Life and Travel in India / Being Recollections of a Journey Before the Days of Railroads

by Anna Harriette Leonowens

Here in this spot is found the secret of the marvellous success of that small band of intelligent Englishmen who first set out for India under the name and protection of trade. Here only a few years after their arrival they laid aside their intention of simple traders; here they mounted their guns, enrolled armed bands of natives to assist them in their new position, made laws, punished evil-doers, rewarded the industrious and such as made no opposition to their pretensions; and here from one step to another they finally became the legislators and rulers of the land. The city of Calcutta does not date farther back than the famous battle of Plassey. The old fortified English factory was erected on a low marshy plain in the middle of a few straggling native villages, bordered on three sides by dense jungles infested with tigers. At that time it had a garrison of only three hundred men; nevertheless, that insignificant English stronghold became in a short time the depository of all the rich merchandise of the Gangetic valley, which excited the cupidity of many of the rajahs. In 1756, Nawab Surajah Dowlah attacked it with an immense army, and after a desperate resistance from the English merchants and soldiers of the fort he finally succeeded in capturing it. Then followed the famous Black Hole tragedy, which Macaulay has so graphically described: "One hundred and forty-six persons were thrust into a dungeon twenty feet square; driven into this cell at the point of the sword, the door was shut ruthlessly upon them. When they realized the horrors of their position they strove to burst the door. They offered large bribes to the jailers, but all in vain. The nawab was asleep, and none dared to awaken him. At length the unhappy sufferers went mad with despair. They trampled each other down, fought for the places at the windows, fought for the pittance of water with which the cruel mercy of the murderers mocked their agonies, raved, prayed, blasphemed, implored the guards to fire among them. The jailers in the mean time held lights to the bars and shouted with laughter at the frantic struggles of their victims. At length the tumult died away in low gaspings and moanings. The day broke. The nawab had slept off his debauch, and permitted the doors to be opened. But it was some time before the soldiers could make a lane for the survivors by piling up on each side the heaps of corpses on which the burning climate had already begun to do its loathsome work. When at length a passage was made, twenty-three ghastly figures, such as their own mothers would not have known, staggered one by one out of the charnel-house. A pit was instantly dug. The dead bodies, one hundred and twenty-three in number, were flung into it promiscuously and covered up." Such was the terrible nature of the affair of the Black Hole. But the day of retribution was not far distant.

In order to understand the position of the East India Company at this time we must go back a few years. The jealousy that had sprung up between the French and English trading companies broke out into open hostilities at the moment of the declaration of war by Louis XV. in 1744. The English were the first to receive reinforcements from home. Four English vessels, having previously captured three richly-laden French vessels on their voyage from China, appeared off the coast of Coromandel in July, 1745. Dupleix, the governor at Pondicherry, apprehensive that, owing to the incomplete state of the fortifications and the insufficient garrison, the place would be taken, prevailed on the nawab Anwar Ou Deen to threaten to revenge upon the English at Madras any injury that the squadron should inflict upon the French possessions within the limits of his government. The Madras officials, intimidated by the authoritative language of the nawab, took immediate measures to prevent the English fleet from attacking Pondicherry. The English squadron, in obedience to the orders received, confined their hostile operations to the sea.

In the following year an indecisive action took place between the English squadron and a French fleet under the command of La Bourdonnais; after which the latter, having reinforced himself at Pondicherry, proceeded to attack the English at Madras. The town was bombarded for several days; a few of the inhabitants were killed by an explosion of a bombshell. The English, knowing that the nawab, with all his countless forces, was on the side of the French, capitulated, on which the assailants entered the town and took it without the loss of a single life.

Robert Clive, then only a writer in the East India Company's service, was among the persons who agreed to submit to La Bourdonnais, on the express condition that the settlement should be restored on easy and honorable terms. At the time when Madras had reverted to the English, Clive had already exchanged the pen for the sword, and had risen to the rank of a colonel in the East India Company's service. On hearing of the atrocity of the Black Hole the English at Madras immediately despatched a naval and military force, the one under Admiral Watson, and the other under Colonel Clive, to punish the nawab and protect the English at Bengal.

The bravery and "duplicity" of Clive, who believed in the adage, "similia similibus curantur," enabled him to succeed beyond the most sanguine expectations. Victory was followed by victory, and at length, at the battle of Plassey, Clive at the head of three thousand men, of whom less than one-third were English, and in the course of a single hour's conflict, routed the entire army of Surajah Dowlah, consisting of fifty-five thousand armed men. Surajah Dowlah vanquished and deposed, his prime minister, Meer Jaffer, was appointed in the place of the master, whom he had not only deserted, but betrayed, and thus Meer Jaffer became at once the subject and tool of the English.

The directors of the East India Company, on receiving the news of Clive's success, appointed him governor of their possessions in Bengal, and in 1760 Clive was raised to the peerage with an income of forty thousand pounds a year.

Warren Hastings was the next Englishman who from the position of a clerk in an office at Calcutta rose to be the governor-general of British India.

The kingdom of Mysore, whose lofty table-lands are swept by the cool breezes of the Indian Ocean, has always been inhabited by a more hardy and manly race than that which occupied the lower plains of Hindostan. Hyder Alee, an illiterate common soldier, impelled by a daring spirit of adventure, seized this kingdom of Mysore and seated himself on the throne of Seringapatam. The next step taken by this daring adventurer was even more startling. In the month of June, 1780, and when in his eightieth year, he led an immense army into the Carnatic, carrying slaughter and destruction wherever he appeared. Two small English armies, headed by Colonel Baillie and Sir Hector Munro, tried in vain to check his course; they were not only overwhelmed, but compelled to retreat, and it seemed as if the British empire in Southern India trembled on the very verge of destruction. It was this critical juncture that brought out the great genius of Warren Hastings. He at once took upon himself the supreme direction of affairs, superseded the incapable council at Madras, and without loss of time despatched the brave veteran Sir Eyre Coote with a small but resolute force to the assistance of the English at Madras. At once the forces of Hyder Alee were checked, siege after siege was raised, until at length the English and Mohammedan armies met on the plains of Cuddalore, whence, after a desperate fight, the latter was driven in wild and disorderly confusion. Hyder Alee died two years after this defeat, bequeathing to his son, the famous Tippoo Saihib, his throne and his hatred of English domination.

Very shortly after Warren Hastings, impeached by the House of Commons, resigned his office as governor-general of India. Then followed that famous trial which not only extended over seven years, but, when dismissed from the bar of the House of Lords, left Warren Hastings a ruined statesman and an insolvent debtor. The East India Company, however, came to his aid with an annuity of £4000 a year, and a loan, half of which was converted into a gift, of £50,000.

During the administration of the next governor-general, Lord Cornwallis, the implacable Tippoo Saihib suffered a signal defeat. Sir John Shore followed Lord Cornwallis, and was succeeded by the earl of Mornington, the elder brother of the "Iron Duke." He no sooner arrived in India than his attention was called to the intrigues of the French with Tippoo Saihib, who were planning, with the assistance of fresh European troops, to drive the English out of Hindostan. The treachery of Tippoo was anticipated by a declaration of war. On the 5th of March, 1798, a British army, commanded by General Harris, with the aid of several native powers, entered the territory of Mysore, stormed the city of Seringapatam, overthrew the dynasty of Tippoo Sultan, and annexed that magnificent province to the British dominions.