Chapter 27

CONCLUSION.

Effects of climate — Early immigrants — French and English — Mohammedan power not overthrown by British — Perron's administration — Changes since then — The Talukdars - Lake's friendly intentions — Talukdars' misconduct — Their power curbed — No protection for life, property, or traffic — Such things still dependent on foreign aid — Conclusion.

AFTER many blunderings and much labour, the judgment of history appears to have formed the final conclusion that the physical conditions of a given country will always be the chief determining agents in forming the national character of those who inhabit it; and that the people of one country, transplanted into another, where the soil and the sun act in a manner to which they have not been accustomed, will, in the course of a few generations, exhibit habits of mind and body very different to what characterized them in their original seats.

It is therefore without legitimate cause for surprise that we hear from scholars that the feeble folk of Hindustan are the direct and often unmixed representatives of the dominant races of the world. To begin with the Hindus: the Brahmans and some of the other classes are believed to be descended from the brave and civilized peoples of ancient Asia, of whom sacred and profane writers make such frequent mention, of some of the founders of Nineveh and Babylon, and of the later empire of the Medes and Persians, which was on the eve of subjugating Europe when stopped by the Greeks at Marathon and Salamis. Nay, more, the ancient Greeks and Romans themselves, together with the modern inhabitants of Europe, are alike descended from the same grand stock.

The Mohamadans, again, are mainly of three noble tribes. The earlier Mohamadan invaders of India belonged to the victorious Arabian warriors of the Crescent, or to their early allies, the bold mountaineers of Ghazni and of Ghor; and their descendants are still to be found in India, chiefly under the names respectively of Shaikh and Pathan. A few Saiyids will also be found of this stock.

In later days came hordes of Turks and Mongols (Tartars as they are generically though inaccurately called by Europeans), the people of Janghiz and of Timur, terrible us the locusts of prophecy — the land before them like the garden of Eden, and behind them a desolate wilderness.

To these, again, succeeded many Persians, chiefly Saiyids, or so-called descendants of the Prophet; a later race of Afghans, also called Pathans, and a fresh inroad of Tartars (converted to Islam) who finally founded the Moghul Empire. Under the regime thus established the civilization of India assumed a Persian type; and the term "Moghul" in the present day, in India signifies rather a Persian than a Turkman or Tartar. They add the word "Beg" to their names, and are usually of the Shiah denomination; as also are the descendants of the Persian Saiyids. The Saiyids of Arab origin take the title of "Mir;" the Pathans are commonly known by the affix "Khan." All but the offspring of converted Hindus represent foreign invasions by races more warlike than the people of India.

All these mighty conquerors, one after another, succumbed to the enervating nature of the climate of Hindustan, with its fertile soil and scanty motives to an exertion which, in that heat, must always be peculiarly unwelcome.

It is not, however, the heat alone which causes this degeneracy. Arabia is one of the hottest countries in the world, but the Arabs have at one time or another overthrown both the Roman Empire of Byzantium and the Gothic monarchy of Spain. On the other hand, the lovely climate of Kashmir produces men more effeminate than the Hindustanis, some of whom indeed, notably the peasantry of the Upper Doab, are often powerful men, innured to considerable outdoor labour; their country is far hotter. But the curse of Hindustan, as of Kashmir, and more or less of all countries where life is easy, lies in the absence of motives to sustained exertion; owing to which emulation languishes into envy, and the competitive instincts, missing their true vent, exhibit themselves chiefly in backbiting and malice. Whatever advantage may be derived by Kashmiris from their climate is shown in the superiority of their intellects.

Hence, after the battle of Panipat, 1761, which exhausted the victors almost as much as it exhausted the vanquished, and left Hindustan so completely plundered as to afford no further incitements to invasion, little other immigration took place; and the effete and worn-out inhabitants were left to wrangle, in their own degenerate way, over the ruined greatness of their fathers. The anarchy and misery to the mass of the population that marked these times have been partly shown to the reader of these pages.

But there was fresh blood at hand from a most unexpected quarter. Bred in a climate which gives hardness to the frame (while it increases the number of human wants as much as it does the difficulty of satisfying them), the younger sons of the poorer gentry of England and France, then (at least) the two most active nations of Europe, began to seek in both hemispheres those means of sharing in the gifts of fortune which were denied to them by the laws and institutions of their own countries. Their struggles convulsed India and America at once. Still the empire of Hindustan did not fall by their contests there; nor were the valour and ambition of the new comers the only causes of its fall when at last the catastrophe arrived. But when, to predisposing causes, there was now added the grossest incompetence on the part of nearly all natives concerned in the administration, it became inevitable that one or other of the competing European nations should grasp the prize. Any one who wishes to study this subject in its romantic details should refer to Colonel Malleson's two works on the French in India. Living under a better Home Government, and more regularly supported and supplied, the English prevailed.

In sketching a part of the process of substituting foreign rule for anarchy, it has been my task to exhibit the main events which caused, or accompanied the preparation of the tabula rasa, upon which was to be traced the British Empire of India. It has been shown that the occupation of the seaboard, and a few of the provinces thereto contiguous, long constituted the whole of the position; and that it was only in self-protection, and after long abstinence, that the "Company of Merchants" finally assumed the central power. Upper India, in the meanwhile, stood to their Calcutta Government in a very similar relation to that occupied, successively, by the Panjab and by Afghanistan in later times towards its successors. This, though absolutely true, has been popularly ignored, owing to the accident of Calcutta continuing to be the chief seat of the Supreme Government after the empire had become British; but the events of 1857 are sufficient to show that, for the native imagination, Hindustan is the centre, and Dehli still the metropolis of the Empire. The idea, however, that the British have wrested the Empire from the Mohamadans is a mistake. The Mohamadans were beaten down — almost everywhere except in Bengal — before the British appeared upon the scene; Bengal they would not have been able to hold, and the name of the "Mahratta Ditch" of Calcutta shows how near even the British there were to extirpation by India's new masters. Had the British not won the battles of Plassey and Buxar, the whole Empire would ere now have become the fighting ground of Sikhs, Rajputs, and Mahrattas. Except the Nizam of the Deccan there was not a vigorous Musalman ruler in India after the firman of Farokhsiar in 1716; the Nizam owed his power to the British after the battle of Kurdla (sup. p. 229), and it was chiefly British support that maintained the feeble shadow of the Moghul Empire, from the death of Alamgir II. to the retirement of Mr. Hastings. Not only Haidarabad but all the other existing Musalman principalities of modern India owe their existence, directly, or indirectly, to the British intervention.

It only now remains to notice, as well as the available materials will permit, what was the social condition of these capital territories of the empire when they passed into the hands of the ultimate conquerors.

Perhaps the best picture is that presented in a work published by order of the local Government, more than half a century later, upon the condition of that portion of the country which was under the personal management of the French general.

This record informs us that, having obtained this territory for the maintenance of the army, Perron reigned over it in the plenitude of sovereignty. "He maintained all the state and dignity of an oriental despot, contracting alliances with the more potent Rajahs and overawing by his military superiority, the petty chiefs. At Dehli, and within the circuit of the imperial dominions, his authority was paramount to that of the Emperor. His attention was chiefly directed to the prompt realization of revenue. Pargannahs were generally farmed; a few were allotted as jaidad to chiefs on condition of military service; [of the lands in the neighbourhood of Aligarh] the revenue was collected by the large bodies of troops always concentrated at head-quarters. A brigade was stationed at Sikandrabad for the express purpose of realizing collections. In the event of any resistance on the part of a land-holder, who might be in balance, a severe and immediate example was made by the plunder and destruction of his village; and life was not unfrequently shed in the harsh and hasty measures which were resorted to. The arrangements for the administration of justice were very defective; there was no fixed form of procedure, and neither Hindu nor Mohamadan law was regularly administered. The suppression of crime was regarded as a matter of secondary importance. There was an officer styled the Bakshi Adalat, whose business was to receive reports from the Amils [officials] in the interior, and communicate General Perron's orders respecting the disposal of any offenders apprehended by them. No trial was held; the proof rested on the Amil's report, and the punishment was left to General Perron's judgment.

"Such was the weakness of the administration that the Zamindars tyrannized over the people with impunity, levying imposts at their pleasure, and applying the revenues solely to their own use." The "Old Resident" thus compares the past and present of Aligarh: — "Under the native rule no one attempted to build a showy masonry house for fear of being noticed as one possessing property, and thus become subject to heavy taxations. Even in de Boigne and Perron's time it was the same as before, people lived in a very low state both as regards their food and clothes, their marriages were not costly, and none of their females dared to put jewels on. In such a state of things, the well-to-do accumulated money and could not enjoy it, they buried it under ground, and often from death and other causes the wealth got into other hands by the sudden discovery of the place. What a mighty change in the space of seventy years the city of Coel bears now to what it did before? elegant houses now stand in the city everywhere, and the market is well stocked with articles of trade and consumption. Bankers and money changers have their shops open, free from any apprehension of danger, and the females go about with their trinkets and jewels, all enjoying the wholesome protection of law. The bazar street of the city of Coel was very narrow in Perron's time, and neither he nor de Boigne ever paid any attention to the improvement or welfare of the people. Their time was principally occupied in military tactics and preserving order in the country. They knew and were told by their own officers that their rule was only for the time being, and that a war with Scindhia would change the state of affairs, and with it eventually these provinces."

From a report written so near the time as 1808 confirmation of these statements is readily obtained. The Collector of Aligarh, in addressing the Board formed for constructing a system of administration in the conquered provinces, recommended cautious measures in regard to the assessment of the land tax or Government rental. He stated that, in consequence of former misrule, and owing to the ravages of famine in 1785, and other past seasons, or to the habits induced by years of petty but chronic warfare, the land was fallen, in a great measure, into a state of nature. He anticipated an increase in cultivation and revenue of thirty-two per cent., if six years of peace should follow.

The great landholders, whether originally officials, or farmers who had succeeded in making good a position before the conquest, were numerous in this neighbourhood. The principal persons of importance were, to the westward, Jats, from Bhartpur; the eastward, Musalmans descended from converted Bargujar Rajputs. The long dissensions of the past had swept away the Moghul nobility, few or none of whom now held land on any large scale.

These Jats and these Musalmans were among the ancestors of the famous Talukdars of the North-West Provinces; and as the limitation of their power has been the subject of much controversy, justice to the earlier British administrators requires that we should carefully note the position which they had held under the Franco-Mahratta rule, and the conditions under which they become members of British India.

We have already seen that the Talukdars (to use by anticipation a term now generally understood, though not applied to the large landholders at the time) were in the habit of making unauthorized collections, which they applied to their own use. Every considerable village had its Sayar Chabutra (customs-platform), where goods in transit paid such dues as seemed good to the rural potentates. Besides this, they derived a considerable income from shares in the booty acquired by highwaymen and banditti, of whom the number was constantly maintained by desertions from the army, and was still further swollen at the conquest by the general disbandment which ensued.

Both of these sources of emolument were summarily condemned by General Lake; though he issued a proclamation guaranteeing the landholders in the full possession of their legitimate rights. But the rights of fighting one another, and of plundering traders, were as dear to the Barons of Hindustan as ever they had been to their precursors in mediΎval Europe; and, in the fancied security of their strong earthen ramparts, they very generally maintained these unsocial privileges.

So far back as the beginning of 1803, before war had been declared upon Sindhia, the whole force of the British in Upper India, headed by the Commander-in-Chief himself, had been employed in the reduction of some of the forts in that portion of the Doab which had been ceded by the Nawab of Audh during the preceding year. The same course was pursued, after long forbearance, towards the Musalman chiefs of the conquered provinces. In December, 1804, they had rebelled in the neighbourhood of Aligarh, and occupied nearly the whole of the surrounding district. Captain Woods, commanding the fort of Aligarh, could only occasionally spare troops for the collector's support; and the rebellion was not finally suppressed until the following July, by a strong detachment sent from headquarters. They again broke out in October, 1806, after having in the interim amassed large supplies by the plunder of their tenantry; the whole of the northern part of the Aligarh district, and the southern part of the adjoining district of Bolandshahar were overrun; the forts of Kamona and Ganora were armed and placed in a state of defence; and the former defended against the British army under Major-General Dickens, on the 19th November, 1807, with such effect that the loss of the assailants, in officers and men, exceeded that sustained in many pitched battles. The subjugation of the tribe shortly followed.

The Jat Talukdars of the Aligarh district were not finally reduced to submission for nearly ten years more; and there is reason to believe that during this long interval they had continued to form the usual incubus upon the development of society, by impeding commerce and disturbing agriculture. At length the destruction of the fort of Hatras and the expulsion of Daya Ram the contumacious Raja, put the finishing stroke to this state of things in March, 1817.

It may be fairly assumed that the protection of life and property, and that amount of security under which merchants will distribute the productions of other countries, and husbandmen raise the means of subsistence from the soil, are among the primary duties of Government. But in the dark days of which our narrative has had to take note, such obligations had not been recognized.

"It is a matter of fact," say the authors of the "Statistics" before me, "that in those days the highways were unoccupied, and the travellers walked through by-ways. The facility of escape into the Begam Sumroo's territories, the protection afforded by the heavy jungles and numerous forts which then studded the country, and the ready sale for plundered property, combined to foster robbery."

A special force was raised by the British conquerors, and placed under the command of Colonel Gardner, distinguished Mahratta officer. His exertions were completely successful, as far as the actual gangs then in operation were concerned; but unfortunately they were soon encouraged to renewed attempts by the countenance which they received from Hira Sing, another Jat Talukdar. This system also was finally concluded by the destruction of the Raja of Hatras; nor will fourteen years appear a long time for the reorganization of order, which had been in abeyance for more than forty.

The following extract from Vol. I. of Forbes's Oriental Memoirs, is the result of observations made in a more southern part of the country between 1763 and 1783, and published, not with a purpose, or in controversy, but in the calm evening of retirement, and at least thirty years later. "Marre was the nearest Mahratta town of consequence to the hot wells; by crossing the river it was within a pleasant walk, and we made frequent excursions to an excavated mountain in its vicinity. Marre is fortified, large, and populous; the governor resided at Poona, inattentive to the misery of the people, whom his duan, or deputy, oppressed in a cruel manner; indeed the system of the Mahratta government is so uniformly oppressive that it appears extraordinary to hear of a mild and equitable administration; venality and corruption guide the helm of State and pervade the departments; if the sovereign requires money the men in office and governors of provinces must supply it; the arbitrary monarch seldom inquires by what means it is procured; this affords them an opportunity of exacting a larger sum from their duans, who fleece the manufacturers and farmers to a still greater amount than they had furnished; thus the country is subjected to a general system of tyranny. From the chieftains and nobles of the realm to the humblest peasant in a village, neither the property nor the life of a subject can be called his own. When Providence has blessed the land with the former and the latter rain, and the seed sown produces an hundredfold, the Indian ryot, conscious that the harvest may be reaped by other hands, cannot like an English farmer behold his ripening crop with joyful eyes; his cattle are in the same predicament; liable to be seized, without a compensation, for warlike service or any other despotic mandate; money he must not be known to possess; if by superior talent or persevering industry he should have accumulated a little more than his neighbours, he makes no improvements, lives no better than before, and through fear and distrust buries it in the earth, without informing his children of the concealment." And again at Vol. II. p. 339 — "Of all Oriental despots the arbitrary power of the Mahrattas falls perhaps with the most oppressive weight; they extort money by every kind of vexatious cruelty, without supporting commerce, agriculture, and the usual sources of wealth and prosperity in well-governed States." We have further pictures of native rule, drawn in 1807, by the collectors of the newly-acquired districts of Etawah and Koel, and to be found at pages 314 and 337 of the North-West Provinces Selections from Revenue Records, published in 1873. Says the Collector of Etawah; — "The warlike tribes of this country, from disposition and habit, prefer plunder to peace, and court the exchange of the ploughshare for the sword. Foreign invasion and intestine tumults had materially checked population; whilst the poverty of the country, and the rapacity of its governors had almost annihilated commerce or had confined it, for the most part, to a few wealthy residents from the Lower Provinces" (to the Babu "Zemindar"). But he of Koel is even more bold: — "The consequences of the various revolutions which have taken place are sufficiently evident in an impoverished country and a declining population; the form of government which has existed has not operated to relieve the necessities of the subjects, or to improve the resources of this extensive empire, by the encouragement of husbandry and commerce; and military life has been embraced by a large body of the people. Habits of peace and industry have been neglected for the profession of arms, which was more suited to the disposition of the people and to the character of the times, and which has also tended to affect the revenue and to thin the population. The system of rent-oppression and extortion likewise, which has prevailed, has operated with the most injurious influence upon the country. The exertions of the landholders have been discouraged, and means of cultivation denied them by depriving them of the fair profits of their industry. They have found every attempt at improvement, instead of being beneficial to themselves, to have been subservient only to the rapacity of the Government, or of farmers; and without any inducement to stimulate their labours, agriculture as a natural consequence has languished and declined."

Aligarh (Koel) details are the more noticeable because they relate to the part of the country which had been first occupied by the conquering British, and still more because, having been under the immediate management of General Perron, that part may be supposed to have been a somewhat more favourable specimen than districts whose management had not had the advantage of European supervision. In districts administered exclusively by Asiatics, or which were more exposed to Sikh incursions, or where the natural advantages of soil, situation and climate were inferior, much greater misery, no doubt, prevailed; but what has been shown was perhaps bad enough. An administration without law, an aristocracy without conscience, roads without traffic, and fields overgrown by forest — such is the least discreditable picture that we have been able to exhibit of the results of self-government by the natives of Hindustan, immediately preceding British rule.

On the whole record of the past there emerge clearly a few indisputable truths. Setting apart the community of colour, and to a less degree of language, the British are no more foreigners to the people of India than the people of one part of India may be, and often are, to the people of another. Demoralized by the hereditary and traditional influence of many generations of misgovernment and of anarchy, none of these populations have as yet shown fitness for supreme rule over the entire peninsula, vast and thickly inhabited as it is. For example, the Brahmans and their system fell before the fury of the early Muslims, as these, again, were subdued by the Moghuls. When the Pathans and Moghuls in their turn became domesticated in Hindustan they formed nothing more than two new castes of Indians, having lost the pride and vigour of their hardy mountain ancestry. The alliance of a refugee, like M. Law, or of a runaway seaman, like George Thomas, became an object of as much importance as that of a Muslim noble with a horde of followers.

Nor is it to be overlooked that, in the best days of Muslim rule in Hindustan, however much the governing class had the chief attributes of sovereignty, the details of administration were, more or less, in the hands of the patient, painstaking natives of the land. And the immediate decay of the Muslim Empire was preceded by an attempt to centralize the administration in the Imperial Durbar, and to cashier and alienate the Hindu element. But the Hindus remained, as indeed we still see them, indispensable to the conduct of administrative details.

None the less is it certain that the real, if overbearing, superiority of the Muslim conquerors had emasculated the Hindu mind and paved the way for anarchy, which was reached as soon as immigration ceased and degeneration set in. Holding now the position once abused and lost by the Muslims, the British in India are bound alike by honour and by interest to mark the warning. Called and chosen by fortune and their own enterprise to rule so many tribes and nations in a stage of evolution so unlike their own, they have to be wary, gentle, and firm. Their office is to advance the natives and fit them for a true and noble political life.

It does not follow that the result will be to tempt the natives to demand Home Rule. Difficulty there will no doubt always be, and the end is hidden from our eyes. Moreover, that difficult will be increased by the unavoidably secular character of State-education. When races lacking in material resources are also in a very submissive and very ignorant condition they may be kept on a dead level of immobility; and that has perhaps been the ideal of many not incompetent rulers. But it is not one which will satisfy the spirit of the day in England. Modern Englishmen have recognized that it is their bounder duty to impart knowledge in India. On the other hand, their relations towards the people forbid them to attempt religious instruction. Thus the students in British-Indian schools and colleges are in a fair way to lose their own spiritual traditions without gaining anything instead. It is likely enough that such a system may lead to discontent.

Men who lose their hopes of compensation in another state of being, will be the more anxious about securing the good things of that state in which they find themselves placed.

Nevertheless, of discontent there are, plainly, two sorts; and one sort tends to exclude the other. The multitude may hanker after the flesh-pots of Egypt, or they may long for the milk and honey of a Promised Land. In the one case they will be inclined to obey their leaders, in the other to murmur against them. It cannot be necessary to dwell upon the application. Let the rulers of India persuade the people that they are being conducted to light and to liberty. Let us hold up before those laborious and gentle millions the picture of a redeemed India moving in an orderly path among the members of a great Imperial system. That ideal may never be completely realized in the days of any of the existing generation. But it is one that may still be profitably maintained for the contemplation of all who aspire and work for the strength and welfare of Greater Britain.

NOTE. — The following list of Perron's possessions is taken from the schedule annexed to the treaty of Sarji Anjangaum (dated 30th December, 1803):—

Resumed Jaigirs, seven, yielding an annual income of ... ... ... ... 3,75,248

Talukas in the Doab, four ... ... ... 84,047

To the west of the Jamna, three districts ... 65,000

Subah of Saharanpur, eighteen ... ... 4,78,089

Formerly held by General de Boigne in the Doab, twenty-seven .. 20,83,287

To the west of the Jamna, nine ... ... 10,31,852

Grand Total, Rs. 41,12,523

APPENDIX A.

IN the foregoing pages I have endeavoured to steer a middle path between obliterating all trace of my materials and encumbering the margin with references that appeared superfluous. Wherever I have decided a disputed point, I have endeavoured to indicate the chief sources of information — at least throughout the portions which form the actual history — and to give my reasons for following one authority rather than another.

Besides the authorities — English and Persian — which have been thus cited, the following works have been occasionally consulted:—

1. Amad us-Saudat. — A history of the Viceroys of Lucknow from the death of Farokhsiar to the accession of Saadat Ali II., in 1797.

2. Jam-i-Jum. — Genealogical tables of the House of Timur.

3. Tasallat-i-Sahiban Anqriz. — An account of the rise of British power in Hindustan and Bengal. By Munshi Dhonkal Singh; originally written for the information of Ranjit Singh, Thakur of Bhartpur, about the end of the last century.

4. Hal-i-Begam Sahiba. — A little Persian memoir of Begam Sumroo, full of vagueness and error, written four years after her death, and from traditional sources.

Much information as to the views of the British chiefs of those days lies at present inaccessible at the Calcutta Foreign Office; and it is to be hoped that the Record Commission will ultimately make public many useful and interesting papers.

Other information perhaps exists, very difficult to be got at, in the private archives of old native families at Dehli. But the events of 1857 broke up many of these collections. A continuation of the Tarikh-i-Mozafari, down to the taking of Dehli by Sir A. Wilson, would be a most valuable work, if there be any native author possessed of the three requisites of leisure, knowledge, and a fearless love of truth.

Some account of the Siar-ul-Mutakharin has been already given (vide Note to Part II. Chap. i.). The author was a Saiyid of the noble stock of Taba-Taba, whose father had been employed by Safdar Jang, in Rohilkand, during that minister's temporary predominance. The family afterwards migrated to Patna. This celebrated history — which has been twice translated into English, and of which an edition in the original Persian has been likewise printed — is a work of suprising industry, and contains many just reflections on the position of the English and the feelings of the people towards them, which are almost as true now as they were when written. The translation of the S. u. M.. which has been mentioned in the text, was made by a French creole, styling himself Mustafa, but whose true name, it is relieved, was Raymond. The notes are often interesting.

But my chief guide, where no other authority is cited, has been the Tarikh-i-Mozafari, the work of an Ansari of good family, some of whose descendants are still living at Panipat. He was the grandson of Latfula Sadik, a nobleman who had held high office under the Emperor Mohammad Shah. The historian himself was in civil employ in Bihar, under the Nawab Mohammad Raza Khan, so famous in the history of Bengal during the last century. To him the work was dedicated, and its name is derived from his title of "Mozafar Jang." The work is laborious, free from party bias, and much thought of by the educated natives of Hindustan. For access to Persian MSS. I was indebted to the late Colonel Hamilton, formerly Commissioner of Dehli, and of his friendly assistance and encouragement I take this opportunity to make thankful acknowledgment.

APPENDIX B.

REFERENCE has been made in the text, p. 130, to the tomb of Sumroo, in Padretola, or Padresanto, at Agra. This is one of the most ancient Christian cemeteries in Eastern Asia, consisting of a piece of land situated to the north of the Courts of Justice, and forming part of the original area attached to the neighbouring township of Lashkarpur. The estate was conferred upon the Roman Catholic Mission by the Emperor Akbar, or early in the reign of his son and successor. It contains many tombs, with Armenian and Portuguese inscriptions, more than two hundred years old, and promises, with ordinary care, long to continue in good preservation, owing to the great dryness of the air and soil. The mausoleum of the Sumroo family is a handsome octagon building, surmounted by a low dome rising out of a cornice, with a deep drip-stone, something in the style of a Constantinople fountain. The inscription is in Portuguese — a proof, most likely, that there were no French or English in Agra at the time of its being made. The following is its text: — AQVI IAZO WALTER REINHARD, MORREO AOS 4 DE MAYO, NO ANNO DE 1778. ("Here lies Walter Reinhard, died on the 4th May, in the year 1778.") There is also a Persian chronogram.

The tomb of John Hessing, hard by, is a still more splendid edifice, being a copy, in red sandstone, of the famous Taj Mahal, and on a pretty extensive scale too, though far smaller than the original. The tomb, which was completed in or about the year of the British conquest, bears an inscription in good English, setting forth that the deceased colonel was a Dutchman, who died Commandant of Agra, in his 63rd year, 21st of July, 1803, just before Lake's successful siege of the place.

APPENDIX C.

THE following additional particulars regarding M. de Boigne are the last that the writer has been able to obtain from an eyewitness; they are from the enthusiastic pages of Colonel Tod, who knew the general at Chamberi, in 1826.

"Distinguished by his prince, beloved by a numerous and amiable family, and honoured by his native citizens, the years of the veteran now numbering more than four score, glide in agreeable tranquillity in his native city, which, with oriental magnificence, he is beautifying by an entire new street, and a handsome dwelling for himself."

His occupation consisted chiefly in dictating the memoirs of his eventful life to his son, the Comte Charles de Boigne, by whom they were published in 1829. This statement is also made on the authority of Tod; but the memoir in my possession - though a second edition — lays claim to no such authority, but is a modest compilation, derived in great measure from Grant Duff, and originally, as appears from the "Advertissement sur cette edition," produced during the General's lifetime. The Royal Academic Society of Savoy — of which the veteran was honorary and perpetual President — gives the most extraordinary account of his munificence to his native city, which comprised the complete endowment of a college, a fund of over £4,000 sterling towards the relief of the poor, a hospital for contagious diseases, an entire new street leading from the Chateau to the Boulevard, and the restoration of the Hotel de Ville, besides minor projects full of wise benevolence. He died on the 21st June, 1830, and his remains received a magnificent military funeral.

APPENDIX D.

LOVERS of detail may like the following view of Begam Sumroo's fief, as it appeared when it lapsed on her death. The facts and figures are from the report furnished to the Revenue Board in 1840, by the officer deputed to make the necessary fiscal settlement. This gentleman begins by saying that the assessments on the land were annual, but their average rates about one-third higher than those which prevailed on the neighbouring British district. In those days, the British took two-thirds of the net rental, so we see what was left to the Begam's tenants. The settlement officer at once reduced the total demand of land revenue from nearly seven lakhs (6,91,388) to little more than five. But, he did more than that, for he swept away the customs duties, which he thus describes: — "They were levied on all kinds of property, and equally on exports and imports; animals, wearing apparel, and clothes of every description; hides, cotton, sugar-cane, spices, and all other produce; all were subjected to a transit duty, in and out. Transfers of lands and houses, and sugar works, also paid duty; the latter very high."

The good side of this system has been already glanced at (Part III. Chap. ii.). It was strictly patriarchal. The staple crop (sugar) was grown on advances from the Begam: and, if a man's bullocks died, or he required the usual implements of husbandry, he received a loan from the Treasury, which he was strictly compelled to apply to its legitimate purpose. The revenue officers made an annual tour through their respective tracts in the ploughing season; sometimes encouraging, and oftener compelling the inhabitants to cultivate. A writer in the Meerut Universal Magazine stated about the same time, that the actual presence in the fields of soldiers with fixed bayonets was sometimes required for this purpose.

The settlement officer adds that the advances to agriculturists were always recovered at the close of the year, together with interest at 24 per cent. The cultivators were, in fact, rack-rented up to the minimum of subsistence. but this much was insured to them; in other words, they were predial serfs. "To maintain such system," he proceeds, "required much tact; and, with the energy of the Begam's administration, this was not wanting: but when her increasing age and infirmities devolved the uncontrolled management on her heir, the factitious nature of her system was clearly demonstrated." The result of these last few years was, that one-third of the estate of which the fief consisted fell under "direct management;" the plain meaning of which is that they were, more or less, abandoned by their owners, and by the better class of the peasantry, and tilled by a sort of serfs.

"Nothing, in fact," concludes this portion of the Report "could more satisfactorily have shown the estimation in which the British rule is held by those who do not enjoy its blessings than the rapid return of the population to their homes, which followed immediately on the lapse." (Trevor Plowden, Esq., to Board of Revenue, Reports of Revenue Settlement, N. W.P., vol. i.)

This, be it remembered, is the picture of a fief in the heart of our own provinces, as swayed in quite recent times, by a ruler of Christian creed desirous of British friendship.

APPENDIX E.

No. CXV.

The GOVERNOR-GENERAL IN COUNCIL to the SECRET COMMITTEE OF THE HONOURABLE THE COURT OF DIRECTORS. (Extract.)

FORT WILLIAM. June 2nd, 1805.

HONOURABLE SIRS, — The Governor-General in Council now submits to your honourable Committee the arrangement which has been adopted by this Government for the purpose of providing for the future maintenance of his Majesty Shah Allum, and the royal family, and for the general settlement of his Majesty's affairs, and the principles upon which that arrangement is formed.

It has never been in the contemplation of this Government to derive from the charge of supporting and protecting his Majesty, the privilege of employing the royal prerogative, as an instrument of establishing any control or ascendancy over the states and chieftains of India, or of asserting on the part of his Majesty any of the claims which, in his capacity of Emperor of Hindustan, his Majesty may be considered to possess upon the provinces originally composing the Moghul Empire. The benefits which the Governor-General in Council expected to derive from placing the King of Dehli and the royal family under the protection of the British Government are to be traced in the statements contained in our despatch to your honourable Committee of the 18th of July, 1804, relative to the evils and embarrassments to which the British power might have been exposed by the prosecution of claims and pretensions on the part of the Mahrattas, or of the French, in the name and under the authority of his Majesty Shah Allum, if the person and family of that unhappy monarch had continued under the custody and control of those powers, and Especially of the French. With reference to this subject, the Governor-General in Council has the honour to refer your honourable Committee to the contents of the inclosure of our despatch of the 13th of July, 1804, marked A, and to the seventy-third paragraph of that despatch, in proof of the actual existence of a project for the subversion of the British Empire in India, founded principally upon the restoration of the authority of the Emperor Shall Allum under the control and direction of the agents of France. The difficulty of every project of that nature has been considerably increased by the events which have placed the throne of Dehli under the protection of the Honourable Company. The Governor-General in Council further contemplated the advantages of the reputation which the British Government might be expected to derive from the substitution of a system of lenient protection, accompanied by a liberal provision for the ease, dignity, and comfort of the aged monarch and his distressed family, in the room of that oppressive control and the degraded condition of poverty, distress, and insult, under which the unhappy representative of the house of Timur and his numerous family had so long laboured.

Regulated by these principles and views, the attention of the British Government has been directed exclusively to the object of forming such an arrangement for the future support of the King and the royal family, as might secure to them the enjoyment of every reasonable comfort and convenience, and every practicable degree of external state and dignity compatible with the extent of our resources, and with the condition of dependence in which his Majesty and the Royal Family must necessarily be placed with relation to the British power. In extending to the Royal Family the benefits of the British protection, no obligation was imposed upon us to consider the rights and claims of his Majesty Shah Allum as Emperor of Hindustan, and the Governor-General has deemed it equally unnecessary and inexpedient to combine with the intended provision for his Majesty, and his household, the consideration of any question connected with the future exercise of the Imperial prerogative and authority.

The Governor-General in Council has determined to adopt an arrangement upon the basis of the following provisions: —

That a specified portion of the territories in the vicinity of Dehli situated on the right bank of the Jamna should be assigned in part of the provision for the maintenance of the Royal Family. That those lands should remain under charge of the Resident at Dehli, and that the revenue should be collected, and justice should be administered in the name of his Majesty Shah Allum, under regulations to be fixed by the British Government. That his Majesty should be permitted to appoint a Deewan, and other inferior officers to attend at the office of collector, for the purpose of ascertaining and reporting to his Majesty the amount of the revenues which should be received, and the charges of collection, and of satisfying his Majesty's mind that no part of the produce of the assigned territory was misappropriated. That two courts of justice should be established for the administration of civil and criminal justice, according to the Mahomedan law, to the inhabitants of the city of Dehli, and of the assigned territory. That no sentences of the criminal courts extending to death should be carried into execution without the express sanction of his Majesty, to whom the proceedings in all trials of this description should be reported, and that sentences of mutilation should be commuted.

That to provide for the immediate wants of his Majesty and the Royal household, the following sums should be paid monthly, in money from the treasury of the Resident at Dehli, to his Majesty for his private expenses, Sa. Rs. 60,000; to the heir-apparent, exclusive of certain Jagheers, Sa. Rs. 10,000; to a favourite son of his Majesty named Mirza Izzut Buksh, Sa. Rs. 5,000; to two other sons of his Majesty, Sa. Rs. 1,500; to his Majesty's fifty younger sons and daughters, Sa. Rs. 10,000; to Shah Newanze Khan, his Majesty's treasurer, 2,50O; to Syud Razzee Khan, British agent at his Majesty's Court, and related to his Majesty by marriage, Sa. Rs. 1,000; total per mensem, Sa. Rs. 90,000.

That if the produce of the revenue of the assigned territory should hereafter admit of it, the monthly sum to be advanced to his Majesty for his private expenses might be increased to one lakh of rupees.

That in addition to the sums specified, the sum of Sa. Rs. 10,000 should be annually be paid to his Majesty on certain festivals agreeably to ancient usage.

The Governor-General in Council deemed the arrangement proposed by the Resident at Dehli for the establishment of a military force for the protection of the assigned territory and of the North-Western frontier of our possessions in Hindustan, to be judicious, and accordingly resolved to confirm those arrange meets, with certain modifications calculated to afford a provision for part of the irregular force in the service of the British Government, from the expense of which it was an object of the British Government to be relieved, and also for a proportion of the European officers heretofore in the service of Dowlut Rao Scindiah, who quitted that service under the proclamation of the Governor-General in Council of the 29th August, 1803.

On the basis of this plan of arrangement detailed instructions were issued to the Resident at Dehli, under the date the 23rd May, with orders to carry it into effect with the least practicable delay.

The Governor-General in Council entertains a confident expectation that the proposed arrangement and provision will be satisfactory to his Majesty, and will be considered throughout all the states of India to be consistent with the acknowledged justice, liberality, and benevolence of the British Government.

The Governor-General in Council also confidently trusts that the proposed arrangement will be sanctioned by the approbation of your honourable Committee, and of the honourable the Court of Directors.

We have the honour to be,

HONOURABLE SIRS,

Your most faithful, humble servants,

(Signed)

WELLESLEY,

G. H. BARLOW,

G. UDNY.

["Wellesley Despatches," vol. iv. p. 553.]

APPENDIX F.

Note to page 209.

SINCE printing the following indication has been found of the possible original of name printed "Du Drenec." In the "Familles Francaises" of Count Regis de l'Estourbeillon (Names, 1886) is a list of extinct Breton families. One of these is given as "Du Drenec-Keroulas, fondue dans Keroulas." This was, most likely, the true orthography of the Indian adventurer's name.