Part 52

"When Warren Hastings left India, the Mogul Empire was simply the phantom of a name. The warlike tribes of the north-west, Sikhs, Rajpoots, Jats, were henceforth independent; but the Rohillas of the north-east had been subdued and almost exterminated. Of the three greatest Soobahs or vice-royalties of the Mogul empire, at one time practically independent, that of Bengal had wholly disappeared, those of Oude and the Deckan had sunk into dependence on a foreign power, were maintained by the aid of foreign mercenaries. The only two native powers that remained were, the Mahrattas, and the newly-risen Mussulman dynasty of Mysore. The former were still divided between the great chieftaincies of the Peshwa, Scindia, Holkar, the Guicowar, and the Boslas of Berar. But the supremacy of the Peshwa was on the wane; that of Scindia, on the contrary, in the ascendant. Scindia ruled in the north; he had possession of the emperor's person, of Delhi, the old Mussulman capital. In the south, Hyder Ali and Tippoo [son of Hyder Ali, whom he had succeeded in 1782], Sultan of Mysore, had attained to remarkable power. They were dangerous to the Mahrattas, dangerous to the Nizam, dangerous, lastly, to the English. But the rise of the last-named power was the great event of the period. … They had won for themselves the three great provinces of Bengal, Behar, and Orissa, besides Benares,—forming a large compact mass of territory to the north-east. They had, farther down the east coast, the province of the Northern Circars, and farther still, the jagheer [land grant], of Madras; on the west, again, a large stretch of territory at the southern extremity of the peninsula. The two Mussulman sovereigns of Oude and Hyderabad were their dependent allies; they administered the country of the Nawab of the Carnatic, besides having hosts of smaller potentates under their protection. … The appointed successor to Hastings was Lord Macartney. … He lost his office, however, by hesitating to accept it, and going to England to urge conditions. … The great military event of Lord Cornwallis's government was the third Mysore war. It began with some disputes about the petty Raja of Cherika, from whom the English had farmed the customs of Tellicherry, and taken, in security for advances, a district called Randaterra, and by Tippoo's attack upon the lines of the Raja of Travancore, an ally of the English, consisting of a ditch, wall, and other defences, on an extent of about thirty miles. Tippoo was, however, repelled with great slaughter in an attack on the town (1789). Hearing this, Lord Cornwallis at once entered into treaties with the Nizam and the Peshwa for a joint war upon Mysore; all new conquests to be equally divided, all Tippoo's own conquests from the contracting powers to be restored. After a first inconclusive campaign, in which, notwithstanding the skill of General Meadows, the advantage rather remained to Tippoo, who, amongst other things, gave a decided check to Colonel Floyd (1790), Lord Cornwallis took the command in person, and carried Bangalore by assault, with great loss to both parties, but a tremendous carnage of the besieged. However, so wretched had been the English preparations, that, the cattle being 'reduced to skeletons, and scarcely able to move their own weight,' Lord Cornwallis, after advancing to besiege Seringapatam, was forced to retreat and to destroy the whole of his battering-train and other equipments; whilst General Abercrombie, who was advancing in the same direction from the Malabar coast, had to do the same (1791). A force of Mahrattas came in, well appointed and well provided, but too late to avert these disasters. The next campaign was more successful. It began by the taking of several of the hill-forts forming the western barrier of Mysore. … On the 5th February, 1792, however, Lord Cornwallis appeared before Seringapatam, situated in an island formed by the Cauvery: the fort and outworks were provided with 300 pieces of cannon; the fortified camp, outside the river, by six redoubts, with more than 100 pieces of heavy artillery. Tippoo's army consisted of 6,000 cavalry and 50,000 infantry, himself commanding. This first siege, which is celebrated in Indian warfare, continued with complete success on the English side till the 24th. 10,000 subjects of Coorg, whom Tippoo had enlisted by force, deserted. At last, when the whole island was carried and all preparations made for the siege, Tippoo made peace. The English allies had such confidence in Lord Cornwallis, that they left him entire discretion as to the terms. They were,—that Tippoo should give up half of his territory, pay a large sum for war expenses, and give up two of his sons as hostages. The ceded territory was divided between the allies, the Company obtaining a large strip of the Malabar coast, extending eastward to the Carnatic. … Meanwhile, on the breaking out of war between England and the French Republic, the French settlements in India were all again annexed (1792). Lord Cornwallis now applied himself to questions of internal government. Properly speaking, there was no English Government as yet. Mr. Kaye, the brilliant apologist of the East India Company, says, of Lord Cornwallis, that 'he gathered up the scattered fragments of government which he found, and reduced them to one comprehensive system.' He organized the administration of criminal justice, reorganized the police. He separated the connection of the revenues from the administration of justice, organizing civil justice in turn. … He next proceeded to organize the financial system of the Company's government. … Hence the famous 'Permanent Settlement' of Lord Cornwallis (22nd March, 1793)."

_J. M. Ludlow, British India, lecture 9 (volume 1)._

{1727}

"In 1793 the so-called Permanent Settlement of the Land Revenue was introduced. We found in Bengal, when we succeeded to the Government, a class of middle-men, called Zemindars [or Zamindars-see, also, TALUKDARS], who collected the land revenue and the taxes, and we continued to employ them. As a matter of convenience and expediency, but not of right, the office of zemindar was often hereditary. The zemindars had never been in any sense the owners of the land, but it was supposed by Lord Cornwallis and the English rulers of the time that it would be an excellent thing for Bengal to have a class of landlords something like those of England; the zemindars were the only people that seemed available for the purpose, and they were declared to be the proprietors of the land. It was by no means intended that injustice should thus be done to others. Excepting the State, there was only one great class, that of the ryots or actual cultivators, which, according to immemorial custom, could be held to possess permanent rights in the land. The existence of those rights was recognised, and, as it was supposed, guarded by the law. … There has been much dispute as to the exact nature of the rights given to the zemindars, but everyone agrees that it was not the intention of the authors of the Permanent Settlement to confiscate anything which, according to the customs of the country, had belonged to the cultivators. The right of property given to the zemindars was a portion of those rights which had always been exercised by the State, and of which the State was at liberty to dispose; it was not intended that they should receive anything else. The land revenue, representing the share of the produce or rental to which the State was entitled, was fixed in perpetuity. The ryots were to continue to hold their lands permanently at the 'rates established in the purgunnah;' when the amount of these rates was disputed it was to be settled by the courts; so long as rents at those rates were paid, the ryot could not be evicted. The intention was to secure to the ryot fixity of tenure and fixity of rent. Unfortunately, these rights were only secured upon paper. … The consequences at the present time are these:—Even if it be assumed that the share of the rent which the State can wisely take is smaller than the share which any Government, Native or English, has ever taken or proposed to take in India, the amount now received by the State from the land in Bengal must be held to fall short of what it might be by a sum that can hardly be less than £5,000,000 a year; this is a moderate computation; probably the loss is much more. This is given away in return for no service to the State or to the public; the zemindars are merely the receivers of rent; with exceptions so rare as to deserve no consideration, they take no part in the improvement of the land, and, until a very few years ago, they bore virtually no share of the public burdens. The result of these proceedings of the last century, to the maintenance of which for ever the faith of the British Government is said to have been pledged, is that the poorer classes in poorer provinces have to make good to the State the millions which have been thrown away in Bengal. If this were all, it would be bad enough, but worse remains to be told. … 'The original intention of the framers of the Permanent Settlement (I am quoting from Sir George Campbell) was to record all rights. The Canoongoes (District Registrars) and Putwarees (Village Accountants) were to register all holdings, all transfers, all rent-rolls, and all receipts and payments; and every five years there was to be filed in the public offices a complete register of all land tenures. But the task was a difficult one; there was delay in carrying it out. … The putwarees fell into disuse or became the mere servants of the zemindars; the canoongoes were abolished. No record of the rights of the ryots and inferior holders was ever made, and even the quinquennial register of superior rights, which was maintained for a time, fell into disuse.' … The consequences of the Permanent Settlement did not become immediately prominent. … But, as time went on, and population and wealth increased, as cultivators were more readily found, and custom began to give way to competition, the position of the ryots became worse and that of the zemindars became stronger. Other circumstances helped the process of confiscation of the rights of the peasantry. … The confiscation of the rights of the ryots has reached vast proportions. In 1793 the rental left to the zemindars under the Permanent Settlement, after payment of the land revenue, is supposed not to have exceeded £400,000; according to some estimates it was less. If the intentions of the Government had been carried out, it was to the ryots that the greater portion of any future increase in the annual value of the land would have belonged, in those parts at least of the province which were at that time well cultivated. It is not possible to state with confidence the present gross annual rental of the landlords of Bengal. An imperfect valuation made some years ago showed it to be £13,000,000. It is now called £17,000,000, but there can be little doubt that it is much more. Thus, after deducting the land revenue, which is about £3,800,000, the net rental has risen from £400,000 in the last century to more than £13,000,000 at the present time. No portion of this increase has been due to the action of the zemindars. It has been due to the industry of the ryots, to whom the greater part of it rightfully belonged, to the peaceful progress of the country, and to the expenditure of the State, an expenditure mainly defrayed from the taxation of poorer provinces. If ever there was an 'unearned increment,' it is this."

_Sir J. Strachey, India, lecture 12._

ALSO IN: _J. W. Kaye, The Administration of the East India Co., part 2, chapter 2._

_J. Mill, History of British India, book 6, chapter 4 (volume 5)._

_W. S. Seton-Karr, The Marquess Cornwallis, chapter 2._

_Sir R. Temple, James Thomason, chapter 9._

INDIA: A. D. 1785-1795. The Impeachment and Trial of Warren Hastings.

"Warren Hastings returned to England in the summer of 1785, and met with a distinguished reception. "I find myself," he wrote to a friend, "every where and universally treated with evidences, apparent even to my own observation, that I possess the good opinion of my country." But underneath this superficial "good opinion" there existed a moral feeling which had been outraged by the unscrupulous measures of the Governor-General of India, and which began soon to speak aloud through the eloquent lips of Edmund Burke. Joined in the movement by Fox and Sheridan, Burke laid charges before Parliament which forced the House of Commons, in the session of 1787 to order the impeachment of Hastings before the Lords. On the 13th of February, 1788, the sittings of the Court commenced. {1728} There have been spectacles more dazzling to the eye, more gorgeous with jewellery and cloth of gold, more attractive to grown-up children, than that which was then exhibited at Westminster; but, perhaps, there never was a spectacle so well calculated to strike a highly cultivated, a reflecting, an imaginative mind. All the various kinds of interest which belong to the near and to the distant, to the present and to the past, were collected on one spot and in one hour. All the talents and all the accomplishments which are developed by liberty and civilisation were now displayed, with every advantage that could be derived both from co-operation and from contrast. Every step in the proceedings carried the mind either backward, through many troubled centuries, to the days when the foundations of our constitution were laid; or far away, over boundless seas and deserts, to dusky nations living under strange stars, worshipping strange gods, and writing strange characters from right to left. The High Court of Parliament was to sit, according to forms handed down from the days of the Plantagenets, on an Englishman accused of exercising tyranny over the lord of the holy city of Benares, and over the ladies of the princely house of Oude. The place was worthy of such a trial. It was the great hall of William Rufus, the hall which had resounded with acclamations at the inauguration of thirty kings, the hall which had witnessed the just sentence of Bacon and the just absolution of Somers, the hall where the eloquence of Strafford had for a moment awed and melted a victorious party inflamed with just resentment, the hall where Charles had confronted the High Court of Justice with the placid courage which has half redeemed his fame. Neither military nor civil pomp was wanting. The avenues were lined with grenadiers. The streets were kept clear by cavalry. The peers, robed in gold and ermine, were marshalled by the heralds under Garter King-at-arms. The judges in their vestments of state attended to give advice on points of law. Near a hundred and seventy lords, three fourths of the Upper House as the Upper House then was, walked in solemn order from their usual place of assembling to the tribunal. … The grey old walls were hung with scarlet. The long galleries were crowded by an audience such as has rarely excited the fears or the emulations of an orator. There were gathered together, from all parts of a great, free, enlightened, and prosperous empire, grace and female loveliness, wit and learning, the representatives of every science and of every art. … The Serjeants made proclamation. Hastings advanced to the bar, and bent his knee. The culprit was indeed not unworthy of that great presence. He had ruled an extensive and populous country, had made laws and treaties, had sent forth armies, had set up and pulled down princes. And in his high place he had so borne himself, that all had feared him, that most had loved him, and that hatred itself could deny him no title to glory, except virtue. He looked like a great man, and not like a bad man. … His counsel accompanied him, men all of whom were afterwards raised by their talents and learning to the highest posts in their profession, the bold and strong-minded Law, afterwards Chief Justice of the King's Bench; the more humane and eloquent Dallas, afterwards Chief Justice of the Common Pleas; and Plomer who, near twenty years later, successfully conducted in the same high court the defence of Lord Melville, and subsequently became Vice-chancellor and Master of the Rolls. But neither the culprit nor his advocates attracted so much notice as the accusers. In the midst of the blaze of red drapery, a space had been fitted up with green benches and tables for the Commons. The managers, with Burke at their head, appeared in full dress. The collectors of gossip did not fail to remark that even Fox, generally so regardless of his appearance, had paid to the illustrious tribunal the compliment of wearing a bag and sword. Pitt had refused to be one of the conductors of the impeachment; and his commanding, copious, and sonorous eloquence was wanting to that great muster of various talents. … The charges and the answers of Hastings were first read. The ceremony occupied two whole days, and was rendered less tedious than it would otherwise have been by the silver voice and just emphasis of Cowper, the clerk of the court, a near relation of the amiable poet. On the third day Burke rose. Four sittings were occupied by his opening speech, which was intended to be a general introduction to all the charges. With an exuberance of thought and a splendour of diction, which more than satisfied the highly raised expectation of the audience, he described the character and institutions of the natives of India, recounted the circumstances in which the Asiatic empire of Britain had originated, and set forth the constitution of the Company and of the English presidencies. … When the Court sat again, Mr. Fox, assisted by Mr. Grey, opened the charge respecting Cheyte Sing, and several days were spent in reading papers and hearing witnesses. The next article was that relating to the Princesses of Oude. The conduct of this part of the case was intrusted to Sheridan. The curiosity of the public to hear him was unbounded. His sparkling and highly finished declamation lasted two days; but the Hall was crowded to suffocation during the whole time. It was said that fifty guineas had been paid for a single ticket. Sheridan, when he concluded, contrived, with a knowledge of stage effect which his father might have envied, to sink back, as if exhausted, into the arms of Burke, who hugged him with the energy of generous admiration. June was now far advanced. The session could not last much longer; and the progress which had been made in the impeachment was not very satisfactory. There were twenty charges. On two only of these had even the case for the prosecution been heard; and it was now a year since Hastings had been admitted to bail. The interest taken by the public in the trial was great when the Court began to sit, and rose to the height when Sheridan spoke on the charge relating to the Begums. From that time the excitement went down fast. The spectacle had lost the attraction of novelty. The great displays of rhetoric were over. … The trial in the Hall went on languidly. In the session of 1788, when the proceedings had the interest of novelty, and when the Peers had little other business before them, only thirty-five days were given to the impeachment. In 1789 … during the whole year only seventeen days were given to the case of Hastings. … At length, in the spring of 1795, the decision was pronounced, near eight years after Hastings had been brought by the Serjeant-at-arms of the Commons to the bar of the Lords. {1729} … Only twenty-nine Peers voted. Of these only six found Hastings guilty on the charges relating to Cheyte Sing and to the Begums. On other charges, the majority in his favour was still greater. On some he was unanimously absolved. He was then called to the bar, was informed from the woolsack that the Lords had acquitted him, and was solemnly discharged. He bowed respectfully and retired. We have said that the decision had been fully expected. It was also generally approved. … It was thought, and not without reason, that, even if he was guilty, he was still an ill-used man, and that an impeachment of eight years was more than a sufficient punishment. It was also felt that, though, in the ordinary course of criminal law, a defendant is not allowed to set off his good actions against his crimes, a great political cause should be tried on different principles, and that a man who had governed an empire during thirteen years might have done some very reprehensible things, and yet might be on the whole deserving of rewards and honours rather than of fine and imprisonment."

_Lord Macaulay, Warren Hastings (Essays)._

"The trial had several beneficial results. It cleared off a cloud of misconceptions, calumnies, exaggerations, and false notions generally on both sides; it fixed and promulgated the standard which the English people would in future insist upon maintaining in their Indian administration; it bound down the East India Company to better behaviour; it served as an example and a salutary warning, and it relieved the national conscience. But the attempt to make Hastings a sacrifice and a burnt-offering for the sins of the people; the process of loading him with curses and driving him away into the wilderness; of stoning him with every epithet and metaphor that the English language could supply for heaping ignominy on his head; of keeping him seven years under an impeachment that menaced him with ruin and infamy—these were blots upon the prosecution and wide aberrations from the true course of justice which disfigured the aspect of the trial, distorted its aim, and had much to do with bringing it to the lame and impotent conclusion that Burke so bitterly denounced."

_Sir A. Lyall, Warren Hastings, chapter 9._

ALSO IN: _E. Burke, Works, volumes 8-12._

_Speeches of Managers and Counsel in the Trial of Warren Hastings, edited by E. A. Bond._

INDIA: A. D. 1798-1805. The administration and imperial policy of the Marquis Wellesley. Treaty with the Nizam. Overthrow and death of Tippoo, Sultan of Mysore. War with the Mahrattas. Assaye and Laswari. Territorial acquisitions.