# The Calcutta Review/Series 1/Number 2/Article 2

See also: The English in India
​Art. II.—1. The English in India. 3 vols. 8vo. London, 1828.
2. The East India Sketch-book. 1st Series. 2 vols. London, 1832.
3. The East Indian Sketch-book. 2nd Series. 2 vols. London, 1833.
4, Scenes and Characteristics of Hindustan, by Miss Roberts. 3 vols. London, 1835.
5. The Nabob at Home. 3 vols. London, 1843.
6. The Nabob’s Wife. 3 vols. London, 1837.
It is related by Sir Walter Scott, that having been asked by an octogenarian grand-aunt, Mrs. Keith, of Revelston, whether he had ever read Mrs. Behn’s novels, and having courageously replied in the affirmative, he was besought by the old lady to “get her a sight of them.” After a little hesitation, Scott consented; but expressed some doubts, as to whether his aunt would much relish the pictures of Society contained in the loose volumes of the free-spirited Aphra. Upon the old lady all this was thrown away; she remembered the time when every body read the novels, and every body was delighted with them. She ​herself had greatly admired them, in her young days, and devoured them with avidity. This was of course unanswerable. The novels were sent. But soon afterwards, Scott chancing to see his aunt received back the parcel, and was desired to “take back his bonnie Mrs. Behn, and to put her into the fire.” The old lady of eighty had been shocked and disgusted by that which the young girl of twenty had read without a blush. Sixty years before, those very novels had been read aloud, admired and discussed, in large parties of the best Society in London. Now an old woman of eighty could not read them by her own fire-side.—A better illustration of the improved tone of Morals, and character of Society, we do not remember to have seen.
Morality appears to have advanced steadily in England with the reign of George the Third. If the improved morality, which we claim for our contemporaries, be questioned, there can be no room to doubt the greater decorum of the present day. The court of the third George was the most decorous of courts. The King upon his ascension was in the enjoyment of a vigorous youth; but he waved the royal privilege of gilding vice and dispensing lechery from a palace; he denied himself the luxury of contaminating, by his example, the morals of a whole country; and proved to the world, that with every source of sensuality open to him, it was possible to be a virtuous man. During his reign, men ceased to make an open business of licentiousness; they ceased to consider it a grace in a gentleman to interlard his common discourse with blasphemies and indecencies; they ceased to drink; in a great measure, they ceased to gamble; and vice began “to pay homage to virtue” by hiding itself in dark places. Men learnt to conceal that of which before it had been the fashion to boast; and the accomplishments which erst made a man’s character, in process of time came to un-make it. All this was not achieved in a year or in a score of years; it was the gradually progressing work of that half-century, which elapsed between the ascension and the death of George the Third. How different the social state in which he left the country from that in which he found it! The novels of Mrs. Behn, which wreathed the mouth of girl-hood with the smile of delight, now tinged with the blush of shame the wan cheek of wrinkled age.
However inviting the subject may be, it comes not within our province to enquire how much or how little of the improved condition of public morals—or, as some will have it, only of public decency—is attributable to the decorous character of the court of Great Britain, during that most eventful half-century. The few remarks, which we have made, stand but as an in​troduction to what, in our proper sphere of Indian Journalism, we purpose to write of the vast improvement which Time has wrought upon the social character of the English in India. Whatever by contending parties may be said or written, touching the improvement or the no-improvement of the people of Hindustan under the British rule, there can be no conflict of opinion concerning the improvement of the British themselves. Doubts may be raised, nay, denials may be roundly urged by obstinate questioners, of the ameliorative influence of the Company’s Government upon the masses of its Indian subjects, whilst others admitting that something has been done, set down that something at a value lamentably short of the amount of good, which, after so many years, ought to have been accomplished, by a civilized and a Christian Government; but that year after year has seen a steady and progressive improvement in the character of the English in India—an improvement which cannot but have been attended with a corresponding influence, directly or indirectly, on the native mind, is happily a broad and undeniable fact, which no degree of scepticism can question.
Throughout a long series of years, the English in India, as moral beings, lagged far behind their brethren in Europe. Time was, when they imported into their eastern settlements all the vices and none of the virtues of Christians; when Christianity was looked upon by the natives of Hindostan only as another name for irreligion and immorality; when to be a Christian was, in their estimation, to be lustful, rapacious, cruel; a loud and angry sot; a contemner of God and a scourge to his fellows. Little by little, this stigma wore away: but slow indeed was the progress of decency and morality until towards the close of the last century. We have said that morality advanced in England with the reign of George the Third. We may date the rapid and substantial improvement in the social condition of the English in India from the arrival of the Marquis of Cornwallis. With the accession of that virtuous nobleman to the Government of British India, a new social era commenced; and though it would be unreasonable to assert that this great social reformation was brought about by the sole influence of this one man’s personal character, it would be equally unreasonable to deny that such a character in a ruler must have greatly conduced to the change. Clive and Hastings had left England as mere boys. They brought with them to India no settled principles; their morals accordingly were Indian morals—formed in the worst possible school. Neither one nor the other could have exercised any but a bad influence ​The more isolated the position of the European exile, the more probable becomes the decay of all high principle in his breast. Self-respect is a choice plant, but few are at the trouble to cultivate it. A man, cut off from the society of his countrymen, is not only removed beyond all the obstructions of immorality, but is doubly exposed to all its temptations. There is in fact every thing to allure—and nothing to stay him. He seeks, in the pursuit of sensual enjoyment, occupation and excitement; and, as there are none, whose opinion he regards, to watch his descent, he cares not how low he descends. In his solitude he takes “a harem for his grot,” or he flies to the companionship of the bottle. Regarding the natives only as so many graven images or so many ingenious mechanical contrivances, he sinks lower and lower in the slough of immorality, until he is utterly debased. Even in these times, the demoralising effects of segregation are not unfrequently apparent. Men who, had they been fated to move in a more extended social circle, would have preserved at least an outward show of morality, and perhaps, whilst cultivating decorum, actually attained to purity of conduct, have found themselves, when cut off from the companionship of their countrymen, unable out of mere self-respect, to restrain themselves from vicious self-indulgence. Now, something of this segregation distinguished the lives and influenced the conduct of our earliest European settlers. It is true that they sometimes met together at the few stations which were accessible to them, but even then they were mere scattered fragments broken off from the mass of European humanity. There was among them little dissimilarity of taste, feeling, and habit. There was no society, whose frowns the sensualist could dread. His doings, on these far-offshores, were unknown to his countrymen in England; perchance there may have been a parent, or a brother, or a friend, in whose eyes the adventurer might desire to wear a fair aspect; but in India he was as far beyond the observation of that parent, brother, or friend, as though he dwelt in another planet. There were, in truth, no outward motives to preserve morality of conduct, or even decency of demeanor. From the moment of their landing upon the shores of India, the first settlers cast off all those bonds which had restrained them in their native villages; they regarded themselves as privileged beings—privileged to violate all the obligations of religion and morality, and to outrage all the decencies of life. They who came hither, were often desperate adventurers, whom England, in the emphatic language of the Scripture, had spued out; men who sought these golden sands of the East to repair their broken fortunes; to bury in oblivion a sullied name; or to ​tories of “the Great Mogul,” to narrate how Christian men in a Heathen land were put to shame by the benighted natives; to descant on the gentleness, the fidelity, the temperance of the gentiles, and the violence, the rapacity, the licentiousness of the Christians. It is remarkable, that almost all the earliest travellers speak in the highest terms of the native character; commending the friendly feeling exhibited by both Hindoos and Mahommedans to the few scattered Europeans, who found their way beyond the coast; and not unfrequently descanting upon the sorry return which these kindly manifestations elicited. An intelligent gentleman, who accompanied Sir Thomas Roe, early in the seventeenth century, to the Court of the Great Mogul, and who furnished an account of what he saw and did, which was held in high repute at the time of its publication (1665), gives a chapter on “the most excellent moralities which are to be observed amongst the people of those nations,” wherein he takes occasion to contrast the behaviour of the Heathen with that of the Christian man. After commenting on the industry and punctuality of the natives, in the xivth section of his Memoir, he adds, “This appears much in their justness manifested unto those, who trade with them; for if a man will put it unto their consciences to sell the commodities he desires to buy at as low a rate as they can afford it, they will deal squarely and honestly with him; but if in those bargainings a man offers them much less than their set price, they will be apt to say, what dost thou think me a Christian, that I would go about to deceive thee?—It is a most sad and horrible thing to consider, what scandal there is brought upon the Christian Religion, by the looseness and remissness, by the exorbitances of many, which come amongst them, who profess themselves Christians, of whom I have often heard the natives, who live here near the port where our ships arrive say thus, in broken English, which they have gotten, Christian religion, devil religion; Christian much drunk; Christian much do wrong; much beat, much abuse others: But to return unto the people of East India: though the Christians which come amongst them, do not such horrible things, yet they do enough to make Christianity itself evil spoken of; as a religion that deserves more to be abhorred, than embraced, for truly it is a sad sight there to behold a drunken Christian and a sober Indian; a temperate Indian and a Christian given up to his appetite; an Indian that is just and square in his dealing; a Christian not so; a laborious Indian and an idle Christian; as if he were born ​only to fold his arms, or fruges tantum consumere natus; to devour corn, and wear out wool. O what a sad thing it is for Christians to come short of Indians, even in moralities come short of those, who themselves believe to come short of heaven.” And again, in another place, this writer sets down as one of the principal obstructions to the growth of Christianity in the East, “the most debauched lives of many coming thither, or living amongst them who profess themselves Christians, per quorum latera patitur evangelium, by whom the gospel of Jesus Christ is scandalised and exceedingly suffers.”
This very amusing and, in the main, accurate writer, gives us a picture, from the life, of a young English Adventurer, which we think not unworthy of a place in our gallery—
   “After this, when we had gone forward about twenty dayes journey (which daily Remoovs were but short, by reason of our heavy carriages, and the heat of the weather) it hapned, that another of our Company, a young Gentleman about twenty years old, the Brother of a Baron of England, behaved himself so ill, as that we feared it would have brought very much mischief on us.
   This young man being very unruly at home, and so many others that have been well born, when their friends knew not what to do with them, have been sent to East-India, that so they might make their own Graves in the Sea in their passage thither; or else have Graves made for them on the Indian shore, when they come there. A very cleanly conveyance (but how just and honest, I leave to others) for Parents to be rid of their unruly Children; but I never knew any who were thus supposed to be sent thither, but they out-lived that Voyage.
   For the young Gentleman I spake of, his imployment was to wait upon our Chief Commander in his Cabin, who very courteously, when he came to Sea, turn’d him before the mast amongst the common Saylors [a great preferment for a Man of his Birth] but for all this he out-liv’d that harsh usage, and came safely to East-India, and my Lord Ambassadour hearing of him, and being well acquainted with his great kindred, sent for him up to Court, and there entertain’d him as a Companion for a year; then giving him all fit accommodations, sent him home again as a passenger for England, where after he safely arrived.
   But in our way towards that Court, it thus happened, that this hot-brains being a little behind us, commanded him [then near him] who was the Prince’s servant [before spoken of] to hold his horse; the man replied, that he was none of his servant and would not do it. Upon which this most intemperate mad youth, who was like Philocles, that angry Poet; and therefore called, Bilis and Salsigo, Choler and Brine, [for he was the most hasty and cholerick young man that ever I knew] as will appear by his present carriage, which was thus; first he beat that stranger, for refusing to hold his horse, with his horse-whip, which, I must tell you, that people cannot endure, as if those whips stung worse than Scorpions. For of any punishments that carry most disgrace in them, as that people think, one is to be beaten with that whip, wherewithall they strike their beasts; the other to be beaten [and this they esteem the more disgraceful punishment of the two] about the head with shooes. But this stranger (being whipt as before) came up and complained to me; but to make him amends, that frantick young man (mad ​with rage, and he knew not wherefore) presently followed him, and being come up close to him, discharg’d his Pistol laden with a brace of bullets directly at his body, which bullets, by the special guidance of the hand of God, so flew, that they did the poor man no great hurt; only one of them first tearing his coat, bruised all the knuckles of his left hand, and the other brake his bow which he carried in the same hand. We presently disarmed our young Bedlam, till he might return again to his wits.”
We are treated in the same Section with a low-life pendent to this amusing sketch of the Baron’s brother, in a picture of the Ambassador’s cook, who bought wine from an Armenian (the Armenians, it would appear, were the wine-merchants in those days) became as drunk as a lord, and assaulted the brother of the Governor of Surat—“Now, thou Heathen dog!” exclaimed the English cook, to which, according to the Chronicle, the Governor’s brother “not understanding his foul language replyed civilly in his own, Ca-ca-ta (kya kahta?) which signifies what sayest thou?” “The cook,” continues our friend, “ answered him with his sword and scabbard, with which he strook at him.” The lord of the roast was disarmed, and no great disaster came of the adventure; but it gave occasion to the writer to observe, “Before I leave this story, it will not be amiss to enquire who was the Heathen dog at this time, whether the debaucht drunken cook, who called himself a Christian, or that sober and temperate Mahometan, who was thus affronted.”
It would not be uninteresting to investigate the extent to which the morality of the natives of India has been elevated or deteriorated by European associations. We are afraid that the enquiry would not lead to such satisfactory results, as we could desire; and we cannot, at all events on the present occasion, suffer ourselves to prosecute it. One quotation, however, we cannot resist making. The extract is from Forbes’ ''Oriental Memoirs'', and we give it for the purpose of showing that in the opinion of that excellent and experienced man, patriarchal influences were at work, for good, even in his time, in places not penetrated by the British.
   “I sometimes frequented places where the natives had never seen an European, and were ignorant of every thing concerning us: there I beheld manners and customs simple as were those in the patriarchal age; there in the very style of Rebecca and the damsels of Mesopotamia, the Hindoo villagers treated me with that artless hospitality so delightful in the poems of Homer, and other ancient records. On a sultry day, near a Zinore village, having rode faster than my attendants, while waiting their arrival under a tamarind tree, a young woman came to the well; I asked for a little water, but neither of us having a drinking vessel, she hastily left me, as I imagined, to bring an earthen cup for the purpose, as I should have polluted a vessel of metal: but as Jael, when Sisera asked for water, “gave him milk, and brought forth butter in a lordly dish,”—Judges, ch. v, ver. 25, so did ​this village damsel, with more sincerity than Heber’s wife, bring me a pot of milk, and a lump of butter on the delicate leaf of the banana, “the lordly dish” of the Hindoos. The former I gladly accepted; on my declining the latter, she immediately made it up into two balls, and gave one to each of the oxen that drew my hackery. Butter is a luxury to these animals, and enables them to bear additional fatigue.” “The more I saw of the Hindoos in those remote districts, the more I perceived the truth of Orme’s remarks, that Hindostan has been inhabited from the earliest antiquity, by a people who have no resemblance, either in their figure, or manners, with any of the nations contiguous to them; and that although conquerors have established themselves at different times, in various parts of India, yet the original inhabitants have lost very little of their original character.”
It must, however, be admitted that our Portfolio contains more than one passage, which might, in all fairness, be quoted as a set-off to the above. If in the old times, there were scenes of patriarchal simplicity, there were also scenes of fearful immorality, which in these days never greet our eyes. Take the following, from the Travels of John Mandelslo, as a proof of the atrocities which were sometimes perpetrated by petty native princes, even in the presence of “principal directors of the English and Dutch trade.” The Governor of Amedabad getting merry with his English and Dutch friends, “sent for twenty women-dancers,” and when these had danced themselves out, he sent for another set. This other set refused to come; upon which the Governor had them brought forcibly before him. They made a frank confession of the cause of their contumacy, which need not be here repeated; and then we are told—
   “He (the Governor) laught at it, but immediately commanded out a party of his guard and ordered their heads to be struck off. They begged their lives with horrid cries and lamentations; but he would be obeyed, and caused the execution to be done in the room before all the company—not one of the Lords then present daring to make the least intercession for those wretches, who were eight in number. The strangers were startled at the horror of the spectacle and inhumanity of the action; which the Governor taking notice of fell a-laughing and asked them what they were so much startled at.”
​The more isolated the position of the European exile, the more probable becomes the decay of all high principle in his breast. Self-respect is a choice plant, but few are at the trouble to cultivate it. A man, cut off from the society of his countrymen, is not only removed beyond all the obstructions of immorality, but is doubly exposed to all its temptations. There is in fact every thing to allure—and nothing to stay him. He seeks, in the pursuit of sensual enjoyment, occupation and excitement; and, as there are none, whose opinion he regards, to watch his descent, he cares not how low he descends. In his solitude he takes “a harem for his grot,” or he flies to the companionship of the bottle. Regarding the natives only as so many graven images or so many ingenious mechanical contrivances, he sinks lower and lower in the slough of immorality, until he is utterly debased. Even in these times, the demoralising effects of segregation are not unfrequently apparent. Men who, had they been fated to move in a more extended social circle, would have preserved at least an outward show of morality, and perhaps, whilst cultivating decorum, actually attained to purity of conduct, have found themselves, when cut off from the companionship of their countrymen, unable out of mere self-respect, to restrain themselves from vicious self-indulgence. Now, something of this segregation distinguished the lives and influenced the conduct of our earliest European settlers. It is true that they sometimes met together at the few stations which were accessible to them, but even then they were mere scattered fragments broken off from the mass of European humanity. There was among them little dissimilarity of taste, feeling, and habit. There was no society, whose frowns the sensualist could dread. His doings, on these far-offshores, were unknown to his countrymen in England; perchance there may have been a parent, or a brother, or a friend, in whose eyes the adventurer might desire to wear a fair aspect; but in India he was as far beyond the observation of that parent, brother, or friend, as though he dwelt in another planet. There were, in truth, no outward motives to preserve morality of conduct, or even decency of demeanor. From the moment of their landing upon the shores of India, the first settlers cast off all those bonds which had restrained them in their native villages; they regarded themselves as privileged beings—privileged to violate all the obligations of religion and morality, and to outrage all the decencies of life. They who came hither, were often desperate adventurers, whom England, in the emphatic language of the Scripture, had spued out; men who sought these golden sands of the East to repair their broken fortunes; to bury in oblivion a sullied name; or to ​wring, with lawless hand, from the weak and unsuspecting, wealth which they had not the character or the capacity to obtain by honest industry at home. They cheated; they gambled; they drank; they revelled in all kinds of debauchery; though associates in vice—linked together by a common bond of rapacity—they often pursued one another with desperate malice, and, few though they were in numbers, among them there was no unity, except an unity of crime. Though of old, as in the present time, it was too much the fashion to send the more violent and intractable younger members of a family to some distant colony, there to place them wholly beyond the reach of such chances of improvement, as home-example ever presents, it would be unjust to say that all who came to these shores were the refuse of English respectability. “There is nothing worse,” exclaimed Burke, in one of his fervid harangues delivered at a later period, “in the boys we send to India, than in the boys whom we are whipping at school, or that we see trailing a pike or bending over the desk at home.” All the evil of the too prevalent morality he imputed to the form of Government, under which these “boys” were condemned to grow into men. And Adam Smith, speaking of this same all-prevailing laxity of principle, says with reference to the Company’s servants, “They acted as their situations naturally directed; and they who have clamored loudest against them would probably not have acted better themselves.” Burke and Adam Smith both mainly referred to the official morality of the English in India—but it might with equal truth have been said, in most instances, of their social morality, that they who clamored loudest against them would have acted no better themselves. As in one case, there were no sufficient political checks; in another there were no sufficient social checks; and whilst the depraved met with no inducement to reform, the pure but rarely escaped corruption. Whether they were here initiated, or perpetuated in destructive error, equally may they be regarded as the victims of circumstance. They left a country of checks—checks imposed not only by civil polity but by the more stringent code of opinion— ​to seek a country, where no checks existed—what wonder then that they fell?
As the English in India increased in numbers, and something like a society began to form itself, affairs began a little to improve. There are saving influences in a multitude. The variety of character, of motive, and of habit, which it presents, can scarcely fail to exercise a restraining power over the individual. When a man knows that he is in the society of kindred spirits; that not only will nobody frown upon his vices, but that every member of the limited society, into which he is thrown, is addicted to the same vices, it would be strange indeed, if he did not give way to all the impulses of his corrupt nature. But when he knows that he is surrounded by others, whose opinions, tastes, and habits are widely different—who will turn away with disgust from open profligacy, and religiously keep aloof from the profligate—he restrains those natural impulses, and subjects himself to a course of moral training, which he soon acknowledges to possess its worldly advantages, even in a vicious state of society. The value of a fair character is appreciated even by those, who have no abstract veneraation for what is beautiful and excellent in religion and morality; and good example, where it does not generate virtue, often obstructs vice.
It is only from incidental allusions in the few works of travel and fewer political memoirs, which our ancestors have bequeathed to us, that we can gain any insight into the moral condition of the English in India, previous to the conquest of Bengal. Many writers, who have described the rise and progress of the different East India Companies, have given us somewhat startling accounts of the official rapacity of our predecessors—of the fierce contentions of the rival companies, of their unscrupulous conduct towards the Natives, and towards each other—of their commercial dishonesty, their judicial turpitude, and their political injustice—all these things are broadly stated; but to the immorality of their private life we have little but indistinct allusions. The pranks played by the different Governors, of whose administrations we know little, might have induced even Burke to acknowledge, that the worst offences imputed to Hastings were, contrasted with the eccentricities of some of his ​predecessors, distinguished by consummate purity and tenderness. One of these Governors (Sir John Gayer) who was sent out, as a picked man, to supersede another, who had been misconducting himself, not liking to reside at Bombay, the proper seat of government, because he found he could make more money at Surat, contrived to get himself taken prisoner by the Governor of the latter place, and thus, whilst disgracing his country, feathered his own nest. Sir Nicholas Waite, who succeeded Gayer, conducted himself so badly that the inhabitants of Bombay kicked him out of the country. “The looseness of his morals, his bare-faced injustice and prevarication, provoked the inhabitants and soldiery at Bombay to such a degree, that they seized him and sent him prisoner to England.”
We find it difficult to obtain a clear view of the state of English society in India, during the second quarter of the last century. There are some anecdotes of doubtful authenticity, though sufficiently characteristic both of the man and the times in which he lived, extant in some of the Dictionary biographies of Clive, which show that gambling and fighting were no unusual employments among the English at Madras. Clive gambled; was cheated by an officer; accused his adversary of fraud; was called out by the sharper; and refusing to retract, even with a pistol at his head, had a narrow escape of being murdered. On another occasion, it is related, that a brother officer having accused him of cowardice, Clive challenged the slanderer, who struck him on the way to the meeting-place—fine examples both of the gentlemanly feeling, which then existed in the army—Mr. Verelst, however, in a farewell minute, drew, with reference to about the same period, a very complacent sketch of the civilians of Bengal—“We looked no farther than the provision of the Company’s investment. We sought advantages to our trade with the ingenuity, I may add, selfishness, of merchants.. . . . . . All our servants and dependants were trained and educated in the same notions; the credit of a good bargain was the utmost scope of their ambition.” Calcutta, according to Mr. Verelst, must, in those days, have been a sort of commercial Arcadia!
Malcolm’s Life of Clive is singularly barren of everything that throws a light upon the social and domestic character of the ​times. Another and more ample biography of the heaven-born general was published in the last century, under the assumed name of “Charles Carracioli, Gent.” It is a very badly-arranged compilation from the works of Ives, Bolts, &c. &c., interspersed with anecdotes of Lord Clive’s amours, principally on the continent of Europe. This work is said to have been written by a Member of one of the Councils, over which Clive presided—but the writer being obviously better acquainted with his Lordship’s personal doings in Europe than in Asia, the work savors strongly of home-manufacture; and has all the appearance of being the joint-composition of a bookseller’s hack and a discarded valet. It abounds in general descriptions of the profligacy and rapacity of the Company’s servants, and virulent attacks on the Governor General. As a sample of the latter, we may take the following passage, which will answer, in quotation, a double purpose:—
   “Soon after the noble president’s arrival at Calcutta, a gentleman in the civil service of the company, who felt for his fellow-creatures amidst these opulent wretches, insensible to the cries of the distressed, was honoured with an invitation of the supreme governor. He made an honorable mention of Mr. Vansitart, Lord Clive’s predecessor, and highly commended his munificence and benefactions; he observed before Lord Clive, while at his table, that Mr. Vansitart’s benevolence abroad, was adequate to his hospitality at home; that he never distributed less in charitable uses during his government than 4,000 rupees per month, and that several widows and young ladies friendless and destitute had been the worthy objects of his spontaneous relief, till they were happily married, or otherwise released from their troubles and difficulties. This intimation which should have stimulated the noble governor to the same meritorious acts, could not even influence him to bestow a praise on Mr. Vansitart’s extensive donations. His lordship replied with a deliberate insensibility, and a shameless sneer, that betrayed his principles: “What Mr. Vansitart did in this particular shall be no precedent to me, as I am determined not to follow it; but were the ladies inclined to repay the favour, in bestowing theirs, I do not know how far this motive might prevail on my sensation.” This declaration shewed Lord Clive in his true colours, and was followed by a contemptuous silence and indignation.”
There are some further anecdotes, tending to give us a very poor opinion of Clive’s honor, and stamping some of his creatures with indelible infamy. The story, which we have quoted, is not very improbable. Mr. Vansittart, whatever may have been Lord Clive’s opinion of him, appears to have been a good-natured and liberal man. During his government, a whimscial fellow, Mr. Martinett died, and bequeathed “to Governor Henry Vansittart, Esq.” all his debts; and what is more extraordinary, Mr. Vansittart paid them.
The Abbé Raynal—in spite of his undoubted abilities, no very trustworthy authority—whilst denouncing the oppressive and rapacious conduct of the English in India, after the conquest of Bengal, admits their superiority over the other European ​settlers, in respect of moral demeanour. “The English company,” he says, “has hitherto observed a conduct superior to that of all other nations. Their agents and factors have been well chosen. The chief among them are young gentleman of family most carefully educated in merchants’ counting houses in England. They bring with them to Asia, knowledge of trade, morals, and a habit of industry.. . . . . . . . These merchants, these military persons, have hitherto preserved better morals, discipline, and vigour, than those of other nations, but we may foretell they will be corrupted at last.. . . . . . . . . Corruption will creep into their colonies. It will begin by the military, a species of men who in all nations pay the least regard to morals. The lowest rank of the merchants will soon be corrupted. The Company’s servants formerly so well chosen, for some time, will be their censors, and will finish the scene by being their accomplices.” We are very glad to learn from this passage that the English were, at that time, so much better than their neighbours—but we fear that the inference to be drawn from such a comparison is, that those neighbors were exceedingly bad. An intelligent writer, who published anonymously in 1771, certain Observations on the present state of the East India Company, remarks, with reference to the then state of the Company’s service, “Luxury and indolence have got too much footing in all the presidencies, and too general a neglect and inattention prevails.. . . . . . . . These youths are not so blameable as those who send them forth without establishing regulations for their conduct, which should, on no account, be dispensed with. It is from this omission that they so soon forget the end for which they engaged: and that they run into such excesses of extravagance and dissipation.” Captain Stavorinus, a Dutch skipper, who visited Bengal about this time, and wrote three volumes of travels, gives a still more unfavorable account of the social character of the European residents. After descanting upon the abominable crimes of the natives, with much sang froid, he observes “the contamination of vice is not solely confined to the two nations who are natives of the country, extends likewise to the Europeans, who settle or trade here. The climate influences perhaps more upon the constitution here than in other countries.” “The Europeans,” he says again, had in Bengal a very easy life; the men, who are almost all in the service of the Company, devote a part of the morning to attending upon their business.. . . . . They spend the remainder of their time, either in revels or in sleep, though sometimes the latter can scarcely be procured during the excessive heats.” He ​says, that the extravagance of all was excessive—that “the least in rank stand in need of six thousand rupees annually”—and that “most people spend twice as much, although their income does not amount to more than half of what they disburse.” Of the English, in Western India, Capt. Stavorinus gives even a less favorable account. He tells us one story of Governor Gambier, who, desiring to obtain, for the lady of the French Consul, a couple of fine horses, the property of a Dutch man, resorted to the school-boy trick of asking to “look at them,” and then refused to return them—“The horses were carried from the Durbar to the French factory; Mrs. * * * and Mr. Gambier obtained their wishes, and Mr. Van C—lost his beautiful horses.” Still the Dutch skipper acknowledges, that the Englishmen had some good points about them. He says, that the English officials in Bengal were much less pompous and pragmatical than the Dutch; and seems to have been well pleased, on the whole, with English hospitality, especially with a one o’clock Government-house dinner, at which “the conversation was carried on in a free and unconstrained manner, without the company being under any fear of restraint from the presence of the Governor (Mr. Cartier) or of other great men.”
​And when these men returned to England, with their hoarded wealth, what was their social position? With unlimited means of purchasing enjoyment, they could find no enjoyments to purchase. They were isolated; and they were unhappy. First came disappointment—then discontent. The climate—the people—the social customs—all were strange and distasteful to them. They collected around them harpies and parasites—for where will not the sun of wealth draw forth a fungus-growth of such minions?—they squandered money on ridiculous follies; they exhibited in their own persons a vanity still more ridiculous; they aimed at a costly extravagance, to outshine the old aristocrats, who despised them; and died at last unregretted by a single relative or friend. They, who were not bent on plucking the Nabob, religiously kept aloof from him. A sort of superstitious awe attached to his person; and many looked upon him, as an unholy being doomed to drag out a miserable existence haunted by the grim shadows of his victims and tortured by relentless furies. If he shut himself up on his own premises, it was said of him that he shunned the light of day, and rustic ignorance drew strange pictures of unhallowed rites and unearthly ceremonies within the precincts of the Nabob’s domain. If he wandered abroad, it was said of him that he was endeavouring to escape out of himself—to drown the fearful memory of the past. Everywhere he was a mark for popular odium—on the stage; in the novel; in the rhetorical harangues of the Parliamentary orator—and the greater part of this too, on no better authority than that of the cheek sallowed; the eye dimmed; the frame wasted, by disease; the spirit depressed and the temper soured by a constant recurrence of wearing pain; and the outward bearing rendered cold and repulsive by the imperfect sympathy, and the unceasing distrust of his new neighbours. The Nabob was far from a faultless being—nay it must in candour be admitted, that he was some degrees lower down in the scale of humanity, than his home-staying brethren, who had been exposed to less deteriorating influences—but still he was the victim of much manifest injustice and the wrongs, which he may have committed in one hemisphere, were amply revisited upon him in the other. His very sufferings were arrayed in judgment against him. The ravages, which pain and sickness and toil beneath a scorching sun had committed upon his frame; the strangeness of manner which long absence from home and much intercourse with a foreign people had naturally induced—the eagerness with which he sought by lavish expenditure and luxurious profusion to compensate for the absence of friendship and kindly sympathy—all these things, the misfortunes of the return​ed exile, were imputed to him as grave offences; and sober moralists held up their hands without the charity even feebly to acknowledge,
On the whole, he was more sinned against than sinning. Novelists, dramatists, and rhetoricians, all delighted to set forth in harsh tints, the darker side of the unhappy Nabob; but few dwelt upon the better part of his nature—and even in Nabob-nature there was a better part. He was not wanting in generosity; ay, and if that seared heart could have been read, not wanting, it would have been seen, in kindly and tender affections, though little scope had there been for their expansion; not wanting in many of the finer feelings of humanity, though little had there been during his many years of exile to wake them into that seemly activity and give them that conventional decorum-gait which his brethren in the West were too prone to consider as inseparable from their proper exercise. We have much need, in such cases, to bear in mind the scriptural mandate—Judge not. There may have been, all circumstances and influences fairly balanced, less of good to be carried to the account of the sober, orderly citizen, whose migrations for thirty years had never ranged beyond the right line between London and Edmonton—who had grown up from apprentice to clerk, from clerk to foreman, from foreman to master-tradesman or merchant, slowly and in the world’s way honestly acquiring wealth; who had fallen in the way of few temptations in early youth, and mature manhood had married with all discretion and begotten sons and daughters to make him a happy, cheerful home—there may have been really less of good, we say, all circumstances and all influences justly measured, when the balance is struck, in that sleek and rosy citizen with his blooming family trooping after him to Church on Sunday mornings, and more than filling the great pew, than in the wild adventurer, perchance his brother, driven from home in early youth, to seek his fortune in strange lands, beyond the influence of all domestic, perhaps of all social controul; exposed to temptations manifold, and sinning with, not against the stream, under the strong contagion of example, universal as vicious; and now in his old age returning with wasted form and sallow cheek; with many conventional improprieties about him and a somewhat low moral standard within, to spend his declining years among his own people in the serener climate of home. Under all those most unfavorable influences, who knows that the heart may not still have been the nest of kindly affections; and that the domestic virtues were not as bountiful within him ​as within the sleek citizen, that very pattern—the delight of tomb-stones—of the good husband and the good father; although instead of the merchant’s daughter, the adventurer in the East may have taken a “savage woman” to “rear a dusky race.” Let us at least hang up one picture in illustration of what we have thus, in opposition to prevailing notions, ventured to suggest. We take it from one of the many interesting and instructive notes to the ''Adventurer in the Punjab''—an unassuming volume which exhibits more real practical knowledge of the Seikh states and their turbulent inhabitants than any work with which we are acquainted—
   “Captain Abbott’s beautiful tale of the “Thakorine” gives many illustrations of the Râjpotrîs, their chivalrous honor and the sacrifices they make to it. To that work I refer the reader for poetry both in subject and language, But even the prose of real life affords tales as curious as ever were invented; in proof of which I give an incident, communicated by a friend, in whose words it follows. The fact appeared in the London prints for the winter of 1826-27; they furnish the specimen of the mode in which even the affections manifest themselves in an eccentric man; let, it not, however, be supposed that I meant to draw Bellasis as a person who would have thus shewn his love; though Major H.’s strong and enduring attachment for his wife, shews that my story does not in this particular exceed nature.
   When I read Mahtâb Konwurs story, I was reminded of some incidents that made a strong impression on my youthful mind. There can be no harm in your publishing them, for they appeared at the time in the London papers and caused a nine days’ wonder; they have probably long since vanished from the memory of all not personally interested in them; and my account will not bring any names before the public.
   Major H. was an officer in the king’s service, who served on the Madras presidency, some thirty or forty years ago. He became attached to a native lady, named Fyzoo; never I believe regarded her with any but honorable views and married her. She bore him three children (one of whom is now an officer in the army) and died, leaving the youngest an infant, who bore the mother’s name. Major H. quitted India upon the death of his wife and brought her remains with him to England in a leaden coffin. Shortly after his arrival, the little Fyzoo likewise died, and her father had her remains in the same manner preserved.
   Every circumstance in Major H.’s story was peculiar, and took great hold of my imagination when in my early youth, I came from a remote country place to the part of Surrey where he had his residence. It was an old brick house with pointed roofs, massive window frames, tall narrow doors, winding stairs, dark passages and all other approved materials for a regular haunted house. A high brick wall with a dead gate, surrounded the garden in which the house stood; all was in character, the straight turf walks, the clipped yews, the noble Linden trees, and the look of neglect and wildness that pervaded every thing; on ringing for admission the gate used to be opened by an old woman whose appearance was enough to rouse all sorts of strange ideas in the mind of an urchin fresh from the country. She had been the nurse of little Fyzoo, and had in that capacity attended her charge to England. As such she was ​much valued by her master and continued to live with him till his death. I well remember her shrivelled black face, her white hair and emaciated form (with her Indian dress, that was in itself a curiosity to my young eyes,) and her broken English. I believe Major H. was never seen outside the walls of his garden, and he had so cut himself off from all his relations and friends, that it was not generally known that in that old house, he kept enshrined the bodies of his wife and daughter. His two elder children as they grew up, went to live with other relatives, and his sole companion was an old widow lady, as eccentric as himself. In a room within his own a bed was laid out covered with rich Indian silks, and fancifully decorated; on that bed lay the mother and child and in their long last sleep; and in this room Major H. passed the greater part of his time. This, I believe, is the simple narrative, but of course much of mystery and exaggeration was added to the stories circulated of the three singular characters, who inhabited the old house, and the supernatural beings who were suspected to reside with them.
   At length Major H. died after about twenty years of this strange existence. His death was quite sudden, and so many suspicions had been connected with his seclusion, that an inquest was held on his body. Thus the scenes that had so long been shrouded from the public ken, were thrown open: when the officials came to examine the house the two coffins were brought to light and this discovery of the remains of two human beings caused a further investigation.
   It was a strange scene, on a cold December day, that old house thrown open to all whom curiosity might lead there; the bustling magistrates and their satellites peeping and peering into every cranny for a solution of the mysteries. The old lady, and the still older dyhe, flitting like ghosts, about the desecrated shrine, their strange tale long disbelieved by the authorities, while there lay the unconscious causes of all this tumult. The hardly cold body of the old soldier, the long crumbled dust of his Eastern bride, and of their infant child. At length the Coroner was obliged to receive the real story, however incredible it seemed; and the three bodies were committed to one grave.
   As to the validity of a marriage, such as the above, it was in this instance proved; for, the succession to Major H.’s property was disputed by others of the family, on the ground of his son’s illegitimacy; and the law decided in the young man’s favour.”
The reader will not quarrel with us, we are sure, for giving him as a companion to the foregoing, a picture of a less gloomy character. In the above, we have shown the terrible—and now we proceed to show the ridiculous—side, of the Nabob at Home. The annexed sketch is taken from the auto-biography of M. Grand, the gentleman, whose beautiful young wife—afterwards the soi-disante Princesse de Talleyrand—was seduced by one of the ablest, but most unprincipled men of the last century, Philip Francis—a man without one spark of honesty or one feeling of a gentleman—a low cross between the bully and the sneak. Grand was originally in the Army; but through the interest of Hastings he had obtained a more lucrative appointment, and was, when Francis was caught in his house, during the first year of his marriage, Secretary to the Salt Committee:—
   “In General Smith there existed every virtue and honorable principle, ​combined with traits, which lessened the sway which his virtues bore, and rendered him an object of ridicule. His origin was low, and the rank and fortune which he rose to in life, may be estimated, in the chapter of accidents, as marvellous.—Sensible of the bountiful talents which nature had bestowed, he considered these, when displayed by a powerful mind, might tend to throw a veil on his extraction, and cause it altogether to be forgotten.—With those, whom it did not affect, it certainly met with that distinction, but with others, whom it did, they could not pass over an arrogance of superiority so unwarranted.—India was not the scene alone where such follies were manifested, but even, and nevertheless the taunts and correction, which never failed to accompany the instance, there were some reserved, and acted upon in England.
   The present Mr. William Lushington, Member of Parliament, was his Persian Interpreter, when, on a visit to the Nawab Vizier Shujah ul Dhowlah, one of the most accomplished Princes, and proud of his birth and rank, General Smith desired Mr. Lushington, to apologize that he had brought His Highness no presents of European curiosities of exquisite workmanship, every thing of this sort which he had provided having been sunk with his boats in a storm on the River Ganges. The mode and address, “Tell Shujah, Lushington,” evidently made their impression on the Prince, who sarcastically observed, the General could not have brought a greater curiosity than himself, and sagaciously complimented his escape from the fury of the waves. This, Mr. Lushington dexterously interpreted, by saying, that the Prince’s joy was perfect in the happiness alone of seeing the General; but with the byestanders, this obvious tendency lost none of its effect.
   In the county of Berkshire, it will long be remembered, that scarcely had General Smith been vested with the office of High Sheriff, than he called a County Meeting, and when the object was made known, it excited the surprise of the Noblemen and Gentlemen convened, that the purport alone was to obtain their sanction for a road, to be cut through their fields and property, calculated for his sole convenience, in order that he might arrive at his magnificent Seat, of Chilton Lodge, without the necessity of passing through the little stinking Town of Hungerford. It is needless to add, such a proposition met with its deserved reprobation.
   Another anecdote quoted of him in those days, is a proof that plebeian insolence, however supported by fortune and abilities, little assimilates with aristocratic rank and pride, even where title is debased by the most unchecked profligacy. The story told in the circles of fashion was the following: General Smith came in rather late into one of the Gaming Houses in the vicinity of St. James’, and finding no company, went to sleep on one of the sofas, cautioning the waiter not to wake him, unless some fellow, or other, came in, who had spirit enough to throw a main at hazard for three thousand Guineas.—Lord Littleton, of notorious memory, entered the house with some drunken companions, singing the hunting song “Age and youth urged the chase, and taught woodlands and forests to roar.”—The message being literally delivered, his Lordship accepted the challenge, and directing the General to be awoke, continued his song converting the words into a parody consistent with the General’s wishes:
   “Good night, General,” walking out, and pocketing the Rouleaus and Bank Notes, with a full laughter from his Lordship, and his dissipated comrades, at the General’s expence and consummate folly.
   ​From the worst side of the Picture, let us now turn to the best. His generosity in throwing in one hundred and fifty thousand pounds of Bank Notes to support the Banking House of the Drummonds, at a time when an unexpected run was made on it, owing to the failure in 1772, of the Houses of Fordyce and Sir George Colebrooke, and to this, prompted merely from a recollection of the Heads of that House, having given him in his youth, occasionally one Half Crown, when sent by his Father with Bills of acceptance, was so conspicuous a trait of noble minded conduct, as to have inspired the successors to that eminent Banking House with everlasting gratitude.
   Nor will it ever be effaced from the sense which every Officer bore to the disinterested exertions of the General, in opposing the Honorable Court of Directors constant promptitude, in obliging the Ministers, by acceding to their frequent recommendations, in appointing King’s Officers to supersede the Company’s. Various cases could be adduced, when General Smith calling these nominations in question, by summoning them to be canvassed before a General Court of Proprietors, compelled them, by a decision of the latter, to annul and rescind their said partialities.
   Equally will a just tribute remain of the wisdom which governed him, when determined on devoting his services to Parliamentary duties.—Conscious of his education not having afforded him the advantage of the knowledge of the Classics, and however advanced in life, he felt the necessity of being acquainted therewith, ere he could adventure as a Speaker in the House.—He accordingly entered himself for the two following Summers a Gentleman Commoner at Oxford, and applied with such success, as in that short time to have attained to such a proficiency, that his Speeches and quotations, both from Roman and Grecian Literature, manifestly displayed the Scholar and the Gentleman.
   In the confinement of his person was displayed the rigour of the house of Commons, when bent on an exertion of its fullest power.—The General had stood for the notorious corrupt Borough of Hendon, and an electioneering Agent had actively, in the character of Punch, scattered amongst the Electors profusely the General’s Guineas, in the hope of his Patron’s election being secured by dint of money. The Members destined by the Treasury for Representatives of this Borough, were ousted by this manœuvre; they impeached the validity of the election, and supported by the Minister of the day, then Lord North, the General’s return to Parliament was declared void and several actions for bribery having been in consequence instituted, the General was severely bled in his Purse, besides the conviction having been brought home to him of corrupt practices to influence the honest Electors, the house expressed their sense of such conduct, by sentencing him to a fine and imprisonment for six months,—This the General submitted to, and in the King’s Bench, so far as splendid living went in a Prison, with every liberality to his fellow sufferers, it may be recorded of him, that he manifested the wealth, generosity, and Princely spirit of a Nabob.
   So conspicuous did he render himself, that, with other celebrated Characters of that period, he could not well escape the lash of the modern Aristophanes, the late Samuel Foote. In his Comedy of the Nabob, the General was the Hero, under the name of Sir Mathew Mite, and so well did the General recognize in the Representation the follies which he had been guilty of, that he was the first to laugh at the Author bringing him on the Stage; but expressed a slight indignation, that in some passages there were oblique attacks on his moral character, which objection, those who knew and appreciated his worth, were sensible, that his exception to the piece was founded in truth.”
would have afforded a noble example of domestic morality, and lived in the estimation of men, as the very embodiment of the house-hold virtues. The other, had he been a member of the aristocracy of Great Britain, would have been the very pattern of an English gentleman; liberal, humane, assiduous in the cultivation of his mind, and eager in the attainment of honorable distinction. We can call to mind no instances of home-bred morality and pattern ambition, more striking than these strange and uncouth examples of one man clinging with devoted fidelity to the corpse of a dusky mate, and another repairing the deficiencies of youthful education by putting himself to College in his old age, and successfully studying Latin and Greek, at the close of a life spent among Hindoos and Mahomedans.
But to return from this homeward digression—this furlough of a few pages:—Slow indeed was the growth of religion and genuine morality among the English in India. Hospitality, kindliness, generosity—nay even a sort of decorousness, which might have been mistaken for something better, sprung ​up among our people; but it was long before Christian piety and its fair fruits began to bless our adopted land. The natives and no wonder—marvelled whether the British acknowledged any God. “These people,” writes Mr. Forbes, “in their own artless expressive style often asked me this important question—Master, when an Englishman dies, does he think he shall go to his God?—My answer in the affirmative generally produced a reply to this effect—Your countrymen, master, seem to take very little trouble about that business they choose a smooth path and scatter roses on every side. Other nations are guided by strict rules and solemn injunctions, in those serious engagements, where the English seem thoughtless and unconcerned. The Hindoos constantly perform the ceremonies and sacrifices at the Dewal; the Mahomedans go through their stated prayers and ablutions at the mosques; the Parsees suffer not the sacred fires to be extinguished, nor neglect to worship in their temple. You call yourselves Christians; so do the Roman Catholics, who abound in India. They daily frequent their churches, fast and pray, and do many penances; the English alone appear unconcerned about an event of the greatest importance.” And again, the same amiable writer a little further on proceeds to show, that there was something worse than mere indifference. “What may be the prevailing practise, I cannot say; certainly, the spirit of Christianity was not (in my time) the actuating principle of European Society in India. A thoughtlessness of futurity; a carelessness about religious concerns were more prominent. Highly as I esteemed the philanthropy, benevolence and moral character of my countrymen, I am compelled to add, that a spirit of scepticism and infidelity predominated in the younger part of the community, especially in the circle of those who had received what is called a good education.” This was written from Bombay; writing from Calcutta, in 1772, Mr. Shore (Lord Teignmouth) gives a somewhat different account of the state of affairs at the Presidency. Forbes arrived in India before Shore, but as his Memoirs extend over a large space of time, and there is no chronological arrangement in his work; it is not always very easy to specify the precise period to which he refers. The progress of the French Revolution must have conduced, in this country, as in Europe, to the spread of infidel opinions—“I believe I before mentioned to you,” writes Mr. Shore, in a letter to his mother, “the too great prevalence of immorality in ​this settlement, and I wish I could now advise you of an amendment. Were these sentiments divulged, not the uncontroverted truth of them would be sufficient to guard the singularity of my censures from ridicule.. . . . . . . . You will, perhaps, conclude from the disregard with which Religion is treated, that the number of Free-thinkers must be great—they are in fact but few.” In another letter, of a somewhat later date, (1775) the same writer observes, “Dancing, riding, hunting, shooting, are now our employments. In proportion as the inhabitants of this settlement have increased, we are become much less sociable and hospitable than formerly.” To the list of amusements here noted, he might have added gambling and horse-racing, drinking and fighting duels.
It would indeed be difficult to imagine any thing much worse than the state of Society, during the administration of Warren Hastings. The earlier adventurers may have committed more heinous crimes, and been participators in scenes of more offensive debauchery; but in those more remote times, the English in India were too few and too scattered—their habits were of too migratory a character—to admit of the formation of any thing worthy to be spoken of as Society. At a later period, affairs were so much in a transition-state; there was so much of the turmoil and excitement of war, that the English might be properly described as living in a great encampment; their manners were more the manners of the camp, than of the drawing-room and the boudoir; and some time necessarily elapsed before affairs settled themselves down permanently into a state of social quiescence; if that can be called settlement, where the dregs appear, with nauseous obtrusiveness, on the surface. There was certainly Society at the chief presidency, during the administration of Warren Hastings; but in candour we must acknowledge it to have been most offensively bad Society. Hastings himself, whatever may have been his character as a political ruler, had no great title to our admiration as a moral man. He was living, for years, with the wife of another, who lacking the spirit of a cock-chafer, connived with all imaginable sang-froid at the transfer of his wife’s person to the possession of the Nabob; and when the convenient laws of a foreign land, deriving no sanction from Christianity, formally severed the bond, which had long been practically disregarded, the Governor-General had the execrably bad taste to celebrate his marriage with the elegant adulteress in a style of the utmost magnificence, attended with open display and festal rejoicing. What was to be expected from the body of Society, when the head was thus morally diseased?—Francis was a hundred-fold worse than Hastings. The ​latter was weak under a pressure of temptation; he was not disposed to “pay homage to virtue,” by throwing a cloak over his vice; and did not sufficiently consider the bad influence, which his conduct was calculated to exercise over Society at large. In him, it is true, there was a sad want of principle; but in Francis an evil principle was ever at work. His vices were all active vices—deliberate, ingenious, laborious. His lust was, like his malice, un-impulsive, studious, given to subtle contrivances, demanding the exercise of high intellectual ability.—When he addressed himself to the deliberate seduction of Madame Grand, he brought all the mental energy and subtlety of matured manhood to bear upon the unsuspecting virtue of an inexperienced girl of sixteen.—Here, indeed, were leaders of Society; not only corrupting the morals, but disturbing the peace of the presidency. The very members of the Supreme Council, in those days, could not refrain from shooting at each other. Barwell and Clavering went out.—The latter had accused the former of dishonesty: and the former in return had called his associate “a liar.” They met; but the contest was a bloodless one. Not so that between Hastings and Francis. The Governor-General shot the Councillor through the body, and thus wound up, in this country, to be renewed in another, the long struggle between the two antagonists. Such was the Council. The Supreme Court exercised no more benign influence over the morals of Society. Sir Elijah Impey, the Chief Justice, was a model of rapacity and injustice—corrupt as he was cruel—and others not far below him in rank were equally near him in infamy. Viewing the whole picture, with an unprejudiced eye, it is assuredly a most disheartening one. In 1780 was published the first Indian newspaper—Hicky’s Gazette. If any one desire to satisfy himself, beyond the reach of all inward questionings, that what we have stated in general terms of the low moral tone of Society, at that period, is unexaggerated truth, let him turn over the pages of that same Hicky’s Gazette. Society must have been very bad to have tolerated such a paper. It is full of infamous scandal—in some places, so disguised as to be almost unintelligible to the reader of the present day, but in others set forth broadly and unmistakeably; and with a relish not ​to be concealed. We find it difficult to bring forward illustrative extracts. The most significant passages are too coarse for quotation; moreover, a clear impression of the state of Society, as represented in the journal, can only be derived from a glance at the volume itself. Many of the worst libels appear in the form of fictitious race-meetings, law cases, war-like engagements; or are set forth in the shape of advertisements. We have no doubt that many of these paragraphs contained, or insinuated atrocious falsehoods—but what can we think of the people who employed themselves in fabricating these infamous calumnies, and of the large circle, who were well contented to read them? That they thought very well of themselves is obvious, for we find the greater number of these anonymous slanderers congratulating themselves on their public spirit—“I congratulate this settlement,” writes one, “in having so amusing, so entertaining a channel for conveying the sentiments of some amongst us, who generously sacrifice a portion of their time, for the benefit of their fellow-citizens.”—These generous sacrifices were often made for the purpose of scandalising young ladies—the gentlemen, we presume, resorting to this honorable method of revenging themselves for the juwabs they had received. We find one young lady—a Miss Wrangham, as we are informed by a manuscript note in the volume of Hicky’s Gazette now before us—repeatedly figuring under the name of Hookah Turban, in a succession of offensive paragraphs assuming every possible variety of form. This young lady, a Mr. Tailor, who appears under the name of “Durgee,” and Mr. Kiernander the missionary, are three of the most conspicuous victims, who appear in these “generous sacrifices,”—Hastings and Colonel Pearse come in for a tolerable share of slander; and many of the dignitaries of the Supreme Court, and the admiral on the station, are handled with equal severity. Such indeed is the mass of infamous slander, which this journal contains, that we feel no sort of surprise in perusing the following announcement:—
   “Mr. Hicky thinks it a duty incumbent on him to inform his friends in particular, and the public in general, that an attempt was made to assassinate him last Thursday morning between the hours of one and two o’clock by two armed Europeans, aided and assisted by a Moorman. Mr. H. is obliged to postpone the particulars at present for want of room, but they shall be inserted the first opportunity.”
It never occurred to Mr. Hicky that he himself was committing assassination every week of his life.
There, certainly, appears to have been, in those days, no dearth of amusement. The papers abound in notices of balls, masquerades, races, and theatrical entertainments, occasionally varied with accounts of personal rencontres of no very formida​ble character. There was but one Church; and that had not always a chaplain to officiate in it. We find no complaints of the Theatre ever having been badly attended; and at the balls and masquerades the ladies danced, and the gentlemen drank, with exemplary assiduity. Perhaps the evening’s entertainment was wound up with a “general riot;” and the pages of the next Hicky’s Gazette were enlivened with an account of the affray.
Drinking had long been one of the rational amusements, with which our fathers sought to beguile the time. Arrack punch would seem to have been the first beverage to which the English in India addicted themselves—and it often proved to be the last. At a late period there was a kind of Persian wine much in favor, which Mr. Ives (1757) tells us was supplied by the Company to its servants at the Western factories; and was “the best he ever tasted, except claret.” It was not very long, however, before European beers and wines were imported, and consumed by those, who could afford to pay the high prices then fixed on these now most accessible beverages. Punch and sherbet, being always cheap, were the common drink of the young military men; and pretty freely were they consumed, at all hours from morning to night. Mr. Forbes tells us that, when he first arrived at Bombay, in 1765, “the cadets who were soon promoted, and whether stationed at the presidency or the subordinate settlements, perhaps mounted guard once or twice a a week, and did no other duty, had abundance of leisure time. On those idle days, the morning was generally occupied in calling upon each other at their different quarters, and at each visit taking a draught of punch, or arrack and water, which however cool and pleasant at the moment, was succeeded by the most deleterious effects; indeed, from its fatal consequences, it might be called a slow poison; and from this cause alone it may be confidently asserted that a number proportionate to the Berhampore estimate were annually committed to an untimely grave.” Towards the end of the century, this beastly vice began considerably to decline. Men found that on the whole it was better to live than to drink themselves into untime​ly graves, and a high-minded nobleman had come from England to set an example of decency and sobriety. “Europeans are now,” wrote Mr. Tennant, in 1796, “much better acquainted with the means of counteracting a bad climate than formerly. Regularity of living and temperance are much more prevalent among the present inhabitants than the first adventurers. It was not uncommon for his acquaintances, when a friend had laid in a full stock of wines, to meet in his house at dinner in order to give their judgment of its quality, and on these occasions perhaps the whole chest of claret was consumed at a sederunt. The consequences were often so fatal, that the next meeting of this social crew was not unfrequently to witness the funeral of one of their companions.”—Lord Valentia, writing some few years later, observes, “This place (Calcutta) is certainly less unhealthy than formerly, which advantage is attributed to the filling up of the tanks in the street; and the clearing more and more of the jungle—but in my opinion it is much more owing to an improved knowledge of the diseases of the country, and likewise to greater temperance in the use of spirituous liquors and a superior construction of the houses.”
Lord Cornwallis entered upon his administration in 1786; and a considerable improvement in the tone of Society very soon began to be apparent.—It is impossible to turn over the Indian Journals of 1788, and the few following years, immediately after laying down those of 1780-81, without being struck with the very different kind of reading, which the Society had begun to relish. The Journals of 1788 are highly decorous and respectable. They contain no private slander; no scurrilous invective; no gross obscenity. There appears, at that time, to have been gaiety enough and more than enough; but it was much better regulated than it had been, a few years before. The papers abound in descriptions of balls and plays; but in these there is nothing offensive. They bespeak far greater decorum and sobriety than those of the Hastings’ administration. We have now before us detailed accounts of two grand balls—one given in 1781, the other in 1788. In the former, we are told that the ladies took their departure, “accompanied by the danglers, at about half past 12;” whilst the “jolly bucks remained behind to seek for charms in the sparkling juice of the grape, who like the true sons of Bacchus and Comus kept it up until four; and in all probability their happiness had continued until Sol in his journey towards the West had bid them good morning, had they not been disturbed by two carping sons of Mars, who began to quarrel.” Then comes an account of an altercation, a pugilistic encounter, and a denouement, as offensively gross ​in description as any thing we have ever seen in print. In the other, we are told, that “the ball opened about half past 9 in the evening, which was graced with a numerous assemblage of ladies.—The dances continued till near 12, when his Lordship (Cornwallis) and the Company adjourned to supper. The pleasures of the dance are always preferred by the ladies, and the repast afforded but a short interruption to their renewing them, which consequently attracted their partners and left the solitary swains to the enjoyment of the bottle, though to the praise of their moderation it must be observed that the dancing room seemed to engage the most of their attention”—This was no small improvement; for only a few years before, dancing was not thought to be possible after supper. There was room, doubtless, for a great deal more improvement, for even in these comparatively decorous accounts we see somewhat too much of “choice spirits” and “votaries of Bacchus;” but the change which we have indicated, must have been considerable, for we find a public Journal—the India Gazette (1788) commenting editorially upon the palpable improvement in the state of Society and congratulating the settlement upon it:—
   “We are not surprised at the various changes of Fashion, as they arise from Fancy or Caprice, but the alteration of manners must be derived from a superior source; and when we find that the pleasures of the Bottle, and the too prevailing Enticements of Play, are now almost universally sacrificed to the far superior attractions of female Society, can we fail to ascribe the pleasing and rational distinction to that more general diffusion of taste and politeness which the Company and Conversation of Ladies must ever inspire?—this was the sentiment of the all-accomplished Chesterfield, and there are few who were better acquainted with the science of attaining the Graces.”
This we think may be accepted as a very fair indication of the period, at which a palpable improvement in the social morality of the English in India first began to be discernible. It will be gathered from the above extract, that before the close of 1788 gambling and drinking had gone out of fashion.” ​At the close of 1793, Lord Cornwallis retired from the Government of India. He left the country in a very different state from that in which he found it; and great as was the improvement in civil affairs, the social improvement was no less striking. Party animosities seem to have died out altogether during his benevolent administration. He was hospitable, courteous, humane; a nobleman by birth, yet more a nobleman by nature; and his contemporaries appear to have admired his public, and venerated his private character. The journals of 1793 abound with records of Cornwallis’ hospitalities and of the entertainments given in return by a grateful society to the ruler they loved. In these accounts is observable an increased and increasing decorum; from year to year the progress of propriety is distinctly marked; and the improvement, which commenced with the government of Lord Cornwallis, seems to have advanced steadily up to the present time. The newspapers, at the close of his Lordship’s administration, were as regardful of the feelings of society, as those of the present day; they were scrupulously courteous to individuals, and delicately fearful of giving offence. In one paper, we see the Editor apologising to the public, for having stated, on the authority of a correspondent in a former number, that “the second assembly at the Theatre was not attended with that brilliancy, which might have been expected”—no such very grievous offence, rendering at necessary to do penance in an expiatory paragraph. Ruffianism had gone out of fashion. People drank less, gambled less, swore less, and talked less obscenity. Mr. Tennant, writing in 1798, bears willing witness to the ameliorative influence of Lord Cornwallis’ personal character. “A reformation highly commendable has been effected, partly from necessity; but more by the example of a late Governor General, whose elevated rank and noble birth gave him in a great measure the guidance of fashion. Regular hours and sobriety of conduct became as decidedly the test of a man of fashion as they were formerly of irregularity. Thousands owe their lives, and many more their health, to this change, which had neither been reckoned on nor even foreseen by those who introduced it.” Another and later writer, though apparently no admirer of Cornwallis’ administration, gives equally strong evidence on the same point as the above. “Gambling was formerly,” says Capt. Williamson, in his Vade Mecum, (1810) “one of the most prominent vices to be seen in Calcutta, but of late years has considerably diminished. Those who recollect the institution of Selby’s club, and who now contemplate the very small portion of time dissipated, even by the younger ​classes at cards, &c., by way of profit and loss, cannot but approve the salutary reform introduced by the Marquis Cornwallis, who certainly was entitled to the approbation of the Company, as well as to the gratitude of their servants, for having checked so effectually a certain licentious spirit, which had till his arrival been totally uncontrolled, indeed unnoticed, in any shape by his predecessors.” Fashionable dissipation was there in abundance, and no small amount, doubtless, of secret vice; but there was outward decorum, and there were social checks, which wrought a certain moral improvement. The Roman actor, who wore the mask so long that his features caught its likeness, is no bad type of the society, which constantly wears the semblance of morality. In process of time, it becomes what it appears; and morality takes the place of decorum. People do not suddenly change their natures; but to change, or even to conceal their habits, is a great thing gained; and it is unquestionable that thus much at least was gained, under the Government of Lord Cornwallis. What was thus auspiciously commenced during the administration of one good man progressed steadily under the administration of another. Sir John Shore’s character and example were no less worthy of admiration than those of his predecessor; and society, under the wholesome influence of his virtuous dominion, was placed beyond the perilous chance of backsliding.
The beginning of the present century saw the English in India still continuing the onward course of improvement. That the moral tone, even in those days, was still unfortunately low, we are compelled in candour to admit.—Lord Valentia, writing in 1804, observes, that “the most rapidly accumulating evil of Bengal is the increase of half-caste children,” and speaks of “the extension of Zenanas, which are now too common among Europeans.” As ​the European society of Bengal increased, it is highly probable that the numbers of half-caste children increased too; but whether there was a proportionate increase, we think may be fairly questioned. A later writer already referred to (Capt. Williamson) though admitting this fact, claims on the whole a high character for his countrymen in the East. “On the whole, it may be said,” he observes, after describing the manner, in which an Indian day is spent, “that at least four in five are in bed, before twelve, or perhaps, before eleven o’clock. From this I exempt all concerned in card parties, especially if the stakes run high; for such no measure or calculation exists; the whole night being occasionally past at tredrille or at whist, &c. Such exceptions fortunately, are not very numerous; it would certainly be difficult to find any city, wherein celibacy among the males is so prevalent as at Calcutta, that can boast of so few excesses of any description.” And again—“It may be said, without fear of refutation, that fewer deviations from propriety are to be found in our Indian settlements than in one tenth the number of inhabitants of the same classes in any other country.”
But in spite of these assertions, contained in Capt. Williamson’s Vade Mecum, we know no single work which unintentionally (for the gallant author writes immorality without knowing it) is calculated to convey so disheartening a picture of domestic life at the commencement of the present century. Much of this we must set down to the account of the writer himself. It is not that the book abounds in vivid scenes of debauchery and disorder; there is nothing of the kind in the two stout volumes before us; but there is something which gives the reader a much clearer insight into the state of domestic morality at that period, than the most graphic descriptions ever penned. There is attributed to a certain gallant general, whom we need not more plainly indicate, a saying which we have heard retailed as eminently characteristic of the man. Speaking of a gentleman, whose name happened to be mentioned in conversation, he said “Ah; * * *—yes, I know him. I quite love the fellow; there is a quiet air of profligacy about him, which is singularly attractive.” Now; there is a quiet air of profligacy about this book, which though not singularly attractive, is singularly descriptive. There is evidently no consciousness, in the mind of the writer, that his work, almost from first to last, is characterised by a looseness of morality, destined in a few years to be regarded almost with loathing. Let the reader, anxious to estimate rightly the moral ​improvement of the English in India, within the last five and thirty years, compare this Vade Mecum of 1810, with the Handbooks, recently published, of Mr. Parbury and Mr. Stocqueler. Capt. Williamson devotes no small portion of the first volume of his work to a dissertation on native women; he gives a detailed account of the expenses attending the keep of a mistress; and devotes no less than fifty pages to a catalogue of the ornaments worn and unguents used by these ladies—and all this in a work dedicated to the Court of Directors, as one “professedly undertaken with the view to promote the welfare, and to facilitate the progress, of those young gentlemen who may, from time to time, be appointed to situations under your several Presidencies!” We have no doubt, that when this book was published, it was considered, in every respect, a very proper one, just as old Mrs. Keith, of Revelston, thought the novels of Aphra Behn very harmless in her younger days.
Captain Williamson, in his quiet way, speaks of these connexions, now fortunately every year becoming more rare, as mere matters of course—very excusable under the circumstances of the case. He thinks it rather a joke than otherwise that European gentlemen should keep harems—“I have known,” he says, “various instances of two ladies being conjointly domesticated, and one of an elderly military character, who solaced himself with no less than sixteen of all sorts and sizes. Being interrogated by a friend as to what he did with such a number, ‘Oh,’ replied he, ‘I give them a little rice and let them run about.’ This same gentleman, when paying his addresses to an elegant young woman lately arrived from Europe, but who was informed by the lady at whose house she was residing of the state of affairs, the description closed with ‘Pray, my dear, how should you like to share a sixteenth of Major ———.” And this is a sample of the state of affairs, which in 1810 was supposed to call for anything but censure.
The immorality, of which we are now writing, is excused by Capt. Williamson, on the ground that European ladies were scarce in India, and that it was difficult, if not impossible, for the majority of European residents to provide themselves with more legitimate partners. After stating that “the number of European women to be found in Bengal and its dependencies can not amount to more than two hundred and fifty,” he enters with some minuteness into a detail of all the expenses and inconveniences attending upon matrimony, and winds up with the following choice sample of Anglo-Indian Ethics: “I trust that this detail will convince even the sceptic, that matrimony is not so practicable in India as in England, and that (unless ​indeed among those platonic few whose passions are unnaturally obedient,) it is impossible for the generality of European inhabitants to act in exact conformity with those excellent doctrines, which teach us to avoid fornication and all other deadly sins. There are certain situations and times, in which the law must be suffered to sleep; since its enforcement would neither be easy nor wise; such is the instance now before us.” And this, as we have said, is the morality of a book, dedicated to the Court of Directors, as “a work professedly undertaken with a view to promote the welfare and to facilitate the progress” of young gentlemen in the Company’s Service. The “progress!”—Yes, indeed, “the Rake’s Progress.”
In considering this interesting subject of the social character of the English in India, there are few points of greater importance than that touched upon above—the influx of European ladies into the country, and the facilities thus afforded for the formation of honorable connexions. Capt. Williamson says, that in 1810, the entire number of European women did not exceed two hundred and fifty, and that the difficulty of forming matrimonial engagements drove men into licentious connexions. We are greatly inclined to suspect, that there is some mistake in this assertion. Writing fourteen years before Capt. Williamson, the Rev. Mr. Tennant says, “Formerly female adventurers were few but highly successful. Emboldened by this success and countenanced by their example, such numbers have embarked in this speculation as threaten to defeat its purpose. The irregularities of our Government, which formerly afforded an opportunity to some of rapidly accumulating wealth and enabling them to marry, are now done away. Few in comparison now find themselves in circumstances that invite to matrimonial engagements; hence a number of unfortunate females are seen wandering for years in a single and unconnected state. Some are annually forced to abandon the forlorn hope and return to Europe, after the loss of beauty, too frequently their only property.” This was written in 1796; and, although it is highly probable that the great activity here spoken of was followed by a corresponding period of torpor, we can hardly bring ourselves to believe, that a few years later, the difficulty of forming honorable connexions really presented any admissible excuse for the profligate concubinage which Capt. Williamson considered no “deviation from propriety.” There is no room to doubt, that the supply would, at all times, have been equal to the demand, if the gentlemen had been willing to avail themselves of the opportunities, thus afforded to them, of forming respectable alliances. Long before the time, when Captain ​Williamson wrote his Vade Mecum, there must have sprung up in India a new class of female members of Society—the legitimate daughters of Indian residents. During the administration of Warren Hastings there was no lack of married women in Bengal, and the daughters of at least some of these women must have found their way to India before the century had died out.
When the first English lady made the voyage round the Cape; and who the adventurous heroine may have been, is more than we are capable of determining, necessitated as we often are to grope about, darkling in these our antiquarian researches. The first European ladies, who made the voyage to India, were Portuguese. The earliest mention of the residence of fair strangers from the west, which we have been able to find in any work open to our researches, is contained in the travels of Pietro Della Valle, an Italian gentleman, or as he is described in the translation “a noble Roman” who visited the country in 1623.—According to this authority, the king of Portugal took upon himself to send a small annual investment of female orphans to India, for the especial use of the settlers on the western coast. “We were no sooner come to the Dogana,” says the noble Roman, after describing his voyage to Surat, “but the news of our arrival was, I think, by Sig. Alberto’s means, carried to the house of the Dutch, many of which have wives there which they married in India purposely to go with them and people a new colony of theirs in Java Major, which they call Batavia Nova; where very great priviledges are granted to such of their countrymen as shall go to live there with wives and families; for which end many of them, for want of European, have taken Indian, Armenian, and Syrian women, and of any other race that falls into their hands, so they be, or can be made, Christians. Last year the fleet of the Portugals, which went to India, was encountered at sea and partly sunk, partly taken by the Hollanders; amongst other booty, three maidens were taken of those poor but well descended orphans, which are wont to be sent from Portugal every year at the king’s charge, with a dowry which the king gives them, to the end they may be married in India, in order to further the peopling of the Portugal colonies in those parts. These three virgins falling into the hands of the Hollanders and being carried to Surat, which is the principal seat of all their traffick, the most eminent merchants amongst them strove who should marry them, being all passably handsome. Two of them were gone from Surat, whether to the above said colony or elsewhere I know not. She that remained behind was called Donna Lucia, a young woman, fair enough, and wife to one ​of the wealthiest and eminentest Hollanders.” We may think ourselves fortunate to have alighted upon this passage; for it is probable that in no work of an equally remote date is there to be found, in a few sentences, so much information relative to the domestic condition of the earliest European settlers; and the intelligent reader cannot fail to gather from it much more than is expressed. Of English ladies we can find no mention in the “noble Roman’s” book. Signor Della Valle, who it appears was accompanied by his wife and a young Italian lady, his adopted daughter, tells us, that though, on landing at Surat, he was immediately invited to the house of the English president, he declined the invitation, “for that it was requisite for Signora Mariuccia to be amongst women, of which there was none in the English House.” Of the evils resulting from the scarcity of women, even amongst the Portuguese, he gives us, in another place, a somewhat distressing picture. Incestuous intermarriages were by no means uncommon. “The Portugals,” he writes “who, in matters of Government look with great diligence upon the least motes, without making much reckoning afterwards of great beams, held it inconvenient for the said Mariam Tinatim to live with me in the same house, although she had been brought up always in our House, from a very little child, and as our own daughter. For being themselves in these matters very unrestrained (not sparing their nearest kindred, nor as I have heard their own sisters, much less Foster-children in their houses) they conceive that all other nations are like themselves.” A French Traveller, “Monsieur Dillon, M. D.” who published his Voyage to the East Indies towards the close of the seventeenth century, does not give us a much more favorable account of the Portuguese ladies. “There are very few,” he says, “but what are sufficiently sensible that the Portuguese in general have these three qualities belonging to them. To be zealous, to the highest degree of superstition; to be amorous to a degree of madness; and jealous beyond all reason. Neither will it appear strange, if the ladies of Goa are as tractable and obliging to handsome men, as those of Lisbon. ’Tis true they are watched as narrowly as is possible to be done, but they seldom want wit to deceive their keepers, when they are resolved to taste of the forbidden fruit; and they are the most revengeful creatures in the world, if they happen to be disappointed in the expectation!” Monsieur Dillon supports this assertion with some anecdotes, which we have no desire to transfer to our pages. What we have set down is sufficient for our purpose. We wish that it had not been necessary to have ​set down so much; but we have deemed it of some importance to show the fearfully lax state of morality among the first European settlers—to show what sort of example was set by their predecessors to the English in India. The subject is not a pleasant one; but without such allusions as these it were impossible to fulfil the task we have set ourselves—to trace through all its changes the progress of the social morality of our countrymen in the east.
We have shown, by an incidental quotation in an early part of our article, that at the commencement of the present century there were French and Dutch women in Bombay, and that even the English Governors sometimes took out their wives and families. At the time of the Black Hole affair (1756) there were several ladies in Calcutta. One, an East Indian, was among the sufferers; but we know not what the others, who were carried safely off to the shipping, may have been. Mr. Ives, in 1757, tells us, that the supercargo of the Futta Salaam, died at Galle, “his illness being occasioned by a cold he caught in dancing with some ladies who were just arrived from Europe.” At Tellicherry he tells us that he dined with the Company’s chief,” Mr. Hodges, a married man, who introduced him and his companions “to every gentleman and lady in the settlement.” We learn from Captain Sartorius, that when he visited Bengal in 1771, there was a moderate supply of ladies both at the English and the Dutch factories. He was necessarily more competent to speak-of the character of the latter than of our British fair ones—but we fear that there is not much reason to believe that we very much excelled our neighbours.—“Domestic peace and tranquillity,” he writes, with reference to the Dutch at Chinsurah, “must be purchased by a shower of jewels, a wardrobe of the richest clothes, and a kingly parade of plate upon the side-board; the husband must give all these, or, according to a vulgar phrase the house would be too hot to hold him, while the wife never pays the least attention to her domestic concerns; but suffers the whole to depend upon her servants or slaves. The women generally rise between eight and nine o'clock. The forenoon is spent in paying visits to their ​friends or in lolling upon a sofa with their arms across. Dinner is ready at half past one; they go to sleep till half past four or five; they then dress in form, and the evening and part of the night is spent in company, or at dancing parties, which are frequent during the cold season.” There is more of this; but we have quoted enough. Of the English ladies he tells us little except that they wore very fine dresses. He attended a Ball, at the Governor’s, which was opened by the Governor’s lady (Mrs. Cartier,) and the Dutch Director; and at which we are told the “company were very numerous and all magnificently dressed, especially the ladies who were decorated with immense quantities of jewels.” A few years afterwards, when the elegant Marian, held her court at Belvedere, Calcutta seems to have rejoiced in a sprinkling of the fair sex, if not sufficiently profuse to blunt the devoted gallantry of their knights, quite enough to humanise society. Thus a Madras correspondent writes to “Mr. Hicky,” in July 1780, “In my last I sent you an account of the number of ladies, which has arrived in the late ships, there came eleven in one vessel—too great a number for the peace, and good order of a Round House—Millinery must rise at least 25 per cent., for the above ladies, when they left England were well stocked with head dresses of different kinds, formed to the highest ton. But from the unfortunate disputes, which daily arose during the space of the three last months of the passage, they had scarce a cap left when they arrived”—and describing a Grand Christmas party, at Government House, in a later number, we find it set down, that “The ladies were all elegant and lovely, and it is universally allowed, that Calcutta never was decorated by so many fine women as at present.” We find on referring to the Journals of the day that few ships arrived without bringing a little knot of spinsters; and that many of these very soon threw off their spinsterhood. The marriage announcements raise a smile. The bride is always duly gazetted as “a young lady of beauty and infinite accomplishments recently arrived by the Minerva;” or “an agreeable young lady who lately arrived in the Ceres from England.” M. Grand, in his interesting narrative of his residence in India, gives an amusingly naive picture of the knightly devotion with which some young ladies were regarded—“In the enjoyment of such society, he writes ‘which was graced with the ladies of the first fashion and beauty of the settlement, I fell a convert to the charms of the celebrated Miss Sanderson, but vainly with many others, did I sacrifice at her shrine. This amiable women became in 1776, the wife of Mr. Richard Barwell, who well may live in the re​membrance of his numerous friends.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Of all her sex I never observed one who possessed more the art of conciliating her admirers, equal to herself. As a proof thereof, we met sixteen in her livery, one public ball evening, viz. a pea-green French frock, trimmed with pink silk and chained lace with spangles, when each of us, to whom the secret of her intended dress had been communicated buoyed himself up with the hope of being the favored happy individual. The innocent deception, which had been practiced, soon appeared evident, and the man of most sense was the first to laugh at the ridicule which attached on him. I recollect the only revenge which we exacted, was for each to have the honor of a dance with her; and as minuets, cotillons, reels and country dances were then in vogue, with ease to herself, she obligingly complied to all concerned, and in reward for such kind complaisance, we gravely attended her home, marching by the side of her palankeen, regularly marshalled, in procession of two and two.” The lady, who could dance sixteen reels, country dances, &c. “with ease to herself,” must have possessed an enviable stock of strength and elasticity. Our Indian Ladies appear never to have lacked energy sufficient to go cheerfully through an amount of labor in the ball-room, one half of which they would deem it, any where else, the utmost hardship to be called upon to endure. In 1793, we find them described as dancing from nine in the evening till five o’clock in the morning—and at the beginning of the present century, the ladies, according to Lord Valentia, were in the habit not unfrequently of dancing themselves into their graves. “Consumptions,” he writes, “are very frequent among the ladies, which I attribute, in a great measure, to their incessant dancing, even during the hottest weather. After such violent exercise they go into the verandahs and expose themselves to a cool breeze and damp atmosphere.”—Victim after victim was consigned to the tomb—but the warning lesson was unregarded; and still the history of each new sacrifice might be fittingly told in the language of Ford’s noble drama, The Broken Heart———
The temptation was not to be resisted.—See, what was the state of society in those days, and judge if it was not really something worth dying for. “The Society of Calcutta is numerous and gay; the fêtes given by the Governor-General (Marquis of Wellesley) are frequent, splendid, and well-arranged. The Chief Justice, the members of Council, and Sir Henry Russell, each open their houses once a week for the reception ​of those, who have been presented to them. Independently of these, hardly a day passes, particularly during the cold season, without several large dinner-parties being formed, consisting generally of thirty or forty.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . A subscription assembly also exists, but seems unfashionable.” Now here indeed, was work for a delicate spinster, calling loudly for a Limitation of Labor bill, to prevent young English women, in a foreign land, from killing themselves by inches! No wonder that unsophisticated natives asked why the English did not follow their custom and hire people to dance for them.
And here we may not disadvantageously digress to offer a few remarks on a subject, peculiarly illustrative of the progress which the English have recently made in social morality. No one who is familiar with descriptive works of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, can have failed to observe the very prominent place which the nautch occupies in every picture, not only of native, but of European social life in India. A traveller on first landing on our eastern shores was sure to be entertained with a Nautch; and a nautch, too, somewhat different from the dull and decent affairs of the present century. Even European gentlemen sometimes entertained troops of nautch girls, and thought it no discredit to possess such ap- panages to their domestic establishments. Indeed there were some, who imagined that without such adjuncts, the duties of hospitality could not be properly performed. We purpose to take, not without apology, one illustration of this unhappy truth from a work published in the last century. The writer is Captain Donald Campbell, who was cast away on his voyage to India, and imprisoned by the officers of Hyder Ali; and, after a series of most distressing adventures, returned to England to write his Memoirs. The date referred to, is 1783:—
   “Leaving Anjengo, I set out for Madras, designing to go all the way by land—a journey of near eight hundred miles. I accordingly struck through the kingdom of Travancore, whose Sovereign is in alliance with the English; and had not long entered the territories of the Nabob of Arcot, before Major Macneal, an old friend of mine, and Commandant of a fort in that district, met me, preceded by a troop of dancing girls, who encircled my palanquin, dancing around me until I entered the Major’s house.
   It would be difficult to give you an adequate notion of those dancing girls. Trained up from their infancy to the practice of the most graceful motions, the most artful display of personal symmetry, and the most wanton allurements, they dance in such a style, and twine their limbs and bodies into such postures as bewitch the senses, and extort applause and admiration where in strictness disapprobation is due: nor is their agility inferior to the grace of their movements—though they do not exert it in the same skipping way that our stage dancers do, but make it subservient to the elegance, and I ​may say grandeur, of their air. They are generally found in troops of six or eight attended by musicians, whose aspect and dress are as uncouth and squalid as the sounds they produce under the name of music are inelegant, harsh, and dissonant. To this music, from which measure as much as harmony is excluded, they dance most wonderfully, adapting their step to the perpetual change of the time, accompanying it with amorous songs, while the correspondent action of their body and limbs, the wanton palpitation and heaving of their exquisitely formed bosoms, and the amorous or rather lascivious expression of their countenance, excite in the spectators emotions not very favorable to chastity. Thus they continue to act, till, by the warmth of exercise and imagination, they become seemingly frantic with ecstacy, and sinking down motionless with fatigue, throw themselves into the most alluring attitudes that ingenious vice and voluptuousness can possibly devise.
   That such incitements to vice should make a part of the system of any society, is to be lamented: yet at all ceremonies and great occasions, whether of religious worship or domestic enjoyment, they make a part of the entertainment; and the altar of their gods, and the purity of the marriage rites, are alike polluted by the introduction of the dancing girls. The impurity of this custom, however, vanishes in India, when compared with the hideous practice of introducing dancing boys.”
What would the European of the present day think, if when about to enter the house of a friend, in quest of his hospitality, he were to be met in the compound, by his host, attended by a troop of dancing girls? We may venture to say, that a large number even of our Indian readers have never seen a troop of dancing girls. The English gentleman, who were now to entertain his guests with this well-nigh exploded abomination, would infamize himself in the opinion of the majority of his countrymen; and none, by attending such exhibitions at the house of the native gentry, raise themselves much in the estimation of their brethren. The more respectable portion of the British community, scrupulously abstain from attending the nautches, which even in our recollection were graced by the presence of many of the first gentlemen—ay, and ladies—in India. The holiday and other nautches now given by some native gentlemen are attended only by natives, and such less reputable Europeans as have little or no character to lose. Not, however, that the above extract is descriptive of any such nautching, as our fair country-women were in the habit of looking at, some few years ago; for nothing could be more staid and decorous—more dull and unexciting—than the native dances which were presented to their view. To the eye, at least, there was no violation of decency; compared with a Ballet, on the boards of a London or a Paris theatre, the only nautches, which we ever remember to have seen, were outward propriety itself; but setting aside the very important ​consideration, that the nautches are for the most part given on the occasion of some idolatrous ceremony, and are performed in actual adoration of a graven image, it is unquestionable that in the minds of the native—indeed, of all who are acquainted with their character—these nautch-girls, who are professional courtesans, are associated with all that is impure; and that the European lady, who gives the sanction of her presence to these exhibitions, however outwardly decorous, must infallibly lower her own character and the character of her country-women in the eyes of every native looker-on.
But to return from this not irrelevant digression—there are few, if any of our readers, whether in this country or in England, who have not heard much and read much on the subject of Female Adventurers, and the Marriage Market, and young ladies going out to India, on what was vulgarly called “a spec.” All this is quite swept away. There are young ladies in every part of India—but the question of what they are doing there may be answered without a reference to the Marriage Mart. In most cases, they are found in our Indian stations, for the same reason that other young ladies may be found in London, or Liverpool, or Exeter—simply because, when in these places, they are in their proper homes. Adventuresses there are none. The race has altogether died out, since the time when Capt. Williamson set down, as a fact worthy of record, that a young lady, on first arriving in India “should have friends to receive her.” We should as soon think of writing, in the present day, that she should have shoes to her feet. The passage in the “Vade Mecum,” to which we refer, will be curious at least to our younger readers:—
   “It should be understood, that the generality of young ladies, though they may certainly comply with the will of their parents, are by no means partial to visiting India. The out-fit is not a trifle: no lady can be landed there, under respectable circumstances throughout, for less than five hundred pounds. Then, again, she should have friends to receive her; for she cannot else obtain even a lodging, or the means of procuring subsistence. It is not like a trip, per hoy, to Margate, where nothing but a well-lined purse is requisite; and where, if you do not meet with friends, you may easily form acquaintances. * * * * * * Let us, however, suppose all these things to be done; and that some worthy dame welcomes the fair adventurer to her house, with the friendly intention of affording an asylum, until some stray bachelor may bear away the prize. We have known some instances of this, and, in particular, of a lady making it, in a manner, her study to replenish her hospitable mansion with objects of this description; thereby acquiring the invidious, or sarcastic, designation of ‘Mother Coupler.’ But such characters are rare; and it generally happens, that those who have the will, do not possess the means, of thus rendering the most essential of services to young women, who, we may fairly say, are, in this case, transported to India, there to take their chance! That ​several have been thus sent, or have thus adventured round the Cape, cannot be denied; in any other country they would have experienced the most poignant distress, both of body and of mind; but, such has ever been the liberality evinced towards this class of unfortunate persons, that, in most instances, prompt and effectual relief has been administered.”
Young ladies now are never, “transported to India” “to take their chance.” Apart from all matrimonial intentions, they have a legitimate purpose in visiting India. The taunt that they come hither “to get husbands” is no longer applicable to the class. When they turn their faces towards the East, they do so, not leaving but seeking their proper homes. They go not to dwell among strangers; but “among their own people;” repairing to the guardianship of their legitimate protectors; and occupying as respectable a position, in the houses of their parents, their brothers, or their sisters, as though they had never left the narrow precincts of their own island. Every cold season sees the arrival of a succession of magnificent passenger ships, each one bearing a valuable freight of fair spinsterhood—but one has only to run one’s eye along the passenger list to satisfy any doubts regarding the why and the wherefore all these young maidens have made the voyage to the “Far East.” The history of each is recorded in her name. Nothing is left to chance, save to such chance as is inherent in all human affairs. Capt. Williamson says, that the voyage to India “is not like a trip, per hoy to Margate, where nothing but a well-lined purse is necessary.” In these days the voyage to India is quite as easy, and quite as safe, as the voyage to Margate, and the well-lined purse is not necessary at all.
Much has been written on the subject of the mercenary character of “Indian marriages.” In the old times, it was believed to be, and in many instances it undoubtedly was, the fact, that a young lady, carrying to India her stock of charms, put them up to the highest bidder. One has still a sort of vague confused idea of the old associations connected with those two significant words “Indian marriage”—as though they were the veriest sacrifices at the altar of Mammon, which cruelty and avarice ever plotted together to accomplish. Blooming youth, and sallow, wrinkled age, departing as yoke-fellows, to be a torment one to the other, through long years of jealousy, and distrust, and mutual reproaches; loathing on one side, crooked spite on the other; to end, perhaps, in guilt and desertion. The young maiden bought an establishment, it was thought, with her rosy cheeks and her bright eyes; she bartered the freshness of her young affections for gold and jewels; and woke, after a brief dream of glittering and heartless extravagance, to the true value of the splendid misery, for which she had sacrificed her youth. Then ​there were years of pining discontent; of fruitless self-upbraiding; luxury and profusion, as adjuncts of happiness, estimated at their true worth; then, perhaps, an old affection revived; the temptation; the opportunity; the fall; the abasement;—and this, it was thought, was an Indian marriage. Such Indian marriages there have been—and such English marriages there have been. There has been a world of blooming youth—of pure affections—sacrificed ere now in all the countries of the earth—but, perhaps, these sacrifices are rarer, now-a-days, among the English in India, than among our brethren on any part of the globe.
Men marry earlier here than at home; and few are the marriages which are not at least marriages of liking. Very, very seldom is an old man seen standing at the altar with a youthful bride. There are more young couples to be seen in India than in the corresponding ranks of life at home; and not only do young ladies themselves, but their parents, or other guardians, seem well content, in these more reasonable times, with the prospect of increasing comfort and affluence, as years advance (even though there be some slight struggles at starting) which every Indian marriage seems to present. Perhaps, take them for all in all, these Indian marriages are productive of as much happiness, as matrimony, with its many blessings, can afford. There are evils almost inseparable from them, unknown at home; but there are privileges and immunities, too, unknown at home—and the balance is pretty equally struck. Constancy and affection are plants, which thrive as luxuriantly among us, as among our brethren in the West—and this, too, though in many instances the parties, before marriage, have had but small experience of the character and conduct of each other. The acquaintance, which leads to the contract, is often slight; and this considered, it appears strange that incompatibility, with all its attendant evils, does not more frequently overshadow the domestic life of the English in India; but in this country, husband and wife, being more dependent on each other for daily succour and daily comfort, sooner begin to assimilate in taste and feeling, and are more prone to compromises and concessions. Literally, we are more domestic. There is little, except business, to take us away from our homes; and a considerable number of business-men have their offices in their own houses. Men spend more time beneath their own roofs; and have fewer temptations to quit the family circle, even if they were not, as they almost invariably are, tied down to the circumference of a few miles as imperatively as though they were restrained by a tether. A man cannot, if he would, play the gad-about. He has no convenient bachelor ​cousin in the country; no affectionate old aunt dying to see him at a smart watering place; no opportune client, whom he can suddenly find it necessary to visit in Scotland, about the third week of August; no neglectful or fraudulent commercial correspondent, who renders it advisable, in fine weather, to make a trip to Frankfort or the Hague; no obsequious medical friend to recommend a little sea air, just as an old college chum, who has come into his fortune, is about to start on a pleasant little yacht-cruise in the blue waters of the Mediterranean. Separation, when it comes, is enforced separation. Stern necessity brings it about. The wife is compelled by ill health to seek a more congenial climate; or the husband is ordered off, on active service. These separations are often painful in themselves; still more painful in their results. Did our limits suffer us, and did the nature of this article admit of such narrative digressions, we could produce many sad examples—not less painfully interesting than the most skilfully elaborated tales of fictitious adventure, which the ingenious novelist creates—of the misery resulting from this one great evil of enforced separation. Many a household wreck have the hills of Simlah and Mussoorie looked down upon, within these last few years; many the record of misery and guilt which might be inscribed in the huge dark volume of the Annals of Separation. And yet, deploring as we do the many sad cases of conjugal infidelity, which have occurred within our own recollection, we cannot admit that they are sufficiently numerous—or that the contagion is sufficiently wide-spread—to detract from the general character of Indian domestic life. Let the English reader, who may have heard some vague stories of the immorality of our northern hill stations, picture to himself a number of young married women, whose husbands are absent, perhaps, among the mountains of Affghanistan, perhaps on the sandy plains of Sindh—gathered together in a cool, invigorating climate, with nothing in the world to do but to enjoy themselves. Then imagine a number of idle bachelors, let loose “between musters” or perhaps on leave for several months at a stretch, from Loodhianah, Kurnaul, Meerut, &c.—gay, young military men, with no more urgent, and certainly no more pleasant occupation, than to dangle after the young married women—“grass widows” as they are called—in the absence of their husbands; to amuse the fair creatures, to assist them in the great work of killing time, and finally to win their affections. Is it possible to conceive a state of things more surely calculated to result in guilt and misery?—High moral principle has ere now fallen before temptation and opportunity; and many is the frail creature possessing ​no high principle, who would, but for these temptations, these opportunities, have retained her character as a faithful and affectionate wife, and in after years been a bright example to her children. The immorality, to which we are now alluding, has been the result of a peculiar combination of circumstances; and must not be regarded as a proof of anything ricketty and rotten in the entire fabric of Indian Society. We maintain, that that fabric is at least as sound, as that of society in England; that the domestic and social virtues are as diligently cultivated, whilst, perhaps, there is proportionably even more piety and more charity, than exists among our brethren at home—but we do not say that there are no occasional plague-spots to be seen on the face of Society in India.
Where there is flesh and blood there must be disease—moral as well as physical; we merely desire to claim for our brethren in the East at least as much merit on the score of religion, charity, and the domestic virtues, as is assigned to our friends in the West. In some respects, perhaps, the common social checks operate more forcibly in India than in England; because Society, though sufficiently extensive to erect itself into an important and much-dreaded tribunal, is not so extensive as to allow any member of it wholly to escape the observation of all around him. In London, the individual is lost among the thousands and thousands moving in the same rank of life, treading daily the same path, yet each man going about his own business, utterly regardless of the movements of his neighbour. He is but a particle of sand on the sea-shore; an atom in the enormous mass of humanity, constantly in motion over the immense surface of the metropolis. Thus a man may, in almost perfect security, frequent the worst haunts of vice; spend night after night in shameless debauchery; and yet lose no ground in society. No one has seen him; no one has marked his progress, but his sympathising companions. Here, every man, who occupies any fixed position in society, is sufficiently well-known by scores of his neighbours, to render it impossible for him to escape detection, if he pursues a course of open profligacy—and difficult to escape, even though he takes precaution to cloak the deformity of his vicious career. The character of almost every Englishman in India is accurately known to the society in which he moves. It is known whether he is a good or a bad husband; whether he is sober or intemperate; honest or dishonest; religious or irreligious; and although it is true, that some men occupying a high worldly station in society are courted in spite of their infirmities, perhaps there is no country in the world where religion and morality are really more ​fully appreciated; and even these men high in station, whose rank and wealth cover a multitude of sins, are avoided by many, and secretly censured by almost all.
That there are still some men in the country, principally in remote stations, who have a Zenana attached to their establishment; that some few seek solace under the affliction of debt or the depressing influence of solitude, in the debasing excitement of noxious stimulant; that there are amongst us men, who at the billiard or at the whist table, sometimes spend all the long night and gamble for sums far exceeding their ability to pay; that acts of cruelty and dishonesty are occasionally still to be set down against the English in India; that we are not, in short, even at this advanced period, thoroughly bleached, is undeniably true. But in what country of the world is the morality of the English, or of any other people, as white as snow? There are drunkards and rogues; gamblers and keepers of mistresses; in London—Paris—Vienna—every where; more obtrusive and more shameless than in India. There is nothing, we say, in the amount of Indian immorality, to give us an unenviable notoriety. Nay, indeed, the balance fairly struck, the scale of our offences will rise. Are the English in India less domestic than their brethren at home?—Enter their houses at any hour of the day. Are they less temperate?—See them at their dinner-table. More dissipated?—Count the numbers, who are asleep an hour or two before midnight. Less charitable?—Read the long subscription-lists to be found in every public journal: count the number of institutions supported by a benevolence. Less religious?—Enter their churches, on sabbath-days—set down the numbers of families that meet, morning and evening, for domestic worship;—satisfy yourself, on all these points; and then let the answer be returned.
The subject of the progress of religious feeling among the English in India, we have but incidentally touched upon. It was our original intention to have given, considerably in detail, the result of our inquiries into a matter of so much interest and importance; but we soon found that the accumulation of our illustrative materials was such as to render it impossible to do justice to the subject, without extending the present article to an undue length. We, therefore, reserved the investigation for a future chapter; and contented ourselves with devoting the present to an imperfect exposition of the more prominent traits of external morality—the social characteristics of our countrymen in the East. In these the improvement, as we have shewn, is great and striking; the religious progress is, perhaps, a still brighter chapter in the history of the English in India.
* ↑ We find this account appended to a translation of the travels of Sig. Pietro della Valle, to which allusion will be made in a more advanced part of our article. A portion of the passage now extracted was quoted incidentally in a former paper.
* ↑ This book (written in 1649) contains many interesting passages, illustrative both of European and Native society in India—one of which we cannot resist quoting:— “The respect and deference which the other Merchants have for the President was very remarkable, as also the order which was there observed in all things, especially at Divine Service, which was said twice a day, in the morning at six, and at eight at night, and on Sundays thrice. No person in the house but had his particular Function, and their certain hours assigned them as well for work as recreation. Our divertisement was thus ordered. On Fridayes after Prayers, there was a particular Assembly, at which met with us three other Merchants, who were of kin to the President, and had left as well as he their Wives in England, which day being that of their departure from England, they had appointed it for to make a commemoration thereof, and drink their Wives’ healths. Some made their advantage of this meeting to get more than they could well carry away, though every man was at liberty to drink what he pleased and to mix the Sack as he thought fit, or to drink Palepuntz, which is a kind of drink consisting of aqua vitæ, Rose-water, juice of Citrons and Sugar.”
* ↑ We have made these quotations from a work printed in 1788; and entitled “a Review of the principal charges against Warren Hastings, late Governor General of Bengal.” A manuscript note, on the fly leaf of our copy, says—“This book was prosecuted as a libel and occasioned an eloquent speech from Erskine in defence of the printer. The author was Logan, a Scots clergyman, who wrote also a dissertation on Asia and a Tragedy called Runnymede. He was expelled the Scots ministry, but the cause I do not know. Logan died before the prosecution which otherwise would probably have promoted his fortune”—He was expelled from the ministry on account of his Tragedy, which was accepted at Covent Garden, but interdicted by the Lord Chamberlain. D’Israeli, who gives an account of Logan in the Calamities of Authors, says, that he died of melancholy.
* ↑ We see it roundly stated, by an old writer, that in the Mayor’s Court of Madras, “in matters of consequence a few pagodas well placed could turn the scales of justice, the cause generally going according to the favoured inclinations of the Governor” It is added, that as the Court had no power of inflicting capital punishment except in cases of Piracy, it was the custom often to bring other offences of a different nature under that category of crime “so that a private trader. if he has the misfortune to incur the displeasure of the Governor, is soon found guilty of piracy.”
* ↑ See the continuation, by an English writer, (1757) of the Abbé Guyon’s History of the East Indies. Of Gayer it is further stated, that “A young lady. who had no relations alive but a portion of three thousand pounds, happened unadvisedly to marry a person she loved in a clandestine manner, contrary to the statute law of Bombay, where no marriage is binding without consent of the Governor. Gayer taking advantage of this statute, dissolved the marriage, and on account of the money married her to his own son.” This was about the year 1700. Gayer had a wife with him; and we conclude from the mention here of a son at a marriageable age, that she accompanied him, with her family, from England,
* ↑ Erroneously printed Sartorius at page 326
* ↑ We have been truly glad to learn, since this article was commenced, that the interesting work referred to in the text is about to be republished in England.
* ↑ We had intended to have brought forward, from the plays and novels of the last century, a few amusing pictures of the Nabob, as caricatured by English prejudices; but we find, that by so doing we should extend our article to an undue length—and perhaps from these sources a sufficiency of amusing illustrations might be derived to form a future separate chapter. In the mean time we give the following catalogue raisonné from Macaulay’s admirable historical sketch of the Life of Lord Clive:— “Writers the most unlike in sentiment and style, methodists and libertines, philosophers and buffoons were for once on the same side. It is hardly too much to say that during a space of about thirty years, the lighter literature of England was colored by the feeling which we have described. Foote brought on the stage an Anglo-Indian chief, dissolute, ungenerous, and tyrannical, ashamed of the humble friends of his youth, hating the aristocracy, yet childishly eager to be numbered among them, squandering his wealth on pandars and flatterers, tricking out his chairmen with the most costly hot-house flowers, and astounding the ignorant with jargon about rupees, lacs and jaghires. Mackenzie with more delicate humour depicted a plain country family raised by the Indian acquisitions of one of its members to sudden opulence and exciting derision by an awkward mimicry of the manners of the great. Cowper in that lofty expostulation, which glows with the very spirit of the Hebrew poets, placed the oppression of India foremost in the list of those national crimes for which God had punished England with years of disastrous war, with discomfiture in her own seas, and with the loss of her transatlantic empire. If any of our readers will take the trouble to search in the dusty recesses of circulating libraries for some novel published sixty years ago, the chance is that the villain or sub-villain of the story will prove to be a savage old Nabob, with an immense fortune, a tawny complexion, a bad liver and a worse heart.”
* ↑ It must be borne in mind, however, that there was more infidelity at that time (the latter part of the last century) in Europe, than at any other period of history.
* ↑ M. Grand tells us that Barwell would not return Clavering’s fire—“His antagonist suspecting this delicacy arose from a growing attachment which he observed to prevail between [Mr. Barwell and] Miss Clavering (Lady Napier) called out loudly to him to take his chance of hitting him, for, in whatever manner their contest might terminate, the General added, Mr. Barwell could rest impressed that he had no chance of ever being allied to his family.” Mr. Barwell, however, was resolute, and the seconds interfered.
* ↑ Pietro Della Valle speaks of another beverage to which our earliest settlers were addicted: “On Saturday morning,” he says, “we conversed together for some time, drinking a little of hot wine boyld with cloves, cinnamon, and other spices, which the English call burnt wine and use the drink frequently in the morning to comfort the stomach, sipping it by little and little for fear of scalding. as they do cahue (coffee) before described. And they use it particularly in the winter to warm themselves, though in India it is not necessary for that end, because albeit ‘twas still winter, according to our seasons, yet we had more heat there than cold.” As our ancestors were wont to drink mulled wine in the morning, we cannot be surprised to see it said of them that their lives were not worth two monsoons.
* ↑ We do not know the precise date at which the first regular race-meeting came off at Calcutta, or at the other Presidencies. Mr. Stocqueler, in his Handbook says “the first record of the existence of Racing in Calcutta may be dated from the origin of the Bengal Jockey Club, in 1803”—but we find in the volume of Hicky’s Gazette for 1780, accounts both of races and of race-balls. A few years later, they appear to have fallen into desuetude in Calcutta, though carried on with great eclat at Madras. “We have continued scenes of gaiety,” writes a newspaper correspondent from that presidency in 1788; “and may boast a competition even with your more populous settlement. The races take place soon, from which much entertainment is expected. This is an amusement, which seems to be exploded in Calcutta, as we hear no mention made of them in any of your public papers.” How soon the custom was revived, we do not pretend to know—but we find Lord Valentia stating, early in the next century, that “on Lord Wellesley’s first arrival in the country, he set his face decidedly against horse-racing and every other species of gambling; yet at the end of November 1803, there were three days’ races at a small distance from Calcutta.”
* ↑ Mr. Tennant means to says “as irregularity formerly had been.”
* ↑ In connexion with this notice of Selby’s Club in Capt Williamson’s book, the following extract from a Calcutta journal of 1793, being a portion of certain proceedings in the Supreme Court, will be read with some interest:— yates—versus—balfour, Executor of woolley, deceased. An Equity Cause between these parties, was argued on Friday and Saturday, but the Court have taken time to give their decree:—It appeared that the Plaintiff and Woolley had been Members of a Club, formerly held at Selby’s Tavern, called the Every Day Club. Sometime in the year 1783, the Plaintiff, who had dined at Mr. Wheelers, went in the evening to the Club rather intoxicated, and found there Mr. Woolley, Major Conran, and some other Members. Woolley claimed a knowledge of Mr. Yates, and asserted he had seen him at Madras, and particularly, that he had dined with him at Sir Thomas Rumbold’s:—this was denied by Yates, and after some controversy on the subject, a wager was proposed, and at length agreed to. The terms were 1000 Gold Mohurs, that Woolley had not seen Yates at Madras at the time mentioned—this was written down and signed by Yates, and witnessed by some gentlemen then present; but so little attention was given to the signed paper, or so intoxicated were the parties, that the paper was either torn or drowned in a bowl of punch—however it subsequently appeared, that Woolley had seen Yates at Madras, and claimed the wager, and commenced an action to recover the bet in this Court, from Yates. From the interference of friends, or actuated by honorary obligation, Yates signed a Bond to Woolley for the sum claimed (1000 Gold Mohurs) and after Woolley’s death, Balfour his executor, brought another action against Yates—who instituted the present suit in Equity, to impeach the validity of the Bond, and prayed that it might be delivered up and cancelled.
* ↑ We use the word as distinguished from social. The social improvement was, by a time, great. People wear their new garments out-of-doors before wearing them at home.
* ↑ One of these, a Mrs. Bowers, died in Calcutta in 1781. There is a notice of her death in Hicky’s Gazette, from which we learn that during the quarter of a century intervening between the capture of Calcutta “by the Moors,” and her dissolution, “she did by industry and frugality acquire a large fortune,” which she was so sadly afraid of losing again that she fidgetted herself into her grave. She was “attended to the grave by several of the reputable inhabitants, and the last Holy office was performed over her corpse, by Stephen Bagshaw, Esq.” from which we are to infer that there was no available clergyman. It is often wholly impossible to ascertain whether the wives of the European settlers alluded to, in old works, were English women, or “country-born.”
* ↑ Of course we except the nautches given on the occasion of visits of ceremony to native Princes.