Part 563

"Sir John Strachey, in his work on Hastings and the Rohilla War, examines in detail one of the chief charges made against the conduct of Warren Hastings while Governor-General. The Rohilla charge was dropped by Burke and the managers, and was therefore not one of the issues tried at the impeachment; but it was, in spite of this fact, one of the main accusations urged against the Governor-General in Macaulay's famous essay. Macaulay, following James Mill, accuses Warren Hastings of having hired out an English army to exterminate what Burke called 'the bravest, the most honourable and generous nation on earth.' According to Macaulay, the Vizier of Oudh coveted the Rohilla country, but was not strong enough to take it for himself. Accordingly, he paid down forty lakhs of rupees to Hastings, on condition that the latter should help to strike down and seize his prey. … Sir John Strachey … shows beyond a shadow of doubt that the whole story is a delusion. … 'The English army was not hired out by Hastings for the destruction of the Rohillas; the Rohillas described by Burke as belonging to the bravest, the most honourable and generous nation on earth, were no nation at all, but a comparatively small body of cruel and rapacious Afghan adventurers, who had imposed their foreign rule on an unwilling Hindoo population; and the story of their destruction is fictitious.' … The north-west angle of the great strip of plain which follows the course of the Ganges was possessed by a clan which fifty years before had been a mere band of Afghan mercenaries, but which was now beginning to settle down as a dominant governing class, living among a vastly more numerous subject-population of Hindoos. This country was Rohilkhand, the warrior-horde the Rohillas. It must never be forgotten that the Rohillas were no more the inhabitants of Rohilkhand than were the Normans fifty years after the Conquest the inhabitants of England. … But the fact that the corner of what geographically was our barrier State was held by the Rohillas, made it necessary for us to keep Rohilkhand as well as Oudh free from the Mahrattas. Hence it became the key-note of Warren Hastings' policy to help both the Rohillas and the Vizier [of Oudh] to maintain their independence against the Mahrattas. In the year 1772, however, the Mahrattas succeeded in crossing the Ganges, in getting into Rohilkhand, and in threatening the Province of Oudh. … Hastings encouraged the Vizier and the Rohilla chiefs to make an alliance, under which the Rohillas were to be reinstated in their country by aid of the Vizier, the Vizier obtaining for such assistance forty lakhs,—that is, he coupled the Rohillas and the Vizier, for defence purposes, into one barrier-State. … If the Rohillas had observed this treaty, all might have been well. Unhappily for them, they could not resist the temptation to break faith." They joined the Mahrattas against Oudh, and it was after this had occurred twice that Hastings lent assistance to the Vizier in expelling them from Rohilkhand. "Instead of exterminating the Rohillas, he helped make a warrior-clan, but one generation removed from a 'free company,' recross the Ganges and release from their grip the land they had conquered."

_The Spectator, April 2, 1892._

_Sir John Strachey, Hastings and the Rohillas._

"The year 1781 opened for Hastings on a troubled sea of dangers, difficulties, and distress. Haidar Ali was raging in the Carnatic, Goddard and Camac were still fighting the Marathas, and French fleets were cruising in the Bay of Bengal. … It was no time for standing upon trifles. Money must be raised somehow, if British India was to be saved. Among other sources of supply, he turned to the Rajah of Banaras [or Benares]. Chait Singh was the grandson of an adventurer, who had ousted his own patron and protector from the lordship of the district so named. In 1775, his fief had been transferred by treaty from the Nawab of Oudh to the Company. As a vassal of the Company he was bound to aid them with men and money in times of special need. Five lakhs of rupees—£50,000—and two thousand horse was the quota which Hastings had demanded of him in 1780. In spite of the revenue of half-a-million, of the great wealth stored up in his private coffers, and of the splendid show which he always made in public, the Rajah pleaded poverty, and put off compliance with the demands of his liege lord. … Chait Singh had repeatedly delayed the payment of his ordinary tribute; his body-guard alone was larger than the force which Hastings required of him; he was enrolling troops for some warlike purpose, and Hastings' agents accused him of secret plottings with the Oudh Begams at Faizabad. … The Rajah, in fact, like a shrewd, self-seeking Hindu, was waiting upon circumstances, which at that time boded ill for his English neighbours. The Marathas, the French, or some other power might yet relieve him from the yoke of a ruler who restrained his ambition, and lectured him on the duty of preserving law and order among his own subjects. … It has often been argued that, in his stern dealings with the Rajah of Banaras, Hastings was impelled by malice and a desire for revenge. But the subsequent verdict of the House of Lords on this point, justifies itself to all who have carefully followed the facts of his life. … As a matter of policy, he determined to make an example of a contumacious vassal, whose conduct in that hour of need added a new danger to those which surrounded the English in India. A heavy fine would teach the Rajah to obey orders, and help betimes to fill his own treasury with the sinews of war. … Chait Singh had already tried upon the Governor-General those arts which in Eastern countries people of all classes employ against each other without a blush. He had sent Hastings a peace-offering of two lakhs—£20,000. Hastings took the money, but reserved it for the Company's use. Presently he received an offer of twenty lakhs for the public service. But Hastings was in no mood for further compromise in evasion of his former demands. {1724} He would be satisfied with nothing less than half a million in quittance of all dues. In July, 1781, he set out, with Wheeler's concurrence, for the Rajah's capital. … Traveling, as he preferred to do, with a small escort and as little parade as possible, he arrived on the 16th August at the populous and stately city. … On his way thither, at Baxar, the recusant Rajah had come to meet him, with a large retinue, in the hope of softening the heart of the great Lord Sahib. He even laid his turban on Hastings' lap. … With the haughtiness of an ancient Roman, Hastings declined his prayer for a private interview. On the day after his arrival at Banaras, the Governor-General forwarded to Chait Singh a paper stating the grounds of complaint against him, and demanding an explanation on each point. The Rajah's answer seemed to Hastings' so offensive in style and unsatisfactory in substance;' it was full, in fact, of such transparent, or, as Lord Thurlow afterwards called them, 'impudent' falsehoods, that the Governor-General issued orders for placing the Rajah under arrest. Early the next morning, Chait Singh was quietly arrested in his own palace. … Meanwhile his armed retainers were flocking into the city from his strong castle of Ramnagar, on the opposite bank. Mixing with the populace, they provoked a tumult, in which the two companies of Sepoys guarding the prisoner were cut to pieces. With unloaded muskets and empty pouches—for the ammunition had been forgotten—the poor men fell like sheep before their butchers. Two more companies, in marching to their aid through the narrow streets, were nearly annihilated. During the tumult Chait Singh quietly slipped out of the palace, dropped by a rope of turbans into a boat beneath, and crossed in safety to Ramnagar. … If Chait Singh's followers had not shared betimes their master's flight across the river, Hastings, with his band of thirty Englishmen and fifty Sepoys, might have paid very dearly for the sudden miscarriage of his plans. But the rabble of Banaras had no leader, and troops from the nearest garrisons were already marching to the rescue. … Among the first who reached him was the gallant Popham, bringing with him several hundred of his own Sepoys. … The beginning of September found Popham strong enough to open a campaign, which speedily avenged the slaughters at Banaras and Ramnagar, and carried Hastings back into the full stream of richly-earned success. … The capture of Bijigarh on the 10th November, closed the brief but brilliant campaign. The booty, amounting to £400,000, was at once divided among the captors; and Hastings lost his only chance of replenishing his treasury at the expense of Chait Singh. He consoled himself and improved the Company's finances, by bestowing the rebel's forfeit lordship on his nephew, and doubling the tribute hitherto exacted. He was more successful in accomplishing another object of his journey up the country."

_L. J. Trotter, Warren Hastings, chapter 6._

"It is certain … that Chait Singh's rebellion was largely aided by the Begums or Princesses of Faizabad. On this point the evidence contained in Mr. Forrest's volumes ['Selections from Letters, Despatches and other State Papers in the Foreign Department of the Government of India,' edited by G. W. Forrest] leaves no shadow of reasonable doubt. In plain truth, the Begums, through their Ministers, the eunuchs, had levied war both against the Company and their own kinsmen and master, the new Wazir of Oudh. Some years before, when the Francis faction ruled in Calcutta, these ladies, the widow and the mother of Shuja, had joined with the British Agent in robbing the new Wazir, Asaf-ud-daula, of nearly all the rich treasure which his father had stored up in Faizabad. Hastings solemnly protested against a transaction which he was powerless to prevent. The Begums kept their hold upon the treasure, and their Jaghirs, or military fiefs, which ought by rights to have lapsed to the new Wazir. Meanwhile Asaf-ud-daula had to govern as he best could, with an empty treasury, and an army mutinous for arrears of pay. At last, with the suppression of the Benares revolt, it seemed to Hastings and the Wazir that the time had come for resuming the Jaghirs, and making the Begums disgorge their ill-gotten wealth. In accordance with the Treaty of Chunar, both these objects were carried out by the Wazir's orders, with just enough of compulsion to give Hastings' enemies a handle for the slanders and misrepresentations which lent so cruel a point to Sheridan's dazzling oratory, and to one of the most scathing passages in Macaulay's most popular essay. There are some points, no doubt, in Hastings' character and career about which honest men may still hold different opinions. But on all the weightier issues here mentioned there ought to be no room for further controversy. It is no longer possible to contend, for instance, that Hastings agreed, for a handsome bribe, to help in exterminating the innocent people of Rohilkhand; that he prompted Impey to murder Nand-Kumar; that any desire for plunder led him to fasten a quarrel upon Chait Singh; or that he engaged with the Oudh Wazir in a plot to rob the Wazir's own mother of vast property secured to her under a solemn compact, 'formally guaranteed by the Government of Bengal.'"

_L. J. Trotter, Warren Hastings and his Libellers (Westminster Review, March, 1891)._

ALSO IN: _W. M. Torrens, Empire in Asia: How we came by it, chapters 7-11._

_H. E. Busteed, Echoes from Old Calcutta._

_G. W. Forrest, The Administration of Warren Hastings._

_G. R. Gleig, Memoirs of Warren Hastings, volume 1, chapters 8-14, and volume 2._

INDIA: A. D. 1780-1783. The second war with Hyder Ali (Second Mysore War).

"The brilliant successes obtained by the English over the French in Hindostan at the beginning of the war had made all direct competition between the two nations in that country impossible, but it was still in the power of the French to stimulate the hostility of the native princes, and the ablest of all these, Hyder Ali, the great ruler of Mysore, was once more in the field. Since his triumph over the English, in 1769, he had acquired much additional territory from the Mahrattas. He had immensely strengthened his military forces, both in numbers and discipline. … For some years he showed no wish to quarrel with the English, but when a Mahratta chief invaded his territory they refused to give him the assistance they were bound by the express terms of the treaty of 1769 to afford, they rejected or evaded more than one subsequent proposal of alliance, and they pursued a native policy in some instances hostile to his interest. {1725} As a great native sovereign, too, he had no wish to see the balance of power established by the rivalry between the British and French destroyed. … Mysore was swarming with French adventurers. The condition of Europe made it scarcely possible that England could send any fresh forces, and Hyder Ali had acquired a strength which appeared irresistible. Ominous rumours passed over the land towards the close of 1779, but they were little heeded, and no serious preparations had been made, when in July, 1780, the storm suddenly burst. At the head of an army of at least 90,000 men, including 30,000 horsemen, 100 cannon, many European officers and soldiers, and crowds of desperate adventurers from all parts of India, Hyder Ali descended upon the Carnatic and devastated a vast tract of country round Madras. Many forts and towns were invested, captured, or surrendered. The Nabob and some of his principal officers acted with gross treachery or cowardice, and in spite of the devastations native sympathies were strongly with the invaders. … Madras was for a time in imminent danger. A few forts commanded by British officers held out valiantly, but the English had only two considerable bodies of men, commanded respectively by Colonel Baillie and by Sir Hector Munro, in the field. They endeavoured to effect a junction, but Hyder succeeded in attacking separately the small army of Colonel Baillie, consisting of rather more than 3,700 men, and it was totally defeated [September 10], 2,000 men being left on the field. Munro only saved himself from a similar fate by a rapid retreat, abandoning his baggage, and much of his ammunition. Arcot, which was the capital of the Nabob, and which contained vast military stores, was besieged for six weeks, and surrendered in the beginning of November. Velore, Wandewash, Permacoil, and Chingliput, four of the chief strongholds in the Carnatic, were invested. A French fleet with French troops was daily expected, and it appeared almost certain that the British power would be extinguished in Madras, if not in the whole of Hindostan. It was saved by the energy of the Governor-General, Warren Hastings, who, by extraordinary efforts, collected a large body of Sepoys and a few Europeans in Bengal, and sent them with great rapidity to Madras, under the command of Sir Eyre Coote, who had proved himself twenty years before scarcely second in military genius to Clive himself. I do not propose to relate in detail the long and tangled story of the war that followed. … It is sufficient to say that Coote soon found himself at the head of about 7,200 men, of whom 1,400 were Europeans; that he succeeded in relieving Wandewash, and obliging Hyder Ali to abandon for the present the siege of Velore; that the French fleet, which arrived off the coast in January, 1781, was found to contain no troops, and that on July 1, 1781, Coote, with an army of about 8,000 men, totally defeated forces at least eight times as numerous, commanded by Hyder himself, in the great battle of Porto Novo. … The war raged over the Carnatic, over Tanjore, in the Dutch settlements to the south of Tanjore, on the opposite Malabar coast, and on the coast of Ceylon, while at the same time another and independent struggle was proceeding with the Mahrattas. … The coffers at Calcutta were nearly empty, and it was in order to replenish them that Hastings committed some of the acts which were afterwards the subjects of his impeachment. … By the skill and daring of a few able men, of whom Hastings, Coote, Munro, and Lord Macartney were the most prominent, the storm was weathered. Hyder Ali died in December, 1782, about four months before Sir Eyre Coote. The peace of 1782 withdrew France and Holland from the contest, and towards the close of 1783, Tippoo, the son of Hyder Ali, consented to negotiate a peace, which was signed in the following March. Its terms were a mutual restoration of all conquests, and in this, as in so many other great wars, neither of the contending parties gained a single advantage by all the bloodshed, the expenditure, the desolation, and the misery of a struggle of nearly four years."

_W. E. H. Lecky, History of England in the 18th Century, chapter 14 (volume 5)._

"The centre and heart of the English power lay in Bengal, which the war never reached at all, and which was governed by a man of rare talent and organizing capacity. No Anglo-Indian government of that time could carry on a campaign by war loans, as in Europe; the cost had to be provided out of revenue, or by requiring subsidies from allied native rulers; and it was Bengal that furnished not only the money and the men, but also the chief political direction and military leadership which surmounted the difficulties and repaired the calamities of the English in the western and southern Presidencies. And when at last the Marathas made peace, when Hyder Ali died, and Suffren, with all his courage and genius, could not master the English fleet in the Bay of Bengal, there could be no doubt that the war had proved the strength of the English position in India, had tested the firmness of its foundation. … With the termination of this war ended the only period in the long contest between England and the native powers, during which our position in India was for a time seriously jeoparded. That the English dominion emerged from this prolonged struggle uninjured, though not unshaken, is a result due to the political intrepidity of Warren Hastings. … Hastings had no aristocratic connexions or parliamentary influence at a time when the great families and the House of Commons held immense power; he was surrounded by enemies in his own Council; and his immediate masters, the East India Company, gave him very fluctuating support. Fiercely opposed by his own colleagues, and very ill obeyed by the subordinate Presidencies, he had to maintain the Company's commercial establishments, and at the same time to find money for carrying on distant and impolitic wars in which he had been involved by blunders at Madras or Bombay. These funds he had been expected to provide out of current revenues, after buying and despatching the merchandise on which the company's home dividends depended; for the resource of raising public loans, so freely used in England, was not available to him. He was thus inevitably driven to the financial transactions, at Benares and Lucknow, that were now so bitterly stigmatized as crimes by men who made no allowance for a perilous situation in a distant land, or for the weight of enormous national interests committed to the charge of the one man capable of sustaining them. When the storm had blown over in India, and he had piloted his vessel into calm water, he was sacrificed with little or no hesitation to party exigencies in England; the Ministry would have recalled him; they consented to his impeachment; they left him to be baited by the Opposition and to be ruined by the law's delay, by the incredible procrastination and the obsolete formalities of a seven years' trial before the House of Lords."

_Sir A. Lyall, Rise of the British Dominion in India, chapter 11, section 2._

ALSO IN: _Meer Hussein Ali Khan Kirmani, History of Hydur Naik, chapters 27-31._

_G. B. Malleson, Decisive Battles of India, chapter 8._

_L. B. Bowring, Haidar Ali and Tipu Sultan, chapters 14-15._

{1726}

INDIA: A. D. 1785-1793. State of India. Extent of English rule. Administration of Lord Cornwallis. War with Tippoo Saib (Third Mysore War). The "Permanent Settlement" of Land Revenue in Bengal, and its fruit.