No More Learning

The family of the ancient Hindu
rajas was searched for, discovered, restored. There was a story years
before of how Hyder selected the fittest child of a baby family to be
its head, though he had never given him real power. Among the
children he threw a number of baubles, of fruits and ornaments, and
among them concealed a dagger : the child who chose this was to
be the chief.
"In 1799 the future raja”, says Colonel Wilks,1 "was himself a child of five
years of age, but the widow of that raja from whom Hyder usurped the gov-
ernment still remained, to confer with the commissioners and to regulate with
distinguished propriety the renewed honours of her house. "
By the change of dynasty the sertiments of the Hindu people of
Mysore were attached to the British power which had restored to
then the representatives of their ancient religion and government,
and the stability of the new government was secured by
the uncommon talents of Purniya (the very able financial minister of Hyder)
in the office of minister to the new raja, and that influence was directed to
1 Wilks, Historical Sketches, m, 470.


## p. 345 (#373) ############################################

TREATY OF SERINGAPATAM
345
proper objects by the control reserved to the English Government by them in
the provisions of the treaty.
By the treaty of Seringapatam, 1 September, 1798, between the
Company and "Maharaja Mysore Krishnaraja Udayar Bahadur,
Raja of Mysore" the raja was to pay an annual subsidy, and if this
were unpaid the Company might order any internal reforms and
bring under its own direct management any parts of his country;
and the raja undertook to refrain from correspondence with any
foreign state and not to admit any European to his service.
The Earl of Mornington, for this achievement, was created Mar-
quis Wellesley in the peerage of Ireland, an honour which he described
as a “double-gilt potato". He was indeed highly indignant at so
slight a recognition of such considerable services.
The settlement of the territory newly acquired by the British,
and the establishment of the government of Krishnaraja, the new
ruler, a child of seven, proceeded apace. On 24 February, 1800, the
governor-general sent Dr. Francis Buchanan to make an extensive
survey of
the dominions of the present raja of Mysore, and the country acquired by the
Company in the late war from the Sultan, as well as that part of Malabar which
the Company annexed to their own territories in the former war under Marquis
Cornwallis. 1
Drawn up by the Marquis Wellesley himself, who during all his rule
was keenly interested in Indian agriculture, the instructions show the
care with which the governor-general provided for his successors
full information as to the condition of the country. Agriculture was
the chief subject investigated, in such detail as "esculent vegetables"
and the methods of their cultivation, including irrigation, the different
breeds of cattle, the farms and the nature of their tenure, the natural
products of the land, the use of arts, manufactures, medicine, mines,
quarries, minerals, the climate and the ethnology of the country. The
record of the investigation is a work of very great value and extra-
ordinary minuteness, and throws considerable light on the cruel and
erratic government of Tipu as well as on the just and well-organised
system introduced by Colonel Close, the British Resident at Seringa-
patam. The thoroughness of the investigation, with the large tracts
of country it covered, shows the spirit in which the English rulers
entered on their task, and justifies the statement made by Arthur
Wellesley 2 six years later,
The state in which their government is to be found at this moment, the
cordial and intimate unity which exists between the Government of Mysore
and the British authorities, and the important strength and real assistance
which it has afforded to the British Government in all its recent difficulties,
afford the strongest proofs of the wisdom of this stipulation of the treaty,
namely, "the most extensive and indisputable powers" which the
1 The results were published in 1807 in three volumes.
2 Mem. by Sir A. Wellesley 1806, ap. Owen's edition of Wellesley Des-
patches, p. lxxxii.


## p. 346 (#374) ############################################

346
TIPU SULTAN, 1785-1802
governor-general had reserved to the Company by the provision "for
the interference of the British Government in all the concerns" of
the Mysore state "when such interference might be necessary”. This
satisfactory result, however, was not achieved immediately or without
a period of difficult guerrilla warfare. Accounts of this are to be
found in the letters of Arthur Wellesley and Thomas Munro.
Though Tipu's sons remained in retirement and Seringapatam
was tranquil under the wise government of Colonel Close, the districts
at a distance from control were soon overrun by freebooting bands.
The chief of these was led by Dundia Wagh, a Maratha by birth but
born in Mysore. This vigorous and savage personage had been trusted
by Hyder, but degraded, compulsorily converted to Islam, and impri-
soned, till the very day of the capture of Seringapatam, by Tipu. When
he escaped he collected a band of desperate men and thought to
establish for himself, as Hyder had done, a kingdom in the south.
Arthur Wellesley pursued him, step by step, taking and destroying
forts, clearing districts, endeavouring to force the bandit into the open
field. The private letters of Colonel Wellesley to Thomas Munro show
the difficulty of the task which he at last successfully accomplished,
and the determined sagacity with which he achieved it. Dundia had
almost established a kingdom: he was extraordinarily energetic,
capable, and acute. But he was no match for the persistent vigilance
of Wellesley. Employing troops from Goa, the pledge of the firm
alliance with Portugal which he was afterwards to vindicate and
cement, Wellesley pursued the foe till he was defeated and killed.
Alike in the personal letters to his friends and in the official dispatches
Wellesley showed the calm unbroken perseverance which was to make
him the greatest English general of his age. The tranquillity of the
Mysore kingdom, which has been practically unbroken for a century,
was due to him, it may well be said, more than to any other man.
Without the brilliancy and the political genius of his elder brother,
Arthur Wellesley had qualities which endured longer and which
brought him at length to the highest place in his country's service.
When he became famous in the Spanish Peninsula the portrait painted
of him as a young general in India was early sought for reproduction;
and this in a figure represented the beginnings of his great military
career. The rough work of Indian warfare supplied lessons which he
never forgot, and a study of it is indispensable to the understanding
of his later achievements.
The governor-general as a statesman, David Baird and Harris as
soldiers, Close as administrator, played great parts in the story of
conquest and settlement, but Arthur Wellesley is the real hero of the
re-establishment of Mysore as a Hindu state.


## p. 347 (#375) ############################################

CHAPTER XXI
OUDH AND THE CARNATIC, 1785-1801
I. OUDH, 1785-1801
THE condition of Oudh under Sir John Macpherson very speedily
aroused the suspicion and then the indignation of Cornwallis. Cor-
ruption was rife, perhaps even more flagrantly than in the Carnatic.
Cornwallis vented his anger in a letter to Dundas. " "His government”,
he said, was “a system of the dirtiest jobbing—a view shared by Sir
John Shore 2-and his conduct in Oudh was as impeachable, and more
disgusting to the Vizier than Mr Hastings'. " To Lord Southampton he
wrote a year later 3 that as soon as he arrived in India he had in
Macpherson's presence tied up his hands "against all the modes that
used to be practised for providing for persons who were not in the
Company's service, such as riding contracts, getting monopolies in
Oudh, extorting money for them from the Vizier, etc. ”. Of his honest
determination there could be no question, but he did not find it easy
to carry out. Asaf-ud-daula was as corrupt as any native prince of his
time could possibly be, and, so far as it was possible for foreigners to
judge, as popular. He was certainly as cunning and as determined. In
1787 4 Cornwallis wrote a description of him to Dundas as extorting
every rupee he can from his ministers, to squander in debaucheries, cock-
fighting, elephants and horses. He is said to have a thousand of the latter in his
stables though he never uses them. The ministers on their part are fully as
rapacious as their master; their object is to cheat and plunder the country.
They charge him seventy lacs for the maintenance of troops to enforce the col-
. lections, the greater part of which do not exist, and the money supposed to
pay them goes into the pockets of Almas Ali Khan and Hyder Beg.
It was with no favourable ear, therefore, that the governor-general
listened to the request of the wazir for the alteration of the arrange-
ments made by Hastings. The claim was that the temporary quartering
of the British (Fatehgarh) brigade should be withdrawn, leaving
only one brigade of the Company's troops in Oudh, and that his
"oppressive pecuniary burdens" should be reduced. Cornwallis had
a conference with the wazir's minister, Haidar Beg, and then (15 April
1787) addressed a letter to him in which he offered to reduce thu
tribute from seventy-four to fifty lakhs, if this should be punctually
paid, but he refused to withdraw the troops from Fatehgarh. The
1 Cornwallis Correspondence, I, 371.
2 Life of Lord Teignmouth, I, 128.
3 Cornwallis Correspondence, I, 445.
4 Idem, p. 247.


## p. 348 (#376) ############################################

318
OUDH AND THE CARNATIC, 1785-1801
condition of the nawab's own troops was a standing menace to the
security of the British territory; Cornwallis demanded that they
should be greatly reduced.
“I was obliged”, wrote Cornwallis to the Directors,1 "by a sense of public
duty to state to' him my clear opinion that two brigades in Oudh would be
indispensably necessary for the mutual interest and safety of both govern-
ments. The loss of Colonel Baillie's and several other detachments during the
late war has removed some part of that awe in which the natives formerly
stood at the name of British troops. It will therefore be a prudent maxim
never to hazard, if it can be avoided, so small a body as a brigade of Sepoy3
with a weak European regiment at so great a distance as the Doab; and from
the confused state of the upper provinces it would be highly inadvisable for us
to attempt the defence of the Vizier's extensive territory without a respectable
force. ”
His minute on the subject, rightly regarded by Sir John Malcolm 2
as a very clear view of the connection between the Company and the
wazir, states his opinion that it “now stands upon the only basis
calculated to render it permanent”. He relied for the continuance
of the condition of affairs, which he viewed so optimistically, upon
the fidelity and justice of the nawab's very able minister, exposed
though he was “to the effects of caprice and intrigue”. Sir John
Malcolm regarded the arrangement "as happy as the personal
character of Asaf-ud-daula admitted of its being". So it remained
in outward tranquillity at least, unshaken by an insurrection by the
Afghans still—in spite of the first Rohilla War, so greatly exaggerated
in England-remaining in Rohilkhand. There was a sharp contest, in
which British forces supported the nawab. The end was the restora-
tion of their possessions to the Afghans under Hamid 'Ali Khan. The
restoration of tranquillity tended to the maintenance of the nawab's
administration undisturbed by the very necessary intervention of the
Company; but Sir John Shore was fully aware of the condition of
affairs. He wrote to Dundas (12 May, 1795) 3 that the dominions of
Asaf-ud-daula were
in the precise condition to tempt a rebellion. Disaffection and anarchy prevail
throughout; and nothing but the presence of our two brigades prevents insur-
rection. The Nawab is in a state of bankruptcy, without a sense of his danger,
and without a wish to guard against it. The indolence and dissipation of his
character are too confirmed to allow the expectation of any reformation on
his part;
and the death of Haidar Beg in 1794 had put an end to all hopes of
reform. In 1797 Asaf-ud-daula died. Early in the year Sir John
Shore had paid a visit to Lucknow, of which a letter of his aide-de-
camp and brother-in-law preserves a vivid impression. The nawab
seemed still to be "the most splendid emanation of the Great Mogul
now remaining", but he had “an open mouth, a dull intellect, a quick
propensity to mischief and vice", and "the amusements of Tiberius
at Capua must, in comparison with those of their feasts, have been
1 Cornwallis Correspondence, I, 276.
2 History of India, I, 110.
3 Life, I, 332.
4 Bengal Past and Present, XVI, pt II, 105 sqq.


## p. 349 (#377) ############################################

THE OUDH SUCCESSION
349
elegant and refined”. He had still an abl minister who acted for
him at Calcutta, had translated Newton's Principia into Arabic, was
a great mathematician, and if he had had sufficient influence with
the nawab could have "made his country a paradise”.
Lucknow at the time Shore visited it contained at least two per-
sons of peculiar interest. The nawab himself, Asaf-ud-daula, with all
the faults of idleness and luxury, in many respects ignorant, and in
all subtle, cruel and unsound, was yet, after the fashion of his age, a
man of cultured tastes. The remarkable building, the great Imambarah,
whose stucco magnificence still, after long years and many dangers,
remains impressive, was built by him in 1784, its great gate after the
model (it is said) of the gate of the Sublime Porte at Constantinople,
which it far surpasses in dignity. In the great hall the remains of
the nawab still lie under a plain uninscribed slab. Another memoria!
of that time is the Martinière, the college founded by General Claude
Martin, which was his own house till he died and for which Asaf-ud-
daula is said to have paid hin a million sterling. Martin from 1776
had been in the service of the nawabs of Oudh; he had made a
fortune out of their necessities; he had been a maker of ordnance and
a speculator in indigo, and he still retained his position in the Com-
pany's military service; he lived till 1800, and was buried, with
plainness equal to the nawab's, in the house he had built.
The nawab died a few weeks after Shore's visit, which might seem
to have been in vain. At first the governor-general recognised Wazir
'Ali, in spite of some doubts as to his legitimacy, as his successor.
Asaf-ud-daula had acknowledged him as his son; there was also the
sanction of the late nawab's mother, and appearance of satisfaction
among the people. But it was not long before all these appearances
were reversed. Shore re-examined the question of right, and came
to an opposite conclusion. “Ali”, his biographer says, “was surrounded
by a gang of miscreants. ” Other and more important old ladies
shrieked their protests into the governor-general's ears. The good
man was terribly confused.
"In Eastern countries”, he said, “as there is no principle there can be no
confidence. Self-interest is the sole object of all, and suspicion and distrust
prevaii under the appearance and profession of the sincerest intimacy and
regard. ”
General Craig, who had for some time commanded the British
forces in Oudh, and Sir Alured Clarke, the commander-in-chief,
warned him of the danger he was in if he changed his decision, and
Tafazzul Hussain Khan, with agitated emphasis, told him “this is
Hindustan, not Europe : and affairs cannot be done here as there”.
Lucknow showed every sign of an outbreak, and in the city were
"many respectable families who live under the protection of British
influence". But Shore took the risks, declared the deposition of Ali
and the substitution of his uncle; Sa'adat; . and escorted him through


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350
QUDH AND THE CARNATIC, 1785-1801
the city mounted on his own elephant. Not content with declaring
the spuriousness of 'Ali, he included in the same disgrace all the other
sons of Asaf-ud-daula. On 21 January, 1798, Sa'adat 'Ali, now on the
masnad, entered into a treaty which considerably strengthened the
English power. This seemed to be necessary through the recurring
threats of an invasion from Afghanistan by Zaman Shah, of whose
power and ferocity the English letters of the time are full. He had
already occupied Lahore, and, though this had not been followed up,
it showed the weakness of the northern frontier. At home as well as
in India the danger was thought to be grave. Dundas, writing on
18 March, 1799, regarded it as of the first importance to guard
against it, and proposed to encourage and foment "distractions and
animosities” in his own territory to keep Zaman Shah employed, and
was tempted, he said, to direct that our own forces and those of the
wazir should never go beyond his territories and our own, so as to be
ready to repel any attack.
The treaty may have been necessary and just; but it was certainly
a departure from the policy, if not the principles, associated with its
author. Yet the directors evidently approved it, and the ministry
gave Shore an Irish peerage, as Lord Teignmouth-a precedent
followed, and bitterly resented, in the case of his successor. The terms
of the treaty included an increase to seventy-six lakhs of the annual
payment to the Company by the wazir of Oudh; the placing of an
English garrison in the great city of Allahabad; the increase of British
troops to 10,000, who were given the exclusive charge of the defence
of the country, and the strict limitation of the wazir's own troops;
and finally the nawab agreed to have no dealings with other powers
without the consent of the English.
The praise of the treaty was not universal. Burke seemed for a
while to be taking the war-path again. There was a threat of im-
peachment; and, indeed, Shore seemed to have been at least as
autocratic as Hastings. "I am playing, as the gamesters say, le grand
jeu", he said, "and with the same sensation as a man who apprehends
losing his all. ” But nothing came of it. Wazir 'Ali had undoubtedly
been overawed by force : a proceeding against which, in the case of
the Carnatic, Shore had himself piously protested, and Sa'adat, equally
under pressure, agreed to pay for any increase of English troops that
might be necessary. It was the last act of Lord Teignmouth as
governor-general, and certainly the most vigorous, but it was no more
effective than his less emphatic actions.
When Mornington arrived in India the condition of Oudh was
represented to him as tranquil. The directors in May, 1799, thought
that Shore's settlement bade fair to be permanent. They were not
disturbed by the subsidy, during the first year of Sa'adat 'Ali, being
in arrear; yet this was the very eventuality for which Shore's treaty
had provided a remedy. They were ready even to counter-order the


## p. 351 (#379) ############################################

OUDH IN 1798
351
augmentation of the English force. Shore had infected them with his
roscate confidence. Mornington very soon saw more clearly. He had
in 1798 found it necessary to station an army of 20,000 men in Oudh
under the command of Sir J. Craig, to be ready for the anticipated
invasion by Zaman Shah. The new wazir had complained that his
own troops could not be trusted and had demanded an English force
as a security against them. For this an increase of the subsidy of fifty
lakhs was considered necessary. This was a heavy burden but the
protection could not be had for nothing, and Mornington's keen eye
saw that the internal dangers of Oudh were pressing. There was the
Doab: what was to become of it? There was the danger that would
come on the death of Ilmas, its possessor; how was it to be guarded
against? And there was the state of the nawab's own troops, which
it soon became a fixed custom to describe as a "rabble force": there
was no other way to meet this but by an increase of the British
contingent. But more than this : there was the civil disorder, still
unremedied, in every branch of the nawab's administration.
With respect to the Wazir's civil establishments, and to his abusive systems
for the extortion of revenue, and for the violation of every principle of justice,
little can be done before I can be enabled to visit Lucknow. (December, 1798. )
Mornington had no misconception of the character of oriental
sovereigns. Shore seemed satisfied that Sa'adat would be a great
improvement on the nephew whom he had dispossessed. But Amurati.
to Amurath succeeds; and a leopard cannot change his spots.
Mornington's gaze, like that of Cornwallis, was concentrated also
on the English locusts in Oudh. Shore, almost as much as Macpherson
whom he so sternly condemned, had seemed to be content to leave
them alone. Mornington regarded their presence as "a mischief which
requires no comment". And he determined “to dislodge every
European except the Company's servants”. Nor was his anxiety at
this time restricted to the Englishmen in the country. The deposed
Wazir 'Ali, residing near Benares, with a handsome pension from his
uncle, apparently on a momentary impulse, but more probably by
a premeditated scheme, murdered Cherry, the British Resident, and
soon received "active and general support”: it needed a British force
to pursue and capture him. He was kept at Fort William in captivity
and lived till 1817. The confusion with which Mornington had to deal
was even more entangling than that of the Carnatic, and, for the
moment at least, more actively dangerous. Whether Sa'adat 'Ali had
a better right to rule than his nephew or not, he certainly was no
more capable of doing so. He was as incompetent as he was incon-
sistent : at one time crying for protection against his own troops, at
another refusir. to disband them. He protested that he could not
rule: he volunteered to abdicate : he withdrew his offer. It was
impossible from a distance to understand his manoeuvres and
tergiversations. Mornington supplemented the Resident by a military


## p. 352 (#380) ############################################

352
OUDH AND THE CARNATIC, 1785-1801
negotiator, Colonel Scott, who came to Lucknow in June, 1799. He did
not act precipitately : he made as careful an investigation of the
country and the circumstances as time would permit. He found that
the wazir was unpopular to an extreme degree : the durbar was
deserted : the administration was hopelessly corrupt. The nawab's
object was only to temporise and delay. Colonel Scott soon convinced
himself that what he really wanted was to obtain entire control of the
internal administration and the exclusion of the English from any
share in it. Then corruption would grow more corrupt, and the English
would be responsible for the maintenance of a system which was
thoroughly immoral, inefficient and dangerous. And the wazir assured
the envoy that he had a secret and personal proposal in reserve. What
Ultimately it appeared to be his resignation, which was
offered, accepted, and, as soon as it was accepted, withdrawn.
To Mornington and his advisers the first necessity appeared to be
military security, the second civil reform; and neither of these was
possible under a vicious and incompetent government. The establisn-
ment of a strong military force was essential, as strong in peace as
war. Mill, thirty years afterwards, considered that "a more mon-
strous proposition never issued from human organs". The fact is that
the ceaseless oriental procrastination increased the external danger
and the internal oppression day by day. Coercion at last became the
only remedy. The condition of Oudh, then and for fifty years after-
wards, proves that the action of the governor-general was neither
precipitate nor unwise.
On 12 November, 1799, the wazir announced to Colonel Scott his
intention to abdicate. He desired that one of his sons should succeed
him. On the 21st the governor-general expressed his satisfaction with
the decision.
The proposition of the Wazir is pregnant with such benefit, not only to the
Company, but to the inhabitants of Oudh, that his lordship thinks it cannot be
too much encouraged; and that there are no circumstances which shall be
allowed to impede the accomplishment of the grand object which it leads to.
This object his lordship considers to be the acquisition by the Company of the
exclusive authority, civil and military, over the dominion of Oudh.
The cat was out of the bag.
But then there was the most tedious and exasperating . delay.
Sa'adat would and he would not. Wellesley could with difficulty
restrain his irritation. Colonel Scott had a difficult task, between
the two, to carry out any arrangement which should secure the
prosperity of the country.
Mornington's proposal was similar to that arrived at in the south,
at Tanjore : that is, the establishment of a native ruler with a fixed
income and all the paraphernalia of sovereignty, the administration
being placed in the hands of British officials. But this by no means
1 History of India, vi, 142,


## p. 353 (#381) ############################################

WELLESLEY'S NEGOTIATIONS
353
suited Sa'adat. The control of the internal administration, with the
fruits of peculation and oppression, was the apple of his eye. He
withdrew his abdication and retired, metaphorically, into his tent.
He thought, like the nawab of the Carnatic, that he could sit tight and
wait. But Wellesley had now full experience of this process, and he
would no longer endure it. He ordered several regiments to move
into the north of Oudh and required the nawab to maintain them.
The wazir replied that this was contrary to the treaty with Shore,
that the British force should only be augmented in case of necessity,
and that the nawab should have control of his household treasure.
Sir John Malcolm ? rightly rejected this argument, which English
critics of Wellesley have accepted.
As to the wazir's consent being
necessary, he says that
if this assertion had not been refuted by the evidence of the respectable noble-
man who framed the treaty, it must have been by its own absurdity; for the
cause of the increase is said to be the existence of external danger of which
one party-the English Government-can alone be the judge, as the other, the
Wazir, is precluded by one of the articles of this treaty from all intercourse or
communication whatever with foreign states.
In a masterly letter to the wazir from Fort William, 9 February,
1800, Mornington exposed the inconsistencies of his conduct, and
sternly told him that the means he had taken to delay the execution
of all reform were calculated to degrade his character, to destroy all
confidence between him and the British Government, to produce
confusion and disorder in his dominions, and to injure the important
interests of the Company to such a degree as might be deemed nearly
equivalent to positive hostility. It was a long, severe, eviscerating
epistle. But a year passed and nothing happened that pointed to a
conclusion. On 22 January, 1801, Wellesley wrote to Colonel Scott,
exonerating him from any responsibility for the delay, analysing the
condition of the country and the government, and insisting that the
time had now come for “the active and decided interference of the
British Government in the affairs of the country", and that the wazir
must now be required
to make a cession to the Company in perpetual sovereignty of such a portion of
his territory as shall be fully adequate, in their present impoverished condition,
to repay the expenses of the troops.
The treaty was to be drawn up on the same terms as those already
concluded with the Nizam and with Tanjore. And so within ten
months it was.
Wellesley associated in the drawing up of the treaty his brother
Henry, the astute diplomatist afterwards famous as Lord Cowley.
The date of the treaty was November, 1801. The required territory
was ceded. It "formed a barrier between the dominions of the Wazir
and any foreign enemy". And the wazir promised to establish such
an administration in his own dominions as should conduce to the
1 History of India, I, 275-6.
23


## p. 354 (#382) ############################################

354
OUDH AND THE CARNATIC, 1785-1801
happiness and prosperity of his people. From Wellesley's explanation
of the treaty to the directors, and from the Duke of Wellington's
justification of it, may be drawn the grounds on which it was con-
sidered necessary and effectual at the time. The subsequent history
of Oudh up to the Sepoy War shows that it did not fully meet the
intentions of its framers. But at the moment there was the obvious
advantage of getting rid of a useless and dangerous body of troops
ready at all times to join an enemy of the Company--the extinction
indeed of the nawab's military power. Obviously important, too, was
the obtaining responsibility by the Company for the general defence
of the nawab's dominions. By the renewed security for the payment
of the subsidy the continual disputes with the court of Lucknow
were ended. Commerce grew, in consequence of the new security,
enormously. The Jumna was made navigable for large vessels :
Allahabad became a great emporium of trade, and indeed started on
its modern career of prosperity. A real improvement in the condition
of the people was soon evident. Wellesley had seen elsewhere the
enormous benefits of the British rule in the "flourishing and happy
provinces" which he had already visited, and Wellington a few years
later pointed to “the tranquillity of those hitherto disturbed countries
and the loyalty and happiness of their hitherto turbulent and dis-
affected inhabitants". The settlement of the ceded districts was
managed by a commission under Henry Wellesley. His appointment
was the subject of severe criticism. The bitterest charges of nepotism
were launched against the governor-general. But there can be no
doubt that, in entrusting such important work to his brothers Arthur
and Henry, Wellesley chose the best means at his command, and
inaterially benefited the people who were entrusted to their protection,
It has been said that the Oudh assumption was the most high-
handed of all Wellesley's despotic actions. He would hardly have
denied this, but he would have justified it. The tangle of conflicting
interests could only be cut by the sword : and he did not hold the
sword in vain. Honest administration turned the ceded districts from
almost a desert to a prosperous and smiling land.
But in this, and the other subsidiary treaties, it must be observed
that there were grave defects. The Company was made responsible
for the maintenance of a government which it was impossible for its
representatives, as foreigners, entirely to control. The Carnatic no
doubt had a new and happy future : but in Oudh the snake of
oppression was scotched, not killed. The progress of amelioration
under English rule-often stern as well as just, and unpopular because
not fully understood-was always slow, often checked, often incom-
plete. But of the great aims, the high conscientiousness, the keen
insight, and the impressive wisdom, of the Marquis. Wellesley, in
these, the most characteristic expressions of his statesmanship, there
can be no doubt.


## p. 355 (#383) ############################################

THE ARCOT DEBT
355
II. THE CARNATIC, 1785-1801
The condition of the province of Madras had been a constant
anxiety to succeeding governors-general, and indeed a danger to the
British position in India. So far back as 1776 the Tanjore question
had been complicated by the gravest disagreements between the
governor and his council, leading up to the arrest of Lord Pigot and
his removal from the government of Fort St George. The numerous
papers, published in two large volumes in 1777, are concerned not
a little with the affairs of the nawab of the Carnatic, and form indeed
an indispensable preliminary to the understanding of his position in
1785. A smaller volume published in the same year deals more
directly with this subject, and claims to explain fully the right of the
nawab of Tanjore and to refute all the arguments of Lord Pigot's
adherents "and the authors of the unjust and impolitic order for the
restoration of Tanjore". It was declared by those who were in favour
of Muhammad 'Ali, nawab of Arcot, "the old faithful and sirenuous
ally of the British nation", that the raja of Tanjore was the hereditary
enemy of the nawab and of the British, “destitute of morality, but
devoted to superstition", and that the nawab was heart and soul in
English interests, and "without power to emancipate himself from
English control ever if he wished to do so".
Are not his forts garrisoned with our troups? His army commanded by our
officers? Is not his country open to our invasion? His person always in our
power? Is not he himself, are not his children, his family, his servants, under
the very guns of Fort St George?
This argument was repeated as strongly in 1785. But it was urged,
in reality, on behalf of the British creditors of the nawab, of whom
the notorious Paul Benfield, now caricatured as "Count Rupee" with
a black face riding in Hyde Park on a stout cob, was, if not the great
original, at least the most successful and the richest. It was the
nawab's creditors, some at least of whom were actually members of
the Madras Council, who kept him so long in possession of his throne
and with the trappings of independence. A crisis, it may be said,
was-reached when the English legislature endeavoured to deal with
the nawab of Arcot's debts. But such crises were recurrent. Dundas's
bill, Fox's bill, Pitt's bill, took up the matter, and the Act of 1784
ordered, in regard to the claims of British subjects, that the Court of
Directors should take into consideration “the origin and justice of the
said demands"; but the Board of Control itself intervened, divided
the loans into three classes and gave orders for the separate treatment
of each. This was chailenged by the Company.
There was a "motion hy Fox and a famous speech by Burke,
February, 1785, in which the ministry was denounced as the submissive
1
1 Original Papers relative to Tanjore, p. 40.


## p. 356 (#384) ############################################

366
OUDH AND THE CARNATIC, 1785-1801
agent of Benfield, a "coalition between the men of intrigue in India.
and the ministry of intrigue in England”. The orator threaded his
way through a network of intrigue : he could not disentangle it.
He used it as an instrument for belabouring the English ministry.
It was to form another scourge for the back of Hastings. The gover-
nor-general had ordered the assignment of all the revenues of the
Carnátic during the war with Hyder to British control, and the
government of Madras had negotiated it. This plan left the nawab
with one-sixth of the whole for his own maintenance and thereby
made him richer than before. The creditors were determined to
obtain more: they raised vehement cries of protest : they partially
convinced Hastings : they wholly convinced the Board of Control;
and Dundas ordered restitution of the entire revenues to the nawab.
In vain Lord Macartney, in a letter from Calcutta (27 July, 1785),
proclaimed that the assignment was “the rock of your strength in
the Carnatic", and on his return to England, after declining the
government of Bengal, he pressed his views very strongly upon Pitt
and Dundas. In vain. Restitution' was ordered. There was no
provision in Pitt's Act which could prevent new loans, and so the
nawab plunged deeper than ever into debt.
Thus Cornwallis found the relations of the Company with the
nawab more complicated than ever. The new governor of Madras,
Sir Archibald Campbell, made a new arrangement with him, moved
it would seem by his crocodile tears and "a very pathetic remon.
strance” that he could not live on what was left hin after contributing
to the payment of his debts and the expense of the state. A treaty,
24 February, 1787, assigned nine lakhs of pagodas to the state and
twelve to the creditors i and the nawab was supposed to be "more
sincerely attached to the prosperity of the Honourable Company"
than "any prince or person on earth”. Special provisions were made
in view of possible war, and the sole military power was placed in
the hands of the Company. But the conditions were no better fulfilled
than others. When war came in 1790 Cornwallis was obliged to take
possession of the Carnatic, in order, says Sir John Malcolm,2 "to
secure the two states [the Carnatic and Madras] against the dangers
to which he thought them exposed from the mismanagement of the
Nawab's officers”. It was quite clear that it was impossible to leave
the "sword in one hand, the purse in another”. By the control now
assumed the success of the war with Tipu was made much more easy,
and it became obvious that a new treaty to stabilise this condition
of affairs had become necessary. In 1792 this was concluded. By
this the Company was to assume entire control of the Carnatic
during war, but to restore it when war ended. It was to occupy
specified districts if the nawab's payments should fall into arrears; the
1. See Cornwallls Correspondence, 0, 2, 3.
2 History of India, 1, 94.


## p. 357 (#385) ############################################

CORNWALLIS'S TREATY
357
poligars of Madura and Tinnevelly, whose resistance to the feeble
government of the nawab rendered the collection of revenue im-
possible, were transferred to the rule of the Company; and the nawab's
payments, for which these terms were a security, were to be nine
lakhs for the peace establishment and four-fifths of his revenues for
war expenses, his payment to his creditors being reduced from twelve
to six lakhs. From this treaty Cornwallis hoped for a new and stable
settlement of the most puzzling, if not the most dangerous problem,
with which successive representatives were confronted. In nothing
did he show more clearly his lack of political sagacity than in this
hope. The fact that the moment any war broke out the control of the
country should change hands made confusion worse confounded, and
an efficient native administration became impossible. The nawab too
was left exposed to all the schemes and intrigues which had enmeshed
him of old. The pavement of good intentions left Paul Benfield and
his companions more secure than before. English management for
a limited period gave no opportunity for the detailed knowledge
which is essential to good government, and the people naturally
preserved their allegiance to the rule to which they were soon to
return. The Board of Control saw the weakness of the scheme and
soon determined that new arrangements must be made : but nothing
was done, perhaps nothing could have been done, so long as Muham-
mad 'Ali lived. He died 13 October, 1795, at the age of seventy-eight,
an astute intriguer, never a serious foe, but always a serious trouble,
to the Company. He had played on ruler after ruler with the skill
of an expert, and he had continually succeeded in obtaining terms
much better than he deserved, if not always all that he desired.
The time of his death seemed propitious. A year before, 7 Sep-
tember, 1794, Lord Hobart, an honourable and intelligent personage,
had become governor of Madras; and in a minute immediately after
the nawab's death recording the ruinous results of the policy of the
past and tracing all to the usurious loans which had been effected by
Europeans for mortgages on the provinces of the Carnatic, he declared
that the whole system was "destructive to the resources of the Carnatic
and in some degree reflecting disgrace upon the British Government".
In the letter appears an early expression of English concern for the
welfare of the poorest class, a protest against that oppression of the
ryots which the misgovernment and financial disorder inevitably
produced. British power, it seemed, had actually increased the
capacity for evil-doing which native governments had never been
slow to exercise. The Europeans to whom control of this mortgaged
district was allowed came to terms with the military authorities, and
enforced their claims by their aid : the cultivators had recourse to
money-lenders, who completed their ruin.
The accession of 'Umdat-ul-Umara determined Lord Hobart to
press his views of needed reform on the new nawab and on the
English Government. He proposed to assume the whole military and


## p. 358 (#386) ############################################

358
OUDH AND THE CARNATIC, 1785-1801
civil administration of the districts pledged for the payment of the
tribute, and the cession of the sovereignty over the poligars and of
sonie specified forts. He declared that the treaty of 1792 was a total
failure. But he found the new nawab immovable. He sat tight” and
appealed to the dying injunctions of his flagitious parent. Hobart
felt that he could wait no longer. He proposed to annex Tinnevelly.
Sir John Shore, now governor-general, considered such a course
impolitic, unauthorised and unjust. He wrote' to his predecessor
declaring that nothing could be more irreconcilable than Lord
Hobart's principles and his own. The governor of Madras seemed to
him to be "pursuing objects without any regard to the rectitude of
the means or ultimate consequence”. Shore's principles, regarded
by many as the cause of future wars, could not be better expressed
than in one sentence of this letter ?
That the territories of the Nawab of Arcot . . . may be mismanaged in the
most rúinous manner, I doubt not; that he (Hobart) should be anxious to cor-
rect those evils which, from personal observation, may be more impressive, I
can readily admit; but the existing treaties propose limits even to mismanage-
ment, and let it be as great as is asserted, which I do not deny, these
people
are not to be dragooned into concessions.
In fine, let the nawab go on, and let us hope that our goodness,
without pressure, will make other people good. The Evangelical
.
idealist lost all touch with fact, and thus all power to succour the
oppressed. So, as James Mill, for once not too severe, expresses it,"
by the compound of opposition of the Supreme Government and of the power-
fuil class of individuals whose profit depended upon the misgovernment of the
country, no reform could be introduced.
A change in the directing principle was necessary; and it came. Lord
Hobart, defeated and discouraged, resigned his post. Lord Clive, his
successor, arrived at Madras un 21 August, 1798. Meanwhile Lord
Mornington had succeeded Sir John Shore. The new governor-general
had not only studied Indian affairs in general with more industry
and insight than any of his predecessors before their arrival in the
country, but as the intimate friend of Pitt was well acquainted with
the bitter criticisms directed against the India Act in its bearing upon
the affairs of the Carnatic. He saw the condition of the country from
much the sanie point of view as was described by his brother. Arthur
in 1806. The evils of the alliance, begun "in the infancy of the British
power in the peninsula of India", centred on the non-interference of
the Company in the nawab's internal affairs, the prominent feature
in the policy of the directors, while such interference was constantly
proved to be absolutely necessary, and in the necessity of borrowing
money to pay the tribute from those who had given assignments of
I To Cornwallis, Life of Lord Teignmouth, 1,. 371 sqq.
? Idem, p. 373.
3 History of India, vi, 49.
4 Wellington Supplementary Despatches, IV. 893:


## p. 359 (#387) ############################################

WELLESLEY'S VIEWS
359
territory and had no interest in anything heyond the security of their
own interests. Thence came, as Arthur Wellesley said,
a system which tended not only to the oppression of the inhabitants of the
country, to the impoverishment of the Nawab, and to the destruction of the
revenues of the Carnatic, but was carried into execution by the Company's
civil and military servants, and by British subjects.
It had become an evil of enormous magnitude. Arthur Wellesley
acutely observed that, apart from its other results, it created in Madras
a body of men who, though in the Company's service, were directly
opposed to its interests; and these men gave advice to the nawab
which was necessarily contrary to the requirements of the British
Government and encouraged him in his maintenance of a condition
of affairs which, though it kept him in wealth and nominal power,
tended directly to the impoverishment of his country. The payment
of interest to private persons at 36 per cent. meant ruin even in India;
and in order to discharge it assignments had been given on the
districts especially secured to the Company, in case of failure to pay
the subsidy due to the government. This was in direct contradiction
to the terms of Cornwallis's treaty of 1792.
Not a month elapsed that did not afford matter of speculation as to whether
he could continue to pay his stipulated subsidy; and not one in which (the
Nawab] did not procure the money on loan at a large interest by means which
tended to the destruction of the country.
In vain did Hobart, Mornington, and Clive endeavour to win
the nawab's consent to a modification of the treaty : persistent im-
mobility and trickery had been displayed to the full by Muhammad
'Ali, and 'Umdat-ul-Umara, his son, followed in his steps. It is more
than probable that Mornington, masterful, determined, and impartial
though he was, might have failed like his predecessors to cleanse the
Augean stable if the nawab's rash treachery had not delivered him
into the governor-general's hands.
Impartial and uninfluenced by underground intrigue was Morn-
ington: the directors can hardly be said to have deserved this praise.
Though not personally corrupt, as were not a few of their representa-
tives in India, they were obsessed with the idea that it was necessary
to maintain treaties in permanence which were proved to have been
drawn up on inadequate knowledge. They thought that Cornwallis
had established this "honourable principle". They declared to
Morningtor. that, while they agreed with the proposals of Hobart, they
could not authorise the use of "any powers than those of persuasion"
to induce the nawab to form a new arrangement. Mornington replied,
4. July, 1798, that he had taken immediate steps to negotiate but that
there was no hope at present of obtaining the nawab's consent. His
father's injunctions and his usurers' disapproval were the ostensible
and the real reasons of his obduracy.
Then came the war with Tipu, in which the nawab behaved


## p. 360 (#388) ############################################

360
OUDH AND THE CARNATIC, 1785-1801
rather as an enemy than a friend. Negotiations were conducted with
scrupulous courtesy but no success. Then suddenly the whole position
changed. The Home Government had begun to see through the
nawab's disguises : the government of Fort St George still hesitated :
Mornington thought that the rapid progress of the war made the
seizure of the pledged territories, though ordered by the directors,
unnecessary. He was soon to discover that it was pressingly urgent.
For the moment he was turned aside from what was already his
object, as it had been that of Cornwallis and Hobart, to assume entire
control of the Carnatic, by affairs in the district about which Lord
Pigot and Muhammad 'Ali had been embroiled—Tanjore. There in
1786 Amir Singh had been appointed regent for Sarboji, the nephew
by adoption of his late brother the raja. A council of pandits to whom
the question of right was referred by the Madras Government decided
against the claims of the nephew. Sir John Shore was as usual
conscientious and dissatisfied. He found that the pandits had been
corruptly influenced. He summoned more pandits, especially those of
Benares-a body, it might be thought, not less amenable to monetary
influence. They decided in favour of Sarboji. It was clear that the
land was grievously oppressed by Amir Singh's minister, Siva Rao,
and that the districts, mortgaged, like those in the Carnatic, for debt
to the Company, were on the verge of ruin. . Hobart persuaded the
raja to surrender his territory. But Shore would none of it. His
.
biographer l'says that the prize did not tempt him to forget what he
conceived to be the undue pressure by which it had been won.
He observed that the raja had been intimidated into compliance by the
repeated calling out of British troops, even after he had consented to the dis-
missal of his minister-that the employment of Mr Swartz, the avowed protec-
tor of the raja's competitor and public impeacher of his life, as interpreter in
the transaction, had been injudicious—that the punctuality of the raja's pay.
ments had precluded all pretext for taking possession of his territory-ihat if
maladministration of mortgaged districts could justify the forfeiture of them
the British Government might lay claim equally to Oudh and Travancore; and
he concluded by declaring that justice and policy alike prescribed the recission
of the treaty and the restoration of the ceded district to the Nawab, whatever
embarrassments might result from the proceeding.
Lord Hobart, the man on the spot, naturally protested, and Shore
writing to the omnipotent Charles Grant” at the Board of Directors,
was equally emphatic on the error of Madras, which he attributed
to want of judgment and to ignoring his opinion "that honesty is, in
all situations, the best policy" But that same honesty made him
temper his criticism by a warm eulogy of the missionary, Swartz, one
of the greatest of the men whose services were at that time given
unreservedly to Southern India. Shore was indeed, one cannot but
1
2
1 His son, the second Lord Teignmouth, Life, I, 356.
2 Idem, pp. 374 sqq.


## p. 361 (#389) ############################################

SERINGAPATAM PAPERS
361
feel as one reads the documents, completely muddled over the affair.
It needed a Wellesley to straighten out the problem.
In October, 1797, the directors requested Lord Mornington to
"make a short stay at Madras". He did so, and he studied the cases
of Tanjore and Arcot on the spot. On 21 March, 1799, Dundas wrote
hoping that in the former case a settlement might be made by which
there could be expected from the raja "a pure and virtuous adminis-
tration of the affairs of his country". 1 Mornington went into all
the questions involved most thoroughly, and brought "the several
contending parties to a fair discussion (or rather to a bitter contest)”
in his own presence. Finally, 25 October, 1799, a treaty drawn up
by him was signed by which Sarboji was recognised as raja, but
the whole civil and military administration of the country was placed
in British hands, and the raja was given an allowance of £40,000, and
Amir Singh £10,000. The arrangement was undoubtedly beneficial
to English interests, but it
was far more beneficial to the people of Tanjore. It delivered them from the
effects of native oppression and European cupidity. It gave them what they
had never before possessed the security derived from the administration of
Justice. 2
From this settlement we pass to one much more difficult to achieve,
which was, as we have said, secured by the discovery of the treachery
of the nawab of Arcot.
At the capture of Seringapatam a mass of secret correspondence,
hitherto entirely unknown, between Muhammad 'Ali and his son and
the ruler of Mysore; fell into British hands. It was investigated by
Colonel Close and Mr Webbe and submitted to the Board of Control
and the Court of Directors. Wellesley would run no risk of again being
the victim of ingeniously manufactured delays. This investigation
was thorough. Witnesses as well as documents were most carefully
examined and a report 3 was signed at Seringapatam, 18 May, 1800.
The conclusion was—and it is reiterated in calm judicial terms by
Arthur Wellesley—that by their correspondence with the Company's
enemies the rulers of the Carnatic had broken their treaties with the
English and forfeited all claim to consideration as friends or allies.
The timely death of 'Umdat-ul-Umara, 15 July, 1801, gave further
facilities for the change of system which the English had long believed
to be necessary and inevitable. The succession was offered to the
"son, or supposed son” of the nawab, 'Ali Husain, if he would accept
the terms offered-a sum sufficient for his maintenance in state and
dignity and the transference of the government to the Company. He
rashly refused. Accordingly the nephew of the late nawab, 'Azim-
ud-daula, was approached. He was the eldest legitimate son of Amir-
1 Wellesley Despatches, il, 110.