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The members of the Government were, on this subject, united as one man. Hastings
had courted the judges; he had found them useful instruments; but he was not
disposed to make them his own masters, or the masters of India. His mind was
large; his knowledge of the native character most accurate. He saw that the
system pursued by the Supreme Court was degrading to the Government and ruinous
to the people; and he resolved to oppose it manfully. The consequence was, that
the friendship, if that be the proper word for such a connection, which had
existed between him and Impey, was for a time completely dissolved. The
Government placed itself firmly between the tyrannical tribunal and the people.
The Chief Justice proceeded to the wildest excesses. The Governor-General and
all the members of Council were served with writs, calling on them to appear
before the King's justices, and to answer for their public acts. This was too
much. Hastings, with just scorn, refused to obey the call, set at liberty the
persons wrongfully detained by the court, and took measures for resisting the
outrageous proceedings of the sheriff's officers, if necessary, by the sword.
But he had in view another device, which might prevent the necessity of an
appeal to arms. He was seldom at a loss for an expedient; and he knew Impey
well. The expedient, in this case, was a very simple one, neither more nor less
than a bribe. Impey was, by Act of Parliament, a judge, independent of the
Government of Bengal, and entitled to a salary of eight thousand a year.
Hastings proposed to make him also a judge in the Company's service, removable
at the pleasure of the Government of Bengal; and to give him, in that capacity,
about eight thousand a year more. It was understood that, in consideration of
this new salary, Impey would desist from urging the high pretensions of his
court. If he did urge these pretensions, the Government could, at a moment's
notice, eject him from the new place which had been created for him. The bargain
was struck; Bengal was saved; an appeal to force was averted; and the Chief
Justice was rich, quiet and infamous.
Of Impey's conduct it is unnecessary to speak. It was of a piece with almost
every part of his conduct that comes under the notice of history. No other such
judge has dishonored the English ermine, since Jeffreys drank himself to death
in the Tower. But we cannot agree with those who have blamed Hastings for this
transaction. The case stood thus. The negligent manner in which the Regulating
Act had been framed put it in the power of the Chief Justice to throw a great
country into the most dreadful confusion. He was determined to use his power to
the utmost, unless he was paid to be still; and Hastings consented to pay him.
The necessity was to be deplored. It is also to be deplored that pirates should
be able to exact ransom, by threatening to make their captives walk the plank.
But to ransom a captive from pirates has always been held a humane and Christian
act; and it would be absurd to charge the payer of the ransom with corrupting
the virtue of the corsair. This, we seriously think, is a not unfair
illustration of the relative position of Impey, Hastings, and the people of
India. Whether it was right in Impey to demand or to accept a price for powers
which, if they really belonged to him, he could not abdicate, which, if they did
not belong to him, he ought never to have usurped, and which in neither case he
could honestly sell, is one question. It is quite another question whether
Hastings was not right to give any sum, however large, to any man, however
worthless, rather than either surrender millions of human being to pillage, or
rescue them by civil war.
Francis strongly opposed this arrangement. It may, indeed be suspected that
personal aversion to Impey was as strong motive with Francis as regard for the
welfare of the province. To a mind burning with resentment, it might seem better
to leave Bengal to the oppressors than to redeem it by enriching them. It is not
improbable, on the other hand, that Hastings may have been the more willing to
resort to an expedient agreeable to the Chief Justice, because that high
functionary had already been so serviceable, and might, when existing
dissensions were composed, be serviceable again.
But it was not on this point alone that Francis was now opposed to Hastings. The
peace between them proved to be only a short and hollow truce, during which
their mutual aversion was constantly becoming stronger. At length an explosion
took place. Hastings publicly charged Francis with having deceived him, and with
having induced Barwell to quit the service by insincere promises. Then came a
dispute, such as frequently arises even between honorable men, when they may
make important agreements by mere verbal communication. An impartial historian
will probably be of opinion that they had misunderstood each other: but their
minds were so much embittered that they imputed to each other nothing less than
deliberate villainy. "I do not," said Hastings, in a minute recorded on the
Consultations of the Government, "I do not trust to Mr. Francis's promises of
candor, convinced that he is incapable of it. I judge of his public conduct by
his private, which I have found to be void of truth and honor." After the
Council had risen, Francis put a challenge into the Governor-General's hand. It
was instantly accepted. They met, and fired. Francis was shot through the body.
He was carried to a neighboring house, where it appeared that the wound, though
severe, was not mortal. Hastings inquired repeatedly after his enemy's health,
and proposed to call on him; but Francis coldly declined the visit. He had a
proper sense, he said, of the Governor-General's politeness, but could not
consent to any private interview. They could meet only at the council-board.
In a very short time it was made signally manifest to how great a danger the
Governor-General had, on this occasion, exposed his country. A crisis arrived
with which he, and he alone, was competent to deal. It is not too much to say
that if he had been taken from the head of affairs, the years 1780 and 1781
would have been as fatal to our power in Asia as to our power in America.
The Mahrattas had been the chief objects of apprehension to Hastings. The
measures which he had adopted for the purpose of breaking their power, had at
first been frustrated by the errors of those whom he was compelled to employ;
but his perseverance and ability seemed likely to be crowned with success, when
a far more formidable danger showed itself in a distant quarter.
About thirty years before this time, a Mahommedan soldier had begun to
distinguish himself in the wars of Southern India. His education had been
neglected; his extraction was humble. His father had been a petty officer of
revenue; his grandfather a wandering dervise. But though thus meanly descended,
though ignorant even of the alphabet, the adventurer had no sooner been placed
at the head of a body of troops than he approved himself a man born for conquest
and command. Among the crowd of chiefs who were struggling for a share of India,
none could compare with him in the qualities of the captain and the statesman.
He became a general; he became a sovereign. Out of the fragments of old
principalities, which had gone to pieces in the general wreck he formed for
himself a great, compact, and vigorous empire. That empire he ruled with the
ability, severity, and vigilance of Lewis the Eleventh. Licentious in his
pleasures, implacable in his revenge, he had yet enlargement of mind enough to
perceive how much the prosperity of subjects adds to the strength of
governments. He was an oppressor; but he had at least the merit of protecting
his people against all oppression except his own. He was now in extreme old age;
but his intellect was as clear, and his spirit as high, as in the prime of
manhood. Such was the great Hyder Ali, the founder of the Mahommedan kingdom of
Mysore, and the most formidable enemy with whom the English conquerors of India
have ever had to contend.
Had Hastings been governor of Madras, Hyder would have been either made a
friend, or vigorously encountered as an enemy. Unhappily the English authorities
in the south provoked their powerful neighbor's hostility, without being
prepared to repel it. On a sudden, an army of ninety thousand men, far superior
in discipline and efficiency to any other native force that could be found in
India, came pouring through those wild passes which, worn by mountain torrents,
and dark with jungle, lead down from the table-land of Mysore to the plains of
the Carnatic. This great army was accompanied by a hundred pieces of cannon; and
its movements were guided by many French officers, trained in the best military
schools of Europe.
Hyder was everywhere triumphant. The sepoys in many British garrisons flung down
their arms. Some forts were surrendered by treachery, and some by despair. In a
few days the whole open country north of the Coleroon had submitted. The English
inhabitants of Madras could already see by night, from the top of Mount St.
Thomas, the eastern sky reddened by a vast semicircle of blazing villages. The
white villas, to which our countrymen retire after the daily labors of
government and of trade, when the cool evening breeze springs up from the bay,
were now left without inhabitants; for bands of the fierce horsemen of Mysore
had already been seen prowling among the tulip-trees, and near the gay verandas.
Even the town was not thought secure, and the British merchants and public
functionaries made haste to crowd themselves behind the cannon of Fort St.
George.
There were the means, indeed, of assembling an army which might have defended
the presidency, and even driven the invader back to his mountains. Sir Hector
Munro was at the head of one considerable force; Baillie was advancing with
another. United, they might have presented a formidable front even to such an
enemy as Hyder. But the English commanders, neglecting those fundamental rules
of the military art of which the propriety is obvious even to men who had never
received a military education, deferred their junction, and were separately
attacked. Baillie's detachment was destroyed. Munro was forced to abandon his
baggage, to fling his guns into the tanks, and to save himself by a retreat
which might be called a flight. In three weeks from the commencement of the war,
the British empire in Southern India had been brought to the verge of ruin. Only
a few fortified places remained to us. The glory of our arms had departed. It
was known that a great French expedition might soon be expected on the coast of
Coromandel. England, beset by enemies on every side, was in no condition to
protect such remote dependencies.
Then it was that the fertile genius and serene courage of Hastings achieved
their most signal triumph. A swift ship, flying before the southwest monsoon,
brought the evil tidings in few days to Calcutta. In twenty-four hours the
Governor-General had framed a complete plan of policy adapted to the altered
state of affairs. The struggle with Hyder was a struggle for life and death. All
minor objects must be sacrificed to the preservation of the Carnatic. The
disputes with the Mahrattas must be accommodated. A large military force and a
supply of money must be instantly sent to Madras. But even these measures would
be insufficient, unless the war, hitherto so grossly mismanaged, were placed
under the direction of a vigorous mind. It was no time for trifling. Hastings
determined to resort to an extreme exercise of power, to suspend the incapable
governor of Fort St. George, to send Sir Eyre Coote to oppose Hyder, and to
entrust that distinguished general with the whole administration of the war.
In spite of the sullen opposition of Francis, who had now recovered from his
wound, and had returned to the Council, the Governor-General's wise and firm
policy was approved by the majority of the Board. The reinforcements were sent
off with great expedition, and reached Madras before the French armament arrived
in the Indian seas. Coote, broken by age and disease, was no longer the Coote of
Wandewash; but he was still a resolute and skilful commander. The progress of
Hyder was arrested; and in a few months the great victory of Porto Novo
retrieved the honor of the English arms.
In the meantime Francis had returned to England, and Hastings was now left
perfectly unfettered. Wheler had gradually been relaxing in his opposition, and,
after the departure of his vehement and implacable colleague, cooperated
heartily with the Governor-General, whose influence over the British in India,
always great, had, by the vigor and success of his recent measures, been
considerably increased.
But, though the difficulties arising from factions within the Council were at an
end, another class of difficulties had become more pressing than ever. The
financial embarrassment was extreme. Hastings had to find the means, not only of
carrying on the government of Bengal, but of maintaining a most costly war
against both Indian and European enemies in the Carnatic, and of making
remittances to England. A few years before this time he had obtained relief by
plundering the Mogul and enslaving the Rohillas; nor were the resources of his
fruitful mind by any means exhausted.
His first design was on Benares, a city which in wealth, population, dignity,
and sanctity, was among the foremost of Asia. It was commonly believed that half
a million of human beings was crowded into that labyrinth of lofty alleys, rich
with shrines, and minarets, and balconies, and carved oriels, to which the
sacred apes clung by hundreds. The traveler could scarcely make his way through
the press of holy mendicants and not less holy bulls. The broad and stately
flights of steps which descended from these swarming haunts to the
bathing-places along the Ganges were worn every day by the footsteps of an
innumerable multitude of worshippers. The schools and temples drew crowds of
pious Hindus from every province where the Brahminical faith was known. Hundreds
of devotees came thither every month to die: for it was believed that a
peculiarly happy fate awaited the man who should pass from the sacred city into
the sacred river. Nor was superstition the only motive which allured strangers
to that great metropolis. Commerce had as many pilgrims as religion. All along
the shores of the venerable stream lay great fleets of vessels laden with rich
merchandise. From the looms of Benares went forth the most delicate silks that
adorned the balls of St. James's and of the Petit Trianon; and in the bazaars,
the muslins of Bengal and the sabres of Oude were mingled with the jewels of
Golconda and the shawls of Cashmere. This rich capital, and the surrounding
tract, had long been under the immediate rule of a Hindoo prince, who rendered
homage to the Mogul emperors. During the great anarchy of India, the lords of
Benares became independent of the Court of Delhi, but were compelled to submit
to the authority of the Nabob of Oude. Oppressed by this formidable neighbor,
they invoked the protection of the English. The English protection was given;
and at length the Nabob Vizier, by a solemn treaty, ceded all his rights over
Benares to the Company. From that time the Rajah was the vassal of the
Government of Bengal, acknowledged its supremacy, and engaged to send an annual
tribute to Fort William. This tribute Cheyte Sing, the reigning prince, had paid
with strict punctuality.
About the precise nature of the legal relation between the Company and the Rajah
of Benares, there has been much warm and acute controversy. On the one side, it
has been maintained that Cheyte Sing was merely a great subject on whom the
superior power had a right to call for aid in the necessities of the empire. On
the other side, it has been contended that he was an independent prince, that
the only claim which the Company had upon him was for a fixed tribute, and that,
while the fixed tribute was regularly paid, as it assuredly was, the English had
no more right to exact any further contribution from him than to demand
subsidies from Holland or Denmark. Nothing is easier than to find precedents and
analogies in favor of either view.
Our own impression is that neither view is correct. It was too much the habit of
English politicians to take it for granted that there was in India a known and
definite constitution by which questions of this kind were to be decided. The
truth is that, during the interval which elapsed between the fall of the house
of Tamerlane and the establishment of the British ascendancy, there was no such
constitution. The old order of things had passed away; the new order of things
was not yet formed. All was transition, confusion, obscurity. Everybody kept his
head as he best might, and scrambled for whatever he could get. There have been
similar seasons in Europe. The time of the dissolution of the Carlovingian
empire is an instance. Who would think of seriously discussing the question,
what extent of pecuniary aid and of obedience Hugh Capet had constitutional
right to demand from the Duke of Brittany or the Duke of Normandy? The words
"constitutional right" had, in that state of society, no meaning. If Hugh Capet
laid hands on all the possessions of the Duke of Normandy, this might be unjust
and immoral; but it would not be illegal, in the sense in which the ordinances
of Charles the Tenth were illegal. If, on the other hand, the Duke of Normandy
made war on Hugh Capet, this might be unjust and immoral; but it would not be
illegal, in the sense in which the expedition of Prince Louis Bonaparte was
illegal.
Very similar to this was the state of India sixty years ago. Of the existing
governments not a single one could lay claim to legitimacy, or could plead any
other title than recent occupation. There was scarcely a province in which the
real sovereignty and the nominal sovereignty were not disjoined. Titles and
forms were still retained which implied that the heir of Tamerlane was an
absolute ruler, and that the Nabobs of the provinces were his lieutenants. In
reality, he was a captive. The Nabobs were in some places independent princes.
In other places, as in Bengal and the Carnatic, they had, like their master,
become mere phantoms, and the Company was supreme. Among the Mahrattas, again,
the heir of Sevajee still kept the title of Rajah; but he was a prisoner, and
his prime minister, the Peshwa, had become the hereditary chief of the state.
The Peshwa, in his turn, was fast sinking into the same degraded situation into
which he had reduced the Rajah. It was, we believe, impossible to find, from the
Himalayas to Mysore, a single government which was once a government de facto
and a government de jure, which possessed the physical means of making itself
feared by its neighbors and subjects, and which had at the same time the
authority derived from law and long prescription.
Hastings clearly discerned, what was hidden from most of his contemporaries,
that such a state of things gave immense advantages to a ruler of great talents
and few scruples. In every international question that could arise, he had his
option between the de facto ground and the de jure ground; and the probability
was that one of those grounds would sustain any claim that it might be
convenient for him to make, and enable him to resist any claim made by others.
In every controversy, accordingly, he resorted to the plea which suited his
immediate purpose, without troubling himself in the least about consistency; and
thus he scarcely ever failed to find what, to persons of short memories and
scanty information, seemed to be a justification for what he wanted to do.
Sometimes the Nabob of Bengal is a shadow, sometimes a monarch. Sometimes the
Vizier is a mere deputy, sometimes an independent potentate. If it is expedient
for the Company to show some legal title to the revenues of Bengal, the grant
under the seal of the Mogul is brought forward as an instrument of the highest
authority. When the Mogul asks for the rents which were reserved to him by that
very grant, he is told that he is a mere pageant, that the English power rests
on a very different foundation from a charter given by him, that he is welcome
to play at royalty as long as he likes, but that he must expect no tribute from
the real masters of India.
It is true that it was in the power of others, as well as of Hastings, to
practice this legerdemain; but in the controversies of governments, sophistry is
of little use unless it be backed by power. There is a principle which Hastings
was fond of asserting in the strongest terms, and on which he acted with
undeviating steadiness. It is a principle which, we must own, though it may be
grossly abused, can hardly be disputed in the present state of public law. It is
this, that where an ambiguous question arises between two governments, there is,
if they cannot agree, no appeal except to force, and that the opinion of the
stronger must prevail. Almost every question was ambiguous in India. The English
Government was the strongest in India. The consequences are obvious. The English
Government might do exactly what it chose.
The English Government now chose to wring money out of Cheyte Sing. It had
formerly been convenient to treat him as a sovereign prince; it was now
convenient to treat him as a subject. Dexterity inferior to that of Hastings
could easily find, in the general chaos of laws and customs, arguments for
either course. Hastings wanted a great supply. It was known that Cheyte Sing had
a large revenue, and it was suspected that he had accumulated a treasure. Nor
was he a favorite at Calcutta. He had, when the Governor-General was in great
difficulties, courted the favor of Francis and Clavering. Hastings, who, less
perhaps from evil passions than from policy, seldom left an injury unpunished,
was not sorry that the fate of Cheyte Sing should teach neighboring princes the
same lesson which the fate of Nuncomar had already impressed on the inhabitants
of Bengal.
In 1778, on the first breaking out of the war with France, Cheyte Sing was
called upon to pay, in addition to his fixed tribute, an extraordinary
contribution of fifty thousand pounds. In 1779, an equal sum was exacted. In
1780, the demand was renewed. Cheyte Sing, in the hope of obtaining some
indulgence, secretly offered the Governor-General a bribe of twenty thousand
pounds. Hastings took the money, and his enemies have maintained that he took it
intending to keep it. He certainly concealed the transaction, for a time, both
from the Council in Bengal and from the Directors at home; nor did he ever give
any satisfactory reason for the concealment. Public spirit, or the fear of
detection, at last determined him to withstand the temptation. He paid over the
bribe to the Company's treasury, and insisted that the Rajah should instantly
comply with the demands of the English Government. The Rajah, after the fashion
of his countrymen, shuffled, solicited, and pleaded poverty. The grasp of
Hastings was not to be so eluded. He added to the requisition another ten
thousand pounds as a fine for delay, and sent troops to exact the money.
The money was paid. But this was not enough. The late events in the south of
India had increased the financial embarrassments of the Company. Hastings was
determined to plunder Cheyte Sing, and, for that end, to fasten a quarrel on
him. Accordingly, the Rajah was now required to keep a body of cavalry for the
service of the British Government. He objected and evaded. This was exactly what
the Governor-General wanted. He had now a pretext for treating the wealthiest of
his vassals as a criminal. "I resolved,"--these were the words of Hastings
himself,--"to draw from his guilt the means of relief of the Company's
distresses, to make him pay largely for his pardon, or to exact a severe
vengeance for past delinquency." The plan was simply this, to demand larger and
larger contributions till the Rajah should be driven to remonstrate, then to
call his remonstrance a crime, and to punish him by confiscating all his
possessions.
Cheyte Sing was in the greatest dismay. He offered two hundred thousand pounds
to propitiate the British Government. But Hastings replied that nothing less
than half a million would be accepted. Nay, he began to think of selling Benares
to Oude, as he had formerly sold Allahabad and Rohilcund. The matter was one
which could not be well managed at a distance; and Hastings resolved to visit
Benares.
Cheyte Sing received his liege lord with every mark of reverence, came near
sixty miles, with his guards, to meet and escort the illustrious visitor, and
expressed his deep concern at the displeasure of the English. He even took off
his turban, and laid it in the lap of Hastings, a gesture which in India marks
the most profound submission and devotion. Hastings behaved with cold and
repulsive severity. Having arrived at Benares, he sent to the Rajah a paper
containing the demands of the Government of Bengal. The Rajah, in reply,
attempted to clear himself from the accusations brought against him. Hastings,
who wanted money and not excuses, was not to be put off by the ordinary
artifices of Eastern negotiation. He instantly ordered the Rajah to be arrested
and placed under the custody of two companies of sepoys.
In taking these strong measures, Hastings scarcely showed his usual judgment. It
is possible that, having had little opportunity of personally observing any part
of the population of India, except the Bengalees, he was not fully aware of the
difference between their character and that of the tribes which inhabit the
upper provinces. He was now in a land far more favorable to the vigor of the
human frame than the Delta of the Ganges; in a land fruitful of soldiers, who
have been found worthy to follow English battalions to the charge and into the
breach. The Rajah was popular among his subjects. His administration had been
mild; and the prosperity of the district which he governed presented a striking
contrast to the depressed state of Bahar under our rule, and a still more
striking contrast to the misery of the provinces which were cursed by the
tyranny of the Nabob Vizier. The national and religious prejudices with which
the English were regarded throughout India were peculiarly intense in the
metropolis of the Brahminical superstition. It can therefore scarcely he doubted
that the Governor-General, before he outraged the dignity of Cheyte Sing by an
arrest, ought to have assembled a force capable of bearing down all opposition.
This had not been done. The handful of sepoys who attended Hastings would
probably have been sufficient to overawe Moorshedabad, or the Black Town of
Calcutta. But they were unequal to a conflict with the hardy rabble of Benares.
The streets surrounding the palace were filled by an immense multitude, of whom
a large proportion, as is usual in Upper India, wore arms. The tumult became a
fight, and the fight a massacre. The English officers defended themselves with
desperate courage against overwhelming numbers, and fell, as became them, sword
in hand. The sepoys were butchered. The gates were forced. The captive prince,
neglected by his gaolers, during the confusion, discovered an outlet which
opened on the precipitous bank of the Ganges, let himself down to the water by a
string made of the turbans of his attendants, found a boat, and escaped to the
opposite shore.
If Hastings had, by indiscreet violence, brought himself into a difficult and
perilous situation, it is only just to acknowledge that he extricated himself
with even more than his usual ability and presence of mind. He had only fifty
men with him. The building in which he had taken up his residence was on every
side blockaded by the insurgents, But his fortitude remained unshaken. The Rajah
from the other side of the river sent apologies and liberal offers. They were
not even answered. Some subtle and enterprising men were found who undertook to
pass through the throng of enemies, and to convey the intelligence of the late
events to the English cantonments. It is the fashion of the natives of India to
wear large earrings of gold. When they travel, the rings are laid aside, lest
the precious metal should tempt some gang of robbers; and, in place of the ring,
a quill or a roll of paper is inserted in the orifice to prevent it from
closing. Hastings placed in the cars of his messengers letters rolled up in the
smallest compass. Some of these letters were addressed to the commanders of
English troops. One was written to assure his wife of his safety. One was to the
envoy whom he had sent to negotiate with the Mahrattas. Instructions for the
negotiation were needed; and the Governor-General framed them in that situation
of extreme danger, with as much composure as if he had been writing in his
palace at Calcutta.
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