No More Learning

1 Cornwallis Correspondence, a, 159.
8 Annual Register, 1792.
* Cornwallis Correspondence, I, 176 sqq.
22


## p. 338 (#366) ############################################

338
TIPU SULTAN, 1785-1802
1
cloud was beginning to rise on the horizon towards Mysore. Early
in October, 1793, the governor-general returned to England, and his
successor had none of his military interests or international experience,
and little of his political sagacity.
The war between the Marathas and the Nizam (1794-5), in which
Shore not unnaturally avoided intervention, ended in the Nizam's
defeat and in Sir John Shore's belief that he was a less valuable ally
than his conquerors, with the inept anticipation that there was “no
immediate probability that we shall be involved in war”. ? He had,
says his biographer,; anticipated no danger from the union of the
Marathas and Tipu against the Nizam, and contemplated without
apprehension the total collapse of the latter's government. It is
sufficient comment on Sir John Shore's political wisdom that it, alone
of the three, survives to-day.
The results of Shore's non-intervention were speedily seen. The
Nizam dismissed his English troops and increased the French, and
but for his son's rebellion, which the English had remained long
enough to suppress, would have thrown himself entirely on the French
side, and thus have come inevitably into alliance with Tipu. Shore
returned to England in 1798. A very careful and conscientious
administrator, he was succeeded by a man of genius, who became one
of the makers of British India. Himself without Indian experience,
Richard Wellesley, Earl of Mornington_(who arrived on 26 April,
1798), approached the problems of the East with a mind unbiassed
though not uninformed. He was already on the Board of Control
and had studied the history, politics and government of India
assiduously. He had accepted the governorship of Madras, and had
therefore observed the difficulties of Southern India particularly, on
Lord Cornwallis being appointed governor-general a second time (1
February, 1797); but when Cornwallis accepted the lord-lieutenancy
of Ireland a few months later, Wellesley was sent on instead to
Calcutta. His earliest letters to Dundas, on his way out to India,
evince a remarkable knowledge of Indian affairs, and on 28 February,
1798, though he did not know of Tipu's recent negotiations with
France, he saw that in the power of Mysore lay the key to the whole
position. Since Cornwallis had left India the fruits of his successes
had disappeared.
4
“The balance of power in India”, he wrote, “no longer exists upon the same
footing on which it was placed by the peace of Seringapatam. The question
therefore must arise how it may best be brought back to the state in which
you have directed me to maintain it. ”
But he soon saw that the balance of power, if such there were to be,
1 Cornwallis Correspondence, in, 219.
2 See his state papers, Malcolm's History, II, App. O, XLIV sqq.
3 The second Lord Teignmouth, Life, I, 320.
1 From Cape of Good Hope : Despatches, I, 25: Cf. The Wellesley Papers.
vol. 1.


## p. 339 (#367) ############################################

CAUSES OF WAR
339
must stand on a very different footing from that on which Cornwallis,
or Shore, or even Dundas, believed that it would rest securely.
An admirable paper written years after by the Duke of Wellington
-Mornington's younger brother Arthur, who arrived in India in
January, 1797–describes the condition of the country when the new
governor-general arrived. To Wellesley, actively though he inter-
vened in the affairs of other countries, especially those of the Nizam,
the centre of interest was Mysore. He landed on 26 April, 1798, and
immediately learnt of the negotiations of Tipu with France and her
dependency Mauritius. 1 Tipu had sent envoys to Versailles (where
they were received with almost as much mirth as satisfaction), called
himself "Citoyen", and addressed the most urgent and flattering
application to Malartic, the governor of Mauritius, for alliance and
aid. In the name of the French Republic one and indivisible, the
governor of the Isles of France and Bourbon issued a vigorous
proclamation to the "citoyens de couleur libres", announcing Tipu's
desire for an offensive and defensive alliance, and welcoming his
assistance to expel the English from India. Tipu's ambassadors
returned home and landed at Mangalore accompanied by a small
French force on the very day (26 April, 1798)2 that Sir John Shore
received a letter from him desiring "to cultivate and improve the
friendship and good understanding subsisting between the two states
and an inviolable adherence to the engagements by which they are
connected". The new governor-general was not deceived. He ad-
dressed a friendly letter to Tipu and received an effusive reply; but
he left no ground for doubt as to the seriousness of his intentions,
of which he desired the sultan to be aware. On 18 October he heard
of Bonaparte's landing in Egypt, and two days later he ordered Lord
Clive, governor of Madras, to prepare for war. He was now secure
on the side of Hyderabad, and he began a series of exploratory
operations (as surgeons might say) in the direction of Mysore. He
wrote: Tipu replied : more than once : the governor-general courteous
with a touch of imperiousness, the Muhammadan despot evasive and
deceitful. At first Mornington's plan was merely to require a repu-
diation of the French alliance; it developed, through increasing
requirements of territory, into a determinacion utterly to annihilate
the power of the usurper of Mysore.
The Mysore War with the destruction of Tipu has often been
criticised as unjustifiable and unjust, precipitate and unwarranted by
the conduct of the vanquished. The great majority of contemporary
opinion is entirely against this view. Indeed it may be said that
hardly a single writer or speaker who had personal knowledge of
India doubted that the war, and its object, were absolutely necessary.
England was already in danger from France, and the danger for
2 Idem, 1. App. pp. viii-xi.
1 Wellesley Despatches, 1, 213.
8 Cf. p. 328 supra.


## p. 340 (#368) ############################################

340
TIPU SULTAN, 1785-1802
several years grew greater; how much greater would it have been
had the life and death struggle been carried on in India as well as
in Europe! Already a French force was in Egypt. Did not the classical
models which the ambitious pedants of the Revolution delighted to
follow point towards the creation of a new western dominion in the
East? The armies of Tipu, daily growing in numbers and efficiency,
were ready implements to make this achievement possible. "His
resources”, said the Madras Government to Mornington, "are more
prompt than our own. " Yet war was embarked on by the English
only after serious attempts at negotiation, and it seemed to the
governor-general that it needed the vindication which the course of
events would afford.
“It will soon be evident”, he said, “to all the powers of India that the
fundamental principle of our policy is invariably repugnant to every schene
of conguest, extension of dominion, aggrandisement or ambition either for our-
selves or our allies. "
It may be wondered whether the serious attempts at negotiation
were ever regarded by Tipu as anything but endeavours to gain time.
His letters to Lord Mornington were no doubt amusing from their
fulsome professions of sincerity and friendship mingled with denun-
ciations of all that had happened in the Isle of France. They
continued all through the winter of 1798-9, and were in no way
influenced by the vigorous letter sent from Constantinople by the
sultan, Selim III, urging the necessity of opposing the faithless French,
enemies of the Muhammadan faith. Mornington suffered them to
continue, for, as early as 12 August, 1798," he had drawn up a minute
in the Secret Department sketching measures necessary for "frustrat-
ing the united efforts of Tipoo Sultaun and of France". Yet he was
still anxious to defend himself against any charge of aggressiveness.
“The rights of states applicable to every case of contest with foreign
powers”, he asserted, "are created and limited by the necessity of
preserving the public safety. ” This necessity was now obvious. By
the beginning of 1799 both sides were ready for the contest. Tipu
retorted to Constantinople the charges made against his allies (10
February): Mornington issued to General Harris at Madras his
instructions for the political conduct of the inevitable war (22 Febru-
ary). A commission was appointed to negotiate with any neighbouring
chiefs, to conciliate the population and to watch over the family of
the ancient Hindu rajas, whom the governor-general already thought
of restoring to the throne of Mysore. On this commission Colonel
Arthur Wellesley served. It was the first important political work
of one, who was to become England's prime minister as well as
commander-in-chief. On the same day there was issued from Madras
a declaration by the Governor-General in Council of the causes of
the war, and Mornington addressed from Fort St George an order
1 Wellesley Despatches, I, 159.
2 Idem, p. 171


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FALL OF SËRINGAPATAM
341
1
to General Harris not to delay the march of the army one hour, but
to enter Mysore and march upon Seringapatam.
The. circumstances were favourable. The armies of the Nizam and
the Peshwa might be useful, and relations with the Nizam at least
were cordial. But the chief dependence was on the British troops.
The army of the Carnatic was believed to be
the best appointed, the most completely equipped, the most amply and libe-
rally supplied, the most perfect in point of discipline, and the most fortunate
in the acknowledged experience and abilities of its officers in every department
which ever took the field of India,
and the Malabar force was also efficient. The object of the war was
plain : the general in command had full powers, and the country was
well known from the experience of the earlier war. British ships were
at sea, successfully scouring it of French vessels. The governor-general
himself was at Madras masterfully directing every step in advance,
and acting in cordial association with the governor, the son of the
great Clive. On 3 February General Harris moved from Vellore and
General Stewart from Kannanur. On 8 March Stewart defeated Tipu
at Sedasere, and on the 27th he was again defeated at Mallavelly,
by Harris. The raja of Coorg, Tipu's bitter enemy, witnessed the
achievements of Stewart with enthusiasm. Arthur Wellesley was in
command of the contingent from Hyderabad, largely troops of the
Nizam. Tipu was utterly out-generalled, and could do no more tha).
turn to bay in his capital. The English armies met before Seringa-
patam early in April, and on 17 April the siege began. The English
were compelled to hurry operations owing to the lateness of the
season and the inadequacy of supplies—then a common fault in the
organisation of all South Indian campaigns. A letter of General
Harris dated 7 May describes the siege, and the assault and capture
on 4 May. By the evening of the 3rd the walls were so battered that
a practicable breach was made, and the assault was decided on for
the 4th in the heat of the day. At one o'clock the English troops, with
two hundred men from the Nizam's forces, crossed the Kavari under
very heavy fire, passed the glacis and ditch and stormed the ramparts
and the breaches made by the artillery; Major-General David Baird,
who had been a prisoner of Tipu's till the Treaty of Mangalore, was
in command. Tipu's body was found in a heap of hundreds of dead.
His son, formerly a hostage, surrendered himself, and the Muham-
madan dynasty was at an end.
Tipu was regarded by ignorant pamphleteers in England as a
martyr to English aggression, and James Mill in later years attempted
to vindicate his ability if not his character. But his Indian contem-
poraries rejoiced at his fall. He was a man of savage passions and
vaulting ambition, whose capacities were not equal to his own esti-
mation of his powers. He ruled, as a convinced Muhammadan, over
1 See Wilks's Sketches, III, 493.


## p. 342 (#370) ############################################

342
TIPU SULTAN, 1785-1802
>
2
a population of Hindus, whose ancient sovereigns his father had
dispossessed and whom he had bitterly persecuted. The district
around Mysore abhorred him, and though the English found signs
of prosperity within his dominions these were certainly due to no
inspiration of his own. His character was a contrast to that of his
father, who was wise and tolerant.
"Hyder”, says Colonel Wilks,1 "was seldom wrong and Tipu seldom right
in his estimate of character. . . . Unlimited persecution united in detestation of
his rule every Hindu in his dominions. In the Hindu no degree of merit was a
passport to his favour; in the Mussulman no crime could ensure displeasure.
Tipu in an age when persecution only survived in history revived its worst
terrors. . : He was barbarous where severity was vice, and indulgent where
it was virtue. If he had qualities fitted for Empire they were strangely equi.
vocal; the disqualifications were obvious and unquestionable, and the decision
of history will not be far removed from the observation almost proverbial in
Mysore, 'that Hyder was born to create an Empire, Tipu to lose one'. "
In a letter from Thomas Munro to his father 2 facts are given which
support a judgment fully as severe. It is shown that through the
means Tipu had taken to strengthen his power, by employing men of
different races and being himself responsible for their payment, and
by keeping the families of his chief officers as hostages at Seringa-
patam, he had made the stability of his government depend entirely
upon himself, and with him it collapsed; and “also he was so suspi-
cious and cruel that none of his subjects, none probably of his children,
lamented his fall”.
At the fall of Seringapatam practically the entire sovereignty of
Mysore fell into the English hands. How was this power to be
exercised? Mornington was not disposed to annex the whole, as he
might well have done. Nor did he desire to add to obligations which
it was not easy either to estimate or to discharge. He wrote that
owing to the inconveniences and embarrassments which resulted from the
whole system of government and conflicting authorities in Oudh, the Carnatic
and Mysore, I resolved to reserve to the Company the most extensive and
indisputable powers.
Thus the family of Tipu was swept into obscurity but with ample
provision and dignity. Then came provision for all the territory that
had been conquered. Mornington set himself at once to the serious
task of providing for the future government of the country. He
decided
that the establishment of a central and separate government in Mysore, under
the protection of the Company, and the admission of the Marathas to a certain
participation in the division of the conquered territory, were the expedients
best caiculated to reconcile the interests of all parties, to secure to the Com-
pany a less invidious and more efficient share of revenue, resources, commercial
advantage and military strength than could be obtained under any other dis-
tribution of territory or power, and to afford the most favourable prospect of
a general and permanent tranquillity in India.
1 Wilks, op. . cit. HI, 464.
2 Gleig, Life, I, 228 sqq. : a most interesting and valuable letter.


## p. 343 (#371) ############################################

ENGLISH GAINS
343
Thus Tipu's territory was divided, leaving only a small and compact
possession for the descendants of the ancient Hindu rajas, of which
the Company was to undertake the defence, occupying any forts it
might choose. Beyond that, the division of territory had results of
considerable political as well as geographical importance. To the
English dominions were added the province of Kanara, the districts
of Coimbatore, Wynad and Dharapuram, and all the land below the
Ghats between the coast of Malabar and the Carnatic, "securing",
said Wellesley, "an uninterrupted tract of territory from the coast of
Coromandel to that of Malabar, together with the entire sea-coast of
the kingdom of Mysore”. The fortresses commanding all the heads
of the passes above the Ghats were also secured, and, in addition,
the fortress of Seringapatam. Thus it was made certain that no ruler
should arise in Mysore like Tipu who could intervene in a conrest of
sea-power, or hold out a hand to European enemies of England to
give a landing for troops which might threaten British power in the
south of India, as it had been threatened in the days of La Bourdonnais
and Dupleix.
This rearrangement greatly increased the responsibilities of the
presidency of Madras, a fact which the directors of the East India
Company did not at once appreciate. The governors and the council
were not generally men of wide vision or practical sagacity. Lord
Clive was a useful subordinate to the governor-general; not so much
could have been said of all his successors. Nor was the military
organisation of Madras satisfactory; it took a long time to provide a
permanent systein of recruiting, commissariat, and command. Sir
Hilaro Barlow, afterwards governor-general, had a difficult task with
regard to the army, and it may at least be said that he discharged it
with greater wisdom than several of his contemporaries. In Sis
Thomas Munro, however, the Company soon found a servant of the
very highest ability, and so long as he was in authority in the
province of Madras the improvement was rapid and continuous.
"Perhaps there never lived a European more intimately acquainted”, says
his biographer, Gleig, 1 "with the characters, habits, manners and institutions
of the natives of India, because there never lived a European who at once
possessed better opportunities of acquiring such knowledge, and made better
use of them. "
It was not till twenty years later than the conquest of Mysore that
he became governor of Madras, but his growing influence over
Southern India can be traced in all the years which intervene. On
the acquisition of Kanara he was its governor, and he made a deep
impression on the inhabitants of that rugged and wild district which
stood between the Portuguese, the Marathas, and the sea. It was a
time when the power of the Marathas began visibly to decline. The
share of Tipu's territory which was offered them they refused, the
Peshwe already scheming for an occasion of attack upon the English;
1 Preface to Life, p. xii.
1
1


## p. 344 (#372) ############################################

344
TIPU SULTAN, 1785-1802
the land then was divided between the English and the Nizam. As
the Marathas became more clearly alienated from the English-
though, as will be seen later, the process was not continuous, the
Nizam-again with interruptions-became more definitely their ally.
The Treaty of Hyderabad, Mornington's first achievement in con-
structive statesmanship, had brought the Nizam close to the English
government in India; his aid in the Mysore War had not been
inconsiderable and now his position was consolidated by the acquisi-
tion of the districts of Gurramkonda and Gooty and the land down to
Chitaldrug, and other border fortresses of Mysore. Thus the process
begun in the Treaty of Hyderabad was continued after the overthrow
of Tipu, and the Nizam was established as a strong and independent
support of the English in the south. In the words of Arthur Wellesley
a few years later, "our principal ally, the Nizam, was restored to us";
and affairs in the south were placed "on foundations of strength
calculated to afford lasting peace and security”.
Towards this security the settlement of Mysore was an essential
factor. Mornington had for some time considered the wisest course
to adopt. He felt that a native state must remain; but that it should
be unable to embroil itself and its neighbours with the Company.
When Mornington announced the results of the war and the peace
to the directors of the Company, he said :
Happily as I estimate the immediate and direct advantages of revenue and
of commercial and military resources, I consider the recent settlement of Mysore
to be equally important to your interests, in its tendency to increase your
political consideration among the native powers, together with your means of
maintaining internal tranquillity and order among your subjects and depend-
ents, and of defending your possessions against any enemy whether Asiatic or
European.
And the settlement was this. 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.


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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.


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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


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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


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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.


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