A history of England

by Charles Oman

Extinction of the Pindarees.

The Nepaul war having ended in 1815, Hastings took a larger matter in hand: the dominions of our vassal the Nizam and of the other princes of Central India were much vexed by the Pindarees, organized bands of marauders—like the free companies of the Middle Ages—who found harbourage in the territories of the Mahrattas, and, when not employed in the civil wars of those chiefs, plundered on their own account all over the Deccan. Under a great captain of adventurers named Cheetoo, these hordes became a public danger to all India. Hastings had them hunted down and destroyed by armies which started simultaneously from Madras, Bengal, and Bombay. They were completely exterminated, and their leader Cheetoo fled alone to the jungle, and was devoured by a tiger.

The third Mahratta war.

The Pindarees had long received the secret countenance of the Mahratta chiefs, and while the British were still engaged in chasing the marauders, three of the great chiefs of Western India took arms. The Peishwa Bajee Rao was anxious to free himself from the dependence which Wellesley had imposed on him in 1801. He conspired with the Rajah of Berar and the regents who ruled for the young Holkar. But the event of the third Mahratta war (1817-18) was not for a moment doubtful. The allied chiefs never succeeded in joining each other: Bajee Rao was defeated in front of Poona by a mere handful of British troops, and after long wanderings was forced to lay down his arms and surrender. The army of the Holkar state was routed, after a much harder struggle, at Mehidpore; the hordes of the Rajah of Berar fled before 1500 British troops at Seetabuldee. Each of the confederates fought for his own hand without aid from his neighbour, and all alike were crushed.

The campaign of 1817-18 made an end of the independence of the Mahrattas. The Peishwa's whole realm was annexed to the Bombay presidency: he himself was sent to live on a government pension at Cawnpore, far away in Oude. One third of the dominions of Holkar was confiscated; the Rajah of Berar was deposed. Stringent terms of subjection were imposed on both their states. All the Mahratta principalities now came under British control, for Scindiah and the Gaikwar of Baroda, who had taken no part in the war, consented to sign treaties which made them the vassals of the Company. The same position was gladly assumed by the chiefs of Rajputana, who had suffered many ills at the hands of their Mahratta neighbours, and were only too glad to gain immunity from assault under the protection of the Company's flag. In all India only the realm of Runjit Singh beyond the Sutlej was now outside the sphere of British influence.

Internal tranquillity.—The Burmese war.

Owing to the wisdom of that aged prince, it was to be yet many years before the English and the Sikhs came into collision. For some years after the victories of Lord Hastings in 1817-18, India enjoyed a term of comparative peace. Lord Amherst and Lord William Bentinck, the two next Governor-Generals, were more noted for the internal reforms which they carried out than for the wars which they waged. The only important annexation of the period 1823-35 resulted from a struggle with a power which lay altogether outside the bounds of India. The King of Burmah assailed the eastern limits of Bengal and was punished by being deprived of Assam and Aracan.

Reforms of Lord Amherst and Lord W. Bentinck.

But the times of Lord Amherst and Lord William Bentinck have a far better distinction from the liberal measures of reform which they introduced than from any annexations. The latter Governor-General, a man of a strong will and a very enlightened mind, put down the horrible practice of suttee, or widow-burning, and crushed the Thugs, the disguised gang-robbers who infested the roads and took life half for plunder and half as a religious Sacrifice. He lent his support to Christian missions, which the Company had hitherto discouraged, from a dread of offending native susceptibilities. He introduced steamships on the Ganges, and worked out a scheme for the carrying of the mails to Europe by way of the Red Sea and the short overland journey from Suez to Alexandria. But this wise plan was not finally adopted till many years after.

Renewal of the Company's charter.