In his despatch to the secret committee of the East India Company after the conclusion of the war with Sindhia, Wellesley describes the consolidation of the British empire and the pacification of all India, as the supreme result of his beneficent rule.[138] That rule was followed by ten years of comparative repose, if not of reaction, but two events, occurring within this period, threw a significant light on the inherent danger of relying too much on a native army under British officers. Sepoy regiments had been raised and had served loyally on both sides in the struggles between the French and English during the eighteenth century. The Bengal sepoys were mostly Rájputs and showed the highest military qualities in many a wearisome march and hard fought field, from the days of Clive to those of Lake and Arthur Wellesley. But outbreaks bordering upon mutiny had occasionally taken place in the native armies of all the presidencies, and on July 10, 1806, a most formidable mutiny, ending in a massacre at Vellore, west of Madras, produced a sense of insecurity throughout all India. It was instigated by the family of Tipú who had been quartered in that fortress, and its immediate origin was the issue of certain vexatious regulations about uniform which offended native prejudices of caste. The European force, numbering some 370, was surprised and surrounded by a much larger body of sepoys, half of them were killed or wounded, and Tipú's standard was hoisted. Within a few hours, however, cavalry and artillery arrived from Arcot, the mutineers were slaughtered by hundreds, and the disaffected regiments were broken up. Three years later, a serious mutiny broke out among the company's own officers at Madras, caused by a petty grievance affecting their profits on tent-contracts. It was appeased rather than suppressed, and, notwithstanding these discouraging symptoms of insecurity, the Company's army retained its separate organisation for half a century longer.
MINTO'S PACIFIC POLICY.
Lord Cornwallis, the successor of Lord Wellesley, was opposed by conviction to a progressive expansion of British territory, and represented not only the cautious views of the home government, but the financial anxieties of the East India Company, which always valued a steady revenue more highly than imperial supremacy. Wellesley had virtually reconstructed the map of India on lines destined to endure until a fresh period of annexation set in some forty years later. These lines were not disturbed by Cornwallis, who died on October 5, 1805, three months after his arrival, but he clearly indicated his desire to let the system of protectorates and subsidiary treaties fall gradually into abeyance. His correspondence with Lake, whose victories had won him the rank of baron, contains a somewhat peremptory warning against fresh engagements contemplated by that enterprising officer, whose vigorous remonstrance he did not live to receive.[139] Sir George Barlow, who became acting governor-general for two years, adopted the same passive attitude, and forebore to carry out a projected alliance with Sindhia, though he would not allow any interference with our paramount influence at Poona and Haidarábád. Lord Minto, father of the Earl of Minto who presided at the admiralty under Melbourne, arrived as governor-general in 1807. He was imbued with similar ideas, and was fortunate in finding the Maráthás too much weakened to be dangerous neighbours. His rule was, therefore, essentially pacific, but he did good service in maintaining internal order, and especially in putting down the organised brigandage, known as "dakáiti," which had been the curse of rural districts. The distinctive feature of his career, however, was a permanent enlargement of the horizon of Indian statesmanship to a sphere beyond the confines of India and even of Asia, a change due to new movements in the vast international conflict then engrossing the energies of Europe.
However chimerical the designs of Napoleon against British India may now appear, there is no doubt that such designs were seriously entertained by him, nor is it self-evident that what Alexander the Great found possible would have proved impossible to one who combined with Alexander's superhuman audacity the command of resources beyond anything known in the ancient world. At all events, after the battle of Friedland and the peace of Tilsit, an expedition to be launched from Russian territory upon the north-west frontier of India, with the support of Persia on the flank, became a contingency which an Indian governor-general could not afford to neglect. It is, indeed, strange that a march across Europe and half of Asia should have appeared to Napoleon more practicable than a voyage across the English Channel, and it is highly improbable that he would have cherished the idea of it, if he could have foreseen the perils of the Russian expedition. But his conversations at St. Helena prove that it was not a mere vision but a half-formed design, and, even after it had been discouraged by Russia, he sent a preliminary mission to Persia. Minto lost no time in sending counter-missions, not only to Tihran, but to Lahore, Afghánistán, and Sind.
The Persian court was already in diplomatic relations with the Indian government. Colonel Malcolm, afterwards Sir John Malcolm, had been sent by Wellesley as envoy to the sháh at the end of 1800, and in January, 1801, a treaty had been signed, establishing free trade between India and Persia, and binding the sháh to exclude the French from his dominions, while the company undertook to provide ships, troops, and stores, in case of French invasion. This treaty, however, neither was nor could have been actively carried out on either side. Early in 1806 the sháh, who had become embroiled with Russia, appealed to Calcutta for aid, regardless of the fact that hostilities with Russia were not a casus fœderis. Failing to obtain it, he appealed to France. Napoleon despatched General Gardane, who arrived in December, 1807. He obtained a treaty under which the sháh engaged to banish all Englishmen on demand of the French emperor. Thereupon Malcolm was entrusted by Minto with a fresh mission, but never reached the Persian capital, where French influence was still paramount, and the peremptory tone of Malcolm's letters was resented. Meanwhile, Sir Harford Jones had been sent out by the British foreign office, and was received at Tihran in February, 1809, the peace of Tilsit having destroyed the Persian hope of French support against Russia. For a while, the right of negotiating with the sháh was in dispute between the Indian government and the foreign office, and Sir John Malcolm reappeared at Tihran in the spring of 1810, as the representative of the former. In the end, however, he co-operated loyally with Jones, and a fresh treaty was signed, though both these rival emissaries were soon afterwards superseded by Sir Gore Ouseley as permanent ambassador.
ELPHINSTONE IN AFGHÁNISTÁN.
Two other envoys selected by Minto left names which are famous in Anglo-Indian history, and one achieved an important success. Charles Metcalfe, Minto's envoy to Lahore, succeeded with the advantage of an armed force within easy reach of the Sikh frontier, in converting into an ally the redoubtable Ranjít Singh (not to be confounded with Ranjít Singh of Bhartpur), who had gathered into his own hands the Sikh confederacy and acquired sovereignty over the whole Punjab. He was now induced not only to accept the Sutlej river as the boundary line of his dominion, but to conclude a treaty of perpetual amity with the British government. This treaty remained unbroken until his death, and stood us in good stead during the perilous crisis of the first Afghán war. The embassy of Mountstuart Elphinstone to Afghánistán was comparatively fruitless, chiefly owing to the unsettled state of that mysterious country. Sháh Shujá, its titular amír, so far from being in a condition to resist French invasion, had lost possession of Kábul and Kandahár, and was only anxious to obtain British aid against his elder brother Mahmúd. Elphinstone, of course, had no authority to entangle the Company in a civil war far beyond the Indian frontier and was obliged to content himself with a worthless treaty empowering Great Britain to defend Afghánistán against France. This treaty had scarcely been ratified when Sháh Shujá himself was driven into exile, to play an ignoble part thirty years later in the great tragedy of the first Afghán war.
However pacific Minto's policy was, he did not shut his eyes to the necessity of guarding the coasts and commerce of India against the enemy who still dominated Europe, and had not wholly abandoned his visions of eastern conquest. We have seen already that the "half way" naval station at the Cape of Good Hope had been retaken from the Dutch in 1806, the year in which the Berlin decree was issued. In 1810 the French were expelled from Java by an expedition despatched under Minto's orders, though it was soon to be restored to Holland. In the same year the islands of Mauritius and Bourbon were captured from the French and the sea route to India was finally secured. Lord Minto, who was recalled in 1813 and raised to the dignity of an earl, left India after six years of peaceful government in a state of tranquillity such as it had never before enjoyed, and the settlement of the country under British suzerainty appeared to have been assured. Yet the seeds of fresh trouble were already working, and his successor was to prove himself a second Wellesley, and add new territories of great extent to British India.
Lord Moira, better known by his later title as Marquis of Hastings, displayed qualities as governor-general of which his previous career had given no indication. He had already proved himself a good soldier, but he was a court favourite as well as a somewhat impracticable politician, and owed his appointment to other influences than his own merit. His arrival in India nearly coincided with the charter of 1813, which threw open the India trade, and virtually ushered in a new social era. He was at once confronted with an empty treasury, on the one hand, and, on the other, with alarming reports both from the northern frontier and from the central provinces, still under independent princes of doubtful fidelity. The earlier part of his nine years' residence in India was engrossed by most harassing operations against the Nepálís and the Pindárís, but these operations resulted in perfect success, and Hastings was able to show before he left India that he was eminent alike in civil and in military administration.
The mountainous region of Nepál, lying on the slopes of the Himálayas north of Bengal and Oudh, had been occupied by the warlike nation, still known as the Gúrkhas, whose capital was at Khátmándu. Like the Maráthás, they had been in the habit of pillaging British territory as well as Oudh, and when part of Oudh was annexed by Wellesley, frontier disputes were added to former grounds of hostility. Minto remonstrated with them sharply but in vain, and Moira lost no time in declaring war against them. The first campaign of 1814, which followed, though skilfully conceived by Moira, who held the office of commander-in-chief, was carried out with little generalship, and was marked by disasters highly damaging to British prestige. Three out of four armies launched against the hill-tribes met with serious reverses, chiefly due to a contempt for the enemy, and a persistence in making frontal assaults on strong positions without practicable breaches, which have proved so fatal in many a later conflict between British troops and undisciplined foes. During the cold season, however, on the extreme north-west, the cautious but irresistible advance of General Ochterlony penetrated the hill ranges which had baffled all the other commanders, and retrieved the fortunes of the war. The Gúrkhas were far, indeed, from being subdued, but Ochterlony's success among their strongest fastnesses, aided by that of Colonels Gardner and Nicholls in the district of Kumáun, induced them to sue for peace, and offer territorial cessions. The loss of the Tarái, or belt of forest interspersed with pastures at the foot of the Himálayas, was the most onerous of the conditions imposed upon them by the treaty of Almora, signed in 1815. Rather than submit to it, the Gúrkha chiefs refused to ratify the treaty, and resumed their arms. After two defeats, however, in February, 1816, they abandoned further resistance, and Moira afterwards wisely consented to a modification of the frontier-line. Retaining but a remnant of their dominions in the lowlands, the Gúrkhas have ever since preserved their independence with their military training in the highlands, and have contributed some of the best fighting material to the British army in India.