The Press.
London, England, 1858-01-30 00:00:00

THE PRESS, JANUARY 30, 1858

Nittraturt.

The Rise of Our Indian Empire. Extracted
from Lord Mahon's History of England.
London : Murray.

British Rule in India. A Historical Sketch.
By Harriet Martineau. London : Smith
and Eider.

Ar a time when public attention has been
directed to our Indian possessions by a series
of events wellnigh sufficient to take away from
the calmest mind all power of unbiassed
judgment, we are glad to have the opportunity
of recommending to our readers two works
like those which we have placed at the head
of this article. It is just now peculiarly in-
structive and interesting to peruse a narrative
written, as the former is, without reference to
contemporary circumstances, and liable to no
suspicion of wresting facts or arguments to a
foregone conclusion. We regret, indeed, that
the labours of Earl Stanhope should extend
no further than 1783, and that the latter half
of British Indian history should not have
been illustrated by his clear method, his
lively style, and his impartial judgment. And
to separate half a dozen chapters from a long
historical work, and place them before readers
sharpened by unwonted interest in the topic
of wch they treat, is to subject them to a
very severe ordeal. But " The Rise of our
Indian Empire " bears this test exceedingly
well, and, as far as it goes, gives a clearer idea
of the matters comprehended in it than can
be gained from any work of a similar kind.
Miss Martineau's book is written to suit the
present demand. She has brought to bear
upon its composition the vigorous understand-
ing and rigid sense of justice for which she
has always been distinguished, and we observe
a constant and generally very successful at-
tempt to throw herself imaginatively into some
of the periods which she describes, and to
form pictures helping us to realise the aspects
of Indian life and manners as they might have
appeared to observers of a century, or half a
century, ago.
The power of the English in India developed
itself, as it has done almost everywhere else,
not according to any settled plan, but as it
was guided by the current of circumstances.
The process of its growth resembled that by
which the doctrines of the Church attained, in
early ages, their distinctive form. As, in the one
ease, heretics, in attempting to set up on the
ground left vacant by the founders of Chris-
tianity the anomalous productions of indi-
vidual opinion, forced the orthodox party to
self-assertion and the elaborate promulgation
of a definite creed—so, in the other, the rivalry
of enemies, and the vicissitudes of Oriental
Intrigue, compelled men, whose only wish was
to pursue a peaceful commercial occups lion,
to resoi tto measures of self-de once, to assume
an active policy, and to set in motion the
whole complicated machinery of diploinaey
and war. From the year 1600, the date of
Queen Elizabeth's first charter, to 1640, at
which time the present site of Madras was
purchased, the Company was obscure and not
prosperous. Twenty years afterwards, the
town and island of Bombay were ceded to
Charles 11. as part of the dowry of Catherine
of Braganza; and iu 1698 the English trans-
ferred their• factory from Hooghley to Chutta
nuttee (Calcutta), and built Fort William—
not the present, but the old one—to pro-
t .ict it:—

Thus then before the accession nf the House of Hanover
these three main st ttions,—Fort William, Fort St. George,
and Itombay,—had been erected into Presidencies, or
central posts of Government • not, however, as at present,
subject to one supreme authority, but each independent
of the rest. Each was governed by a President and a
Council Of nine or twelve members, appointed by the
Court of Directors in England. Each was surrounded
with fortifications, and guarded by a small force, partly
European and per ly native, in the service of the Com-
pany. The Europeans were either recruits enlisted in
England or strollers end deserters from other services in
Amonglndia. these the descendants of the old settlers,
especially the Portuguese, were called Topasses, —from
the tope or hat which they wore instead of turban. The
natives, as yet ill armed and ill-trained, were known by
the name of sepoys,—a corruption from the Indian word
sipahi, a sol.lier. But the territory of the English
scarcely even led out of sight of their towns, nor had their
will, try peva: items :1•7 other object thfut the wlttioleste4

enjoyment of their trade. Far from aiming at conquest
and ag4randisement, they had of en to tremble for their
homes. So lately as 174 the " Mahratta Ditch " was dug
round a part of Calcutta, to protect the city from an in-
road of the fierce race of Sivajee.

But a different era was approaching. Between
1744 and the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle the
French and English settlers in India had
already come into collision, and after that
event the quarrels of the Deccan and Carnatic
princes were not long in giving them another
opportunity. It was Dupleix, the Governor
of Pondicherry, whose attack on Trichinopoly
gave occasion for the first great exploit of
Clive. That "heaven-born general" diverted
the French attack by surprising Arcot,
in which he was subsequently besieged,
and which he defended with the greatest suc-
cess. Numerous desultory operations followed,
and in 1755 Clive, who had been at home two
years, came out again as Governor of Bombay.
We here quote an interesting passage (though
we do not vouch for its correctness) from
Miss Martineau, on a subject to which a far
less considerable space would have been de-
voted a year ago :

The first notice of sepoys in British pay occurs in con•
nection with the early history of Bombay. The first occa-
sion on which they are mentioned with honour is the de-
fence of Arcot, when Clive inspired all his followers with
the military spirit which made him a hero from the
mordent when he left his desk for the field. The sepovs
were delighted to see him back again at Fort St. David,
and were ready to do anything under his command. At
that time none had been enlisted but men of high military
' tribes—part Mohammedans and part Hindoos, the latter
chiefly Rajpoots. They were small men (from five feet
three to five feet five), active, strong, patient and brave in
temper, and temperate in diet, but while possessing most
of the great qualities of the soldier, requiring peculiar
management. As long as no suspicion was awakened in
their minds, they were devoted, trustful, patient, and even
upright under stress; but when once their high honour
was touched, or they suspected deceit or ridicule, they were
enemies for ever, as implacable and vindictive as devils.
Every mistake on the part of the English, every lapse into
forgetfulness that English methods alone will never answer
with Asiatic soldiers, has been marked by a mutiny, for
about a century past. An order to go round by sea to
Bombay produced a mutiny, the natives having an extreme
horror of " the black water," as they call the ocean ;
whereas, when an officer whom they knew told them that
he and his European soldiers were going on an enterprise
overland, and needed a force of volunteers, thero were
always enough ready to go. An order to shave is never
obeyed, for reasons of native feeling which no commander
should be ignorant of; and an attempt to enforce the
order has repeatedly induced mutiny. Very few persons in
England have any idea of the number of sepoy mutinies
which have occurred between the defence of Arcot, which
opened our military history in India, and the present
calamity, of which the entire series should have forewarned
us. It would be too much to say that on all these occa-
sions the British were totally wrong; but it may be safely
declared that a sufficient knowledge of the native mind
would have explained to us how it was that the mutineers
alwa3s were vehemently persuaded that they were right.
Some promise was supposed to he broken, something was
required of them which they could not do, some insult was
offered to their pride or their affections, or some novelty
was introduced to which they could not commit themselves
till they understood its bearings. They would serve with-
out a murmur while their pay was two or three years in
arrear ; they would endure famine and other hardship
with unsurpassed generosity of spirit ; but they required
peculiar consideration from their peculiarities of retina and
training. It way for the English to consider whether it
was worth while to make soldiers of them under such con•
ditions; brit neither party is to be blamed for the existence
of the conditions. It might be burdensome to have to
cultivate the language, and leant the mind, of the native
soldier ; but he could not be a trustworthy soldier on other
terms. Such pains have always been found to answer.
Clive succeeded entirely with them ; so did Sir Eyre
Coote ; and so did many more good commanders, during
a long settee of years. They had them well in hand.
They did not waste their authority in making a point of
shaven chins and compulsory sea voyages; but they allowed
no hesitation or question about such eiders as they gave.
They carefully studied their men ; and they took care that
their men should know them. The consequence was that
a native officer here and there—such as Mohammed Esof,
Cawder Beg, Sheik Ibrahim, and several others, rose into
companionship of fame with distinguished European
officers, and that officers who were fit to command them,
from Clive and Coote to Lake, Ochterlony, and Christie,
could do anything with them, and had little other difficulty
than to restrain the enthusiasm of their obedience. What-
ever may be the issue of the present mutiny, the memory
of a better time will be preserved among the sepoys in two
sacred forms—the native traditions of the deaths and
funerals of popular European officers, and the monuments
—the " regimental shrines "—which grateful rulers and
commanders have from time to time erected or counte-
nanced, to the memory of heroic native officers.

The Madras aepoys hold the first rank during the early
history of our Indian dominion. Those of Bombay were
of a different kind, and applicable to a different service.
They were recruited from all available sources.. Not only
were Mussulman and Hindoo thrown together, but the
Hiodoos were of various countries and castes, some being
soatsely superior in rank to the iltirithson the Cerontauki

coast. There were a few Christians also, and many Jews;
these last being found to make the very best soldiers till
they grew elderly, when drink usually degraded them.
One great advanta4e of the admixture in the Bombay force
was that it was more available fur foreign service than that
of Madras. It was, in fact, scarcely possible for high-caste
soldiers to undergo a voyage without loss of caste. A few
did undertake the necessary self.denial when invited by
popular officers to volunteer; but a positive order to go to
sea was sure to produce mutiny. There was no such diffi-
culty with the Bombay force, while their attachment to
their commanders could not be exceeded. It was always a
well-weeded force, from the circumstances of its Position.
Discontented recruits could always abscond into the neigh-
bouring Mahratta territories, and those who remained were
thereby proved superior to the temptation. Tippoo could
never induce any of the hundreds of them whom he held
prisoners to enter his service, though he offered every
possible inducement, and punished them bitterly for re-
fusal: and when at length they and the European prisoners
of war were on their weary march to Madras, in order to
be sent round to Bombay, some of them nightly eluded
their guards, and visited their officers (by swimming tanks
or at other risks) to bring them money or food, saying that
sepoys could live upon anything, but that Englishmen
needed mutton and beef. This was truly a spirit not to be
trifled with. There are several instances on record of the
deliberate intervention of these men to save their com-
manders from the certain death which they drew upon
themselves. They thought all was explained, when they
pleaded that officers' lives were worth more that sepoys.
As for the Bengal native army, it originated with the
few companies who attended Clive to Calcutta, in 1750.
The first battalions raised in Bengal were called after the
names of their commanders—each company by that of
•

its captain; each company having its own stanelari-1 of tho
same ground as its facings, and a device derived from its
snbadar—a crescent, a sabre, &c. In 1760 the British
officers in Bengal were 18 captains, 28 lieutenants, and 15
ensigns, all 'inlay in organising battalions, consisting each
of ten companies of 100 men each. In half a century,
the Bengal Native Infantry were not fewer than 60,000,
commanded by 1,500 European officers. The soldiers
were of the proudest classes of natives—Mohammedans
and high-caste Hindoos—a large proportion of them Raj-
poets, the very representatives of Hindooism—an order
come up, as it were, from the depths of the past to show
the modern world what sort of men Hiudostan &as once
full of; a stalwart soldiery of tall stature and unmixed
blood : men believing nothing, and insisting upon every-
thing they were accustomed to; with no faith, but plenty
of superstition ; servile to power, and diabolically oppres-
sive to helplessness : prone to self torture, without any
power of self-denial ; bigoted to home and usages, without
available affections or morality; smooth in language and
manners, while brutal in grain ; incapable of compassion,
while disposed to good-nature ; good tempered in general,
with exceptions of incomparable vindictiveness ; timid for
a twelvemonth, and then madly ferocious for a day, or
heroically devoted for an hour; frivolous and fanatical;
liars in general, and martyrs on occasion ; scoundrels for
the most part, and heroes by a rare transfiguration. Such
were, and such are, the Rajpoots of whom our Bengal
army has always been largely composed, and who have
been the perplexity of plain-witted Englishmen for the
hundred years just closed with the Delhi atrocities of 1857.

The next epoch is that of the capture of
Calcutta by Surajah Dowla (18th June, 1756),
and the atrocity of the Black Hole—the re-
sult of which was to summon Clive to Bengal,
where in the imbsequent year he gained
eternal honour by fighting the battle of Plassey,
and almost equal disgrace by his bad faith
towards Omichund. Clive's internal adminis-
tration was not so successful as his military
exploits, and the confusion which ensued
enabled Parliament to lay its first hold upon
the Company, and appoint a Governor-General
and judicial officers. The first Governor-
General was Warren Hastings. On his policy
public opinion is by this time tolerably agreed.
He was boll and honestl but his treat-
ment of the Rohillas, of .Cheyte Singh, and of
the Bcgums of Oude are points in his career
which his wannest admirers must be unable
to defend ; while it is impossible to approve
and equally impossible not to admire his
successful audacity in the destruction of
Nuncomar.

Under Miss Martineau's guidance—for that
of Earl Stanhope here ceases—we pass over
the first great contest with Hyder Ali, and
arrive at the establishment cf the Double
Government in 1764, substantially the same
as that which is in operation at the present
day. Lord Cornwallis was the first viceroy
under the new system, anal his administration
is remarkable for the first application of Euro-
pean industrial ideas to Indian matters—
known as the " Permanent Settlement "—by
which the zemindars or middlemen ,vere made
proprietors of the soil, as against the ryots or
cultivators of it. The rival scheme to .his was
Sir Thomas Munro's—known as the " Ryotwar
System"—by which the rent of the land was
received directly from the labourer, and the
landholder was virtually eliminated. Fur cri-
ticism of these methods, neither of which
it-towered verfoetly, wo nuttit reter loz)

SWAM, if LIM ierritory 01 tne nngnsn I were mussuiman and Hindoo thrown together, but the I itsnuitottter was vtrtuatty ttism
scarcely esten led out of sight of their towns, nor had their Hiodoos were of various countries and castes, come heir)," ticism of theso methods, r
will, try brava: items o 7 other object that the Wlitictleilte4 sesruely superior IR to IO tbe fitotolis on the Cgronssutlel IHOwerod verfoetly,

Martineau, who elucidates some of the quell-
connected with them, but is hardly in
position to pronounce a decisive judgment.
The year 1799 brings us to the epoch of
Wellesley, of the Mahratta war, the
tore mutiny, and his " Subsidiary System"
latter of which is well explained in the
following remarks, though we by no means
ltend to endorse them all:
Subsidiary system was a system of permanent
with the States of India, by which England was to
i a military force to each, and to control all State
Airs (except such as related to the royal family) through
Resident—the expense of both these institutions being
^by the State thus assisted. Lord Wellesley's policy
use every occasion on which we were compelled, in
prudence or humanity, to interfere with an Indian
e, to render that State subservient to English rule,
preserving its native court, religion, and customs.
his method all violence to native feelings and habits
avoided; the sovereign remained a visible object of
ancient homage, and the name of independence re-
ined. The thing was gone, assuredly ; but no method
Id have preserved it amidst the corruption and humilia-
, in which every State was sunk ; whereas destruction
war and famine was thus averted. It is enough to
say in the way of comment, that India has since been
repeatedly at peace from end to end, for the first time in
history ; that the non-Mussulman portion of the inhabi-
tants (seven eights of the whole at this time) have be-
come more anti more attached to our rule; that industry,
security, and comfort (backward as they still are) have
advanced almost as marvellously as the expansion cf our
frontier; and that the revenue increased at once, in Lord
Wellesley's own term, by his system and his financial
reforms together, from seven to fifteen millions.
• • • • •

The first object was to enable all the States with which
we had relations to keep their engagements with as ; and
this implied at the moment excluding the French from
those States, and precluding wars among the respective
rulers. Such was the aim. The result was giving us
virtual possession of the Carnatic, the Nizain's dominions,
the Peishwa's territory, and *he kingdom of Oude. Thus
much was done before continual opposition from home
induced Lord Wellesley first to relax in his policy, and
then to leave his great scheme unfinished.

Lord Wellesley was succeeded by Lord Corn-
wallis again, who lived but a short time, and
was replaced by Lord Minto in 1807. In the
period of his rule the north-western provinces
and Central India were brought into some
degree of order; but the commercial affairs of
the Company had declined, while war still
went on—the Ghoorkas in Nepaul and the
Pindarries were successively subdued. Under
Lord Moira (afterwards Lord Hastings), the
next viceroy, began the Burmese war, which
lasted till 1826, and ended in the annexation
of Assam and the Tenasserim coast. Between
1823 and 1835 there were twelve years of
peaceful administration, under Lord Hastings,
Lord Amherst, and Lord William Bentinck—
the first of whom reformed and modified the
revenue system, and the latter abolished
Suttee and Thuggee. The period from 1835
to 1842 is characterised as the " beginning of
an external policy "—when Lord Auckland
sought to anticipate, by the occupation of
Cabul, the expected invasion from the Persian
and Russian quarter ;—a measure whose dis-
astrous results there is no need to recall. But
to counterbalance the retreat through Affghan-
istan came the settlement of Scinde under Sir
Charles Napier, which has done such good
service at the present day. Further than this,
in a merely historical review, we need not go.
The administrations of Lord Ellenborough,
Lord Hardinge, and Lord Dalhousie, if not
fresh in every one's recollection, have been
sufficiently debated elsewhere to excuse us
from entering into matters which we have no
space to mention, much less to discuss.
We may conclude by recommending Miss
Martineau's first chapter, to which we have not
had occasion to allude, but which contains an
abler sketch of the physical geography of
India than is to be found elsewhere in so short
a compass. There are some marks of hurry
in the remainder of her work, and the sequence
of events is not always indicated with perfect
clearness; but on the whole it is vigorous and
able, and those who wish for a compendious
and yet readable summary, which may put
them on a level with present events, will do
well to obtain it.

Estimates of some Englishmen and Scotchmen.
Reprinted principally from the National
Review. By Walter Bagehot. One Vol.
London : Chapman and Hall.
WE have already had occasion to mention
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