should also be remem-
bered that, before the decision to withhold the revenues was taken,
Shah 'Alam was asked to send representatives to Benares to state his
case, but that he omitted to do so.
The only other question worth consideration is whether there
was any possible alternative. Might not the Company have retained
Kora and Allahabad for itself? To this Hastings had two objections;
in the first place, it would be unwise to retain in our own hands the
administration of provinces entirely separated from the rest of our
territories. Secondly, as he afterwards said before the House of
i Gleig, op. cit. I, 355.
2 Forrest, Selections from State Papers in the Foreign Department of the
Government of India, I, 50.
3 Bond, Speeches in the Trial of Warren Hastings, IV, 759.
4 Mill, History of India, m, 397.
>
## p. 217 (#245) ############################################
THE ROHILLAS AND OUDH
217
Commons, we should then have excited the jealousy of the nawab
of Oudh, to whom the districts had formerly belonged, and so have
endangered our alliance with him. It is always worth while to
remember that the central pillar of Hastings's foreign policy was the
alliance with Oudh.
The other important problem of foreign affairs before the arrival
of the new council was the Rohilla War. Rohilkhand, a fertile country
lying along the base of the Himalayas, marched with the north-west
frontier of Oudh. Its area was about 12,000 square miles and its
population about 6,000,000. The bulk of the people were Hindus,
but the ruling race were Rohillas, that is mountaineers, or Pathans;
or Afghans, the words signifying much the same thing. The country
was governed by a loose confederacy of chiefs under the headship of
Rahmat Khan, generally known as Hafiz Rahmat Khan because he
had been guardian (hafiz) of the sons of the late ruler 'Ali Muham-
mad and had ultimately usurped their rights. The Rohillas had
established their power early in the eighteenth century.
The events leading up to the war must be briefly summarised. In
1772 the Marathas invaded and ravaged Rohilkhand. The Rohillas
thereupon appealed to the nawab of Oudh. They did so reluctantly,
for there was no cordiality between him and them. The nawab had
long notoriously coveted their territory. They knew that if it paid
him to do so, he would not hesitate to combine with the Marathas
against them, just as they in their turn had considered the possibility
of making peace with the invaders, by giving them a free passage
through their territory into Oudh. But both parties for the moment
dreaded a Maratha invasion more than anything in the world, and
this drove them into an uneasy alliance. In reality, as Sir John
Strachey observes, "The Vazier, the Rohillas and the Marathas were
all utterly unscrupulous and each knew that no trust could be placed
in either of the others". 1 We find, for instance, that the nawab asked
Hastings "whether he should persuade the Rohillas to attack the
Marathas . . . and take his advantage of both when they should have
weakened each other by mutual hostilities". British officers of a later
date would probably have improved the occasion by a homily on
political rectitude, and it is rather typical of Hastings—both of his
cynicism and his frankness—that, in his own words, "I commended
the project, but expressed my apprehension of the consequences”. 2
Finally, after the usual interval of intrigue and finesse, during
which the advice of Sir Robert Barker just availed to prevent the
nawab from joining the Marathas, a treaty of alliance was made, 17
June, 1772, between the Rohillas and Shuja-ud-daula. The Rohillas
agreed to pay him forty lakhs on his obliging the Marathas to retire
from their country “either by peace or war". The treaty was really
due to the initiative and intervention of Sir Robert Barker, the British
1 Strachey, Hastings and the Rohilla War, p. 49.
2 Idem, p. 113.
## p. 218 (#246) ############################################
218
EXTERNAL RELATIONS AND THE ROHILLA WAR
.
commander-in-chief, an intervention not at first welcomed by
nọt
Hastings and the Select Committee, and was signed in his presence.
Almost before the signatures. were appended, the Marathas evacuated
Rohilkhand, and the Rohillas reoccupied the country.
The casus foederis arose in 1773. In the spring the Marathas
re-entered Rohilkhand at Ramghat. The nawab of Oudh, with a
British brigade in support under Sir Robert Barker, advanced to
repel the invasion. After some, manoeuvring and counter-marching
the detachments of the Marathas which had crossed the Ganges (the
Inain body seem to have remained on the other bank) recrossed the
river on 28 March. In May the revolution at Poona, which broke
out on the death of the Peshwa, Madhu Rao, caused the Marathas
to return to the Deccan, leaving only a few small garrisons in Northern
India. The nawab of Oudh now demanded from the Rohillas the sum
due to him, but they refused to pay. They claimed that the Marathas
had really retired of their own accord, and that there had been no
collision with the allies.
It seems clear that the nawab and the British protected Rohil-
khand mainly by their presence on the spot, for Hastings on one
occasion acknowledged that “the Marathas (i. e. the main body) lay
during the whole campaign of 1773 in the neighbourhood of our army,
but without daring either to cross the river or to approach the borders
of Kora". 1 It was claimed-and technically no doubt the claim was
indisputable—that the Rohillas still owed the forty lakhs, for the
treaty stipulated that they were liable if the Marathas retreated
"efther by peace or war". The Rohillas, however, fell back upon a
second line of defence by questioning whether the Marathas had
really been driven out at all : "they might return the next year,
when our joint forces were not in the Rohilla country, to defend
them; that we had done little, meaning that we had not destroyed
the Maratha armies". Legally no doubt the Rohillas were in the
wrong, but it must be admitted that European nations have often
evaded treaty obligations on no better grounds.
Nothing further was done till Hastings held his conference with
the nawab of Oudh at Benares in August and September, 1773. There
he' concluded a public treaty which made no direct mention of the
Rohillas. By it Kora and Allahabad, as already mentioned, were
ceded to the nawab in return for fifty lakhs of rupees, and it was
stipulated that, whenever he employed a British brigade, he should
pay a subsidy of 210,000 rupees a month. At the same time a secret
agreement was made by which the British were to furnish a brigade,
to help the "nawab punish the Rohillas for their evasion, and conquer
the country for him. In return the nawab was to bear all the expenses
of the campaign andato pay a sum of forty lakhs. Almost as soon,
Warren
1 Selections from the State Papers of the Governors General
Hastings, ed. Forrest, I, 311.
## p. 219 (#247) ############################################
THE WAZIR DEMANDS HELP
219
.
however, as the treaty had been concluded, the nawab began to doubt
whether he could bear the pecuniary burden involved, and since
Hastings had some heart-searchings as to its expediency, they
mutually agreed to postpone the expedition. The thought came to
the governor-general, as he said years afterwards in his defence
before the House of Commons in 1786, that:
all my actions were to be viewed through a very remote medium, with a thou-
sand refractions of private interest, secret misrepresentation, general prejudice,
and the precipitation of unformed judgement. 1
In November, 1773, the nawab having, with his usual fickleness,
changed his mind, asked for the aid stipulated in the treaty. Hastings
laid a minute before the council in which he pointed out the ad-
vantages of intervention and among them that “our ally would
obtain by this acquisition a complete state shut in effectually from
foreign invasions by the Ganges, all the way from the frontiers of
Behar to the mountains of Tibet". On the other hand he expressed
doubts as to its expediency:
arising from the circumstances of the Company at home, exposed to popular
clamour, all its measures liable to be canvassed in Parliament, their charter
drawing to a close and . . . ministers unquestionably ready to take advantage of
every unfavourable circumstance in the negotiation for its renewal. 2
Accordingly he proposed to agree to the expedition but on terms
which were likely to make the nawab relinquish the design. The
council, which, through Hastings and his Select Committee, had been
committed to the whole business without much choice on their part,
declared : "We concur heartily in wishing to avoid the expedition
proposed, without entering into the discussion on the propriety of
such an enterprise on general principles”. 3 They added rather mean-
ingly that they were sensible of the embarrassment that Hastings was
under "from what passed on the subject between him and the Vizier
at Benares”. 3 The upshot was that the nawab on 10 January, 1774,
declined the conditions laid down. But on 3 February, 1774, a letter
arrived from the vacillating nawab agreeing to everything and asking
that the brigade should be sent. So after all the policy of bluff had
broken down, and the Bengal government found themselves com-
mitted to the expedition.
The British army under Colonel Champion marched into Rohil-
khand supported by the forces of Oudh on 17 April. Six days later
a battle took place at Miranpur Katra, called by the victors the battle
of St George because of the date on which it was fought. Hafiz
Rahmat Khan was killed fighting bravely at the head of his troops.
The valour of the Rohillas extorted the admiration of the British
commander. They showed, he said :
1 Strachey, Hastings and the Rohilla War, p. 112.
2 Idem, p. 121.
3 Idem, p. 123.
## p. 220 (#248) ############################################
220
EXTERNAL RELATIONS AND THE ROHILLA WAR
great bravery and resolution . . . they gave proofs of a good share of military
knowledge by showing inclinations to force both our flanks at the same time and
endeavouring to call off our attention by a brisk fire on our centre . it is im-
possible to describe a more obstinate firmness of resolution than the enemy
displayed. 1
The action was entirely decisive. About 20,000 Rohillas were
driven out of the country, which was incorporated in the dominions
of the nawab of Oudh, a small portion only, together with Rampur,
was left in the possession of Faizulla Khan, son of 'Ali Muhammad,
the founder of the Rohilla power, whose sons had been dispossessed
by their guardian, Hafiz Rahmat Khan, and a treaty was made with
him, 7 October, 1774, before the campaign was over. Champion
brought serious charges against the nawab of Oudh and his troops
for cruelties inflicted on the peasantry and the family of Hafiz
Rahmat Khan.
The Rohilla War was the subject of the first attack on Hastings in
Parliament in April, 1786, but as the Commons refused to accept the
charge, it was not made one of the articles in the impeachment. The
war has earned the strong condemnation of all the older school of
Indian historians. Their view, in its extreme presentment, was that
Hastings deliberately sold the lives and liberties of a free people and
condoned horrible atrocities on the part of the armies of the nawab
of Oudh. Sir John Strachey in his Hastings und the Rohilla War has
put forward a complete and elaborate defence. He contends that the
Rohillas were a p! undering Afghan tribe who had only established
their power over the Hindu population of Rohilkhand for about a
quarter of a century. The Rohillas, he says, were as much foreigners
in Rohilkhand as Frenchmen in Spain or Russians in Poland in the
time of Napoleon; that the aim of the nawab of Oudh and the English
was to "exterminate" the Rohillas only in the literal sense of the
term, that is, to drive them over the frontier, not to massacre them;
that Champion failed to substantiate his serious charges against the
conduct of the allies by definite details; that he began the campaign
in a thoroughly discontented frame of mind, and that he was extremely
jealous of the plunder acquired by the soldiers of his ally; that, since
the Rohillas declined to pay the forty lakhs they had promised in the
treaty of 1772, the nawab of Oudh had a good legal and moral case
against them; that Hastings can be entirely defended from the charge
of callousness and brutality, for he took prompt measures to make a
serious protest to the nawab; that as a matter of fact, the campaign
in Rohilkhand "had been carried on with an absence of violence and
bloodshed and generally with a degree of humanity altogether un-
usual in Indian warfare”;2 finally, that Hastings's motives in the war
were statesmanlike and defensible. They were first, to punish the
a
1 Forrest, Selections from the State Papers in the Foreign Department
of the Government of India, I, 97.
2 Strachey, Hastings and the Rohilla War, p. 233.
## p. 221 (#249) ############################################
HASTINGS'S DEFENCE
221
.
Rohillas for a serious breach of a treaty, secondly to protect Bengal
by giving the nawab, the Company's ally, a scientific and natural
frontier; thirdly, to acquire for the Company the valuable pecuniary
benefit of a subsidy for the maintenance of one-third of our army.
Summing up generally, Strachey asks the question :
Is a British Governor justified in making war upon a confederacy of bar-
barous chiefs, who, not long before, had imposed their rule on a population
foreign to themselves in race and religion; through whose country the only
road lies open for attacks by savage invaders upon a British ally, whose secu-
rity is essential to the security of British possessions; who are too weak and too
treacherous to be relied on to close this road; and who have injured that ally
by breaking a treaty with him, negotiated and attested by the British general,
and approved by the British Government? 1
Clearly he assumes an answer in the affirmative, and we may
certainly admit that we have fought many wars on grounds far less
adequate.
But though Sir John Strachey makes good most of his points, it
is absurd to say that either the policy leading up to the war or the
actual conduct of operations was beyond temperate criticism. Hastings
was obviously himself doubtful about the expediency of the whole
transaction, and his council still more so. He seems to have allowed
himself to be drawn into the matter without having carefully thought
it out. The whole question in its initial stages was weakly handled.
For a statesman to commit himself to a course of action while hoping
that the need for it may not arise, is not the happiest or the most
efficient kind of political expedient. The truth is Hastings w. . . always
tempted by, novel and daring schemes. We shall frequently encounter
the same characteristic in his later history. Sir Alfred Lyall speaks
truly of “the hardy and self-reliant spirit of political enterprise that
is so strongly diffused through his whole career and character".
in ill repute, for while the Company itself was in serious financial
straits, its servants were returning to England with great fortunes.
For its failure in India we have to go no further than the admissions
of some of the Company's servants who were endeavouring to
administer it.
"It must give pain to an Englishman", wrote Becher, Resident at Murshi-
dabad in 1769, "to have reason to think, that since the accession of the Com-
pany to the Diwani, the condition of the people of this country has been worse
than it was before; and yet I am afraid the fact is undoubted. . . . This fine
country, which flourished under the most despotic and arbitrary government,
is. verging towards its ruin, while the English have really so great a share in
the administration. "2
And again :
I well remember this country when Trade was free and the flourishing
state it was then in; with concern I now see its present ruinous condition. . . . 3
Furthermore, the directors strongly suspected that the naib diwans
were intercepting a great part of the revenue that ought to have
reached the Company's exchequer.
Such was the state of things which Hastings was called upon
to deal. He was definitely appointed to put an end to the dual
system. He was, in fact, selected to take the place of the three super-
visors, Scrafton, Forde and Vansittart, to whose tragic end we have
just referred. "We now arm you with our full powers”, wrote the
Company, "to make a complete reformation. ” 4 The responsibility
therefore was very great. Though he was given definite instructions
on most points, it is to a certain extent true, as Lord Thurlow says,
that he was ordered “to destroy the whole fabric of the double
government . . . he was to form a system for the government of
Bengal, under instructions so general, that I may fairly say the whole
plan was left to his judgment and discretion”. 5 So, too, Hastings
claimed for himself: "The first acts of the government of Bengal,
when I presided over it, were well known at the time to have been of
my formation, or formed on principles which I was allowed to
dictate". For good or ill, then, the internal reforms in Bengal prior
.
1. Idem, p. 89. Idem, p. 85. 3 Idem, p. 83. 4 Idem, p. 145.
5 Debates of the House of Lords, on the evidence delivered in the trial of
Warren Hastings. London, 1797, p. 132.
6 Selections from the State. Papers of the Governor-General Warren
Hastings, Ed. Horrest, II, 63.
## p. 208 (#236) ############################################
208
EARLY REFORMS OF HASTINGS IN BENGAL
"
1
1
to 1774 are mainly in their details at any rate the work of Warreu
Hastings and bear the stamp of his personality.
He had great difficulties to confront. Something like an Indian
Empire had grown up, but it had no administrative framework.
"The new government of the Company consists of a confused heap
of undigested materials, as wild as the chaos itself. " i "Our consti-
“
tution is nowhere to be traced but in ancient charters, which were
framed for the jurisdiction of your trading settlements, the sales of
your exports, and the provision of your annual investment. " 2 "I
found this government in possession of a great and rich dominion,
and a wide political system which has been since greatly extended,
without one rule of government, but what descended to it from its
ancient commercial institutions. " 3
He had to attack strong vested interests, and, what is more, he
had to try to strengthen an overweakened central government against
a too-powerful exterior ring of provincial powers. The political centre
of gravity had got seriously displaced. The government of the coun-
try, he wrote, consisted of the supervisors, the boards of revenue at
Murshidabad and Patna, the governor and council at Calcutta. Hast-
ings is, of course, naming these powers in exactly the reverse of their
theoretical position in the hierarchy of administration, but, as he
says, "the order in which I have named them is not accidental, but
consonant to the degree of trust, power and emolument which they
severally possess”. 4 In the government of Bengal "all trust, power
and profit are in the hands of its deputies, and the degree of each
proportionate to their want of rank in the service”. : He tells us else-
where that “every man capable of business runs away to the col-
lectorships or other lucrative stations. . . . . At the Presidency, where
the best assistance is required, the worst only can be had. . . ".
The reforms themselves fall under three heads, first the commer-
cial reforms, secondly, the reform of the judicature and the settlement
of land revenue, dealt with elsewhere, and thirdly, all those measures
which followed on the abolition of the dual government in pursuance
of the Company's professed intention "to stand forth as Diwan".
Hastings's commercial reforms involved the following changes.
He abolished in March, 1775, the fraudulent use of the dystuck or
free pass under which the goods of the Company's servants or their
agents were exempted from dues. Thus the old problem which had
haunted so disastrously the administrations of Vansittart and Verelst
was at last settled. He suppressed the custom-houses (or chokeys)
in the zamindaris, which were a great impediment to the free circu-
lation of goods. Only five central custom-houses were henceforth
maintained, at Calcutta, Hugli, Murshidabad, Patna and Dacca. Lastly,
he carried out a uniform lowering of the duties to 242 per cent. on ail
1 Gleig, op. cit. I, 317.
? Idem, p. 368.
3 Idem, d, 148.
4 Monckton Jones, Warren Hastings in Bengal, p. 148.
5 Idem, p. 146.
Gleig, op. cit. I, 300.
6
## p. 209 (#237) ############################################
MUHAMMAD REZA KHAN
209
2
goods, except the monopolies of salt, betel-nut and tobacco, to be
paid by all Europeans and Indians alike. These reforms were entirely
beneficial. It is true they were all ordered by the court of directors,
but Hastings entirely assented, carried out the details with expert
knowledge and adroitness, and smoothed away all opposition by his
tactful methods. They did much to revive the decaying internal trade
of Bengal. Hastings could with some justice boast that “goods pass
unmolested to the extremities of the province”. 1
Hastings's modification of the land revenue system and the reform
of the judicature will be dealt with elsewhere. But something must
be said of the abolition of the dual government. Formally it meant
no more than that the Company should henceforth collect the revenues
through the agency of its own servants. But in reality, and in the
peculiar political and economic position of Bengal, it meant becoming
responsible for the whole civil administration. Hastings hardly
exaggerated when he described it as “implanting the authority of
the Company, and the sovereignty of Great Britain, in the constitu-
tion of this country”. The first step was the abolition of the offices
of naib diwan of Bengal and Behar, and the prosecution of Muham-
mad Reza Khan and Shitab Rai for peculation. After undergoing a
long trial and being kept in custody for rather more than a year they
were both acquitted. Shitab Rai was entirely cleared, and Hastings
declared he scarce knew why he was called to account. He was
reappointed to high office in Patna as rai-raian of Bihar, but died soon
afterwards, largely it was supposed from illness brought on by the
anxieties and discredit of his imprisonment. Hastings recorded his
epitaph and revealed his own regret for the whole proceeding when
he wrote:
He ever served the Company with a fidelity, integrity and ability which
they can hardly expect to experience in any future officer of government, whom
they may choose from the same class of people. 2
Muhammad Reza Khan was also acquitted, but Grant held that he
had for years intercepted much of the revenue due to the Company.
Hastings believed that he was culpable but that it was impossible in
view of his wide connections and past precautions to bring him to
account. The whole incident is a curious one and not very easy to
understand. The least reputable feature of it was the expedient of
using "the abilities, observation and active malignity of Maharaja
Nandakumar" to attack Muhammad Reza Khan, but the responsi-
bility for that lies with the court of directors and not with Hastings.
It is clear that the latter looked upon the whole business with the
greatest distaste. “These retrospections and examinations”, he wrote,
"are death to my views”. 4 He was eager to get on with his work of
reformation, and he could foresee clearly enough that he would not
1 Gleig, op. cit. I, 304.
2 Idem, II, p. 30.
3 Monckton Jones, Warren Hastings in Bengal, p. 199.
4 Gleig, op. cit. , I, 283.
14
## p. 210 (#238) ############################################
210
EARLY REFORMS OF HASTINGS IN BENGAL
escape censure for having brought the trials “to so quiet and unim-
portant an issue". 1 In this he was not mistaken. Among the charges
afterwards brought against him by Nandakumar was one that the
two accused men had offered Hastings and himself enormous bribes
for an acquittal.
A third reform was the reduction from thirty-two to sixteen lakhs
of rupees of the sum paid to the nawab from the revenue of Bengal.
This was the third reduction of this tribute; originally in 1765 it had
been fifty-three lakhs, in 1766 it had been reduced to forty-one, and
in 1769 to thirty-two. As this change was carried out under direct
orders of the court of directors, neither credit nor discredit can fairly
be attributed to Hastings for the principle involved, but the skill
with which he so reformed the administration that the nawab actually
received more than before for his personal requirements, is all his
own.
Fourthly, we have a reform which in the eyes of Hastings was of
the greatest importance, namely, the removal of the treasury or
khalsa from Murshidabad to Calcutta. This was the method taken
by Hastings to rectify that displacement of the political gravity of
the British administration which has been already referred to.
“The Board of Revenue”, write Hastings, “at Murshidabad, though com-
posed of the junior servants of the Company, was superior before this alteration,
to the governor and council of the presidency. Calcutta is now the capital of
Bengal, and every office and trust of the province issues from it. ” 2
Again :
The seat of government [is] most effectually and visibly transferred from
Murshidabad to Calcutta, which I do not despair of seeing the first city in
Asia, if I live and am supported but a few years longer. 3
Fifthly, we come to an expedient which is much more difficult to
judge. In reorganising the household of the nawab of Bengal, who
was still in his minority, Hastings decided to appoint as his guardian
not only a princess, which considering the secluded position of women
in the East was itself unusual, but one who was not even the nearest
relative to the nawab. He passed over the prince's mother and he
appointed the widow of a former nawab, Mir Ja'far, who was known
as the Munni Begam. Rajah Gurdas, son of Nandakumar, was at the
same time appointed steward of the household. For these appoint-
ments Hastings was afterwards vehemently censured, and indeed
they do seem to require justification. The princess was said, appa-
rently with truth, to have been originally a dancing girl in the court.
Burke stigmatised Hastings's act as "violent, atrocious and corrupt”,
and one of Hastings's own justifications that the begam's “interest
must lead her to concur with all the designs of the Company, and to
solicit their patronage” 5—may itself be described as of a highly
1 Gleig, op. cit. I, 391.
2 Idem, p. 271. 3 Idem, p. 285.
4 Bond, Speeches in the Trial of Warren Hastings, I. 32.
5 Gleig, op. cit. I, 254.
## p. 211 (#239) ############################################
EXTENT OF REFORMS
211
questionable nature. Lord Thurlow afterwards protested against the
attacks on the princess :
“Whatever situation”, he said, “she may have filled in her very early life,
she held the rank of the first woman in Bengal for nearly forty years, the
wife of one prince, the mother of another and the guardian of two other
princes. ” 1
It may be said at any rate that Hastings's choice received the approval
of the court of directors. The evidence is conflicting as to the begam's
treatment of the young nawab. When in 1775 the majority of the
council divested the begam of her guardianship and appointed
Muhammad Reza Khan, the British officer who carried out the
change reported that the nawab was rejoiced to recover his freedom,
and complained that he had been stinted of his proper allowance,
and debarred from all opportunity of learning the work of adminis-
tration. The officer expressed his personal belief in the truth of these
statements, but the facts and the deductions from them were disputed
by the Resident at Murshidabad. 2
Before pronouncing a final verdict on the work of these two years,
1772-4, we may for a moment consider the question how far Hastings
secured for the future a real purification of the British administration
in Bengal-how far the moral of the Company's servants was raised
and improved. Undoubtedly he effected much. Recent writers have
maintained that, when Hastings returned to England in 1785, the
whole system of administration had been purified, clarified and
reorganised, and, to support this contention, we have on record an
early letter of Sir John Shore, then a junior servant of the Company,
written in 1782, in which he says:
The road to opulence grows daily narrower, and is more crowded with com-
petitors . . . . the court and directors are actuated with such a spirit of reforma-
tion and retrenchment, and so well seconded by Mr. Hastings, that it seems
the rescission of all our remaining emoluments will alone suffice it. The Com-
pany's service is in fact rendered an employ not very desirable,3
But we can only accept the theory that Hastings purified the ad-
ministration with considerable qualifications. In contrast to such
contention we must set the fact that the nearer we get back to
Hastings's own time, the less belief do we find in this theory of
the entire reformation of the Company's service. Sir John Malcolm
is probably much nearer the truth when he writes that Hastings's
“most strenuous advocates . . . while they defend his personal inte-
grity, are forced to acknowledge that the whole system of the govern-
1 Debates of the House of Lords in the Evidence. . . , p. 145.
2 Forrest, Selections from Letters, Despatches and other State Papers pre-
served in the Foreign Department of the Government of India, 1772-1785, I,
381, 385.
8 Lord Teignmouth, Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of John Lord
Teianmouth,, I, 39
## p. 212 (#240) ############################################
212
EARLY REFORMS OF HASTINGS IN BENGAL
ment over which he presided was corrupt and full of abuses". 1 Had
there been a complete purification of the service, there would
surely have been nothing for Lord Cornwallis to do, when he came
to India in 1786, but we know that there was abundant material for
his reforming hand. The quotation from Sir John Shore proves, if
any proof were needed, that a vigorous attempt at reform was made,
but as regards results, it probably records the exaggerated apprehen-
sion of a junior servant of the Company, rather than an actual fact.
Certainly we may say that the effects anticipated by Shore did not
follow.
All this, however, is consistent with the assumption that Hastings
made a strenuous and loyal endeavour, as far as in him lay, to amend
and purify the service. Probably, short of staking his retention of
office upon the question, he did as much at first as was humanly
speaking possible. He may well have argued that to quarrel with the
court and to throw up his office, because more power was not allowed
him, would merely have ruined his own career without improving
the service. The trouble was that he got no consistent support from
home. One party among the directors were genuinely desirous of a
reform, but there was always another party from time to time in the
ascendant, who were prepared to connive at misconduct in their
servants, provided that the value of their own patronage was not
diminished. The plunder was to be had, and, as Cornwallis said, they
hoped in their struggle with Hastings to secure the greater part of
it. 2 Hastingsoin 1772 gives as one reason for abandoning his desire to
remove the collectors altogether, that,
there were amongst them so many sons, cousins, or élèves of Directors, and
intimates of the members of the Council, that it was better to let them remain
than provoke an army of opponents against every act of administration.
They continue, but their power is retrenched. 3
In the end, therefore, Hastings seems to have compromised to a
certain extent with evil, and to bind men to his interests, he freely
used the means of patronage at his disposal. To some extent he gave
up the struggle for reformation.
“I will neither be responsible", he wrote in 1772, "for the acts of others,
nor stand forth as the general reformer, and make every man whose friendship
and confidence are necessary for my support my inveterate enemy. ” 4
Again we find him writing of Wheler in 1781 : “I have made it a rule
to give him the first option in most vacant appointments, and have
provided handsomely for all his friends”. 5 It seems likely, too, that
having been obliged, if he wished to retain his power, in the days of
Francis's ascendancy in the council, to use questionable means to
1 Malcolm, Sketch of the Political History of India, ed. 1811, p. 40.
? Ross, Correspondence of Marquis Cornwallis, 1, 306.
3 Gleig, op. cit. 1, 269.
4 Idem, p. 319.
5 Idem, , 384.
## p. 213 (#241) ############################################
SALARIES AND ALLOWANCES
213
win support, his finer feelings became blunted. His carelessness in
money matters and his incapacity to keep any kind of accounts, or
to recognise the need of doing so, were proverbial, and amounted
to a grave fault.
His own regulations had strictly forbidden that
the banyan (or agent) of a collector should "be allowed to farm
lands or directly or indirectly hold any concern in any farm". Yet
his own banyan was found, with his knowledge and consent, to be
farming the revenues on a large scale. In regard to contracts and
commissions, Hastings undoubtedly entangled himself in financial
transactions of so questionable a nature, that it taxed the abilities of
his counsel to the utmost to defend him at the impeachment. There
can be no doubt, too, that by the end of his administration many
of his supporters among the Company's servants were enjoying
emoluments entirely disproportionate to the services they rendered.
Francis pointed out in parliament in 1785 that the cost of the civil
establishment of Bengal had risen from £251,533 in 1776 to £927,945
eight years later. There can be no possible doubt about these figures,
for Major Scott, who rose later in the debate to answer Francis, was
not able to call them in question, and, if it had been possible, he
would surely have done so. The rise was largely due to the enormous
emoluments of many of the Company's servants. The chief of thº
board that controlled the salt office received £18,480 a year. The
salaries of five other members ranged from £13,183 to £6257. Again,
salaries at the Board of Customs amounted to £23,070 among three
persons, and at the Conimittee of Revenue to £47,300 among five
persons. These statements are corroborated by a later speech of
Pitt in which it is mentioned that among the offices which were at
that time open to the servants of the East India Company, apart
from the governor-generalship and the office of councillor, were one
place of £25,000 a year, one of £15,000, five of £10,000 and five of
£9000. 2 . Now Hastings's defence in the case of the salt office was
that down to 1780 the Company had gained no profit from its salt
monopolies, but that after he had hit upon the expedient of allowing
10 per cent. on the profits, the Company in spite of the huge com-
missions paid to its servants acquired a net revenue of £540,000. It
seemed to him that these facts were a complete answer to Francis's
charge, but there was surely reason in the latter's contention that
before the commissions had risen to this height they ought, while still
being fixed at a generous scale, to have been retrenched. Apart from
this, it may well be asked at what cost to the ryots were these enor-
mous revenues derived from one of the prime necessities of life.
To return to the reforms of 1772-4. In judging them it is not
always easy to specify how many were due to the initiative of Hastings
himself, how many to the suggestions of others, and how many to the
direct orders of the court of directors. It is certainly clear that the
1
1 Parliamentary History, XXV, 146.
2 Idem, p. 538.
## p. 214 (#242) ############################################
214
EARLY REFORMS OF HASTINGS IN BENGAL
majority of them were enjoined from home. “I am little more”,
said Hastings on one occasion, “than the compiler of other men's
opinions. ” But what is also clear beyond any doubt, is the immense
ability, the cact, the urbanity with which they were carried. In every
period of history any notable political or social improvements, if
carefully investigated, will be found to be largely derived from a
common stock of enlightened contemporary opinion. Many of them
are in the air of the time. But to argue from this that credit must be
withheld from the statesman who finally carries them into actuality
is extremely unfair. The general impression forced upon any enquirer
by a perusal of the innumerable minutes, letters, consultations and
dispatches of these two years is that Hastings carried along parallel
lines, and contemporaneously, a great series of reforms, economic,
fiscal, judicial and social. They form a fine record of devoted and
laborious work and reveal in their author administrative capacities
of a unique kind. He is master of every branch of the enquiry, end-
lessly fertile in resource, convincing in argument, reasonable in
discussion. He toiled ceaselessly and encountered all opposition
dauntlessly. Yet the bitter tragedy of the whole thing was that,
before the work could be completed, power and authority were
snatched away from him, and years that would naturally have been
devoted to the further development of his great task were spent in
a desperate and sometimes almost a despairing effort to protect his
position, career and honour against a vindictive and cruel assault. He
speaks of his work by the metaphor of an unfinished building, “a
great and weighty fabric, of which all the parts were yet loose and
destitute of the superior weight, which was to give them their mutual
support and their . . . collateral strength". 2
1 Monckton Jones, Warren Hastings in Bengal, p. 151.
2 Selections from the State Papers of the Governors-General
Hastings, ed. Forrest, II, 64.
Warren
## p. 215 (#243) ############################################
CHAPTER XII
EXTERNAL RELATIONS AND THE
ROHILLA WAR
HAVING abolished the dual government set up by Clive,
Hastings had next to overhaul the system of relations established with
Indian princes. Clive's policy in this field had worked well for five
years, but changing circumstances had made revision necessary. At
the time of Clive's settlement northern India had been temporarily
free from the Maratha terror. It was the imminent renewal of that
menace which entirely altered the whole situation. The Marathas,
who in 1761 had been driven headlong into the Deccan after their
terrible rout at Panipat at the hands of Ahmad Shah, once more
recrossed the Narbada in 1769, and came surging northward again
to occupy Delhi in 1771. They offered to restore Shah 'Alam to his
throne and make his imperial title a reality. The emperor consulted
the English, who implored him to reject so dangerous and deceptive
a proposal. In spite of this, he agreed to the Maratha terms, and left
Allahabad in May, 1771. Though the English had protested, they
parted with him amicably. It was to prove a momentous and
calamitous decision, and the misguided emperor was never again to
return to British territory. For thirty-two years he was practically
a state prisoner in the hands of the Marathas or the Afghans. A year
after his restoration, the Marathas forced upon him a minister of
their own choice, and obliged him to make over to them the districts
of Kora and Allahabad. A new and delicate problem now con-
fronted the Company's servants. To continue to pay the tribute was
practically to subsidize its most formidable enemies. The Company
was bound to suffer for its own quixotic generosity. It had bound
itself to pay tribute, as Hastings said, to an idol of its own creation,
"not one of his natural subjects offered any kind of submission to his
authority, when we first fell down and worshipped it”. 1 With regard
to the districts there were four possible courses; to let the Marathas
occupy them, to take them ourselves, to keep them for Shah 'Alam,
or to give them back to Oudh. It was finally decided to discontinue
paying the tribute of twenty-six lakhs to Shah 'Alam on the ground
that "his desertion of us, and union with our enemies, leaves us
without a pretence to throw away more of the Company's property
upon him", and to restore Kora and Allahabad to the nawah of Oudh
(by the treaty of Benares) for fifty lakhs of rupees.
Hastings had no doubts and no reservations as to the desirability
2
1 Strachey, Hastings and the Rohilla War, p. 59.
2 Gleig, op. cit. I, 360.
## p. 216 (#244) ############################################
216
EXTERNAL RELATIONS AND THE ROHILLA WAR
of this course : “I am not apt to attribute a large share of merit to my
own actions, but I own that this is one of the few to which I can with
confidence affix my own approbation”. 1 He thus sums up the
advantages of his policy :
By ceding them to the (Nawab of Oudh), we strengthen our alliance with
him, we make him more dependent upon us, as he is more exposed to the
hostilities of the Marathas; we render a junction between him and them, which
has been sometimes apprehended, morally impossible, since their pretensions to
Korah will be a constant source of animosity between them; we free ourselves
from the expense and all the dangers attending either a remote property, or a
remote connection; we adhere literally to the limited system laid down by the
Honourable Court of Directors we provide effectually for the protection of
our frontier, and reduce the expenses of our army, even in employing it; and
lastly we acquire a nett sum of 50 lacs of rupees most seasonably obtained for
the relief of the Company's necessities. 2
This solution met with the support both of the council and the
directors, and it is difficult to see what other course was possible.
Yet it has been condemned, and was opposed by Sir Robert Barker.
Burke described it as a “shocking, horrible, and outrageous breach
of faith". 3 Mill says:
Generosity, had it any place in such arrangements, pleaded with almost
unexampled strength in behalf of the forlorn Emperor, the representative
of so illustrious a race, who now possessed hardly a roof to cover him. Justice
too, or something not easily distinguished from justice, spoke on the same side. 4
But Hastings and his council clearly require no defence. The districts
and the tribute, which was purely eleemosynary, had only been
granted to Shah 'Alam to support his imperial dignity while under
the protection of the British. When he handed them over to the
Marathas, morally—if not legally–ha forfeited his right to retain
them. The Company's course would no doubt have been clearer, and
its case stronger, if it had definitely warned the emperor, as it might
well have done, when he marched away to Delhi, that it would not
continue to pay tribute or allow him to retain the districts, should
he become dependent upon its enemies. It should also be remem-
bered that, before the decision to withhold the revenues was taken,
Shah 'Alam was asked to send representatives to Benares to state his
case, but that he omitted to do so.
The only other question worth consideration is whether there
was any possible alternative. Might not the Company have retained
Kora and Allahabad for itself? To this Hastings had two objections;
in the first place, it would be unwise to retain in our own hands the
administration of provinces entirely separated from the rest of our
territories. Secondly, as he afterwards said before the House of
i Gleig, op. cit. I, 355.
2 Forrest, Selections from State Papers in the Foreign Department of the
Government of India, I, 50.
3 Bond, Speeches in the Trial of Warren Hastings, IV, 759.
4 Mill, History of India, m, 397.
>
## p. 217 (#245) ############################################
THE ROHILLAS AND OUDH
217
Commons, we should then have excited the jealousy of the nawab
of Oudh, to whom the districts had formerly belonged, and so have
endangered our alliance with him. It is always worth while to
remember that the central pillar of Hastings's foreign policy was the
alliance with Oudh.
The other important problem of foreign affairs before the arrival
of the new council was the Rohilla War. Rohilkhand, a fertile country
lying along the base of the Himalayas, marched with the north-west
frontier of Oudh. Its area was about 12,000 square miles and its
population about 6,000,000. The bulk of the people were Hindus,
but the ruling race were Rohillas, that is mountaineers, or Pathans;
or Afghans, the words signifying much the same thing. The country
was governed by a loose confederacy of chiefs under the headship of
Rahmat Khan, generally known as Hafiz Rahmat Khan because he
had been guardian (hafiz) of the sons of the late ruler 'Ali Muham-
mad and had ultimately usurped their rights. The Rohillas had
established their power early in the eighteenth century.
The events leading up to the war must be briefly summarised. In
1772 the Marathas invaded and ravaged Rohilkhand. The Rohillas
thereupon appealed to the nawab of Oudh. They did so reluctantly,
for there was no cordiality between him and them. The nawab had
long notoriously coveted their territory. They knew that if it paid
him to do so, he would not hesitate to combine with the Marathas
against them, just as they in their turn had considered the possibility
of making peace with the invaders, by giving them a free passage
through their territory into Oudh. But both parties for the moment
dreaded a Maratha invasion more than anything in the world, and
this drove them into an uneasy alliance. In reality, as Sir John
Strachey observes, "The Vazier, the Rohillas and the Marathas were
all utterly unscrupulous and each knew that no trust could be placed
in either of the others". 1 We find, for instance, that the nawab asked
Hastings "whether he should persuade the Rohillas to attack the
Marathas . . . and take his advantage of both when they should have
weakened each other by mutual hostilities". British officers of a later
date would probably have improved the occasion by a homily on
political rectitude, and it is rather typical of Hastings—both of his
cynicism and his frankness—that, in his own words, "I commended
the project, but expressed my apprehension of the consequences”. 2
Finally, after the usual interval of intrigue and finesse, during
which the advice of Sir Robert Barker just availed to prevent the
nawab from joining the Marathas, a treaty of alliance was made, 17
June, 1772, between the Rohillas and Shuja-ud-daula. The Rohillas
agreed to pay him forty lakhs on his obliging the Marathas to retire
from their country “either by peace or war". The treaty was really
due to the initiative and intervention of Sir Robert Barker, the British
1 Strachey, Hastings and the Rohilla War, p. 49.
2 Idem, p. 113.
## p. 218 (#246) ############################################
218
EXTERNAL RELATIONS AND THE ROHILLA WAR
.
commander-in-chief, an intervention not at first welcomed by
nọt
Hastings and the Select Committee, and was signed in his presence.
Almost before the signatures. were appended, the Marathas evacuated
Rohilkhand, and the Rohillas reoccupied the country.
The casus foederis arose in 1773. In the spring the Marathas
re-entered Rohilkhand at Ramghat. The nawab of Oudh, with a
British brigade in support under Sir Robert Barker, advanced to
repel the invasion. After some, manoeuvring and counter-marching
the detachments of the Marathas which had crossed the Ganges (the
Inain body seem to have remained on the other bank) recrossed the
river on 28 March. In May the revolution at Poona, which broke
out on the death of the Peshwa, Madhu Rao, caused the Marathas
to return to the Deccan, leaving only a few small garrisons in Northern
India. The nawab of Oudh now demanded from the Rohillas the sum
due to him, but they refused to pay. They claimed that the Marathas
had really retired of their own accord, and that there had been no
collision with the allies.
It seems clear that the nawab and the British protected Rohil-
khand mainly by their presence on the spot, for Hastings on one
occasion acknowledged that “the Marathas (i. e. the main body) lay
during the whole campaign of 1773 in the neighbourhood of our army,
but without daring either to cross the river or to approach the borders
of Kora". 1 It was claimed-and technically no doubt the claim was
indisputable—that the Rohillas still owed the forty lakhs, for the
treaty stipulated that they were liable if the Marathas retreated
"efther by peace or war". The Rohillas, however, fell back upon a
second line of defence by questioning whether the Marathas had
really been driven out at all : "they might return the next year,
when our joint forces were not in the Rohilla country, to defend
them; that we had done little, meaning that we had not destroyed
the Maratha armies". Legally no doubt the Rohillas were in the
wrong, but it must be admitted that European nations have often
evaded treaty obligations on no better grounds.
Nothing further was done till Hastings held his conference with
the nawab of Oudh at Benares in August and September, 1773. There
he' concluded a public treaty which made no direct mention of the
Rohillas. By it Kora and Allahabad, as already mentioned, were
ceded to the nawab in return for fifty lakhs of rupees, and it was
stipulated that, whenever he employed a British brigade, he should
pay a subsidy of 210,000 rupees a month. At the same time a secret
agreement was made by which the British were to furnish a brigade,
to help the "nawab punish the Rohillas for their evasion, and conquer
the country for him. In return the nawab was to bear all the expenses
of the campaign andato pay a sum of forty lakhs. Almost as soon,
Warren
1 Selections from the State Papers of the Governors General
Hastings, ed. Forrest, I, 311.
## p. 219 (#247) ############################################
THE WAZIR DEMANDS HELP
219
.
however, as the treaty had been concluded, the nawab began to doubt
whether he could bear the pecuniary burden involved, and since
Hastings had some heart-searchings as to its expediency, they
mutually agreed to postpone the expedition. The thought came to
the governor-general, as he said years afterwards in his defence
before the House of Commons in 1786, that:
all my actions were to be viewed through a very remote medium, with a thou-
sand refractions of private interest, secret misrepresentation, general prejudice,
and the precipitation of unformed judgement. 1
In November, 1773, the nawab having, with his usual fickleness,
changed his mind, asked for the aid stipulated in the treaty. Hastings
laid a minute before the council in which he pointed out the ad-
vantages of intervention and among them that “our ally would
obtain by this acquisition a complete state shut in effectually from
foreign invasions by the Ganges, all the way from the frontiers of
Behar to the mountains of Tibet". On the other hand he expressed
doubts as to its expediency:
arising from the circumstances of the Company at home, exposed to popular
clamour, all its measures liable to be canvassed in Parliament, their charter
drawing to a close and . . . ministers unquestionably ready to take advantage of
every unfavourable circumstance in the negotiation for its renewal. 2
Accordingly he proposed to agree to the expedition but on terms
which were likely to make the nawab relinquish the design. The
council, which, through Hastings and his Select Committee, had been
committed to the whole business without much choice on their part,
declared : "We concur heartily in wishing to avoid the expedition
proposed, without entering into the discussion on the propriety of
such an enterprise on general principles”. 3 They added rather mean-
ingly that they were sensible of the embarrassment that Hastings was
under "from what passed on the subject between him and the Vizier
at Benares”. 3 The upshot was that the nawab on 10 January, 1774,
declined the conditions laid down. But on 3 February, 1774, a letter
arrived from the vacillating nawab agreeing to everything and asking
that the brigade should be sent. So after all the policy of bluff had
broken down, and the Bengal government found themselves com-
mitted to the expedition.
The British army under Colonel Champion marched into Rohil-
khand supported by the forces of Oudh on 17 April. Six days later
a battle took place at Miranpur Katra, called by the victors the battle
of St George because of the date on which it was fought. Hafiz
Rahmat Khan was killed fighting bravely at the head of his troops.
The valour of the Rohillas extorted the admiration of the British
commander. They showed, he said :
1 Strachey, Hastings and the Rohilla War, p. 112.
2 Idem, p. 121.
3 Idem, p. 123.
## p. 220 (#248) ############################################
220
EXTERNAL RELATIONS AND THE ROHILLA WAR
great bravery and resolution . . . they gave proofs of a good share of military
knowledge by showing inclinations to force both our flanks at the same time and
endeavouring to call off our attention by a brisk fire on our centre . it is im-
possible to describe a more obstinate firmness of resolution than the enemy
displayed. 1
The action was entirely decisive. About 20,000 Rohillas were
driven out of the country, which was incorporated in the dominions
of the nawab of Oudh, a small portion only, together with Rampur,
was left in the possession of Faizulla Khan, son of 'Ali Muhammad,
the founder of the Rohilla power, whose sons had been dispossessed
by their guardian, Hafiz Rahmat Khan, and a treaty was made with
him, 7 October, 1774, before the campaign was over. Champion
brought serious charges against the nawab of Oudh and his troops
for cruelties inflicted on the peasantry and the family of Hafiz
Rahmat Khan.
The Rohilla War was the subject of the first attack on Hastings in
Parliament in April, 1786, but as the Commons refused to accept the
charge, it was not made one of the articles in the impeachment. The
war has earned the strong condemnation of all the older school of
Indian historians. Their view, in its extreme presentment, was that
Hastings deliberately sold the lives and liberties of a free people and
condoned horrible atrocities on the part of the armies of the nawab
of Oudh. Sir John Strachey in his Hastings und the Rohilla War has
put forward a complete and elaborate defence. He contends that the
Rohillas were a p! undering Afghan tribe who had only established
their power over the Hindu population of Rohilkhand for about a
quarter of a century. The Rohillas, he says, were as much foreigners
in Rohilkhand as Frenchmen in Spain or Russians in Poland in the
time of Napoleon; that the aim of the nawab of Oudh and the English
was to "exterminate" the Rohillas only in the literal sense of the
term, that is, to drive them over the frontier, not to massacre them;
that Champion failed to substantiate his serious charges against the
conduct of the allies by definite details; that he began the campaign
in a thoroughly discontented frame of mind, and that he was extremely
jealous of the plunder acquired by the soldiers of his ally; that, since
the Rohillas declined to pay the forty lakhs they had promised in the
treaty of 1772, the nawab of Oudh had a good legal and moral case
against them; that Hastings can be entirely defended from the charge
of callousness and brutality, for he took prompt measures to make a
serious protest to the nawab; that as a matter of fact, the campaign
in Rohilkhand "had been carried on with an absence of violence and
bloodshed and generally with a degree of humanity altogether un-
usual in Indian warfare”;2 finally, that Hastings's motives in the war
were statesmanlike and defensible. They were first, to punish the
a
1 Forrest, Selections from the State Papers in the Foreign Department
of the Government of India, I, 97.
2 Strachey, Hastings and the Rohilla War, p. 233.
## p. 221 (#249) ############################################
HASTINGS'S DEFENCE
221
.
Rohillas for a serious breach of a treaty, secondly to protect Bengal
by giving the nawab, the Company's ally, a scientific and natural
frontier; thirdly, to acquire for the Company the valuable pecuniary
benefit of a subsidy for the maintenance of one-third of our army.
Summing up generally, Strachey asks the question :
Is a British Governor justified in making war upon a confederacy of bar-
barous chiefs, who, not long before, had imposed their rule on a population
foreign to themselves in race and religion; through whose country the only
road lies open for attacks by savage invaders upon a British ally, whose secu-
rity is essential to the security of British possessions; who are too weak and too
treacherous to be relied on to close this road; and who have injured that ally
by breaking a treaty with him, negotiated and attested by the British general,
and approved by the British Government? 1
Clearly he assumes an answer in the affirmative, and we may
certainly admit that we have fought many wars on grounds far less
adequate.
But though Sir John Strachey makes good most of his points, it
is absurd to say that either the policy leading up to the war or the
actual conduct of operations was beyond temperate criticism. Hastings
was obviously himself doubtful about the expediency of the whole
transaction, and his council still more so. He seems to have allowed
himself to be drawn into the matter without having carefully thought
it out. The whole question in its initial stages was weakly handled.
For a statesman to commit himself to a course of action while hoping
that the need for it may not arise, is not the happiest or the most
efficient kind of political expedient. The truth is Hastings w. . . always
tempted by, novel and daring schemes. We shall frequently encounter
the same characteristic in his later history. Sir Alfred Lyall speaks
truly of “the hardy and self-reliant spirit of political enterprise that
is so strongly diffused through his whole career and character".
