India Through the Ages: A Popular and Picturesque History of Hindustan

by Flora Annie Webster Steel

There was a Supreme Court in Calcutta, and Nuncomâr had, amongst other and many villainies (for he was known to be a desperate and unprincipled intriguer), a bad habit of forgery.

He had been on trial for this once before, and Hastings had interfered for his release. Now he let the law take its course, and Râjah Nuncomâr, duly tried and sentenced, suffered the extreme penalty, for forgery was then in England a hanging matter.

The execution had immediate effect. The crowd of native informers ready to pour their lies into the ears of the Triumvirate disappeared as if by magic, but the animosity remained; and in the years to come the death of Nuncomâr was used with immense effect in the great impeachment.

Meanwhile, the Nawâb of Oude had died, and his son reigned in his stead. Out of this arose fresh disputes on the Council. The Triumvirate being all for imposing exceedingly harsh terms on the new Nawâb, Asaf-daula; Mr Hastings refusing to sanction what was "no equitable construction of the treaty with the late Nawâb," and was indeed an extortion which the new ruler had "no power to fulfil."

The Directors at home, however, continuing their career of persistent greed, after first refusing to agree with the Triumvirate on the ground that "their treaties with Oude did not expire with the death of Sûjah-daula," suddenly changed their opinion when they realised the immense pecuniary advantage to be derived from the new arrangement. The extortion, therefore, was carried out, Mr Hastings protesting. And now two new problems arose: one in Madras, one in Bombay, both presidencies being subordinate to that of Calcutta. The first concerned the re-installing of the Râjah of Tanjore, which country had been made over to the Nawâb of the Carnatic. This was a quarrel which, like a snowball, grew as it went along, and ended in most extraordinary fashion, by the arrest and imprisonment of Lord Pigot, the Governor of Madras, at the hands of a vice-admiral of the Fleet! The bewildering complexity of complication in the whole case would take pages to unravel, and the result--the death of one poor old man (for Lord Pigot succumbed to the ignominious treatment meted out to him)--would no doubt, in the opinion of the Directors, scarcely justify the expenditure of so much pen and paper.

The trouble in Bombay arose out of the taking of Salsette, and involved conflict with the Mahrattas, who had persisted in refusing possession of it to the English.

The state of affairs amongst the Mahrattas was at this time confusion itself. Râgonâth-Rao had been made regent by Bâji-Rao, who, it will be remembered, had died during his son's minority of grief, after the fatal day of Pânipat. The boy Peishwa had since been murdered; conspirators had declared that his wife had borne a son; claims and counterclaims, intrigue and counter-intrigue, had reduced the Mahratta Government to an invertebrate condition, which the Bombay Council considered favourable to their earnest desire to keep the Portuguese from again acquiring the peninsula (or island) of Salsette, which virtually commands the harbour at Bombay. They therefore temporarily annexed Salsette, and made its cession the foundation of an offer to aid Râgonâth-Rao (commonly called Râgoba), who was then in very low water, against the opposite faction. The temptation was great; a treaty was signed, by which the East India Company, in addition to gaining Salsette and Bassein, were to be paid £225,000.

But here the Supreme Council at Calcutta intervened--why, it is impossible to say--declared in one breath that the treaty with Râgoba was "unpolitic, unreasonable, unjust, and unauthorised," and advised one with the opposite faction.

The quarrel, as usual, becomes complicated in the extreme, and is rendered more confused than it need have been, even in those days of bewilderment, by the double interference from Calcutta and from England. Considering that about six months was necessary to secure a reply from the former place, and about two years from the latter, it is marvellous how any action at all could be decided upon. In the end, however, a treaty was signed with Râgoba's enemies, which raised great indignation in Bombay, not because it involved any breach of honour, but because it brought in less to the Treasury.

Warren Hastings, however, was now busy over financial reforms, and despite the quibbling and captious criticism of the Triumvirate, evolved a scheme which showed real grip of the problem at issue, as indeed might have been expected from a man of his intelligence and vast Indian experience. It was, however, rejected by the Three, who at the same time excused themselves from suggesting any other scheme, because they were not "sufficiently qualified by local observation and experience to undertake so difficult a task."