History for ready reference, Volume 3, Greece to Nibelungen

by J. N. Larned

Indus, but not the Ganges. Even the name by which the Aryas
denote the land to the south of the Vindhyas, Dakshinapatha
(Deccan), i. e., path to the right, confirms the fact already
established, that the Aryas came from the west. From this it
is beyond a doubt that the Aryas, descending from the heights
of Iran, first occupied the valley of the Indus and the five
tributary streams, which combine and flow into the river from
the north-east, and they spread as far as they found pastures
and arable land, i. e., as far eastward as the desert which
separates the valley of the Indus from the Ganges. The river
which irrigated their land, watered their pastures, and shaped
the course of their lives they called Sindhu (in Pliny,
Sindus), i. e., the river. It is, no doubt, the region of the
Indus, with the Panjab, which is meant in the Avesta by the
land hapta hindu (hendu), i. e., the seven streams. The
inscriptions of Darius call the dwellers on the Indus Idhus.
These names the Greeks render by Indos and Indoi. … Products
of India, and among them such as do not belong to the land of
the Indus, were exported from the land about 1000 B. C., under
names given to them by the Aryas, and therefore the Aryas must
have been settled there for centuries previously. For this
reason, and it is confirmed by facts which will appear further
on, we may assume that the Aryas descended into the valley of
the Indus about the year 2000 B. C., i. e., about the time
when the kingdom of Elam was predominant in the valley of the
Euphrates and Tigris, when Assyria still stood under the
dominion of Babylon, and the kingdom of Memphis was ruled by
the Hyksos. … The oldest evidence of the life of the Aryas,
whose immigration into the region of the Indus and settlement
there we have been able to fix about 2000 B. C., is given in a
collection of prayers and hymns of praise, the Rigveda, i. e.,
'the knowledge of thanksgiving.' It is a selection or
collection of poems and invocations in the possession of the
priestly families, of hymns and prayers arising in these
families, and sung and preserved by them. … We can ascertain
with exactness the region in which the greater number of these
poems grew up. The Indus is especially the object of praise:
the 'seven rivers' are mentioned as the dwelling-place of the
Aryas. This aggregate of seven is made up of the Indus itself
and the five streams which unite and flow into it from the
east—the Vitasta, Asikni, Iravati, Vipaça, Çatadru. The
seventh river is the Sarasvati, which is expressly named 'the
seven-sistered.' The land of the seven rivers is, as has
already been remarked, known to the Iranians. The 'Sapta
sindhava' of the Rigveda are, no doubt, the hapta hendu of the
Avesta, and in the form Harahvaiti, the Arachotus of the Greeks,
we again find the Sarasvati in the east of the table-land of
Iran.
{1703}
As the Yamuna and the Ganges are only mentioned in passing …
and the Vindhya mountains and Narmadas are not mentioned at
all, the conclusion is certain that, at the time when the
songs of the Aryas were composed, the nation was confined to
the land of the Panjab, though they may have already begun to
move eastward beyond the valley of the Sarasvati. We gather
from the songs of the Rigveda that the Aryas on the Indus were
not one civic community. They were governed by a number of
princes (raja). Some of these ruled on the bank of the Indus,
others in the neighbourhood of the Sarasvati. They sometimes
combined; they also fought not against the Dasyus only, but
against each other."
M. Duncker,
History of Antiquity,
book 5, chapters 1-2 (volume 4).
"When the Indian branch of the Aryan family settled down in
the land of the seven rivers. … now the Panjab, about the
15th century B. C., their religion was still nature-worship.
It was still adoration of the forces which were everywhere in
operation around them for production, destruction, and
reproduction. But it was physiolatry developing itself more
distinctly into forms of Theism, Polytheism, Anthropomorphism,
and Pantheism. The phenomena of nature were thought of as
something more than radiant beings, and something more than
powerful forces. … They were addressed as kings, fathers,
guardians, friends, benefactors, guests. They were invoked in
formal hymns and prayers (mantras), in set metres (chandas).
These hymns were composed in an early form of the Sanskrit
language, at different times—perhaps during several
centuries, from the 15th to the 10th B. C.—by men of light
and leading (Rishis) among the Indo-Aryan immigrants, who were
afterwards held in the highest veneration as patriarchal
saints. Eventually the hymns were believed to have been
directly revealed to, rather than composed by, these Rishis,
and were then called divine knowledge (Veda), or the eternal
word heard (sruti), and transmitted by them. These Mantras or
hymns were arranged in three principal collections or
continuous texts (Samhitas). The first and earliest was called
the Hymn-veda (Rig-veda). It was a collection of 1,017 hymns,
arranged for mere reading or reciting. This was the first
bible of the Hindu religion, and the special bible of Vedism.
… Vedism was the earliest form of the religion of the Indian
branch of the great Aryan family. … Brahmanism grew out of
Vedism. It taught the merging of all the forces of Nature in
one universal spiritual Being—the only real Entity—which,
when unmanifested and impersonal, was called Brahma (neuter);
when manifested as a personal creator, was called Brahmā
(masculine); and when manifested in the highest order of men,
was called Brāhmana ('the Brāhmans'). Brahmanism was rather a
philosophy than a religion, and in its fundamental doctrine
was spiritual Pantheism. Hinduism grew out of Brahmanism. It
was Brahmanism, so to speak, run to seed and spread out into a
confused tangle of divine personalities and incarnations. …
Yet Hinduism is distinct from Brahmanism, and chiefly in
this—that it takes little account of the primordial,
impersonal Being Brahma, and wholly neglects its personal
manifestation Brahmā, substituting, in place of both Brahma
and Brahmā., the two popular personal deities Siva and Vishnu.
Be it noted, however, that the employment of the term Hinduism
is wholly arbitrary and confessedly unsatisfactory. Unhappily
there is no other expression sufficiently comprehensive. …
Hinduism is Brahmanism modified by the creeds and
superstitions of Buddhists [see below: B. C. 312—] and
Non-Aryan races of all kinds, including Dravidians, Kolarians,
and perhaps pre-Kolarian aborigines. It has even been modified
by ideas imported from the religions of later conquering
races, such as Islam and Christianity."
M. Williams,
Religious Thought and Life in India,
part 1, chapter 1, and introduction.
ALSO IN:
R. Mitra,
Indo-Aryans.
F. Max Müller,
History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature.
F. Max Müller, editor,
Sacred Books of the East,
volume. 1, and others.
A. Barth,
Religions of India.
Rig-Veda Sanhita,
translated by H. H. Wilson.
See, also,
ARYANS.
INDIA: 6th Century, B. C.
Invasion of Darius.
See PERSIA: B. C.621-493.
INDIA: B. C. 327-312.
Invasion and conquests of Alexander the Great.
Expulsion of the Greeks.
Rise of the empire of Chandragupta.
"The year B. C. 327 marks an important era in the history of
India. More than two centuries are supposed to have elapsed
since the death of Gotama Buddha. The great empire of Magadha
was apparently falling into anarchy, but Brahmanism and
Buddhism were still expounding their respective dogmas on the
banks of the Ganges. At this juncture Alexander of Macedon was
leading an army of Greeks down the Cabul river towards the
river Indus, which at that time formed the western frontier of
the Punjab.
See MACEDONIA: B. C. 330-323.
… The design of Alexander was to conquer all the regions
westward of the Indus, including the territory of Cabul, and
then to cross the Indus in the neighbourhood of Attock, and
march through the Punjab in a south-easterly direction,
crossing all the tributary rivers on his way; and finally to
pass down the valley of the Ganges and Jumna, via Delhi and
Agra, and conquer the great Gangetic empire of Magadha or
Pataliputra between the ancient cities of Prayaga and Gour.
… After crossing the Indus, there were at least three
kingdoms in the Punjab to be subdued one after the other,
namely;—that of Taxiles between the Indus and the Jhelum;
that of Porus the elder between the Jhelum and the Chenab; and
that of Porus the younger between the Chenab and the Ravee.
… When Alexander had fully established his authority in
Cabul he crossed the Indus into the Punjab. Here he halted
some time at the city of Taxila [Taxiles, the king, having
submitted in advance], and then marched to the river Jhelum,
and found that Porus the elder was encamped on the opposite
bank with a large force of cavalry and infantry, together with
chariots and elephants. The decisive battle which followed on
the Jhelum is one of the most remarkable actions in ancient
story. … Porus fought with a valour which excited the
admiration of Alexander, but was at last wounded and compelled
to fly. Ultimately he was induced to tender his submission.
… The victory over Porus established the ascendancy of
Alexander in the Punjab." It "not only decided the question
between himself and Porus, but enabled him to open up a new
communication with Persia, via the river Indus and the Indian
Ocean.
{1704}
He sent out woodmen to cut timber for ship-building in the
northern forests, and to float it down the Jhelum; and he
founded two cities, Bukephalia and Nikæa, one on each side of
the Jhelum. … Whilst the fleet was being constructed,
Alexander continued his march to the Chenab, and crossed that
river into the dominions of Porus the younger," who fled at
his approach, and whose kingdom was made over to the elder
Porus, his uncle. "Alexander next crossed the Ravee, when he
was called back by" a revolt in his rear, which he suppressed.
"But meantime the Macedonians had grown weary of their
campaign in India. … They … resisted every attempt to lead
them beyond the Sutlej; and Alexander, making a virtue of
necessity, at last consulted the oracles and found that they
were unfavourable to an onward movement. … He returned with
his army to the Jhelum, and embarked on board the fleet with a
portion of his troops, whilst the remainder of his army
marched along either bank. In this manner he proceeded almost
due south through the Punjab and Scinde. … At last he
reached the Indian Ocean, and beheld for the first time the
phenomena of the tides; and then landed his army and marched
through Beloochistan towards Susa, whilst Nearchos conducted
the fleet to the Persian Gulf, and finally joined him in the
same city. … Alexander had invaded the Punjab during the
rainy season of B. C. 327, and reached the Indian Ocean about
the middle of B. C. 326. Meantime Philip remained at Taxila as
his lieutenant or deputy, and commanded a garrison of
mercenaries and a body-guard of Macedonians. When Alexander
was marching through Beloochistan, on his way to Susa, the
news reached him that Philip had been murdered by the
mercenaries, but that nearly all the murderers had been slain
by the Macedonian body-guards. Alexander immediately
despatched letters directing the Macedonian Eudemos to carry
on the government in conjunction with Taxiles, until he could
appoint another deputy; and this provisional arrangement seems
to have been continued until the death of Alexander in B. C.
323. The political anarchy which followed this catastrophe can
scarcely be realized. … India was forgotten. Eudemos took
advantage of the death of Alexander to murder Porus; but was
ultimately driven out of the Punjab with all his Macedonians
by an adventurer who was known to the Greeks as Sandrokottos,
and to the Hindus as Chandragupta. This individual is said to
have delivered India from a foreign yoke only to substitute
his own. … By the aid of banditti he captured the city of
Patali-putra, and obtained the throne; and then drove the
Greeks out of India, and established his empire over the whole
of Hindustan and the Punjab."
J. T. Wheeler,
History of India: Hindu, Buddhist and Brahmanical,
chapter 4.
ALSO IN:
Arrian,
Anabasis of Alexander
(translated by Chinnock),
books 4-6.
T. A. Dodge,
Alexander,
chapters 38-43.
INDIA: B. C. 312
Chandragupta and Asoka.
The spread of Buddhism and its Brahmanic absorption.
"The first tolerably trustworthy date in Indian history is the
era of Candra-gupta (=Sandro-kottus) the founder of the Maurya
dynasty, who, after making himself master of Pataliputra
(Palibothra, Patna) and the kingdom of Magadha (Behar),
extended his dominion over all Hindustan, and presented a
determined front towards Alexander's successor Seleukos
Nikator, the date of the commencement of whose reign was about
312 B. C. When the latter contemplated invading India from his
kingdom of Bactria, so effectual was the resistance offered by
Candra-gupta that the Greek thought it politic to form an
alliance with the Hindu king, and sent his own countryman
Megasthenes as an ambassador to reside at his court. To this
circumstance we owe the first authentic account of Indian
manners, customs, and religious usages by an intelligent
observer who was not a native, and this narrative of
Megasthenes, preserved by Strabo, furnishes a basis on which
we may found a fair inference that Brahmanism and Buddhism
existed side by side in India on amicable terms in the fourth
century B. C. There is even ground for believing that King
Candra-gupta himself was in secret a Buddhist, though in
public he paid homage to the gods of the Brahmans; at any
rate, there can be little doubt that his successor Asoka did
for Buddhism what Constantine did for Christianity—gave an
impetus to its progress by adopting it as his own creed.
Buddhism, then, became the state religion, the national faith
of the whole kingdom of Magadha, and therefore of a great
portion of India. This Asoka is by some regarded as identical
with Candra-gupta; at any rate, their characters and much of
their history are similar. He is probably the same as King
Priyadarsi, whose edicts on stone pillars enjoining 'Dharma,'
or the practice of virtue and universal benevolence, are
scattered over India from Katak in the east and Gujarat in the
west to Allahabad, Delhi, and Afghanistan on the north-west.
What then is Buddhism? It is certainly not Brahmanism, yet it
arose out of Brahmanism, and from the first had much in common
with it. Brahmanism and Buddhism are closely interwoven with
each other, yet they are very different from each other.
Brahmanism is a religion which may be described as all
theology, for it makes God everything, and everything God.
Buddhism is no religion at all, and certainly no theology, but
rather a system of duty, morality, and benevolence, without
real deity, prayer or priest. The name Buddha is simply an
epithet meaning the perfectly enlightened one,' or rather one
who, by perfect knowledge of the truth, is liberated from all
existence, and who, before his own attainment of Nirvana, or
'extinction,' reveals to the world the method of obtaining it.
The Buddha with whom we are concerned was only the last of a
series of Buddhas who had appeared in previous cycles of the
universe. He was born at Kapila-vastu, a city and kingdom at
the foot of the mountains of Nepal, his father Suddhodana
being the king of that country, and his mother Maya-devi being
the daughter of King Suprabuddha. Hence he belonged to the
Kshatriya class, and his family name was Sakya, while his name
of Gautama (or Gotama) was taken from that of his tribe. He is
said to have arrived at supreme knowledge under the Bodhi
tree, or 'tree of wisdom' (familiarly called' the Bo tree'),
at Gaya, in Behar (Magadha), about the year 588 B. C., and to
have commenced propagating the new faith at Benares soon
afterwards. … Buddhism was a protest against the tyranny of
Brahmanism and caste. According to the Buddha, all men are
equal.
{1705}
… We have five marked features of Buddhism:
1. disregard of all caste distinctions;
2. abolition of animal sacrifice and of vicarious suffering;
3. great stress laid on the doctrine of transmigration;
4. great importance assigned to self-mortification, austerity,
and abstract meditation, as an aid to the suppression of all
action;
5. concentration of all human desires on the absolute
extinction of all being.
There is still a sixth, which is perhaps the most noteworthy
of all; viz., that the Buddha recognized no supreme deity. The
only god, he affirmed, is what man himself can become. A
Buddhist, therefore, never really prays, he only meditates on
the perfections of the Buddha and the hope of attaining
Nirvana. … Brahmanism and Buddhism [in India] appear to have
blended, or, as it were, melted into each other, after each
had reciprocally parted with something, and each had imparted
something. At any rate it may be questioned whether Buddhism
was ever forcibly expelled from any part of India by direct
persecution, except, perhaps, in a few isolated centres of
Brahmanical fanaticism, such as the neighbourhood of Benares.
Even in Benares the Chinese traveller, Hiouen Thsang, found
Brahmanism and Buddhism flourishing amicably side by side in
the 7th century of our era. In the South of India the Buddha's
doctrines seem to have met with acceptance at an early date,
and Ceylon was probably converted as early as B. C. 240, soon
after the third Buddhist council held under King Asoka. In
other parts of India there was probably a period of
Brahmanical hostility, and perhaps of occasional persecution;
but eventually Buddhism was taken by the hand, and drawn back
into the Brahmanical system by the Brahmans themselves, who
met it half way and ended by boldly adopting the Buddha as an
incarnation of Vishnu. … Only a small section of the
Buddhist community resisted all conciliation, and these are
probably represented by the present sect of Jains [who are
found in large numbers in various parts of India, especially
on the western coast]. Be the actual state of the case as it
may, nothing can be clearer than the fact that Buddhism has
disappeared from India (the island of Ceylon being excepted),
and that it has not done so without having largely contributed
towards the moulding of Brahmanism into the Hinduism of the
present day."
M. Williams,
Hinduism,
chapter 6.
ALSO IN:
M. Williams (now Sir Monier Monier-Williams),
Buddhism.
H. Oldenburg,
Buddha.
P. Bigandet,
Life and Legend of Gaudama.
A. Lillie,
Buddha and the Early Buddhists.
W. W. Rockhill,
The Life of the Buddha.
INDIA: A. D. 977-1290.
Under the Ghaznavide and Mameluke empires.
"Aryan civilisation was … germinating, but it was in
uncongenial soil. Like the descendants of Abraham and Jacob,
the invaders mingled with the heathen and learned their ways.
The older inhabitants were barbarous, multilingual, indolent;
worshippers less of many gods than of many devils. The fusion
that ensued was not happy; though the origin and growth of the
caste system prevented complete union, it facilitated some of
its evils; the character of the Aryan settlers became
disastrously affected; the want of commercial communication by
land and sea tended to perpetuate stagnation. This was the
state of things upon which the rising tide from Central Asia
began to flow with resistless pertinacity after the
Mongolo-Turkish power became established on the Oxus and the
Helmand. It was not to be wondered at if the Arabs made no
wide or lasting Indian conquests in the early ages of the
Musulman era. At a time when they were engaged with the
Christian Empires of the East and the West, when they were
spreading the power of the crescent from the borders of
Khorásán to the Pillars of Hercules, the warriors of Islam had
perhaps but little temptation to undertake further adventure.
Certain it is that beyond the confines of Makran and a part of
Sindh (occupied less than a hundred years after the
Hijra)—the Arab conquests did not spread in India. It was
Nasir-ud-Din Sabuktigin—certainly a Merv captive and
popularly believed a scion of the Sassanian dynasty that once
ruled Persia—by whom the first Muslim invasion of Hindustan
was made in durable fashion. His master, Alptigin, having fled
from the oppression of the Samani dynasty of Bukhara in 962 A.
D., had founded a principality at Ghazni. Sabuktigin acquired
his favour, and was able, soon after his death, to acquire the
succession in 977 A. D. He established his power in the
Punjab; and his armies are said to have penetrated as far as
Benares. On his death, 997 A. D., his son, the celebrated
Sultan Mahmud, succeeded to the Empire extending from Balkh to
Lahore, if not to Hansi [see TURKS: A. D. 999-1183]. During a
reign of over thirty years he invaded Hindustan twelve times,
inflicting terrible carnage on the Hindus, desecrating their
idols, and demoralising their temples. Mathura, Kanauj,
Somnath; to such distant and divergent points did his
enterprises reach. Mahmud died 1030 A. D., and was buried at
Ghazni, where his monument is still to be seen. For about one
hundred years the dynasty continued to rule in the Punjab and
Afghanistan, more and more troubled by the neighbouring tribe
of Ghor, who in 1187 A. D. took Lahore and put an end to the
Ghaznavide dynasty. A prince of the Ghorians—variously known,
but whose name may be taken as Muhammad Bin Sam—was placed in
a sort of almost independent viceroyalty at Ghazni. In 1191 A.
D. he led an army against Sirhind, south of the Sutlaj river.
Rai Pithaura, or Pirthi Rai, a chief of the Chauhans (who had
lately possessed themselves of Dehli), marched against the
invaders and defeated them in a battle where Bin Sam had a
narrow escape from being slain. But the sturdy mountaineers
would not be denied. Next year they returned" and defeated
Pithaura. "The towns of Mirat and Dehli fell upon his defeat;
and their fall was followed a year later by that of Kanauj and
Benares. The Viceroy's brother dying at this juncture, he
repaired to his own country to establish his succession. He
was killed in an expedition, 1206 A. D., and the affairs of
Hindustan devolved upon his favourite Mameluke, Kutb-ud-din
Aibak. … When Muhammad bin Sam had gone away, to rule and
ultimately to perish by violence in his native highlands, his
acquisitions in Hindustan came under the sway of Kutb-ud-din
Aibak, a Mameluke, or Turkish slave, who had for a long time
been his faithful follower. One of the Viceroy's first
undertakings was to level to the ground the palaces and
temples of the Hindus at Dehli, and to build, with the
materials obtained by their destruction, a great Mosque for
the worship of Allah. … From 1192 to 1206, the year of Bin
Sam's death, Kutb-ud-din Aibak ruled as Viceroy.
{1706}
But it is recorded that the next Emperor—feeling the
difficulty, perhaps, of exercising any sort of rule over so
remote a dependency—sent Aibak a patent as 'Sultan,'
accompanied by a canopy of state, a throne and a diadem.
Becoming Sultan of Hindustan, the distinguished and fortunate
Mameluke founded what is known as 'the Slave dynasty.' …
Aibak died at Lahore, in 1210, from an accident at a game now
known as 'polo.' He was contemporaneous with the great Mughul
leader Changiz Khan, by whom, however, he was not molested.
The chief event of his reign is to be found in his successful
campaigns in Behar and Northern Bengal. … The Musulman power
was not universally and firmly established in the Eastern
Provinces till the reign of Balban (circ. 1282). At the death
of Aibak the Empire was divided into four great portions. The
Khiljis represented the power of Islam in Bihar and Bengal;
the North-West Punjab was under a viceroy named Ilduz, a
Turkman slave; the valley of the Indus was ruled by another of
these Mamelukes, named Kabacha; while an attempt was made at
Dehli to proclaim an incompetent lad, son of the deceased, as
Sultan. But the Master of the Horse, a third Mameluke named
Altimsh, was close at hand, and, hurrying up at the invitation
of influential persons there, speedily put down the movement.
… Altimsh, having deposed his feeble brother-in-law, became
Suzerain of the Empire. His satraps were not disposed to
obedience; and bloody wars broke out, into the details of
which we need not enter. It will be sufficient to note that
Ilduz was defeated and slain A. D. 1215. Two years later
Kabacha came up from Sindh, and seems [to] have enlisted some
of the Mughul hordes in his armies. These formidable
barbarians, of whom more anon, were now in force in Khorasan,
under Changiz in person, assisted by two of his sons.
See MONGOLS: A. D. 1153-1227.
They drove before them the Sultan of Khwarizm (now Khiva), and
occupied Afghanistan. The fugitive, whose adventures are among
the most romantic episodes of Eastern history, attempted to
settle himself in the Panjab; but he was driven out by Altimsh
and Kabacha in 1223. Two years later Altimsh moved on the
Khiljis in the Eastern Provinces, occupied Gaur, their
capital; and proceeding from thence made further conquests
south and north at the expense of the Hindus. In 1228 he
turned against Kabacha, the mighty Satrap of Sindh, who was
routed in battle near Bakkhar, where he committed suicide or
was accidentally drowned. In 1232-3 the Sultan reduced Gwalior
(in spite of a stout resistance on the part of the Hindus
under Milak Deo), slaying 700 prisoners at the door of his
tent. In 1234 he took the province of Malwa; where he
demolished the great temples of Bhilsa and Ujain. In the
following year this puissant warrior of the Crescent succumbed
to the common conqueror, dying a natural death at Dehli, after
a glorious reign of twenty-six (lunar) years. … His eldest
son, who had conducted the war against the Khiljis, had died
before him, and the Empire was assumed by a younger son,
Rukn-ud-din Firoz. … [In 1241] Lahore was taken by the
Mughols with terrific carnage. Troubles ensued; Dehli was
besieged by the army that had been raised for its defence
against the Mughols; in May 1242 the city was taken by storm
and the new Sultan was slain. His successor, Ala-uddin I., was
a grandson of Altimsh, incompetent and apathetic as young men
in his position have usually been. The land was partitioned
among Turkish satraps, and overrun by the Mughols, who
penetrated as far as Gaur in Bengal. Another horde, led by
Mangu, grandson of Changiz, and father of the celebrated
Kiblai Khan, ravaged the Western Punjab. The Sultan marched
against them and met with a partial success. This turned into
evil courses the little intellect that he had, a plot was
organised for his destruction. Ala-ud-din was slain, and his
uncle Nasir-ud-din was placed upon the vacant throne in June
1246. Nasir's reign was long, and, so far as his personal
exploits went, would have been uneventful. But the risings of
the Hindus and the incursions of the Mughols kept the Empire
in perpetual turmoil." Nasir was succeeded in 1286-7 by his
grandson, Kai Kobad. "This unfortunate young man was destined
to prove the futility of human wisdom. Educated by his stern
and serious grandfather, his lips had never touched those of a
girl or a goblet. His sudden elevation turned his head. He
gave himself up to debauchery, caused his cousin Khusru to be
murdered, and was himself ultimately killed in his palace at
Kilokhari, while lying sick of the palsy. With his death
(1290) came to an end the Mameluke Empire of Hindustan."
H. G. Keene,
Sketch of the History of Hindustan,
book 1, chapters 1-2.
ALSO IN:
J. T. Wheeler,
History of India,
volume 4, part 1, chapter 2.
A. Dow,
History of Hindustan
(from the Persian of Ferishta),
volume 1.
INDIA: A. D. 1290-1398.
From the Afghans to the Moghuls.
"In 1290 the last Sultan of the Afghan slave dynasty was
assassinated, and a Sultan ascended the throne at Delhi under
the name of Jelal-ud-din. He was an old man of seventy, and
made no mark in history; but he had a nephew, named
Ala-ud-din, who became a man of renown," and who presently
acquired the throne by murdering his uncle. "When Ala-ud-din
was established on the throne at Delhi he sent an army to
conquer Guzerat." This conquest was followed by that of
Rajputana. "Meanwhile the Moghuls [Mongols] were very
troublesome. In the previous reign the uncle of Ala-ud-din had
enlisted 3,000, and settled them near Delhi; but they were
turbulent, refractory, and mixed up with every rebellion.
Ala-ud-din ordered them to be disbanded, and then they tried
to murder him. Ala-ud-din then ordered a general massacre.
Thousands are said to have been put to death, and their wives
and children were sold into slavery. Ala-ud-din was the first
Muhammadan sovereign who conquered Hindu Rajas in the Dekhan
and Peninsula. … Ala-ud-din sent his general Malik Kafur to
invade these southern countries, ransack temples, and carry
off treasure and tribute. The story is a dreary narrative of
raid and rapine. … Ala-ud-din died in 1316. His death was
followed by a Hindu revolt; indeed Hindu influences must have
been at work at Delhi for many years previously. Ala-ud-din
had married a Hindu queen; his son had married her daughter.
Malik Kafur was a Hindu converted to Islam. The leader of the
revolt at Delhi in 1316 was another Hindu convert to Islam.
The proceedings of the latter rebel, however, were of a mixed
character. He was proclaimed Sultan under a Muhammadan name,
and slaughtered every male of the royal house. Meanwhile his
Hindu followers set up idols in the mosques, and seated
themselves on Korans.
{1707}
The rebels held possession of Delhi for five months. At the
end of that time the city was captured by the Turkish governor
of the Punjab, named Tughlak. The conqueror then ascended the
throne of Delhi, and founded the dynasty of Tughlak Sultans.
The Tughlak Sultans would not live at Delhi; they probably
regarded it as a Hindu volcano. They held their court at
Tughlakabad, a strong fortress about an hour's drive from old
Delhi. The transfer of the capital from Delhi to Tughlakabad
is a standpoint in history. It shows that a time had come when
the Turk began to fear the Hindu. The conqueror of Delhi died
in 1325. He was succeeded by a son who has left his mark in
history. Muhammad Tughlak was a Sultan of grand ideas, but
blind to all experiences, and deaf to all counsels. He sent
his armies into the south to restore the Muhammadan supremacy
which had been shaken by the Hindu revolt. Meanwhile the
Moghuls invaded the Punjab, and Muhammad Tughlak bribed them
to go away with gold and jewels. Thus the imperial treasury
was emptied of all the wealth which had been accumulated by
Ala-ud-din. The new Sultan tried to improve his finances, but
only ruined the country by his exactions. … Then followed
rebellions and revolutions. Bengal revolted, and became a
separate kingdom under an independent Sultan. The Rajas of the
Dekhan and Peninsula withheld their tribute. The Muhammadan
army of the Dekhan broke out into mutiny, and set up a Sultan
of their own. Muhammad Tughlak saw that all men turned against
him. He died in 1350, after a reign of twenty-five years. The
history of Delhi fades away after the death of Muhammad
Tughlak. A Sultan reigned from 1350 to 1388, named Firuz Shah.
He is said to have submitted to the dismemberment of the
empire, and done his best to promote the welfare of the
subjects left to him; but it is also said that he destroyed
temples and idols, and burnt a Brahman alive for perverting
Muhammadan women. In 1398-99, ten years after the death of
Firuz Shah, Timur Shah invaded the Punjab and Hindustan [see
TIMOUR]. The horrors of the Tartar invasion are indescribable;
they teach nothing to the world, and the tale of atrocities
may well be dropped into oblivion. It will suffice to say that
Timur came and plundered, and then went away. He left officers
to rule in his name, or to collect tribute in his name. In
1450 they were put aside by Afghans;—turbulent Muhammadan
fanatics whose presence must have been hateful to the Hindus.
At last, in 1525, a descendant of Timur, named the Baber,
invaded India, and conquered the Punjab and Hindustan."
J. T. Wheeler,
Short History of India,
part 2, chapter 1.
ALSO IN:
M. Elphinstone,
History of India: Hindu and Mahometan,
book 6. chapters 2-3.
INDIA: A. D. 1398-1399.
Timour's invasion of the Punjab.
See TIMOUR.

INDIA: A. D. 1399-1605.
The Saiyid and the Lodi dynasties.
The founding of the Moghul Empire by Babar and Akbar.
"The invasion of Taimur … dealt a fatal blow to an authority
already crumbling. The chief authority lingered indeed for
twelve years in the hands of the then representative, Sultan
Mahmud. It then passed for a time into the hands of a family
which did not claim the royal title. This family, known in
history as the Saiyid dynasty, ruled nominally in Northern
India for about 33 years, but the rule had no coherence, and a
powerful Afghan of the Lodi family took the opportunity to
endeavour to concentrate power in his own hands. The
Muhammadan rule in India had indeed become by this time the
rule of several disjointed chiefs over several disjointed
provinces, subject in point of fact to no common head. Thus,
in 1450, Delhi, with a small territory around it, was held by
the representative of the Saiyid family. Within fourteen miles
of the capital, Ahmad Khan ruled independently in Mewat.
Sambhal, or the province now known as Rohilkhand, extending to
the very walls of Delhi, was occupied by Darya Khan Lodi. …
Lahore, Dipalpur, and Sirhind, as far south as Panipat, by
Behlul Lodi. Multan, Jaunpur, Bengal, Malwa, and Gujarat, each
had its separate king. Over most of these districts, and as
far eastward as the country immediately to the north of
Western Bihar, Behlul Lodi, known as Sultan Behlul, succeeded
on the disappearance of the Saiyids in asserting his sole
authority, 1450-88. His son and successor, Sultan Sikandar
Lodi, subdued Behar, invaded Bengal, which, however, he
subsequently agreed to yield to Allah-u-din, its sovereign,
and not to invade it again; and overran a great portion of
Central India. On his death, in 1518, he had concentrated
under his own rule the territories now known as the Punjab;
the North-western Provinces, including Jaunpur; a great part
of Central India; and Western Bihar. But, in point of fact,
the concentration was little more than nominal." The death of
Sikandar Lodi was followed by a civil war which resulted in
calling in the Tartar or Mongol conqueror, Babar, a descendant
of Timour, who, beginning in 1494 with a small dominion (which
he presently lost) in Ferghana, or Khokland, Central Asia, had
made himself master of a great part of Afghanistan (1504),
establishing his capital at Kabul. Babar had crossed the
Indian border in 1505, but his first serious invasion was in
1519, followed, according to some historians, by a second
invasion the same year; the third was in 1520; the fourth
occurred after an interval of two or three years. On his fifth
expedition he made the conquest complete, winning a great
battle at Panipat, 53 miles to the north-west of Delhi, on the
24th of April, 1526. Ibrahim Lodi, son and successor of
Sikandar Lodi, was killed in the battle, and Delhi and Agra
were immediately occupied. "Henceforth the title of King of
Kabul was to be subjected to the higher title of Emperor of
Hindustan." Babar was in one sense the founder of the Mughal
(synonymous with Mongol) dynasty—the dynasty of the Great
Moguls, as his successors were formerly known. He died in
1530, sovereign of northern India, and of some provinces in
the center of the peninsula: But "he bequeathed to his son,
Humayun, … a congeries of territories uncemented by any bond
of union or of common interest, except that which had been
concentrated in his life. In a word, when he died, the Mughal
dynasty, like the Muhammadan dynasties which had preceded it,
had shot down no roots into the soil of Hindustan."
G. B. Malleson,
Akbar,
chapters 4-5.
{1708}
Humayun succeeded Babar in India, "but had to make over Kabul
and the Western Punjab to his brother and rival, Kamran.
Humayun was thus left to govern the new conquest of India, and
at the same time was deprived of the country from which his
father had drawn his support. The descendants of the early
Afghan invaders, long settled in India, hated the new
Muhammadan hordes of Babar even more than they hated the
Hindus. After ten years of fighting, Humayun was driven out of
India by these Afghans under Sher Shah, the Governor of
Bengal. While flying through the desert of Sind to Persia, his
famous son Akbar was born in the petty fort of Umarkot (1542).
Sher Shah set up as emperor, but was killed while storming the
rock fortress of Kalinjar (1545). His son succeeded. But,
under Sher Shah's grandson, the third of the Afghan house, the
Provinces revolted, including Malwa, the Punjab, and Bengal.
Humayun returned to India, and Akbar, then only in his
thirteenth year, defeated the Afghan army after a desperate
battle at Panipat (1556). India now passed finally from the
Afghans to the Mughals. Sher Shah's line disappears; and
Humayun, having recovered his Kabul dominions, reigned again
for a few months at Delhi, but died in 1556. … Akbar the
Great, the real founder of the Mughal Empire as it existed for
two centuries, succeeded his father at the age of fourteen.
… His reign lasted for almost fifty years, from 1556 to
1605, and was therefore contemporary with that of our own
Queen Elizabeth (1558-1603). His father, Humayun, left but a
small kingdom in India, scarcely extending beyond the
Districts around Agra and Delhi. … The reign of Akbar was a
reign of pacification. … He found India split into petty
kingdoms, and seething with discordant elements; on his death,
in 1605, he bequeathed it an empire. The earlier invasions by
Turks, Afghans, and Mughals, had left a powerful Muhammadan
population in India under their own Chiefs. Akbar reduced
these Musalman States to Provinces of the Delhi Empire. Many
of the Hindu kings and Rajput nations had also regained their
independence: Akbar brought them into political dependence
upon his authority. This double task he effected partly by
force of arms, but in part also by alliances. He enlisted the
Rajput princes by marriage and by a sympathetic policy in the
support of his throne. He then employed them in high posts,
and played off his Hindu generals and Hindu ministers against
the Mughal party in Upper India, and against the Afghan
faction in Bengal. … His efforts to establish the Mughal
Empire in Southern India were less successful. … Akbar
subjugated Khandesh, and with this somewhat precarious
annexation his conquests in the Deccan ceased. … Akbar not
only subdued all India to the north of the Vindhya mountains,
he also organized it into an empire. He partitioned it into
Provinces, over each of which he placed a governor, or
viceroy, with full civil and military control."
W. W. Hunter,
Brief History of the Indian People,
chapter 10.
"I wish briefly and fairly to state what the Emperor Akbar did
for the improvement of the country and the people of
Hindostan. He improved the system of land-assessment, or
rather he improved upon the improvements instituted by Shir
Shah. He adapted an uniform and improved system of
land-measurement, and computed the average value of the land,
by dividing it into three classes, according to the
productiveness of each. This computation being made, one-third
of the average produce was fixed as the amount of tax to be
paid to the state. But as this was ordinarily to be paid in
money, it was necessary to ascertain the value of the produce,
and this was done upon an average of the nineteen preceding
years, according to local circumstances; and if the estimate
was conceived to be too high, the tax-payer was privileged to
pay the assessment in kind. … The regulations for the
collection of the revenue enforced by Akbar were well
calculated to prevent fraud and oppression, and, on the whole,
they worked well for the benefit of the people; but it has
been said of them, and with truth, that 'they contained no
principle of progressive improvement, and held out no hopes to
the rural population, by opening paths by which it might
spread into other occupations, or rise by individual exertions
within its own.' The judicial regulations of Akbar were
liberal and humane. Justice, on the whole, was fairly
administered. All unnecessary severity—all cruel personal
punishments, as torture and mutilation, were prohibited,
except in peculiar cases, and capital punishments were
considerably restricted. The police appears to have been well
organised. … He prohibited … trials by ordeal … ; he
suppressed the barbarous custom of condemning to slavery
prisoners taken in war; and he authoritatively forbade the
burning of Hindoo widows, except with their own free and
uninfluenced consent. … That something of the historical
lustre which surrounds the name of the Emperor Akbar was
derived rather from the personal character of the man than
from the great things that he accomplished, is, I think, not
to be denied. His actual performances, when they come to be
computed, fall short of his reputation. But his merits are to
be judged not so much by the standard of what he did, as of
what he did with the opportunities allowed to him, and under
the circumstances by which he was surrounded. Akbar built up
the Mogul Empire, and had little leisure allowed him to
perfect its internal economy."
J. W. Kaye,
The Administration of the East India Company,
part 1, chapter 2.
ALSO IN: 3
W. Erskine,
History of India under Baber and Humayun.
A. Dow,
History of Hindostan, from Ferishta,
volume 2.
J. T. Wheeler,
History of India,
volume 4, chapter 4.
INDIA: A. D. 1498-1580.
Portuguese trade and settlements.
In May, 1498, Vasco da Gama, the Portuguese navigator, reached
Calicut, on the southwest (Malabar) coast, being the first
European to traverse the ocean route to India, around the Cape
of Good Hope (see PORTUGAL: A. D. 1463-1498). He met with a
hostile reception from the natives of Malabar; but the next
voyager from Portugal, Alvarez Cabral, "who came out the
following year, was very favourably received, being allowed to
establish a factory on the mainland and to appoint a 'factor'
(or consul, as we say now) to represent Portugal there. This
factor seems to have had some difficulties with the natives,
chiefly owing to his own high-handed actions, which resulted
in the murder of himself and the destruction of the factory.
Alvarez Cabral therefore sailed up to Cochin, and was received
with great friendliness by the chiefs of that part of the
country, who allowed him again to set up agencies at Cochin
and at Cananore. But the vengeance of the ruler of Malabar
pursued them; and the Portuguese, together with their native
allies, had to fight desperately for their safety.
{1709}
They were almost exhausted with the struggle when in 1504
large reinforcements were sent from Portugal, bombarded
Calicut, the capital of Malabar, and established the name and
fame of the Portuguese as an important power in India
generally. A regular maritime trade with India was now firmly
set on foot, but the Portuguese had to struggle hard to
maintain it. The Mohammedans of India called in the aid of
Egypt against them, and even the republic of Venice joined
these enemies, in hopes of crushing this new rival to their
ancient trade. In 1508 a powerful expedition was sent out from
Egypt against the newcomers, a tremendous battle took place,
and the Portuguese were defeated. But by a desperate effort
Almeida, the Portuguese viceroy, collected all his forces for
a final blow, and succeeded in winning a magnificent naval
victory which once and for all firmly established the
Portuguese power in India. Two years afterwards Almeida's
rival and successor, Alfonso de Albuquerque, gained possession
of Goa (1510), and this city became the centre of their Indian
dominion, which now included Ceylon and the Maldive Islands,
together with the Malacca and Malabar coasts. In 1511 the city
of Malacca was captured, and the city of Ormuz in 1515. The
next few years were spent in consolidating their sovereignty
in these regions, till in 1542 the Portuguese colonists
practically regulated all the Asiatic coast trade with Europe,
from the Persian Gulf … to Japan. … For nearly sixty years
after this date the king of Portugal, or his viceroy, was
virtually the supreme ruler—in commercial matters at any
rate—of the southern coast of Asia. The Portuguese were at
the climax of their power in the east. The way in which
Portuguese trade was carried on is an interesting example of
the spirit of monopoly which has, invariably at first and very
often afterwards, inspired the policy of all European powers
in their efforts of colonisation. The eastern trade was of
course kept in the hands of Portuguese traders only, as far as
direct commerce between Portugal and India was concerned; but
even Portuguese traders were shut out from intermediate
commerce between India and other eastern countries, i. e.,
China, Japan, Malacca, Mozambique, and Ormuz. This traffic was
reserved as a monopoly to the crown; and it was only as a
great favour, or in reward for some particular service, that
the king allowed private individuals to engage in it. The
merchant fleet of Portugal generally set sail from Lisbon,
bound to Goa, once a year about February or March. … This
voyage generally took about eighteen months, and, owing to the
imperfect state of navigation at that time, and the lack of
accurate charts of this new route, was frequently attended by
the loss of several ships. Immense profits were, however, made
by the traders. On arriving back at Lisbon the Portuguese
merchants, as a rule, did not themselves engage in any trade
with other European countries in the goods they had brought
back, but left the distribution of them in the hands of Dutch,
English, and Hansa sailors who met them at Lisbon. … The
colonial empire of Portugal, so rapidly and brilliantly
acquired, came to a disastrous close. It lasted altogether
hardly a century. The avarice and oppressions of its viceroys
and merchants, the spirit of monopoly which pervaded their
whole policy, and the neglect both of the discipline and
defences necessary to keep newly-acquired foreign possessions,
hastened its ruin. By 1580 the Portuguese power in the east
had seriously declined, and in that year the crown of Portugal
was united to that of Spain in the person of Philip II. The
Spaniards neglected their eastern possessions altogether, and
engaged in wars with the Dutch which had the effect, not only
of wasting a great portion of their own and the Portuguese
fleet, but of positively driving the Dutch into those very
eastern seas which the Portuguese had once so jealously kept
to themselves. Only Goa and Diu and a few other small stations
remained out of all their magnificent dominion."
H. de B. Gibbins,
History of Commerce in Europe,
book 3, chapter 1 (sections 94-97).
ALSO IN:
E. McMurdo,
History of Portugal,
volume 3, books 2-5.
Commentaries of the Great Afonso Dalboquerque
(Hakluyt Society Publications).
E. Grey,
Introduction to Travels of Pietro della Valle
(Hakluyt Society Publications).
H. M. Stephens,
Albuquerque.
INDIA: A. D. 1600-1702.
Beginnings of English trade.
The chartering of the English East India Company.
Its early footholds in Hindostan.
The founding of Madras, Bombay and Calcutta.
The three Presidencies.
"For some time it appears to have been thought by other
European Powers, that the discovery of the passage round
Africa by the Portuguese gave them some exclusive claim to its
navigation. But after the year 1580 the conquest of Portugal
by Spain, and the example of the Dutch who had already formed
establishments not only in India but the Spice Islands,
aroused the commercial enterprise of England. In 1599 an
Association was formed for the Trade to the East Indies; a sum
was raised by subscription, amounting to £68,000; and a
petition was presented to the Crown for a Royal Charter. Queen
Elizabeth wavered during some time, apprehending fresh
entanglements with Spain. At length, in December 1600, the
boon was granted; the 'Adventurers' (for so were they termed
at that time) were constituted a body corporate, under the
title of 'the Governor and Company of Merchants of London
trading into the East Indies.' By their Charter they obtained
the right of purchasing lands without limitation, and the
monopoly of their trade during fifteen years, under the
direction of a Governor, and twenty-four other persons in
Committee, to be elected annually. … In 1609, the Charter of
the new Company was not only renewed but rendered
perpetual,—with a saving clause, however, that should any
national detriment be at any time found to ensue, these
exclusive privileges should, after three years' notice, cease
and expire. It does not seem, however, that the trade of the
new Company was extensive. Their first voyage consisted of
four ships and one pinnace, having on board £28,742 in
bullion, and £6,860 in goods, such as cloth, lead, tin,
cutlery, and glass. Many other of their voyages were of
smaller amount; thus, in 1612, when they united into a Joint
Stock Company, they sent out only one ship, with £1,250 in
bullion and £650 in goods. But their clear profits on their
capital were immense; scarcely ever, it is stated, below 100
per cent. During the Civil Wars the Company shared in the
decline of every other branch of trade and industry.
{1710}
But soon after the accession of Charles II. they obtained a
new Charter, which not only confirmed their ancient privileges
but vested in them authority, through their agents in India,
to make peace and war with any prince or people, not being
Christians, and to seize within their limits, and send home as
prisoners, any Englishmen found without a licence. It may well
be supposed that in the hands of any exclusive Company this
last privilege was not likely to lie dormant. … The period
of the Revolution was not so favourable to the Company as that
of the Restoration. A rival Company arose, professing for its
object greater freedom of trade with the East Indies, and
supported by a majority in the House of Commons. It is said
that the competition of these two Companies with the private
traders and with one another had well nigh ruined both. … An
Union between these Companies, essential, as it seemed, to
their expected profits, was delayed by their angry feelings
till 1702. Even then, by the Indenture which passed the Great
Seal, several points were left unsettled between them, and
separate transactions were allowed to their agents in India
for the stocks already sent out. Thus the ensuing years were
fraught with continued jarrings and contentions. … After the
grant of the first Charter by Queen Elizabeth, and the growth
of the Company's trade in India, their two main factories were
fixed at Surat and Bantam. Surat was then the principal
sea-port of the Mogul Empire, where the Mahometan pilgrims
were wont to assemble for their voyages towards Mecca. Bantam,
from its position in the island of Java, commanded the best
part of the Spice trade. But at Surat the Company's servants
were harassed by the hostility of the Portuguese, as at
Bantam, by the hostility of the Dutch. To such heights did
these differences rise that in 1622 the English assisted the
Persians in the recovery of Ormuz from the Portuguese, and
that in 1623 the Dutch committed the outrage termed the
'Massacre of Amboyna,'—putting to death, after a trial, and
confession of guilt extorted by torture, Captain Towerson and
nine other Englishmen, on a charge of conspiracy. In the final
result, many years afterwards, the factories both at Bantam
and Surat were relinquished by the Company. Other and newer
settlements of theirs had, meanwhile, grown into
importance.—In 1640 the English obtained permission from a
Hindoo Prince in the Carnatic to purchase the ground adjoining
the Portuguese settlement of St. Thomé, on which they
proceeded to raise Fort St. George and the town of Madras. …
In a very few years Madras had become a thriving town.—About
twenty years afterwards, on the marriage of Charles II. to
Catherine of Braganza [1661], the town and island of Bombay
were ceded to the King of England as a part of the Infanta's
dowry. For some time the Portuguese Governor continued to
evade the grant, alleging that the patent of His Majesty was
not in accordance with the customs of Portugal; he was
compelled to yield; but the possession being found on trial to
cost more than it produced, it was given up by King Charles to
the East India Company, and became one of their principal
stations. Nor was Bengal neglected. Considering the beauty and
richness of that province, a proverb was already current among
the Europeans, that there are a hundred gates for entering and
not one for leaving it. The Dutch, the Portuguese, and the
English had established their factories at or near the town of
Hooghly on one of the branches—also called Hooghly—of the
Ganges. But during the reign of James II. the imprudence of
some of the Company's servants, and the seizure of a Mogul
junk, had highly incensed the native Powers. The English found
it necessary to leave Hooghly, and drop twenty-five miles down
the river, to the village of Chuttanuttee. Some petty
hostilities ensued, not only in Bengal but along the coasts of
India. … So much irritated was Aurungzebe at the reports of
these hostilities, that he issued orders for the total
expulsion of the Company's servants from his dominions, but he
was appeased by the humble apologies of the English traders,
and the earnest intercession of the Hindoo, to whom this
commerce was a source of profit. The English might even have
resumed their factory at Hooghly, but preferred their new
station at Chuttanuttee, and in 1698 obtained from the Mogul,
on payment of an annual rent, a grant of the land on which it
stood. Then, without delay, they began to construct for its
defence a citadel, named Fort William, under whose shelter
there grew by degrees from a mean village the great town of
Calcutta,—the capital of modern India. … At nearly the
same period another station,—Tegnapatam, a town on the coast
of Coromandel, to the south of Madras,—was obtained by
purchase. It was surnamed Fort St. David; was strengthened
with walls and bulwarks, and was made subordinate to Madras
for its government. Thus then before the accession of the
House of Hanover these three main stations,—Fort William,
Fort St. George, and Bombay,—had been erected into
Presidencies, or central posts of Government; not, however, as
at present, subject to one supreme authority, but each
independent of the rest. Each was governed by a President and
a Council of nine or twelve members, appointed by the Court of
Directors in England. Each was surrounded with fortifications,
and guarded by a small force, partly European and partly
native, in the service of the Company. The Europeans were
either recruits enlisted in England or strollers and deserters
from other services in India. Among these the descendants of
the old settlers, especially the Portuguese, were called
Topasses,—from the tope or hat which they wore instead of
turban. The natives, as yet ill-armed and ill-trained, were
known by the name of Sepoys,—a corruption from the Indian
word 'sipahi,' a soldier. But the territory of the English
scarcely extended out of sight of their towns."
Lord Mahon (Earl Stanhope);
History of England, 1713-1783,
chapter 39 (volume 4).
ALSO IN:
J. Mill,
History of British India,
book 1 (volume 1).
P. Anderson,
The English in Western India,
chapters 1-10.
H. Stevens, editor.,
Dawn of British Trade to East Indies:
Court Minutes of the East India Company, 1599-1603.
J. W. Kaye,
The Administration of the East India Company,
chapters 3-4.
INDIA: A. D. 1602-1620.
Rise of the Dutch East India Company.
See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1594-1620.
{1711}
INDIA: A. D. 1605-1658.
Jahangir and Nur Mahal.
Shah Jahan and the Taj Mahal.
Seizure of the throne by Aurungzebe.
"Selim, the son and successor of Akbar, reigned from the year
of his father's death until 1627, having assumed the title of
Jahangir, or 'Conqueror of the World'; that is to say, he
reigned, but he did not govern. Before he came to the throne,
he fell in love with a poor Persian girl," whom his father
gave in marriage to one of his officers. "On his advent to the
throne, Jahangir … managed to get the husband killed, and
took the widow into his harem. He subsequently married her,
and she ruled, not him alone, but the whole empire. … [She
was first called Nur Mahal, 'Light of the Harem,' then Nur
Jahan, 'Light of the World.'] It was during this reign, in
1615, that the first English ambassador, Sir Thomas Roe,
arrived in Hindustan from James I.; and proceeding to Ajmere,
where Jahangir was staying at the time with his court, he made
him several presents, amongst which, we are told, a beautiful
English coach gave the Emperor the most satisfaction. He
received the ambassador with great distinction, showed him
marked attention at all public receptions, and granted a
firmân to the English to establish a factory at Surat. … The
later years of Jahangir's reign were disturbed by family
intrigues, in which the Empress Nur Jehan took a prominent
part, endeavouring to secure the succession for her
son-in-law; but after the death of the Emperor, his oldest
living son, Shah Jahan, pensioned and forced the Empress into
retirement … and … 'dispatched all the males of the house
of Timour, so that only himself and his children remained of
the posterity of Baber, who conquered India.' In some respects
the reign of Shah Jahan was unfortunate. He lost his Afghan
dominions, and gained but little by his invasions of the
Dekhan, which were carried on by his rebellious son and
successor, Aurungzeb; but in another direction he did more to
perpetuate the glory of the Mughal dynasty than any other
emperor of his line. Amongst other handsome buildings, he
erected the most beautiful the world has ever possessed. …
This was the well-known Taj Mahal at Agra, a mausoleum for his
favourite Empress Arjamund, known as Mumtaz-i-Mahal [of which
name, according to Elphinstone, Taj Mahal is a corruption],
'the Exalted One of the Seraglio.' … When Shah Jahan had
attained his 66th year (according to some writers, his 70th),
he was seized with a sudden illness, the result of his
debauched life, and as it was reported that he was dead, a
civil war broke out amongst his sons for the possession of the
throne. These were four in number, Dara (the oldest), Shuja,
Aurungzeb, and Murad (the youngest); and in the conflict
Aurungzeb, the third son, was ultimately successful. Two of
the brothers, Dara and Murad, fell into the power of the
last-named and were put to death by his orders. Shuja escaped
to Arracan, and was murdered there; and as for the Emperor,
who had recovered, Aurungzeb confined him in the fort at Agra,
with all his female relatives, and then caused himself to be
proclaimed in his stead [1658]. Towards the close of Shah
Jehan's life [which came to an end in 1666], a partial
reconciliation took place between him and his son, who,
however, did not release him from his confinement."
J. Samuelson,
India, Past and Present,
part 1, chapter 7.
ALSO IN:
J. T. Wheeler,
History of India,
volume 4, chapters 5-7.
Sir T. Roe,
Journal of Embassy
(Pinkerton's Collection of Voyages, volume 8).
M. Elphinstone,
History of India: Hindu and Mahometan,
book 10.
INDIA: A. D. 1662-1748.
The struggle of Aurungzebe with the Mahrattas.
The Mahratta empire.
Invasion of Nadir Shah.
Sack of Delhi and great Massacre.
"Aurungzebe had reigned five years before he succeeded in
destroying all his kinsmen. … About that time, in the year
1662, a new and extraordinary power in Southern India began to
attract attention. The Mahrattas appear to have been nothing
more than the Hindoo peasantry, scattered throughout some of
the mountainous districts of the Mahomedan kingdoms of
Ahmednuggur, Beijapoor and Golconda, and united into a body
only by the prejudices of caste, of which their rank was the
lowest, that of Sudra. In the confusion incidental to the
constant wars in which these states were engaged, some of the
head men of their villages set up for themselves, and one of
them, Shahji Borla, became powerful enough to play a
conspicuous part at the time of the annexation of Ahmednuggur
to the Mogul empire. His son Sevaji, setting out from this
vantage ground, strengthened his hands by the silent capture
of some hill forts in Beijapoor, and eventually raising the
standard of revolt against that government, introduced a
spirit of union amidst the scattered masses of his people, and
may thus be considered the founder of the Mahratta empire. In
1662 he commenced his predatory expeditions into the Mogul
territory, and in ten years he found himself at the head of a
regular government with the title of Rajah, and strong enough
to encounter and defeat the imperial forces in a field battle.
This was the critical moment in the progress of the Mogul
empire. Aurungzebe was called away for two years by the
chronic disturbances beyond the Indus; his strength was wasted
by the ceaseless wars of the Deccan; and being goaded to
madness by the casual insurrection of some Hindoo devotees in
the centre of his dominions, he replaced the capitation tax on
infidels, and fulminated other decrees against that portion of
his subjects of such extravagant intolerance that they at
length looked upon the progress of their co-religionists, the
Mahrattas, with more longing than alarm. In 1679, the western
portion of Rajahstan was in arms against the empire, and
continued in a state of hostility more or less active during
the whole reign. Even the emperor's eventual successes in the
Deccan, in overthrowing the kingdoms of Beijapoor and
Golconda, contributed to his ruin; for it removed the check of
regular government from that distracted portion of the
country, and … threw into the arms of the Mahrattas the
adventurous and the desperate of the population. Sevaji died,
and successors of less talent filled the throne of the
robber-king; but this seems to have had no effect upon the
progress of the inundation, which now bursting over the
natural barriers of the peninsula, and sweeping away its
military defences, overflowed Malwa and a portion of Guzerat.
Aurungzebe fought gallantly and finessed craftily by turns;
… and thus he struggled with his destiny even to extreme old
age, bravely and alone. He expired in his 89th year, the 50th
of his reign, on the 21st of February, 1707. … During the
next twelve years after the death of Aurungzebe, no fewer than
five princes sat upon the throne, whose reigns, without being
distinguished by any great events, exhibited evident
indications of the gradual decline of the empire.
{1712}
During that period the Sikhs, originally a sect of Hindoo
dissenters, whose peculiarity consisted in their repudiation
of all religious ceremonies, having first been changed into
warriors by persecution, began to rise by the spirit of union
into a nation; but so weak were they at this time that in 1706
the dying energies of the empire were sufficient almost for
their extirpation. … Mahomed Shah succeeded to the throne in
1719. The Mahratta government was by this time completely
consolidated, and the great families of the race, since so
celebrated, had begun to rise into eminence: such as that of
the Peshwa, the official title of a minister of the Rajah; of
Holkar, the founder of which was a shepherd; and of Sindia,
which sprang from a menial servant. … A still more
remarkable personage of the time was Asof Jah, whose
descendants became the Nizams [regulators or governors—the
title becoming hereditary in the family of Asof, at Hyderabad]
of the Deccan. … While the empire was … rent in pieces by
internal disturbances, a more tremendous enemy even than the
Mahrattas presented himself from without. A revolution had
taken place in Persia, which seated a soldier of fortune upon
the throne; and the famous Nadir Shah, after capturing
Candahar, found it necessary, according to the fashion of
conquerors, to seize upon the Mogul territories, Ghizni and
Cabul, and when at the latter city to continue his march into
Hindostan. In 1739, he arrived at Kurnaul, within 70 miles of
Delhi, and defeated the emperor in a general engagement. …
The two kings then proceeded to Delhi after the battle, where
Nadir, in consequence, it is said, of an insurrection of the
populace, set fire to the city and massacred the inhabitants
to a number which has been variously estimated at from 30,000
to 150,000. He then proceeded to the main business of his
invasion, robbing first the treasury and afterwards the
inhabitants individually, torturing or murdering all who were
suspected of concealing their riches, and at length returned
to his own dominions, having obtained a formal cession of the
country west of the Indus, and carrying with him in money and
plate at least twelve millions sterling, besides jewels of
great value, including those of the Peacock Throne [the throne
of the Great Mogul, made solidly of gold and adorned with
diamonds and pearls,—the enamelled back of the throne being
spread in the form of a peacock's tail.]
Tavernier's Travels,
translated and edited by V. Ball,
book 2, chapter 8 (volume 1).
From this period to the death of the Emperor Mahomed Shah, in
1748, the interval was filled up with the disturbances which
might be expected."
Leitch Ritchie,
History of the Indian Empire,
book 1, chapter 5 (volume 1).
The Asof or Asaf Jah mentioned above had become, in 1721, the
Prime Minister of the Emperor Muhammad Shah, "In a little more
than three years he had thrown up in disgust an office which
the levity of the young monarch hindered him from discharging
to his satisfaction; and had repaired to the Deccan, where he
founded the State which still subsists under the name of 'The
Nizam's Dominions.' Nominally, it was the Subah [province]
erected on the ruins of the old Musalman kingdoms; but in the
decline of the Empire it became a hereditary and
quasi-independent province, though the ruler never took the
royal title, but continued to retain the style of an Imperial
Viceroy, as 'Nizam-ul-mulk,' which his descendant still
bears."
H. G. Keene,
Madhava Rao Sindhia,
chapter 1.
"The different provinces and viceroyalties went their own
natural way; they were parcelled out in a scuffle among
revolted governors, rebellious chiefs, leaders of insurgent
tribes or sects, religious revivalists, or captains of
mercenary bands. The Indian people were becoming a masterless
multitude swaying to and fro in the political storm, and
clinging to any power, natural or supernatural, that seemed
likely to protect them. They were prepared to acquiesce in the
assumption of authority by anyone who could show himself able
to discharge the most elementary functions of government in
the preservation of life and property. In short, the people
were scattered without a leader or protector; while the
political system under which they had long lived was
disappearing in complete disorganization. It was during this
period of tumultuary confusion that the French and English
first appeared upon the political arena in India."
Sir A. Lyall,
Rise of the British Dominion in India,
chapter 4, sections 1-2.
ALSO IN:
S. Lane-Poole,
Aurangzib,
chapters 9-12.
A. Dow,
History of Hindostan, from Ferishta,
volume 3.
J. G. Duff,
History of the Mahrattas,
volume 1, and volume 2, chapter 1.
C. R. Markham,
History of Persia,
chapter 12.
INDIA: A. D. 1665-1743.
Commercial undertakings of the French.
Their settlement at Pondicherry.
"Many expeditions to India had been made [by the French]
earlier than the time of Colbert's East India Company,
chartered in the year 1665. The first French ships, of which
there is any record, that succeeded in reaching India, were
two despatched from one of the ports of Brittany in 1601.
These ships were, however, wrecked on the Maldive Islands, and
their commander did not return to France for ten years.
Voyages were undertaken in 1616, 1619, and again in 1633, of
which the most that can be said is that they met with no great
disaster. The attempt to found settlements in Java and
Madagascar, which was the object of these voyages, completely
failed. The first operations of the French East India Company
were to establish factories in Hindostan. Surat, a large
commercial city at the mouth of the Taptee, was fixed upon for
the principal depot. The abuses and lavish waste of the
officers entrusted to carry out Colbert's plans, brought the
company to an end in five years. An attempt in 1672 to form a
colony at Trincomalee, on the north-east coast of Ceylon, was
frustrated by the hostility of the Dutch. Afterwards the
French made an attempt on Meliapoor or Thomé, belonging to the
Portuguese. They were soon expelled, and the survivors sought
refuge at Pondicherry [1674], a small town which they had
purchased on the same coast of the Carnatic. In 1693,
Pondicherry was taken by the Dutch, who improved the
fortifications and general condition of the town. At the peace
of Ryswick, in 1697, the settlement was restored to the
French. For half a century Pondicherry shared the neglect
common to French colonies, and owed more to the probity and
discretion of its governors than to the home government. M.
Martin, and subsequently Dumas, saved the settlement from
ruin. They added to the defences; and Dumas, being in want of
money for public purposes, obtained permission from the King
of Delhi to coin money for the French settlers. He also
procured the cession of Karikal, a district of Tanjore. On the
other hand, several stations and forts had to be given up."
J. Yeats,
Growth and Vicissitudes of Commerce,
part 3, chapter 7.
ALSO IN:
G. B. Malleson,
History of the French in India,
chapters 1-3.
H. Martin,
History of France: Age of Louis XIV.,
volume 1, chapter 2.
{1713}
INDIA: A. D. 1743-1752.
Struggle of the French and English for supremacy in the Deccan.
Clive against Dupleix.
The founding of British empire.
"England owes the idea of an Indian empire to the French, as
also the chief means by which she has hitherto sought to
realize it. The war of the Austrian succession had just broken
out [1743] between France and England.
See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1743.
Dupleix, the governor of the settlements of the French East
India Company, proposed to the English company a neutrality in
the eastern seas; it was rejected. The English probably
repented of their presumption when they saw Captain Peyton,
the commander of a squadron of three liners and a frigate,
after an indecisive engagement with the French admiral,
Labourdonnais, take flight to the Bay of Bengal, leaving
Madras, then the most flourishing of the English settlements,
defenceless. Dupleix and Labourdonnais were the first of that
series of remarkable Frenchmen who, amidst every
discouragement from home, and in spite of their frequent
mutual dissensions, kept the French name so prominent in India
for more than the next half century, only to meet on their
return with obloquy, punishment, even death. Labourdonnais,
who was Admiral of the French fleet, was also Governor of
Mauritius, then called the Isle of France. He had disciplined
a force of African negroes. With French troops and these, he
entered the narrow strip of coast, five miles long, one mile
broad, which was then the territory of Madras, bombarded the
city, compelled the fort (which had lost five men) to
surrender. But his terms were honourable; the English were
placed on parole; the town was to be given up on payment of a
moderate ransom (1746). Dupleix, however, was jealous; he
denied Labourdonnais powers; broke the capitulation; paraded
the Governor and other English gentlemen in triumph through
Pondicherry. In vain did Admiral Boscawen besiege the latter
place; time was wasted, the trenches were too far, the rains
came on; Boscawen raised the siege, crippled in men and
stores; was recalled by the news of the peace of
Aix-la-Chapelle, and, to close his career of misfortune, lost
several ships and 1,200 men on the Coromandel coast (1748-9).
News of the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, however, produced a
very temporary cessation of hostilities, Madras being
restored, with fortifications much improved. The English
fortunes seemed at their lowest in India; the French rising to
their full height. Dupleix conceived the bold plan of
interfering in the internal politics of the country.
Labourdonnais had disciplined the negro; Dupleix disciplined
the native Indian. … Labourdonnais had beaten off the
so-called Nawab of the Carnatic, when he attempted to take
Madras; the event produced an immense sensation; it was the
first victory obtained for a century by Europeans over the
natives of India. Dupleix was strong enough to be reckoned a
valuable ally. But on the English side a young man had
appeared who was to change the whole course of events in the
East. Robert Clive, an attorney's son from Market Drayton,
born in 1725, sent off at eighteen as a writer to Madras—a
naughty boy who had grown into an insubordinate clerk, who had
been several times in danger of losing his situation, and had
twice attempted to destroy himself—ran away from Madras,
disguised as a Mussulman, after Dupleix's violation of the
capitulation, obtained an ensign's commission at twenty-one,
and began distinguishing himself as a soldier under Major
Lawrence, then the best British officer in India."
J. M. Ludlow,
British India,
lecture 7.
"Clive and others who escaped [from Madras] betook themselves
to Fort St. David's—a small English settlement a few miles
south of Pondicherry. There Clive prepared himself for the
military vocation for which nature had clearly destined him.
… At Fort St. David's the English intrigued with the native
chiefs, much as the French had done, and not more creditably.
They took sides, and changed sides, in the disputes of rival
claimants to the province of Tanjore, under the inducement of
the possession of Devi-cottah, a coast station at the mouth of
the Coleroon. There was no great honour in the results, any
more than in the conception, of this first little war. We
obtained Devi-cottah; but we did not improve our reputation
for good faith, nor lessen the distance between the French and
ourselves in military prestige. But Dupleix was meantime
providing the opportunity for Clive to determine whether the
Deccan should be under French or English influence. … The
greatest of the southern princes, the Nizam al Mulk, Viceroy
of the Deccan, died in 1748; and rivals rose up, as usual, to
claim both his throne and the richest province under his
rule—the Carnatic. The pretenders on one side applied to the
French for assistance, and obtained reinforcements to the
extent of 400 French soldiers and 2,000 trained sepoys. This
aid secured victory; the opposing prince was slain; and his
son, the well-known Mohammed Ali, 'the Nabob of Arcot' of the
last century, took refuge, with a few remaining troops, at
Trichinopoly. In a little while, the French seemed to be
supreme throughout the country. Dupleix was deferred to as the
arbiter of the destinies of the native princes, while he was
actually declared Governor of India, from the Kistna to Cape
Comorin—a region as large as France, inhabited by 30,000,000
of people, and defended by a force so large that the cavalry
alone amounted to 7,000 under the command of Dupleix. In the
midst of this dominion, the English looked like a handful of
dispirited and helpless settlers, awaiting the disposal of the
haughty Frenchman. Their native ally had lost everything but
Trichinopoly; and Trichinopoly itself was now besieged by the
Nabob of the Carnatic and his French supporters. Dupleix was
greater than even the Mogul sovereign; he had erected a column
in his own honour, displaying on its four sides inscriptions
in four languages, proclaiming his glory as the first man of
the East; and a town had sprung up round this column, called
his City of Victory. To the fatalistic mind of the native
races it seemed a settled matter that the French rule was
supreme, and that the English must perish out of the land.
Major Lawrence had gone home; and the small force of the
English had no commander. Clive was as yet only a commissary,
with the rank of captain, and regarded more as a civilian than
a soldier.
{1714}
He was only five-and-twenty. His superiors were in extreme
alarm, foreseeing that when Trichinopoly was taken, the next
step would be the destruction of Madras. Nothing could make
their position worse; and they caught at every chance of
making it better. Clive offered to attack Arcot, the capital
of the Carnatic, in the hope that this would draw away the
besiegers from Trichinopoly; and the offer was accepted. The
force consisted of 200 British and 300 native soldiers,
commanded, under Clive, by four factors and four military men,
only two of whom had ever been in action. Everything was
against them, from numbers and repute to the weather; but
Clive took Arcot [September 11, 1751], and (what was much more
difficult) kept it. The garrison had fled in a panic; but it
was invested by 10,000 men before the British had repaired
half its dilapidations and deficiencies, or recruited their
numbers, now reduced to 320 men in all, commanded by four
officers. For fifty days, amidst fatigue, hunger, and a
hundred pressing dangers, the little band sustained the siege.
… A series of victories followed, and men and opinion came
round to the side of the victors. There was no energy at
headquarters to sustain Clive in his career. … In his
absence, the enemy appeared again before Fort George, and did
much damage; but Clive came up, and 100 of the French soldiers
were killed or taken. He uprooted Dupleix's boasting monument,
and levelled the city to the ground, thereby reversing the
native impression of the respective destinies of the French
and English. Major Lawrence returned. Dupleix's military
incapacity was proved, and his personal courage found wanting
as soon as fortune deserted him. Trichinopoly was relieved,
and the besiegers were beaten, and their candidate prince put
to death. Dupleix struggled in desperation for some time
longer before he gave up the contest; and Clive had his
difficulties in completing the dislodgement of the French. …
He did it; but nearly at the sacrifice of his life. When the
British supremacy in the Deccan was completely established, he
returned [1752] in bad health to England. … He left behind
him Dupleix, for whom a summons home in disgrace was on the
way."
H. Martineau,
History of British Rule in India,
chapter 6.
ALSO IN:
G. B. Malleson,
History of the French in India,
chapters 3-6.
G. B. Malleson,
Founders of the Indian Empire: Lord Clive,
chapters 1-6.
Colonel Sir C. Wilson,
Lord Clive,
chapters 2-4.
INDIA: A. D. 1747-1761.
The Duranee power in Afghanistan.
Conflict of the Afghans and the Mahrattas.
Great defeat of the latter at Panniput.
Fall of the shattered Moghul empire.
The state of things which invited British conquest.
On the death of Nadir Shah, who was murdered in 1747, his
Afghan kingdom was acquired by a native chief, Ahmed Abdalee,
who, first a prisoner and a slave to Nadir Shah, had become
one of the trusted officers of his court and army. "Ahmed
Abdalee had acquired so great an ascendency among the troops
that upon this event [the death of Nadir Shah] several
commanders and their followers joined his standard; and he
drew off toward his own country. He fell in with and seized a
convoy of treasure, which was proceeding to the camp. This
enabled him to engage in his pay a still larger body of his
countrymen. He proclaimed himself king of the Afghauns; and
took the title of Doordowran, or pearl of the age, which being
corrupted into Dooranee,[or Duranee], gave one of their names
to himself and his Abdallees. He marched towards Candahar
which submitted to his arms; and next proceeded to Cabul …
and this province also fell into the hands of the Afghaun."
Lahore was next added to his dominions, and he then, in 1747,
invaded India, intent upon the capture of Delhi; but met with
sufficient resistance to discourage his undertaking, and fell
back to Cabul. In 1748, and again in 1749, he passed the
Indus, and made himself master of the Punjab. In 1755-6 he
marched to Delhi, which opened its gates to him and received
him, pretendedly as a guest, but really as a master. A plague
breaking out in his army caused him to return to his own
country. He "left his son Governor of Lahore and Multan;
disordered by revolutions, wasted and turbulent. A chief …
incited the Seiks [Sikhs] to join him in molesting the
Dooranees; and they gained several important advantages over
their principal commanders. They invited the Mahratta
generals, Ragonaut Raow, Shumsheer Bahadur, and Holkar, who
had advanced into the neighbourhood of Delhi, to join them in
driving the Abdalees from Lahore. No occupation could be more
agreeable to the Mahrattas. After taking Sirhind, they
advanced to Lahore, where the Abdalee Prince made but a feeble
resistance and fled. This event put them in possession of both
Multan and Lahore. … The whole Indian continent appeared now
about to be swallowed up by the Mahrattas. … Ahmed Shah [the
Abdalee, or Dooranee] was not only roused by the loss of his
two provinces, and the disgrace imprinted on his arms, but he
was invited by the chiefs and people of Hindustan, groaning
under the depredations of the Mahrattas, to march to their
succour and become their King. … For some days the Dooranees
hovered round the Mahratta camp; when the Mahrattas, who were
distressed for provisions, came out and offered battle. Their
army, consisting of 80,000 veteran cavalry, was almost wholly
destroyed; and Duttah Sindia, their General, was among the
slain. A detachment of horse sent against another body of
Mahrattas, who were marauding under Holkar in the
neighbourhood of Secundra, surprised them so completely that
Holkar fled naked, with a handful of followers, and the rest,
with the exception of a few prisoners and fugitives, were all
put to the sword. During the rainy season, while the Dooranee
Shah was quartered at Secundra, the news of this disaster and
disgrace excited the Mahrattas to the greatest exertions. A
vast army was collected, and … the Mahrattas marched to
gratify the resentments, and fulfil the unbounded hopes of the
nation. … They arrived at the Jumna before it was
sufficiently fallen to permit either the Mahrattas on the
other side, or the Dooranees, to cross. In the meantime they
marched to Delhi, of which after some resistance they took
possession; plundered it with their usual rapacity, tearing
away even the gold and silver ornaments of the palace;
proclaimed Sultan Jewan Bukht, the son of Alee Gohur [or Shah
Alum, absent son of the late nominal Emperor at Delhi,
Alumgeer II., who had recently been put to death by his own
vizir], Emperor; and named Sujah ad Dowlah, Nabob of Oude, his
Vizir.
{1715}
Impatient at intelligence of these and some other
transactions, Ahmed Shah swam the Jumna, still deemed
impassable, with his whole army. This daring adventure, and
the remembrance of the late disaster, shook the courage of the
Mahrattas; and they entrenched their camp on a plain near
Panniput. The Dooranee, having surrounded their position with
parties of troops, to prevent the passage of supplies,
contented himself for some days with skirmishing. At last he
tried an assault; when the Rohilla infantry … forced their
way into the Mahratta works, and Bulwant Raow with other
chiefs was killed; but night put an end to the conflict.
Meanwhile scarcity prevailed and filth accumulated in the
Mahratta camp. The vigilance of Ahmed intercepted their
convoys. In a little time famine and pestilence "raged. A
battle became the only resource [January 7, 1761]. The Abdalee
restrained his troops till the Mahrattas had advanced a
considerable way from their works; when he rushed upon them
with so much rapidity as left them hardly any time for using
their cannon. The Bhaow was killed early in the action;
confusion soon pervaded the army, and a dreadful carnage
ensued. The field was floated with blood. Twenty-two thousand
men and women were taken prisoners. Of those who escaped from
the field of battle, the greater part were butchered by the
people of the country, who had suffered from their
depredations. Of an army of 140,000 horse, commanded by the
most celebrated generals of the nation, only three chiefs of
any rank, and a mere residue of the troops, found their way to
Deccan. The Dooranee Shah made but little use of this mighty
victory. After remaining a few months at Delhi, he recognized
Alee Gohur as Emperor, by the title of Shah Aulum II.; and
entrusting Nujeeb ad Dowlah with the superintendence of
affairs, till his master should return from Bengal, he marched
back to his capital of Cabul in the end of the year 1760
[1761]. With Aulum-geer II. the empire of the Moguls may be
justly considered as having arrived at its close. The unhappy
Prince who now received the name of Emperor, and who, after a
life of misery and disaster, ended his days a pensioner of
English merchants, never possessed a sufficient degree of
power to consider himself for one moment as master of the
throne."
J. Mill,
History of British India,
book 3, chapter 4 (volume 2).
"The words 'wonderful,' 'strange,' are often applied to great
historical events, and there is no event to which they have
been applied more freely than to our [the English] conquest of
India. … But the event was not wonderful in a sense that it
is difficult to discover adequate causes by which it could
have been produced. If we begin by remarking that authority in
India had fallen on the ground through the decay of the Mogul
Empire, that it lay there waiting to be picked up by somebody,
and that all over India in that period adventurers of one kind
or another were founding Empires, it is really not surprising

that a mercantile corporation which had money to pay a
mercenary force should be able to compete with other
adventurers, nor yet that it should outstrip all its
competitors by bringing into the field English military
science and generalship, especially when it was backed over
and over again by the whole power and credit of England and
directed by English statesmen. … England did not in the
strict sense conquer India, but … certain Englishmen, who
happened to reside in India at the time when the Mogul Empire
fell, had a fortune like that of Hyder Ali or Runjeet Singh
and rose to supreme power there."
J. R. Seeley,
The Expansion of England,
course 2, lecture 3.
ALSO IN:
J. G. Duff,
History of the Mahrattas,
volume 2, chapters 2-5.
G. B. Malleson,
History of Afghanistan,
chapter 8.
H. G. Keene,
Madhava Rao Sindhia,
chapter 2.
INDIA: A. D. 1755-1757.
Capture of Calcutta by Surajah Dowlah.
The tragedy of the Black Hole.
Clive's recovery of the Fort and settlement.
Clive remained three years in England, where he sought an
election to Parliament, as a supporter of Fox, but was
unseated by the Tories. On suffering this disappointment, he
re-entered the service of the East India Company, as governor
of Fort St. David, with the commission of a lieutenant-colonel
in the British army, received from the king, and returned to
India in 1755. Soon after his arrival at Fort St. David, "he
received intelligence which called forth all the energy of his
bold and active mind. Of the provinces which had been subject
to the house of Tamerlane, the wealthiest was Bengal. No part
of India possessed such natural advantages both for
agriculture and for commerce. … The great commercial
companies of Europe had long possessed factories in Bengal.
The French were settled, as they still are, at Chandernagore
on the Hoogley. Higher up the stream the Dutch traders held
Chinsurah. Nearer to the sea, the English had built Fort
William. A church and ample warehouses rose in the vicinity. A
row of spacious houses, belonging to the chief factors of the
East India Company, lined the banks of the river; and in the
neighbourhood had sprung up a large and busy native town,
where some Hindoo merchants of great opulence had fixed their
abode. But the tract now covered by the palaces of Chowringhee
contained only a few miserable huts thatched with straw. A
jungle, abandoned to water-fowl and alligators, covered the
site of the present Citadel, and the Course, which is now
daily crowded at sunset with the gayest equipages of Calcutta.
For the ground on which the settlement stood, the English,
like other great landholders, paid rent to the government; and
they were, like other great landholders, permitted to exercise
a certain jurisdiction within their domain. The great province
of Bengal, together with Orissa and Bahar, had long been
governed by a viceroy, whom the English called Aliverdy Khan,
and who, like the other viceroys of the Mogul, had become
virtually independent. He died in 1756, and the sovereignty
descended to his grandson, a youth under twenty years of age,
who bore the name of Surajah Dowlah. … From a child Surajah
Dowlah had hated the English. It was his whim to do so; and
his whims were never opposed. He had also formed a very
exaggerated notion of the wealth which might be obtained by
plundering them; and his feeble and uncultivated mind was
incapable of perceiving that the riches of Calcutta, had they
been even greater than he imagined, would not compensate him
for what he must lose, if the European trade, of which Bengal
was a chief seat, should be driven by his violence to some
other Quarter. Pretexts for a quarrel were readily found.
{1716}
The English, in expectation of a war with France, had begun to
fortify their settlement without special permission from the
Nabob. A rich native, whom he longed to plunder, had taken
refuge at Calcutta, and had not been delivered up. On such
grounds as these Surajah Dowlah marched with a great army
against Fort William. The servants of the Company at Madras
had been forced by Dupleix to become statesmen and soldiers.
Those in Bengal were still mere traders, and were terrified
and bewildered by the approaching danger. … The fort was
taken [June 20, 1756] after a feeble resistance; and great
numbers of the English fell into the hands of the conquerors.
The Nabob seated himself with regal pomp in the principal hall
of the factory, and ordered Mr. Holwell, the first in rank
among the prisoners, to be brought before him. His Highness
talked about the insolence of the English, and grumbled at the
smallness of the treasure which he had found; but promised to
spare their lives, and retired to rest. Then was committed
that great crime, memorable for its singular atrocity,
memorable for the tremendous retribution by which it was
followed. The English captives were left at the mercy of the
guards, and the guards determined to secure them for the night
in the prison of the garrison, a chamber known by the fearful
name of the Black Hole. Even for a single European malefactor,
that dungeon would, in such a climate, have been too close and
narrow. The space was only twenty feet square. The air-holes
were small and obstructed. It was the summer solstice, the
season when the fierce heat of Bengal can scarcely be rendered
tolerable to natives of England by lofty halls and by the
constant waving of fans. The number of the prisoners was 146.
When they were ordered to enter the cell, they imagined that
the soldiers were joking; and, being in high spirits on
account of the promise of the Nabob to spare their lives, they
laughed and jested at the absurdity of the notion. They soon
discovered their mistake. They expostulated; they entreated;
but in vain. The guards threatened to cut down all who
hesitated. The captives were driven into the cell at the point
of the sword, and the door was instantly shut and locked upon
them. Nothing in history or fiction, not even the story which
Ugolino told in the sea of everlasting ice, after he had wiped
his bloody lips on the scalp of his murderer, approaches the
horrors which were recounted by the few survivors of that
night. They cried for mercy. They strove to burst the door.
Holwell who, even in that extremity, retained some presence of
mind, offered large bribes to the gaolers. But the answer was
that nothing could be done without the Nabob's orders, that
the Nabob was asleep, and that he would be angry if anybody
woke him. Then the prisoners 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
gaolers 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 Nabob had slept off his debauch, and permitted
the door 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,
123 in number, were flung into it promiscuously and covered
up. … One Englishwoman had survived that night. She was
placed in the harem of the Prince at Moorshedabad. Surajah
Dowlah, in the mean time, sent letters to his nominal
sovereign at Delhi, describing the late conquest in the most
pompous language. He placed a garrison in Fort William,
forbade Englishmen to dwell in the neighbourhood, and directed
that, in memory of his great actions, Calcutta should
thenceforward be called Alinagore, that is to say, the Port of
God. In August the news of the fall of Calcutta reached
Madras, and excited the fiercest and bitterest resentment. The
cry of the whole settlement was for vengeance. Within
forty-eight hours after the arrival of the intelligence it was
determined that an expedition should be sent to the Hoogley,
and that Clive should be at the head of the land forces. The
naval armament was under the command of Admiral Watson. Nine
hundred English infantry, fine troops and full of spirit, and
1,500 sepoys, composed the army which sailed to punish a
Prince who had more subjects than Lewis XV. or the Empress
Maria Theresa. In October the expedition sailed; but it had to
make its way against adverse winds, and did not reach Bengal
till December. The Nabob was revelling in fancied security at
Moorshedabad. He was so profoundly ignorant of the state of
foreign countries that he often used to say that there were
not ten thousand men in all Europe; and it had never occurred
to him as possible, that the English would dare to invade his
dominions. But, though undisturbed by any fear of their
military power, he began to miss them greatly. His revenues
fell off. … He was already disposed to permit the company to
resume its mercantile operations in his country, when he
received the news that an English armament was in the Hoogley.
He instantly ordered all his troops to assemble at
Moorshedabad, and marched towards Calcutta. Clive had
commenced operations with his usual vigour. He took
Budgebudge, routed the garrison of Fort William, recovered
Calcutta, stormed and sacked Hoogley. The Nabob, already
disposed to make some concessions to the English, was
confirmed in his pacific disposition by these proofs of their
power and spirit. He accordingly made overtures to the chiefs
of the invading armament, and offered to restore the factory,
and to give compensation to those whom he had despoiled.
Clive's profession, was war; and he felt that there was
something discreditable in an accommodation with Surajah
Dowlah. But his power was limited. … The promises of the
Nabob were large, the chances of a contest doubtful; and Clive
consented to treat, though he expressed his regret that things
should not be concluded in so glorious a manner as he could
have wished. With this negotiation commences a new chapter in
the life of Clive. Hitherto he had been merely a soldier
carrying into effect, with eminent ability and valour, the
plans of others. Henceforth he is to be chiefly regarded as a
statesman; and his military movements are to be considered as
subordinate to his political designs."
Lord Macaulay,
Lord Clive (Essays).
ALSO IN:
Sir J. Malcolm,
Life of Lord Clive,
chapter 3 (volume 1).
J. Mill,
History of British India,
book 4, chapter 3 (volume 3).
H. E. Busteed,
Echoes from Old Calcutta,
chapter 1.
{1717}
INDIA: A. D. 1757.
A Treacherous conspiracy against Surajah Dowlah.
His overthrow at the battle of Plassey.
The counterfeit Treaty with Omichund.
Elevation of Meer Jaffier to the Subahdar's throne.
The unsatisfactory treaty entered into with Surajah Dowlah had
been pressed upon Clive by the Calcutta merchants, who
"thought the alliance would enable them to get rid of the
rival French station at Chandernagore. The Subahdar gave a
doubtful answer to their proposal to attack this settlement,
which Clive interpreted as an assent. The French were
overpowered, and surrendered their fort. Surajah Dowlah was
now indignant against his recent allies; and sought the
friendship of the French officers. Clive, called by the
natives 'the daring in war,' was also the most adroit,
and,—for the truth cannot be disguised,—the most
unscrupulous in policy. The English resident at the Court of
Moorshedabad, under Clive's instructions, encouraged a
conspiracy to depose the Subahdar, and to raise his general,
Meer Jaffier, to the supreme power. A Hindoo of great wealth
and influence, Omichund, engaged in this conspiracy. After it
had proceeded so far as to become the subject of a treaty
between a Select Committee at Calcutta and Meer Jaffier,
Omichund demanded that a condition should be inserted in that
treaty, to pay him thirty lacs of rupees as a reward for his
service. The merchants at Calcutta desired the largest share
of any donation from Meer Jaffier, as a consideration for
themselves, and were by no means willing that £300,000 should
go to a crafty Hindoo. Clive suggested an expedient to secure
Omichund's fidelity, and yet not to comply with his
demands—to have two treaties drawn; a real one on red paper,
a fictitious one on white. The white treaty was to be shown to
Omichund, and he was to see with his own eyes that he had been
properly cared for. Clive and the Committee signed this; as
well as the red treaty which was to go to Meer Jaffier.
Admiral Watson refused to sign the treacherous document. On
the 19th of May, 1773, Clive stood up in his place in the
House of Commons, to defend himself upon this charge against
him, amongst other accusations. He boldly acknowledged that
the stratagem of the two treaties was his invention;—that
admiral Watson did not sign it; but that he should have
thought himself authorised to sign for him in consequence of a
conversation; that the person who did sign thought he had
sufficient authority for so doing. 'He (Clive) forged admiral
Watson's name, says lord Macaulay. … The courage, the
perseverance, the unconquerable energy of Clive have furnished
examples to many in India who have emulated his true glory.
Thank God, the innate integrity of the British character has,
for the most part, preserved us from such exhibitions of 'true
policy and justice.' The English resident, Mr. Watts, left
Moorshedabad. Clive wrote a letter of defiance to Surajah
Dowlah, and marched towards his capital. The Subahdar had come
forth from his city, as populous as the London of a century
ago, to annihilate the paltry army of 1,000 English, and their
2,000 Sepoys disciplined by English officers, who dared to
encounter his 60,000. He reached the village of Plassey with
all the panoply of oriental warfare. His artillery alone
appeared sufficient to sweep away those who brought only eight
field pieces and two howitzers to meet his fifty heavy guns.
Each gun was drawn by forty yoke of oxen; and a trained
elephant was behind each gun to urge it over rough ground or
up steep ascents. Meer Jaffier had not performed his promise
to join the English with a division of the Subahdar's army. It
was a time of terrible anxiety with the English commander.
Should he venture to give battle without the aid of a native
force? He submitted his doubt to a Council of War. Twelve
officers, himself amongst the number, voted for delay. Seven
voted for instant action. Clive reviewed the arguments on each
side, and finally cast away his doubts. He determined to
fight, without which departure from the opinion of the
majority, he afterwards said, the English would never have
been masters of Bengal. On the 22nd of June [1757], his little
army marched fifteen miles, passed the Hooghly, and at one
o'clock of the morning of the 23rd rested under the
mangoe-trees of Plassey. As the day broke, the vast legions of
the Subahdar,—15,000 cavalry, 45,000 infantry,—some armed
with muskets, some with bows and arrows, began to surround the
mangoe-grove and the hunting-lodge where Clive had watched
through the night. There was a cannonade for several hours.
The great guns of Surajah Dowlah did little execution. The
small field-pieces of Clive were well served. One of the chief
Mohammedan leaders having fallen, disorder ensued, and the
Subahdar was advised to retreat. He himself fled upon a swift
camel to Moorshedabad. When the British forces began to
pursue, the victory became complete. Meer Jaffier joined the
conquerors the next day. Surajah Dowlah did not consider
himself safe in his capital; and he preferred to seek the
protection of a French detachment at Patna. He escaped from
his palace disguised; ascended the Ganges in a small boat; and
fancied himself secure. A peasant whose ears he had cut off
recognised his oppressor, and with some soldiers brought him
back to Moorshedabad. In his presence-chamber now sat Meer
Jaffier, to whose knees the wretched youth crawled for mercy.
That night Surajah Dowlah was murdered in his prison, by the
orders of Meer Jaffier's son, a boy as blood-thirsty as
himself."
C. Knight,
Popular History of England,
volume 6, chapter 14.
ALSO IN:
G. B. Malleson,
Founders of the Indian Empire: Clive,
chapters 8-10.
G. B. Malleson,
Lord Clive (Rulers of India).
G. B. Malleson,
Decisive Battles of India,
chapter 3.
E. Thornton,
History of British Empire in India,
volume 1, chapter 4.
INDIA: A. D. 1757-1772.
Clive's Administration in Bengal.
Decisive war with the Moghul Emperor and the Nawab of Oudh.
English Supremacy established.
"The battle of Plassey was fought on June 23, 1757, an
anniversary afterwards remembered when the Mutiny of 1857 was
at its height. History has agreed to adopt this date as the
beginning of the British Empire in the East. But the immediate
results of the victory were comparatively small, and several
years passed in hard fighting before even the Bengalis would
admit the superiority of the British arms.
{1718}
For the moment, however, all opposition was at an end. Clive,
again following in the steps of Dupleix, placed Mir Jafar upon
the Viceregal throne at Murshidabad, being careful to obtain a
patent of investiture from the Mughal court. Enormous sums
were exacted from Mir Jafar as the price of his elevation. …
At the same time, the Nawab made a grant to the Company of the
zamindari or landholder's rights over an extensive tract of
country round Calcutta, now known as the District of the
Twenty-four Parganas. The area of this tract was 882 square
miles. In 1757 the Company obtained only the zamindari
rights—i. e., the rights to collect the cultivator's rents,
with the revenue jurisdiction attached [see below: A. D.
1785-1793]. The superior lordship, or right to receive the
land tax, remained with the Nawab. But in 1759, this also was
granted by the Delhi Emperor, the nominal Suzerain of the
Nawab, in favour of Clive, who thus became the landlord of his
own masters, the Company. … Lord Clive's claims to the
property as feudal Suzerain over the Company were contested in
1764; and on the 23d June, 1765, when he returned to Bengal, a
new deed was issued, confirming the unconditional jagir to
Lord Clive for ten years, with reversion afterwards to the
Company in perpetuity. … In 1758, Clive was appointed by the
Court of Directors the first Governor of all the Company's
settlements in Bengal. Two powers threatened hostilities. On
the west, the Shahzada or Imperial prince, known afterwards as
the Emperor Shah Alam, with a mixed army of Afghans and
Marhattas, and supported by the Nawab Wazir of Oudh, was
advancing his own claims to the Province of Bengal. In the
south, the influence of the French under Lally and Bussy was
overshadowing the British at Madras. The name of Clive
exercised a decisive effect in both directions. Mir Jafar was
anxious to buy off the Shahzada, who had already invested
Patna. But Clive marched in person to the rescue, with an army
of only 450 Europeans and 2,500 sepoys, and the Mughal army
dispersed without striking a blow. In the same year, Clive
despatched a force southwards under Colonel Forde, which
recaptured Masulipatam from the French, and permanently
established British influence throughout the Northern Circars,
and at the court of Haidarabad. He next attacked the Dutch,
the only other European nation who might yet prove a rival to
the English. He defeated them both by land and water; and
their settlement at Chinsurah existed thenceforth only on
sufferance. From 1760 to 1765, Clive was in England. He had
left no system of government in Bengal, but merely the
tradition that unlimited sums of money might be extracted from
the natives by the terror of the English name. In 1761, it was
found expedient and profitable to dethrone Mir Jafar, the
English Nawab of Murshidabad, and to substitute his
son-in-law, Mir Kasim, in his place. On this occasion, besides
private donations, the English received a grant of the three
Districts of Bardwan, Midnapur, and Chittagong, estimated to
yield a net revenue of half a million sterling. But Mir Kasim
soon began to show a will of his own, and to cherish dreams of
independence. … The Nawab alleged that his civil authority
was everywhere set at nought. The majority of the Council at
Calcutta would not listen to his complaints. The Governor, Mr.
Vansittart, and Warren Hastings, then a junior member of
Council, attempted to effect some compromise. But the
controversy had become too hot. The Nawab's officers fired
upon an English boat, and forthwith all Bengal rose in arms
[1763]. Two thousand of our sepoys were cut to pieces at
Patna; about 200 Englishmen, who there and in other various
parts of the Province fell into the hands of the Muhammadans,
were massacred. But as soon as regular warfare commenced, Mir
Kasim met with no more successes. His trained regiments were
defeated in two pitched battles by Major Adams, at Gheriah and
at Udha-nala; and he himself took refuge with the Nawab Wazir
of Oudh, who refused to deliver him up. This led to a
prolongation of the war. Shah Alam, who had now succeeded his
father as Emperor, and Shuja-ud-Daula, the Nawab Wazir of
Oudh, united their forces, and threatened Patna, which the
English had recovered. A more formidable danger appeared in
the English camp, in the form of the first sepoy mutiny. This
was quelled by Major (afterwards Sir Hector) Munro, who
ordered 24 of the ringleaders to be blown from guns, an old
Mughal punishment. In 1764, Major Munro won the decisive
battle of Baxar [or Buxar], which laid Oudh at the feet of the
conquerors, and brought the Mughal Emperor as a suppliant to
the English camp. Meanwhile, the Council at Calcutta had twice
found the opportunity they loved of selling the government of
Bengal to a new Nawab. But in 1765, Clive (now Baron Clive of
Plassey in the peerage of Ireland) arrived at Calcutta, as
Governor of Bengal for the second time. Two landmarks stand
out in his policy. First, he sought the substance, although
not the name, of territorial power, under the fiction of a
grant from the Mughal Emperor. Second, he desired to purify
the Company's service, by prohibiting illicit gains, and
guaranteeing a reasonable pay from honest sources. In neither
respect were his plans carried out by his immediate
successors. But the beginning of our Indian rule dates from
this second governorship of Clive, as our military supremacy
had dated from his victory at Plassey. Clive landed, advanced
rapidly up from Calcutta to Allahabad, and there settled in
person the fate of nearly half of India. Oudh was given back
to the Nawab Wazir, on condition of his paying half a million
sterling towards the expenses of the war. The Provinces of
Allahabad and Kora, forming the greater part of the Doab, were
handed over to Shah Alam himself, who in his turn granted to
the Company the diwani or fiscal administration of Bengal,
Behar, and Orissa, and also the territorial jurisdiction of
the Northern Circars. A puppet Nawab was still maintained at
Murshidabad, who received an annual allowance from us of
£600,000. Half that amount, or about £300,000, we paid to the
Emperor as tribute from Bengal. Thus was constituted the dual
system of government, by which the English received all the
revenues and undertook to maintain the army; while the
criminal jurisdiction, or nizamat, was vested in the Nawab. In
Indian phraseology, the Company was diwan and the Nawab was
nizam. The actual collection of the revenues still remained
for some years in the hands of native officials. … Lord
Clive quitted India for the third and last time in 1767.
{1719}
Between that date and the governorship of Warren Hastings, in
1772, little of importance occurred in Bengal beyond the
terrible famine of 1770, which is officially reported to have
swept away one-third of the inhabitants. The dual system of
government, established in 1765 by Clive, had proved a
failure. Warren Hastings, a tried servant of the Company,
distinguished alike for intelligence, for probity, and for
knowledge of oriental manners, was nominated Governor by the
Court of Directors, with express instructions to carry out a
predetermined series of reforms. In their own words, the Court
had resolved to 'stand forth as diwan, and to take upon
themselves, by the agency of their own servants, the entire
care and administration of the revenues.' In the execution of
this plan, Hastings removed the exchequer from Murshidabad to
Calcutta, and appointed European officers, under the now
familiar title of Collectors, to superintend the revenue
collections and preside in the courts. Clive had laid the
territorial foundations of the British Empire in Bengal.
Hastings may be said to have created a British administration
for that Empire."
Sir W. W. Hunter,
India (article in Imperial Gazetteer of India)
volume 4, pages 389-394.
ALSO IN:
W. M, Torrens,
Empire in Asia: How we came by it,
chapters 4-6.
Sir C. Wilson,
Lord Clive,
chapters 7-9.
G. B. Malleson,
Decisive Battles of India,
chapter 7.
INDIA: A. D. 1758-1761.
Overthrow of French domination in the Carnatic.
The decisive Battle of Wandiwash.
"In 1758 the fortunes of the French in India underwent an
entire change. In April a French fleet arrived at Pondicherry.
It brought a large force under the command of Count de Lally,
who had been appointed Governor-General of the French
possessions in India. … No sooner had he landed at
Pondicherry than he organised an expedition against Fort St.
David; but he found that no preparations had been made by the
French authorities. There was a want alike of coolies, draught
cattle, provisions, and ready money. But the energy of Lally
overcame all obstacles. … In June, 1758, Lally captured Fort
St. David. He then prepared to capture Madras as a preliminary
to an advance on Bengal. He recalled Bussy from the Dekhan to
help him with his Indian experiences; and he sent the Marquis
de Conflans to succeed Bussy in the command of the Northern
Circars. [A strip of territory on the Coromandel coast, which
had been ceded to the French in 1752 by Salabut Jung, Nizam of
the Dekhun, was so called; it stretched along 600 miles of
seaboard, from the Carnatic frontier northwards.] … The
departure of Bussy from the Northern Circars was disastrous to
the French. The Raja of Vizianagram revolted against the
French and sent to Calcutta for help. Clive despatched an
English force to the Northern Circars, under the command of
Colonel Forde; and in December, 1758, Colonel Forde defeated
the French under Conflans [at Condore, or Kondur, December 9],
and prepared to recover all the English factories on the coast
which had been captured by Bussy. Meanwhile Count de Lally was
actively engaged at Pondicherry in preparations for the siege
of Madras. He hoped to capture Madras, and complete the
destruction of the English in the Carnatic; and then to march
northward, capture Calcutta, and expel the English from
Bengal. … Lally reached Madras on the 12th of December,
1758, and at once took possession of Black Town. He then began
the siege of Fort St. George with a vigour and activity which
commanded the respect of his enemies. His difficulties were
enormous. … Even the gunpowder was nearly exhausted. At
last, on the 16th of February, 1759, an English fleet arrived
at Madras under Admiral Pocock, and Lally was compelled to
raise the siege. Such was the state of party feeling amongst
the French in India, that the retreat of Lally from Madras was
received at Pondicherry with every demonstration of joy. The
career of Lally in India lasted for two years longer, namely
from February, 1759, to February, 1761; it is a series of
hopeless struggles and wearying misfortunes. In the Dekhan,
Salabut Jung had been thrown into the utmost alarm by the
departure of Bussy and defeat of Conflans. He was exposed to
the intrigues and plots of his younger brother, Nizam Ali, and
he despaired of obtaining further help from the French.
Accordingly he opened up negotiations with Colonel Forde and
the English. Forde on his part recovered all the Captured
factories [taking Masulipatam by storm, April 7, 1759, after a
fortnight's siege], and drove the French out of the Northern
Circars. He could not however interfere in the domestic
affairs of the Dekhan, by helping Salabut Jung against Nizam
Ali. In 1761 Salabut Jung was dethroned and placed in
confinement; and Nizam Ali ascended the throne at Hyderabad as
ruler of the Dekhan. In the Carnatic the French were in
despair. In January, 1760, Lally was defeated by Colonel Coote
at Wandiwash, between Madras and Pondicherry. Lally opened up
negotiations with Hyder Ali, who was rising to power in
Mysore; but Hyder Ali as yet could do little or nothing. At
the end of 1760 Colonel Coote began the siege of Pondicherry.
Lally … was ill in health and worn out with vexation and
fatigue. The settlement was torn by dissensions. In January,
1761, the garrison was starved into a capitulation, and the
town and fortifications were levelled with the ground. A few
weeks afterwards the French were compelled to surrender the
strong hill-fortress of Jingi, and their military power in the
Carnatic was brought to a close." On the return of Count Lally
to France "he was sacrificed to save the reputation of the
French ministers. … He was tried by the parliament of Paris.
… In May, 1766, he was condemned not only to death, but to
immediate execution."
J. T. Wheeler,
Short History of India,
part 3, chapter 2.
"The battle of Wandewash, … though the numbers on each side
were comparatively small, must yet be classed amongst the
decisive battles of the world, for it dealt a fatal and
decisive blow to French domination in India."
G. B. Malleson,
History of the French in India,
chapter 12.
ALSO IN:
G. B. Malleson,
Decisive Battles of India,
chapter 4.
INDIA: A. D. 1767-1769.
The first war with Hyder Ali.
"At this period, the main point of interest changes from the
Presidency of Bengal to the Presidency of Madras. There, the
English were becoming involved in another war. There, they had
now, for the first time, to encounter the most skilful and
daring of all the enemies against whom they ever fought in
India—Hyder Ali.
{1720}
He was of humble origin, the grandchild of a wandering 'fakir'
or Mahomedan monk. Most versatile in his talents, Hyder was no
less adventurous in his career; by turns a private man devoted
to sports of the chase, a captain of free-booters, a
partisan-chief, a rebel against the Rajah of Mysore, and
commander-in-chief of the Mysorean army. Of this last position
he availed himself to dethrone and supplant his master. …
Pursuing his ambitious schemes, Hyder Ali became, not merely
the successor of the Rajah, but the founder of the kingdom of
Mysore. From his palace at Seringapatam, as from a centre, a
new energy was infused through the whole of Southern India. By
various wars and by the dispossession of several smaller
princes, he extended his frontiers to the northward, nearly to
the river Kistna. His posts on the coast of Malabar, Mangalore
especially, gave him the means of founding a marine; and he
applied himself with assiduous skill to train and discipline
his troops according to the European models. The English at
Madras were roused by his ambition, without as yet fully
appreciating his genius. We find them at the beginning of 1767
engaged, with little care or forethought, in a confederacy
against him with the Nizam and the Mahrattas. Formidable as
that confederacy might seem, it was speedily dissipated by the
arts of Hyder. At the very outset, a well-timed subsidy bought
off the Mahrattas. The Nizam showed no better faith; he was
only more tardy in his treason. He took the field in concert
with a body of English commanded by Colonel Joseph Smith, but
soon began to show symptoms of defection, and at last drew off
his troops to join the army of Hyder. A battle ensued near
Trincomalee, in September, 1767. Colonel Smith had under him
no more than 1,500 Europeans and 9,000 Sepoys; while the
forces combined on the other side were estimated, probably
with much exaggeration, at 70,000 men. Nevertheless, Victory,
as usual, declared for the English cause. … Our victory at
Trincomalee produced as its speedy consequence a treaty of
peace with the Nizam. Hyder was left alone; but even thus
proved fully a match for the English both of Madras and of
Bombay. … He could not be prevented from laying waste the
southern plains of the Carnatic, as the territory of one of
the staunchest allies of England, Mahomed Ali, the Nabob of
Arcot. Through such ravages, the British troops often
underwent severe privations. … At length, in the spring of
1769, Hyder Ali became desirous of peace, and resolved to
extort it on favourable terms. First, by a dexterous feint he
drew off the British forces 140 miles to the southward of
Madras. Then suddenly, at the head of 5,000 horsemen, Hyder
himself appeared at St. Thomas's Mount, within ten miles of
that city. The terrified Members of the Council already, in
their mind's eye, saw their country-houses given up to plunder
and to flame, and were little inclined to dispute whatever
might be asked by an enemy so near at hand. Happily his terms
were not high. A treaty was signed, providing that a mutual
restoration of conquests should take place, and that the
contracting parties should agree to assist each other in all
defensive wars. In the career of Hyder Ali, this was by no
means the first, nor yet the last occasion, on which he showed
himself sincerely desirous of alliance with the English. He
did not conceal the fact, that, in order to maintain his power
and secure himself, he must lean either on them or on the
Mahrattas. … In this war with Hyder, the English had lost no
great amount of reputation, and of territory they had lost
none at all. But as regards their wealth and their resources,
they had suffered severely. Supplies, both of men and of
money, had been required from Bengal, to assist the government
at Madras; and both had been freely given. In consequence of
such a drain, there could not be made the usual investments in
goods, nor yet the usual remittances to England. Thus at the
very time when the proprietors of the East India Company had
begun to wish each other joy on the great reforms effected by
Lord Clive, and looked forward to a further increase of their
half-yearly Dividend, they were told to prepare for its
reduction. A panic ensued. Within a few days, in the spring of
1769, India Stock fell above sixty per cent."
Lord Mahon (Earl Stanhope),
History of England, 1713-1783,
chapter 67.
ALSO IN:
Meer Hussein Ali Khan Kirmani,
History of Hydur Naik,
chapters 1-17.
L. B. Bowring,
Haidar Ali and Tipu Sultan,
chapter 8.
INDIA: A. D. 1770-1773.
Climax of English misrule.
Break-down of the East India Company's government.
The Indian Act of Lord North.
"In 1770 Bengal was desolated by perhaps the most terrible of
the many terrible famines that have darkened its history, and
it was estimated that more than a third part of its
inhabitants perished. Yet in spite of all these calamities, in
spite of the rapidly accumulating evidence of the inadequacy
of the Indian revenues, the rapacity of the proprietors at
home prevailed, and dividends of 12 and 12½ per cent., as
permitted by the last Act, were declared. The result of all
this could hardly be doubtful. In July, 1772, the Directors
were obliged to confess that the sum required for the
necessary payments of the next three months was deficient to
the extent of no less than £1,293,000, and in August the
Chairman and Deputy Chairman waited on the Minister to inform
him that nothing short of a loan of at least one million from
the public could save the Company from ruin. The whole system
of Indian government had thus for a time broken down. The
division between the Directors and a large part of the
proprietors, and between the authorities of the Company in
England and those in India, the private and selfish interests
of its servants in India, and of its proprietors at home, the
continual oscillation between a policy of conquest and a
policy of trade, and the great want in the whole organisation
of any adequate power of command and of restraint, had fatally
weakened the great corporation. In England the conviction was
rapidly growing that the whole system of governing a great
country by a commercial company was radically and incurably
false. … The subject was discussed in Parliament, in 1772,
at great length, and with much acrimony. Several propositions
were put forward by the Directors, but rejected by the
Parliament; and Parliament, under the influence of Lord North,
and in spite of the strenuous and passionate opposition of
Burke, asserted in unequivocal terms its right to the
territorial revenues of the Company. A Select Committee,
consisting of thirty-one members, was appointed by Parliament
to make a full inquiry into the affairs of the Company. It was
not, however, till 1773 that decisive measures were taken.
{1721}
The Company was at this time absolutely helpless. Lord North
commanded an overwhelming majority in both Houses, and on
Indian questions he was supported by a portion of the
Opposition. The Company was on the brink of ruin, unable to
pay its tribute to the Government, unable to meet the bills
which were becoming due in Bengal. The publication, in 1773,
of the report of the Select Committee, revealed a scene of
maladministration, oppression, and fraud which aroused a
wide-spread indignation through England; and the Government
was able without difficulty, in spite of the provisions of the
charter, to exercise a complete controlling and regulating
power over the affairs of the Company. … By enormous
majorities two measures were passed through Parliament in
1773, which mark the commencement of a new epoch in the
history of the East India Company. By one Act, the ministers
met its financial embarrassments by a loan of £1,400,000 at an
interest of 4 per cent., and agreed to forego the claim of
£400,000 till this loan had been discharged. The Company was
restricted from declaring any dividend above 6 per cent. till
the new loan had been discharged, and above 7 per cent. till
its bond-debt was reduced to £1,500,000. It was obliged to
submit its accounts every half-year to the Lords of the
Treasury; it was restricted from accepting bills drawn by its
servants in India for above 300,000 a year, and it was obliged
to export to the British settlements within its limits British
goods of a specified value. By another Act, the whole
constitution of the Company was changed, and the great centre
of authority and power was transferred to the Crown. … All
the more important matters of jurisdiction in India were to be
submitted to a new court, consisting of a Chief Justice and
three puisne judges appointed by the Crown. A Governor-General
of Bengal, Behar, and Orissa, was to be appointed at a salary
of £25,000 a year, with four Councillors, at salaries of
£8,000 a year, and the other presidencies were made
subordinate to Bengal. The first Governor-General and
Councillors were to be nominated, not by the East India
Company, but by Parliament; they were to be named in the Act,
and to hold their offices for five years; after that period
the appointments reverted to the Directors, but were subject
to the approbation of the Crown. Everything in the Company's
correspondence with India relating to civil and military
affairs was to be laid before the Government. No person in the
service of the King or of the Company might receive presents,
and the Governor-General, the Councillors, and the judges were
excluded from all commercial profits and pursuits. By this
memorable Act the charter of the East India Company was
completely subverted, and the government of India passed
mainly into the hands of the ministers of the Crown. The chief
management of affairs was vested in persons in whose
appointment or removal the Company had no voice or share, who
might govern without its approbation or sanction, but who
nevertheless drew, by authority of an Act of Parliament, large
salaries from its exchequer. Such a measure could be justified
only by extreme necessity and by brilliant success, and it was
obviously open to the gravest objections from many sides. …
Warren Hastings was the first Governor-General: Barwell,
Clavering, Monson, and Philip Francis were the four
Councillors."
W. E. H. Lecky,
History of England in the 18th Century,
chapter 13 (volume 3).
ALSO IN:
J. Mill,
History of British India,
book 4, chapter 9 (volume 3).
INDIA: A. D. 1773-1785.
The First English Governor-General.
Administration of Warren Hastings.
Execution of Nuncomar.
The Rohilla War.
Annexation of Benares.
Treatment of the Begums of Oudh.
"The Governor-General was not at once the potential personage
he has since become. The necessity of ruling by a Dictator (a
dictator on the spot, though responsible to superiors at home)
had not yet become obvious; and the Governor-General had no
superiority in council, except the casting vote in case of an
equal division. Whether he could govern or not depended
chiefly on whether he had a party of two in the council. Two
out of the four, with his own casting vote, were enough; and
without it, he was not really governor. This is not the place
in which to follow the history of the first general council
and its factions, apart from the consequences to British
interests. It must suffice to say that at the outset, three
out of four of the council (and those the new officials from
England) were opposed to Hastings. It has been related that
the internal administration of Bengal under Clive's 'double
system' was managed by the Nabob's prime-minister. This
functionary had a salary of £100,000 a year, and enjoyed a
high dignity and immense power. One man who aspired to hold
the office in Clive's time was the great Hindoo, Nuncomar, …
eminent in English eyes for his wealth, and his abilities, and
much more in native estimation for his sanctity as a Brahmin,
and his almost unbounded social power. … The Maharajah
Nuncomar was a great scoundrel—there is no doubt of that;
and his intrigues, supported by forgeries, were so flagrant as
to prevent his appointment to the premiership under the Nabob.
Such vices were less odious in Bengal than almost anywhere
else; but they were inconvenient, as well as disgusting, to
the British; and this was the reason why Clive set aside
Nuncomar, and appointed his rival competitor, Mohammed Reza
Khan, though he was highly reluctant to place the highest
office in Bengal in the hands of a Mussulman. This Mussulman
administered affairs for seven years before Hastings became
Governor-General; and he also had the charge of the infant
Nabob, after Surajah Dowla died. We have seen how dissatisfied
the Directors were with the proceeds of their Bengal
dominions. Nuncomar planted his agents everywhere; and in
London especially; and these agents persuaded the Directors
that Mohammed Reza Khan was to blame for their difficulties
and their scanty revenues. Confident in this information, they
sent secret orders to Hastings to arrest the great Mussulman,
and everybody who belonged to him, and to hear what Nuncomar
had to say against him." The Governor-General obeyed the order
and made the arrests, "but the Mussulman minister was not
punished, and Nuncomar hated Hastings accordingly. He bided
his time, storing up materials of accusation with which to
overwhelm the Governor at the first turn of his fortunes. That
turn was when the majority of the Council were opposed to the
Governor-General, and rendered him helpless in his office; and
Nuncomar then presented himself, with offers of evidence to
prove all manner of treasons and corruptions against Hastings.
{1722}
Hastings was haughty; the councils were tempestuous. Hastings
prepared to resign, though he was aware that the opinion of
the English in Bengal was with him; and Nuncomar was the
greatest native in the country, visited by the Council, and
resorted to by all his countrymen who ventured to approach
him. Foiled in the Council, Hastings had recourse to the
Supreme Court [of which Sir Elijah Impey was the Chief
Justice]. He caused Nuncomar to be arrested on a charge
brought ostensibly by a native of having forged a bond six
years before. After a long trial for an offence which appeared
very slight to Bengalee natives in those days, the culprit was
found guilty by a jury of Englishmen, and condemned to death
by the judges."
H. Martineau,
British Rule in India,
chapter 9.
"It may perhaps be said that no trial has been so often tried
over again by such diverse authorities, or in so many
different ways, as this celebrated proceeding. During the
course of a century it has been made the theme of historical,
political, and biographical discussions; all the points have
been argued and debated by great orators and great lawyers; it
has formed the avowed basis of a motion in Parliament to
impeach the Chief-Justice, and it must have weighed heavily,
though indirectly, with those who decided to impeach the
Governor-General. It gave rise to rumours of a dark and
nefarious conspiracy which, whether authentic or not, exactly
suited the humour and the rhetoric of some contemporary
English politicians. … Very recently Sir James Stephen,
after subjecting the whole case to exact scrutiny and the most
skilful analysis, after examining every document and every
fact bearing upon this matter with anxious attention, has
pronounced judgment declaring that Nuncomar's trial was
perfectly fair, that Hastings had nothing to do with the
prosecution, and that at the time there was no sort of
conspiracy or understanding between Hastings and Impey in
relation to it. Nothing can be more masterly or more effective
than the method employed by Sir James Stephen to explode and
demolish, by the force of a carefully-laid train of proofs,
the loose fabric of assertions, invectives, and ill-woven
demonstrations upon which the enemies of Hastings and Impey
based and pushed forward their attacks, and which have never
before been so vigorously battered in reply. … It may be
accepted, upon Sir James Stephen's authority, that no evidence
can be produced to justify conclusions adverse to the
innocence of Hastings upon a charge that has from its nature
affected the popular tradition regarding him far more deeply
than the accusations of high-handed oppressive political
transactions, which are little understood and leniently
condemned by the English at large. There is really nothing to
prove that he had anything to do with the prosecution, or that
he influenced the sentence. … Nevertheless when Sir James
Stephen undertakes to establish, by argument drawn from the
general motives of human action, the moral certainty that
Hastings was totally unconnected with the business, and that
the popular impression against him is utterly wrong, his
demonstration is necessarily less conclusive. … On the whole
there is no reason whatever to dissent from Pitt's view, who
treated the accusation of a conspiracy between Impey and
Hastings for the purpose of destroying Nuncomar, as destitute
of any shadow of solid proof. Whether Hastings, when Nuncomar
openly tried to ruin him by false and malignant accusations,
became aware and made use in self-defence of the fact that his
accuser had rendered himself liable to a prosecution for
forgery, is a different question, upon which also no evidence
exists or is likely to be forthcoming."
Sir A. Lyall,
Warren Hastings,
chapter 3.
"James Mill says, 'No transaction perhaps of his whole
administration more deeply tainted the reputation of Hastings
than the tragedy of Nuncomar.' A similar remark was made by
William Wilberforce. The most prominent part too in Nuncomar's
story is played by Sir Elijah Impey. … Impey, in the present
day, is known to English people in general only by the
terrible attack made upon him by Lord Macaulay, in his essay
on Warren Hastings. It stigmatises him as one of the vilest of
mankind. 'No other such judge has dishonoured the English
ermine since Jefferies drank himself to death in the Tower.'
'Impey, sitting as a judge, put a man unjustly to death, in
order to serve a political purpose.' 'The time had come when
he was to be stripped of that robe which he had so foully
dishonoured.' These dreadful accusations I, upon the fullest
consideration of the whole subject, and, in particular, of
much evidence which Macaulay seems to me never to have seen,
believe to be wholly unjust. For Macaulay himself I have an
affectionate admiration. He was my own friend, and my
father's, and my grandfather's friend also, and there are few
injunctions which I am more disposed to observe than the one
which bids us not to forget such persons. I was, moreover, his
successor in office, and am better able than most persons to
appreciate the splendour of the services which he rendered to
India. These considerations make me anxious if I can to repair
a wrong done by him, not intentionally, for there never was a
kinder-hearted man, but because he adopted on insufficient
grounds the traditional hatred which the Whigs bore to Impey,
and also because his marvellous power of style blinded him to
the effect which his language produced. He did not know his
own strength, and was probably not aware that a few sentences
which came from him with little effort were enough to brand a
man's name with almost indelible infamy. … My own opinion is
that no man ever had, or could have, a fairer trial than
Nuncomar, and that Impey in particular behaved with absolute
fairness and as much indulgence as was compatible with his
duty. In his defence at the bar of the House of Commons, he
said, 'Conscious as I am how much it was my intention to
favour the prisoner in everything that was consistent with
justice; wishing as I did that the facts might turn out
favourable for an acquittal; it has appeared most wonderful to
me that the execution of my purpose has so far differed from
my intentions that any ingenuity could form an objection to my
personal conduct as bearing hard on the prisoner.' My own
earnest study of the trial has led me to the conviction that
every word of this is absolutely true and just. Indeed, the
first matter which directed my attention to the subject was
the glaring contrast between Impey's conduct as ascribed in
the State Trials and his character as described by Lord
Macaulay.
{1723}
There is not a word in his summing-up of which I should have
been ashamed had I said it myself, and all my study of the
case has not suggested to me a single observation in
Nuncomar's favour which is not noticed by Impey. As to the
verdict, I think that there was ample evidence to support it.
Whether it was in fact correct is a point on which it is
impossible for me to give an unqualified opinion, as it is of
course impossible now to judge decidedly of the credit due to
the witnesses, and as I do not understand some part of the
exhibits."
J. F. Stephen,
The Story of Nuncomar,
pages 2-3, 186-187.
"Sir John Strachey, in his work on Hastings and the Rohilla
War, examines in detail one of the chief charges made against
the conduct of Warren Hastings while Governor-General. The
Rohilla charge was dropped by Burke and the managers, and was
therefore not one of the issues tried at the impeachment; but
it was, in spite of this fact, one of the main accusations
urged against the Governor-General in Macaulay's famous essay.
Macaulay, following James Mill, accuses Warren Hastings of
having hired out an English army to exterminate what Burke
called 'the bravest, the most honourable and generous nation
on earth.' According to Macaulay, the Vizier of Oudh coveted
the Rohilla country, but was not strong enough to take it for
himself. Accordingly, he paid down forty lakhs of rupees to
Hastings, on condition that the latter should help to strike
down and seize his prey. … Sir John Strachey … shows
beyond a shadow of doubt that the whole story is a delusion.
… 'The English army was not hired out by Hastings for the
destruction of the Rohillas; the Rohillas described by Burke
as belonging to the bravest, the most honourable and generous
nation on earth, were no nation at all, but a comparatively
small body of cruel and rapacious Afghan adventurers, who had
imposed their foreign rule on an unwilling Hindoo population;
and the story of their destruction is fictitious.' … The
north-west angle of the great strip of plain which follows the
course of the Ganges was possessed by a clan which fifty years
before had been a mere band of Afghan mercenaries, but which
was now beginning to settle down as a dominant governing
class, living among a vastly more numerous subject-population
of Hindoos. This country was Rohilkhand, the warrior-horde the
Rohillas. It must never be forgotten that the Rohillas were no
more the inhabitants of Rohilkhand than were the Normans fifty
years after the Conquest the inhabitants of England. … But
the fact that the corner of what geographically was our
barrier State was held by the Rohillas, made it necessary for
us to keep Rohilkhand as well as Oudh free from the Mahrattas.
Hence it became the key-note of Warren Hastings' policy to
help both the Rohillas and the Vizier [of Oudh] to maintain
their independence against the Mahrattas. In the year 1772,
however, the Mahrattas succeeded in crossing the Ganges, in
getting into Rohilkhand, and in threatening the Province of
Oudh. … Hastings encouraged the Vizier and the Rohilla
chiefs to make an alliance, under which the Rohillas were to
be reinstated in their country by aid of the Vizier, the
Vizier obtaining for such assistance forty lakhs,—that is, he
coupled the Rohillas and the Vizier, for defence purposes,
into one barrier-State. … If the Rohillas had observed this
treaty, all might have been well. Unhappily for them, they
could not resist the temptation to break faith." They joined
the Mahrattas against Oudh, and it was after this had occurred
twice that Hastings lent assistance to the Vizier in expelling
them from Rohilkhand. "Instead of exterminating the Rohillas,
he helped make a warrior-clan, but one generation removed from
a 'free company,' recross the Ganges and release from their grip
the land they had conquered."
The Spectator,
April 2, 1892.

Sir John Strachey,
Hastings and the Rohillas.
"The year 1781 opened for Hastings on a troubled sea of
dangers, difficulties, and distress. Haidar Ali was raging in
the Carnatic, Goddard and Camac were still fighting the
Marathas, and French fleets were cruising in the Bay of
Bengal. … It was no time for standing upon trifles. Money
must be raised somehow, if British India was to be saved.
Among other sources of supply, he turned to the Rajah of
Banaras [or Benares]. Chait Singh was the grandson of an
adventurer, who had ousted his own patron and protector from
the lordship of the district so named. In 1775, his fief had
been transferred by treaty from the Nawab of Oudh to the
Company. As a vassal of the Company he was bound to aid them
with men and money in times of special need. Five lakhs of
rupees—£50,000—and two thousand horse was the quota which
Hastings had demanded of him in 1780. In spite of the revenue
of half-a-million, of the great wealth stored up in his
private coffers, and of the splendid show which he always made
in public, the Rajah pleaded poverty, and put off compliance
with the demands of his liege lord. … Chait Singh had
repeatedly delayed the payment of his ordinary tribute; his
body-guard alone was larger than the force which Hastings
required of him; he was enrolling troops for some warlike
purpose, and Hastings' agents accused him of secret plottings
with the Oudh Begams at Faizabad. … The Rajah, in fact, like
a shrewd, self-seeking Hindu, was waiting upon circumstances,
which at that time boded ill for his English neighbours. The
Marathas, the French, or some other power might yet relieve
him from the yoke of a ruler who restrained his ambition, and
lectured him on the duty of preserving law and order among his
own subjects. … It has often been argued that, in his stern
dealings with the Rajah of Banaras, Hastings was impelled by
malice and a desire for revenge. But the subsequent verdict of
the House of Lords on this point, justifies itself to all who
have carefully followed the facts of his life. … As a matter
of policy, he determined to make an example of a contumacious
vassal, whose conduct in that hour of need added a new danger
to those which surrounded the English in India. A heavy fine
would teach the Rajah to obey orders, and help betimes to fill
his own treasury with the sinews of war. … Chait Singh had
already tried upon the Governor-General those arts which in
Eastern countries people of all classes employ against each
other without a blush. He had sent Hastings a peace-offering
of two lakhs—£20,000. Hastings took the money, but reserved
it for the Company's use. Presently he received an offer of
twenty lakhs for the public service. But Hastings was in no
mood for further compromise in evasion of his former demands.
{1724}
He would be satisfied with nothing less than half a million in
quittance of all dues. In July, 1781, he set out, with
Wheeler's concurrence, for the Rajah's capital. … Traveling,
as he preferred to do, with a small escort and as little
parade as possible, he arrived on the 16th August at the
populous and stately city. … On his way thither, at Baxar,
the recusant Rajah had come to meet him, with a large retinue,
in the hope of softening the heart of the great Lord Sahib. He
even laid his turban on Hastings' lap. … With the
haughtiness of an ancient Roman, Hastings declined his prayer
for a private interview. On the day after his arrival at
Banaras, the Governor-General forwarded to Chait Singh a paper
stating the grounds of complaint against him, and demanding an
explanation on each point. The Rajah's answer seemed to
Hastings' so offensive in style and unsatisfactory in
substance;' it was full, in fact, of such transparent, or, as
Lord Thurlow afterwards called them, 'impudent' falsehoods,
that the Governor-General issued orders for placing the Rajah
under arrest. Early the next morning, Chait Singh was quietly
arrested in his own palace. … Meanwhile his armed retainers
were flocking into the city from his strong castle of
Ramnagar, on the opposite bank. Mixing with the populace, they
provoked a tumult, in which the two companies of Sepoys
guarding the prisoner were cut to pieces. With unloaded
muskets and empty pouches—for the ammunition had been
forgotten—the poor men fell like sheep before their butchers.
Two more companies, in marching to their aid through the
narrow streets, were nearly annihilated. During the tumult
Chait Singh quietly slipped out of the palace, dropped by a
rope of turbans into a boat beneath, and crossed in safety to
Ramnagar. … If Chait Singh's followers had not shared
betimes their master's flight across the river, Hastings, with
his band of thirty Englishmen and fifty Sepoys, might have
paid very dearly for the sudden miscarriage of his plans. But
the rabble of Banaras had no leader, and troops from the
nearest garrisons were already marching to the rescue. …
Among the first who reached him was the gallant Popham,
bringing with him several hundred of his own Sepoys. … The
beginning of September found Popham strong enough to open a
campaign, which speedily avenged the slaughters at Banaras and
Ramnagar, and carried Hastings back into the full stream of
richly-earned success. … The capture of Bijigarh on the 10th
November, closed the brief but brilliant campaign. The booty,
amounting to £400,000, was at once divided among the captors;
and Hastings lost his only chance of replenishing his treasury
at the expense of Chait Singh. He consoled himself and
improved the Company's finances, by bestowing the rebel's
forfeit lordship on his nephew, and doubling the tribute
hitherto exacted. He was more successful in accomplishing
another object of his journey up the country."
L. J. Trotter,
Warren Hastings,
chapter 6.
"It is certain … that Chait Singh's rebellion was largely
aided by the Begums or Princesses of Faizabad. On this point
the evidence contained in Mr. Forrest's volumes ['Selections
from Letters, Despatches and other State Papers in the Foreign
Department of the Government of India,' edited by G. W.
Forrest] leaves no shadow of reasonable doubt. In plain truth,
the Begums, through their Ministers, the eunuchs, had levied
war both against the Company and their own kinsmen and master,
the new Wazir of Oudh. Some years before, when the Francis
faction ruled in Calcutta, these ladies, the widow and the
mother of Shuja, had joined with the British Agent in robbing
the new Wazir, Asaf-ud-daula, of nearly all the rich treasure
which his father had stored up in Faizabad. Hastings solemnly
protested against a transaction which he was powerless to
prevent. The Begums kept their hold upon the treasure, and
their Jaghirs, or military fiefs, which ought by rights to
have lapsed to the new Wazir. Meanwhile Asaf-ud-daula had to
govern as he best could, with an empty treasury, and an army
mutinous for arrears of pay. At last, with the suppression of
the Benares revolt, it seemed to Hastings and the Wazir that
the time had come for resuming the Jaghirs, and making the
Begums disgorge their ill-gotten wealth. In accordance with
the Treaty of Chunar, both these objects were carried out by
the Wazir's orders, with just enough of compulsion to give
Hastings' enemies a handle for the slanders and
misrepresentations which lent so cruel a point to Sheridan's
dazzling oratory, and to one of the most scathing passages in
Macaulay's most popular essay. There are some points, no
doubt, in Hastings' character and career about which honest
men may still hold different opinions. But on all the
weightier issues here mentioned there ought to be no room for
further controversy. It is no longer possible to contend, for
instance, that Hastings agreed, for a handsome bribe, to help
in exterminating the innocent people of Rohilkhand; that he
prompted Impey to murder Nand-Kumar; that any desire for
plunder led him to fasten a quarrel upon Chait Singh; or that
he engaged with the Oudh Wazir in a plot to rob the Wazir's
own mother of vast property secured to her under a solemn
compact, 'formally guaranteed by the Government of Bengal.'"
L. J. Trotter,
Warren Hastings and his Libellers
(Westminster Review, March, 1891).
ALSO IN:
W. M. Torrens,
Empire in Asia: How we came by it,
chapters 7-11.
H. E. Busteed,
Echoes from Old Calcutta.
G. W. Forrest,
The Administration of Warren Hastings.
G. R. Gleig,
Memoirs of Warren Hastings,
volume 1, chapters 8-14, and volume 2.
INDIA: A. D. 1780-1783.
The second war with Hyder Ali (Second Mysore War).
"The brilliant successes obtained by the English over the
French in Hindostan at the beginning of the war had made all
direct competition between the two nations in that country
impossible, but it was still in the power of the French to
stimulate the hostility of the native princes, and the ablest
of all these, Hyder Ali, the great ruler of Mysore, was once
more in the field. Since his triumph over the English, in
1769, he had acquired much additional territory from the
Mahrattas. He had immensely strengthened his military forces,
both in numbers and discipline. … For some years he showed
no wish to quarrel with the English, but when a Mahratta chief
invaded his territory they refused to give him the assistance
they were bound by the express terms of the treaty of 1769 to
afford, they rejected or evaded more than one subsequent
proposal of alliance, and they pursued a native policy in some
instances hostile to his interest.
{1725}
As a great native sovereign, too, he had no wish to see the
balance of power established by the rivalry between the
British and French destroyed. … Mysore was swarming with
French adventurers. The condition of Europe made it scarcely
possible that England could send any fresh forces, and Hyder
Ali had acquired a strength which appeared irresistible.
Ominous rumours passed over the land towards the close of
1779, but they were little heeded, and no serious preparations
had been made, when in July, 1780, the storm suddenly burst.
At the head of an army of at least 90,000 men, including
30,000 horsemen, 100 cannon, many European officers and
soldiers, and crowds of desperate adventurers from all parts
of India, Hyder Ali descended upon the Carnatic and devastated
a vast tract of country round Madras. Many forts and towns
were invested, captured, or surrendered. The Nabob and some of
his principal officers acted with gross treachery or
cowardice, and in spite of the devastations native sympathies
were strongly with the invaders. … Madras was for a time in
imminent danger. A few forts commanded by British officers
held out valiantly, but the English had only two considerable
bodies of men, commanded respectively by Colonel Baillie and
by Sir Hector Munro, in the field. They endeavoured to effect
a junction, but Hyder succeeded in attacking separately the
small army of Colonel Baillie, consisting of rather more than
3,700 men, and it was totally defeated [September 10], 2,000
men being left on the field. Munro only saved himself from a
similar fate by a rapid retreat, abandoning his baggage, and
much of his ammunition. Arcot, which was the capital of the
Nabob, and which contained vast military stores, was besieged
for six weeks, and surrendered in the beginning of November.
Velore, Wandewash, Permacoil, and Chingliput, four of the
chief strongholds in the Carnatic, were invested. A French
fleet with French troops was daily expected, and it appeared
almost certain that the British power would be extinguished in
Madras, if not in the whole of Hindostan. It was saved by the
energy of the Governor-General, Warren Hastings, who, by
extraordinary efforts, collected a large body of Sepoys and a
few Europeans in Bengal, and sent them with great rapidity to
Madras, under the command of Sir Eyre Coote, who had proved
himself twenty years before scarcely second in military genius
to Clive himself. I do not propose to relate in detail the
long and tangled story of the war that followed. … It is
sufficient to say that Coote soon found himself at the head of
about 7,200 men, of whom 1,400 were Europeans; that he
succeeded in relieving Wandewash, and obliging Hyder Ali to
abandon for the present the siege of Velore; that the French
fleet, which arrived off the coast in January, 1781, was found
to contain no troops, and that on July 1, 1781, Coote, with an
army of about 8,000 men, totally defeated forces at least
eight times as numerous, commanded by Hyder himself, in the
great battle of Porto Novo. … The war raged over the
Carnatic, over Tanjore, in the Dutch settlements to the south
of Tanjore, on the opposite Malabar coast, and on the coast of
Ceylon, while at the same time another and independent
struggle was proceeding with the Mahrattas. … The coffers at
Calcutta were nearly empty, and it was in order to replenish
them that Hastings committed some of the acts which were
afterwards the subjects of his impeachment. … By the skill
and daring of a few able men, of whom Hastings, Coote, Munro,
and Lord Macartney were the most prominent, the storm was
weathered. Hyder Ali died in December, 1782, about four months
before Sir Eyre Coote. The peace of 1782 withdrew France and
Holland from the contest, and towards the close of 1783,
Tippoo, the son of Hyder Ali, consented to negotiate a peace,
which was signed in the following March. Its terms were a
mutual restoration of all conquests, and in this, as in so
many other great wars, neither of the contending parties
gained a single advantage by all the bloodshed, the
expenditure, the desolation, and the misery of a struggle of
nearly four years."
W. E. H. Lecky,
History of England in the 18th Century,
chapter 14 (volume 5).
"The centre and heart of the English power lay in Bengal,
which the war never reached at all, and which was governed by
a man of rare talent and organizing capacity. No Anglo-Indian
government of that time could carry on a campaign by war
loans, as in Europe; the cost had to be provided out of
revenue, or by requiring subsidies from allied native rulers;
and it was Bengal that furnished not only the money and the
men, but also the chief political direction and military
leadership which surmounted the difficulties and repaired the
calamities of the English in the western and southern
Presidencies. And when at last the Marathas made peace, when
Hyder Ali died, and Suffren, with all his courage and genius,
could not master the English fleet in the Bay of Bengal, there
could be no doubt that the war had proved the strength of the
English position in India, had tested the firmness of its
foundation. … With the termination of this war ended the
only period in the long contest between England and the native
powers, during which our position in India was for a time
seriously jeoparded. That the English dominion emerged from
this prolonged struggle uninjured, though not unshaken, is a
result due to the political intrepidity of Warren Hastings.
… Hastings had no aristocratic connexions or parliamentary
influence at a time when the great families and the House of
Commons held immense power; he was surrounded by enemies in
his own Council; and his immediate masters, the East India
Company, gave him very fluctuating support. Fiercely opposed
by his own colleagues, and very ill obeyed by the subordinate
Presidencies, he had to maintain the Company's commercial
establishments, and at the same time to find money for
carrying on distant and impolitic wars in which he had been
involved by blunders at Madras or Bombay. These funds he had
been expected to provide out of current revenues, after buying
and despatching the merchandise on which the company's home
dividends depended; for the resource of raising public loans,
so freely used in England, was not available to him. He was
thus inevitably driven to the financial transactions, at
Benares and Lucknow, that were now so bitterly stigmatized as
crimes by men who made no allowance for a perilous situation
in a distant land, or for the weight of enormous national
interests committed to the charge of the one man capable of
sustaining them. When the storm had blown over in India, and
he had piloted his vessel into calm water, he was sacrificed
with little or no hesitation to party exigencies in England;
the Ministry would have recalled him; they consented to his
impeachment; they left him to be baited by the Opposition and
to be ruined by the law's delay, by the incredible
procrastination and the obsolete formalities of a seven years'
trial before the House of Lords."
Sir A. Lyall,
Rise of the British Dominion in India,
chapter 11, section 2.
ALSO IN:
Meer Hussein Ali Khan Kirmani,
History of Hydur Naik,
chapters 27-31.
G. B. Malleson,
Decisive Battles of India,
chapter 8.
L. B. Bowring,
Haidar Ali and Tipu Sultan,
chapters 14-15.
{1726}
INDIA: A. D. 1785-1793.
State of India.
Extent of English rule.
Administration of Lord Cornwallis.
War with Tippoo Saib (Third Mysore War).
The "Permanent Settlement" of Land Revenue in Bengal,
and its fruit.
"When Warren Hastings left India, the Mogul Empire was simply
the phantom of a name. The warlike tribes of the north-west,
Sikhs, Rajpoots, Jats, were henceforth independent; but the
Rohillas of the north-east had been subdued and almost
exterminated. Of the three greatest Soobahs or vice-royalties
of the Mogul empire, at one time practically independent, that
of Bengal had wholly disappeared, those of Oude and the Deckan
had sunk into dependence on a foreign power, were maintained
by the aid of foreign mercenaries. The only two native powers
that remained were, the Mahrattas, and the newly-risen
Mussulman dynasty of Mysore. The former were still divided
between the great chieftaincies of the Peshwa, Scindia,
Holkar, the Guicowar, and the Boslas of Berar. But the
supremacy of the Peshwa was on the wane; that of Scindia, on
the contrary, in the ascendant. Scindia ruled in the north; he
had possession of the emperor's person, of Delhi, the old
Mussulman capital. In the south, Hyder Ali and Tippoo [son of
Hyder Ali, whom he had succeeded in 1782], Sultan of Mysore,
had attained to remarkable power. They were dangerous to the
Mahrattas, dangerous to the Nizam, dangerous, lastly, to the
English. But the rise of the last-named power was the great
event of the period. … They had won for themselves the three
great provinces of Bengal, Behar, and Orissa, besides
Benares,—forming a large compact mass of territory to the
north-east. They had, farther down the east coast, the
province of the Northern Circars, and farther still, the
jagheer [land grant], of Madras; on the west, again, a large
stretch of territory at the southern extremity of the
peninsula. The two Mussulman sovereigns of Oude and Hyderabad
were their dependent allies; they administered the country of
the Nawab of the Carnatic, besides having hosts of smaller
potentates under their protection. … The appointed successor
to Hastings was Lord Macartney. … He lost his office,
however, by hesitating to accept it, and going to England to
urge conditions. … The great military event of Lord
Cornwallis's government was the third Mysore war. It began
with some disputes about the petty Raja of Cherika, from whom
the English had farmed the customs of Tellicherry, and taken,
in security for advances, a district called Randaterra, and by
Tippoo's attack upon the lines of the Raja of Travancore, an
ally of the English, consisting of a ditch, wall, and other
defences, on an extent of about thirty miles. Tippoo was,
however, repelled with great slaughter in an attack on the
town (1789). Hearing this, Lord Cornwallis at once entered
into treaties with the Nizam and the Peshwa for a joint war
upon Mysore; all new conquests to be equally divided, all
Tippoo's own conquests from the contracting powers to be
restored. After a first inconclusive campaign, in which,
notwithstanding the skill of General Meadows, the advantage
rather remained to Tippoo, who, amongst other things, gave a
decided check to Colonel Floyd (1790), Lord Cornwallis took
the command in person, and carried Bangalore by assault, with
great loss to both parties, but a tremendous carnage of the
besieged. However, so wretched had been the English
preparations, that, the cattle being 'reduced to skeletons,
and scarcely able to move their own weight,' Lord Cornwallis,
after advancing to besiege Seringapatam, was forced to retreat
and to destroy the whole of his battering-train and other
equipments; whilst General Abercrombie, who was advancing in
the same direction from the Malabar coast, had to do the same
(1791). A force of Mahrattas came in, well appointed and well
provided, but too late to avert these disasters. The next
campaign was more successful. It began by the taking of
several of the hill-forts forming the western barrier of
Mysore. … On the 5th February, 1792, however, Lord
Cornwallis appeared before Seringapatam, situated in an island
formed by the Cauvery: the fort and outworks were provided
with 300 pieces of cannon; the fortified camp, outside the
river, by six redoubts, with more than 100 pieces of heavy
artillery. Tippoo's army consisted of 6,000 cavalry and 50,000
infantry, himself commanding. This first siege, which is
celebrated in Indian warfare, continued with complete success
on the English side till the 24th. 10,000 subjects of Coorg,
whom Tippoo had enlisted by force, deserted. At last, when the
whole island was carried and all preparations made for the
siege, Tippoo made peace. The English allies had such
confidence in Lord Cornwallis, that they left him entire
discretion as to the terms. They were,—that Tippoo should
give up half of his territory, pay a large sum for war
expenses, and give up two of his sons as hostages. The ceded
territory was divided between the allies, the Company
obtaining a large strip of the Malabar coast, extending
eastward to the Carnatic. … Meanwhile, on the breaking out
of war between England and the French Republic, the French
settlements in India were all again annexed (1792). Lord
Cornwallis now applied himself to questions of internal
government. Properly speaking, there was no English Government
as yet. Mr. Kaye, the brilliant apologist of the East India
Company, says, of Lord Cornwallis, that 'he gathered up the
scattered fragments of government which he found, and reduced
them to one comprehensive system.' He organized the
administration of criminal justice, reorganized the police. He
separated the connection of the revenues from the
administration of justice, organizing civil justice in turn.
… He next proceeded to organize the financial system of the
Company's government. … Hence the famous 'Permanent
Settlement' of Lord Cornwallis (22nd March, 1793)."
J. M. Ludlow,
British India,
lecture 9 (volume 1).
{1727}
"In 1793 the so-called Permanent Settlement of the Land Revenue
was introduced. We found in Bengal, when we succeeded to the
Government, a class of middle-men, called Zemindars [or
Zamindars-see, also, TALUKDARS], who collected the land
revenue and the taxes, and we continued to employ them. As a
matter of convenience and expediency, but not of right, the
office of zemindar was often hereditary. The zemindars had
never been in any sense the owners of the land, but it was
supposed by Lord Cornwallis and the English rulers of the time
that it would be an excellent thing for Bengal to have a class
of landlords something like those of England; the zemindars
were the only people that seemed available for the purpose,
and they were declared to be the proprietors of the land. It
was by no means intended that injustice should thus be done to
others. Excepting the State, there was only one great class,
that of the ryots or actual cultivators, which, according to
immemorial custom, could be held to possess permanent rights
in the land. The existence of those rights was recognised,
and, as it was supposed, guarded by the law. … There has
been much dispute as to the exact nature of the rights given
to the zemindars, but everyone agrees that it was not the
intention of the authors of the Permanent Settlement to
confiscate anything which, according to the customs of the
country, had belonged to the cultivators. The right of
property given to the zemindars was a portion of those rights
which had always been exercised by the State, and of which the
State was at liberty to dispose; it was not intended that they
should receive anything else. The land revenue, representing
the share of the produce or rental to which the State was
entitled, was fixed in perpetuity. The ryots were to continue
to hold their lands permanently at the 'rates established in
the purgunnah;' when the amount of these rates was disputed it
was to be settled by the courts; so long as rents at those
rates were paid, the ryot could not be evicted. The intention
was to secure to the ryot fixity of tenure and fixity of rent.
Unfortunately, these rights were only secured upon paper. …
The consequences at the present time are these:—Even if it
be assumed that the share of the rent which the State can
wisely take is smaller than the share which any Government,
Native or English, has ever taken or proposed to take in
India, the amount now received by the State from the land in
Bengal must be held to fall short of what it might be by a sum
that can hardly be less than £5,000,000 a year; this is a
moderate computation; probably the loss is much more. This is
given away in return for no service to the State or to the
public; the zemindars are merely the receivers of rent; with
exceptions so rare as to deserve no consideration, they take
no part in the improvement of the land, and, until a very few
years ago, they bore virtually no share of the public burdens.
The result of these proceedings of the last century, to the
maintenance of which for ever the faith of the British
Government is said to have been pledged, is that the poorer
classes in poorer provinces have to make good to the State the
millions which have been thrown away in Bengal. If this were
all, it would be bad enough, but worse remains to be told. …
'The original intention of the framers of the Permanent
Settlement (I am quoting from Sir George Campbell) was to
record all rights. The Canoongoes (District Registrars) and
Putwarees (Village Accountants) were to register all holdings,
all transfers, all rent-rolls, and all receipts and payments;
and every five years there was to be filed in the public
offices a complete register of all land tenures. But the task
was a difficult one; there was delay in carrying it out. …
The putwarees fell into disuse or became the mere servants of
the zemindars; the canoongoes were abolished. No record of the
rights of the ryots and inferior holders was ever made, and
even the quinquennial register of superior rights, which was
maintained for a time, fell into disuse.' … The consequences
of the Permanent Settlement did not become immediately
prominent. … But, as time went on, and population and wealth
increased, as cultivators were more readily found, and custom
began to give way to competition, the position of the ryots
became worse and that of the zemindars became stronger. Other
circumstances helped the process of confiscation of the rights
of the peasantry. … The confiscation of the rights of the
ryots has reached vast proportions. In 1793 the rental left to
the zemindars under the Permanent Settlement, after payment of
the land revenue, is supposed not to have exceeded £400,000;
according to some estimates it was less. If the intentions of
the Government had been carried out, it was to the ryots that
the greater portion of any future increase in the annual value
of the land would have belonged, in those parts at least of
the province which were at that time well cultivated. It is
not possible to state with confidence the present gross annual
rental of the landlords of Bengal. An imperfect valuation made
some years ago showed it to be £13,000,000. It is now called
£17,000,000, but there can be little doubt that it is much
more. Thus, after deducting the land revenue, which is about
£3,800,000, the net rental has risen from £400,000 in the last
century to more than £13,000,000 at the present time. No
portion of this increase has been due to the action of the
zemindars. It has been due to the industry of the ryots, to
whom the greater part of it rightfully belonged, to the
peaceful progress of the country, and to the expenditure of
the State, an expenditure mainly defrayed from the taxation of
poorer provinces. If ever there was an 'unearned increment,'
it is this."
Sir J. Strachey,
India,
lecture 12.
ALSO IN:
J. W. Kaye,
The Administration of the East India Co.,
part 2, chapter 2.
J. Mill,
History of British India,
book 6, chapter 4 (volume 5).
W. S. Seton-Karr,
The Marquess Cornwallis,
chapter 2.
Sir R. Temple,
James Thomason,
chapter 9.
INDIA: A. D. 1785-1795.
The Impeachment and Trial of Warren Hastings.
"Warren Hastings returned to England in the summer of 1785,
and met with a distinguished reception. "I find myself," he
wrote to a friend, "every where and universally treated with
evidences, apparent even to my own observation, that I possess
the good opinion of my country." But underneath this
superficial "good opinion" there existed a moral feeling which
had been outraged by the unscrupulous measures of the
Governor-General of India, and which began soon to speak aloud
through the eloquent lips of Edmund Burke. Joined in the
movement by Fox and Sheridan, Burke laid charges before
Parliament which forced the House of Commons, in the session
of 1787 to order the impeachment of Hastings before the Lords.
On the 13th of February, 1788, the sittings of the Court
commenced.
{1728}
There have been spectacles more dazzling to the eye, more
gorgeous with jewellery and cloth of gold, more attractive to
grown-up children, than that which was then exhibited at
Westminster; but, perhaps, there never was a spectacle so well
calculated to strike a highly cultivated, a reflecting, an
imaginative mind. All the various kinds of interest which
belong to the near and to the distant, to the present and to
the past, were collected on one spot and in one hour. All the
talents and all the accomplishments which are developed by
liberty and civilisation were now displayed, with every
advantage that could be derived both from co-operation and
from contrast. Every step in the proceedings carried the mind
either backward, through many troubled centuries, to the days
when the foundations of our constitution were laid; or far
away, over boundless seas and deserts, to dusky nations living
under strange stars, worshipping strange gods, and writing
strange characters from right to left. The High Court of
Parliament was to sit, according to forms handed down from the
days of the Plantagenets, on an Englishman accused of
exercising tyranny over the lord of the holy city of Benares,
and over the ladies of the princely house of Oude. The place
was worthy of such a trial. It was the great hall of William
Rufus, the hall which had resounded with acclamations at the
inauguration of thirty kings, the hall which had witnessed the
just sentence of Bacon and the just absolution of Somers, the
hall where the eloquence of Strafford had for a moment awed
and melted a victorious party inflamed with just resentment,
the hall where Charles had confronted the High Court of
Justice with the placid courage which has half redeemed his
fame. Neither military nor civil pomp was wanting. The avenues
were lined with grenadiers. The streets were kept clear by
cavalry. The peers, robed in gold and ermine, were marshalled
by the heralds under Garter King-at-arms. The judges in their
vestments of state attended to give advice on points of law.
Near a hundred and seventy lords, three fourths of the Upper
House as the Upper House then was, walked in solemn order from
their usual place of assembling to the tribunal. … The grey
old walls were hung with scarlet. The long galleries were
crowded by an audience such as has rarely excited the fears or
the emulations of an orator. There were gathered together,
from all parts of a great, free, enlightened, and prosperous
empire, grace and female loveliness, wit and learning, the
representatives of every science and of every art. … The
Serjeants made proclamation. Hastings advanced to the bar, and
bent his knee. The culprit was indeed not unworthy of that
great presence. He had ruled an extensive and populous
country, had made laws and treaties, had sent forth armies,
had set up and pulled down princes. And in his high place he
had so borne himself, that all had feared him, that most had
loved him, and that hatred itself could deny him no title to
glory, except virtue. He looked like a great man, and not like
a bad man. … His counsel accompanied him, men all of whom
were afterwards raised by their talents and learning to the
highest posts in their profession, the bold and strong-minded
Law, afterwards Chief Justice of the King's Bench; the more
humane and eloquent Dallas, afterwards Chief Justice of the
Common Pleas; and Plomer who, near twenty years later,
successfully conducted in the same high court the defence of
Lord Melville, and subsequently became Vice-chancellor and
Master of the Rolls. But neither the culprit nor his advocates
attracted so much notice as the accusers. In the midst of the
blaze of red drapery, a space had been fitted up with green
benches and tables for the Commons. The managers, with Burke
at their head, appeared in full dress. The collectors of
gossip did not fail to remark that even Fox, generally so
regardless of his appearance, had paid to the illustrious
tribunal the compliment of wearing a bag and sword. Pitt had
refused to be one of the conductors of the impeachment; and
his commanding, copious, and sonorous eloquence was wanting to
that great muster of various talents. … The charges and the
answers of Hastings were first read. The ceremony occupied two
whole days, and was rendered less tedious than it would
otherwise have been by the silver voice and just emphasis of
Cowper, the clerk of the court, a near relation of the amiable
poet. On the third day Burke rose. Four sittings were occupied
by his opening speech, which was intended to be a general
introduction to all the charges. With an exuberance of thought
and a splendour of diction, which more than satisfied the
highly raised expectation of the audience, he described the
character and institutions of the natives of India, recounted
the circumstances in which the Asiatic empire of Britain had
originated, and set forth the constitution of the Company and
of the English presidencies. … When the Court sat again, Mr.
Fox, assisted by Mr. Grey, opened the charge respecting Cheyte
Sing, and several days were spent in reading papers and
hearing witnesses. The next article was that relating to the
Princesses of Oude. The conduct of this part of the case was
intrusted to Sheridan. The curiosity of the public to hear him
was unbounded. His sparkling and highly finished declamation
lasted two days; but the Hall was crowded to suffocation
during the whole time. It was said that fifty guineas had been
paid for a single ticket. Sheridan, when he concluded,
contrived, with a knowledge of stage effect which his father
might have envied, to sink back, as if exhausted, into the
arms of Burke, who hugged him with the energy of generous
admiration. June was now far advanced. The session could not
last much longer; and the progress which had been made in the
impeachment was not very satisfactory. There were twenty
charges. On two only of these had even the case for the
prosecution been heard; and it was now a year since Hastings
had been admitted to bail. The interest taken by the public in
the trial was great when the Court began to sit, and rose to
the height when Sheridan spoke on the charge relating to the
Begums. From that time the excitement went down fast. The
spectacle had lost the attraction of novelty. The great
displays of rhetoric were over. … The trial in the Hall went
on languidly. In the session of 1788, when the proceedings had
the interest of novelty, and when the Peers had little other
business before them, only thirty-five days were given to the
impeachment. In 1789 … during the whole year only
seventeen days were given to the case of Hastings. … At
length, in the spring of 1795, the decision was pronounced,
near eight years after Hastings had been brought by the
Serjeant-at-arms of the Commons to the bar of the Lords.
{1729}
… Only twenty-nine Peers voted. Of these only six found
Hastings guilty on the charges relating to Cheyte Sing and to
the Begums. On other charges, the majority in his favour was
still greater. On some he was unanimously absolved. He was
then called to the bar, was informed from the woolsack that
the Lords had acquitted him, and was solemnly discharged. He
bowed respectfully and retired. We have said that the decision
had been fully expected. It was also generally approved. …
It was thought, and not without reason, that, even if he was
guilty, he was still an ill-used man, and that an impeachment
of eight years was more than a sufficient punishment. It was
also felt that, though, in the ordinary course of criminal
law, a defendant is not allowed to set off his good actions
against his crimes, a great political cause should be tried on
different principles, and that a man who had governed an
empire during thirteen years might have done some very
reprehensible things, and yet might be on the whole deserving
of rewards and honours rather than of fine and imprisonment."
Lord Macaulay,
Warren Hastings (Essays).
"The trial had several beneficial results. It cleared off a
cloud of misconceptions, calumnies, exaggerations, and false
notions generally on both sides; it fixed and promulgated the
standard which the English people would in future insist upon
maintaining in their Indian administration; it bound down the
East India Company to better behaviour; it served as an
example and a salutary warning, and it relieved the national
conscience. But the attempt to make Hastings a sacrifice and a
burnt-offering for the sins of the people; the process of
loading him with curses and driving him away into the
wilderness; of stoning him with every epithet and metaphor
that the English language could supply for heaping ignominy on
his head; of keeping him seven years under an impeachment that
menaced him with ruin and infamy—these were blots upon the
prosecution and wide aberrations from the true course of
justice which disfigured the aspect of the trial, distorted
its aim, and had much to do with bringing it to the lame and
impotent conclusion that Burke so bitterly denounced."
Sir A. Lyall,
Warren Hastings,
chapter 9.
ALSO IN:
E. Burke,
Works,
volumes 8-12.
Speeches of Managers and Counsel
in the Trial of Warren Hastings,
edited by E. A. Bond.
INDIA: A. D. 1798-1805.
The administration and imperial policy of the Marquis Wellesley.
Treaty with the Nizam.
Overthrow and death of Tippoo, Sultan of Mysore.
War with the Mahrattas.
Assaye and Laswari.
Territorial acquisitions.
"The period of Sir John Shore's rule as Governor-General, from
1793 to 1798 [after which he became Lord Teignmouth], was
uneventful. In 1798, Lord Mornington, better known as the
Marquis of Wellesley, arrived in India, already inspired with
imperial projects which were destined to change the map of the
country. Mornington was the friend and favourite of Pitt, from
whom he is thought to have derived his far-reaching political
vision, and his antipathy to the French name. From the first
he laid down as his guiding principle, that the English must
be the one paramount power in the peninsula, and that Native
princes could only retain the insignia of sovereignty by
surrendering their political independence. The history of
India since his time has been but the gradual development of
this policy, which received its finishing touch when Queen
Victoria was proclaimed Empress of India on the 1st of
January, 1877. To frustrate the possibility of a French
invasion of India, led by Napoleon in person, was the
governing idea of Wellesley's foreign policy. France at this
time, and for many years later, filled the place afterwards
occupied by Russia in the minds of Indian statesmen. Nor was
the danger so remote as might now be thought. French regiments
guarded and overawed the Nizam of Haidarabad. The soldiers of
Sindhia, the military head of the Marhatta Confederacy, were
disciplined and led by French adventurers. Tipu Sultan of
Mysore carried on a secret correspondence with the French
Directorate, allowed a tree of liberty to be planted in his
dominions, and enrolled himself in a republican club as
'Citizen Tipu.' The islands of Mauritius and Bourbon afforded
a convenient half-way rendezvous for French intrigue and for
the assembling of a hostile expedition. Above all, Napoleon
Buonaparte was then in Egypt, dreaming of the conquests of
Alexander, and no man knew in what direction he might turn his
hitherto unconquered legions. Wellesley conceived the scheme
of crushing for ever the French hopes in Asia, by placing
himself at the head of a great Indian confederacy. In Lower
Bengal, the sword of Clive and the policy of Warren Hastings
had made the English paramount. Before the end of the century,
our power was consolidated from the seaboard to Benares, high
up the Gangetic valley. … In 1801, the treaty of Lucknow
made over to the British the Doab, or fertile tract between
the Ganges and the Jumna, together with Rohilkhand. In
Southern India, our possessions were chiefly confined, before
Lord Wellesley, to the coast Districts of Madras and Bombay.
Wellesley resolved to make the British supreme as far as Delhi
in Northern India, and to compel the great powers of the south
to enter into subordinate relations to the Company's
government. The intrigues of the Native princes gave him his
opportunity for carrying out this plan without breach of
faith. The time had arrived when the English must either
become supreme in India, or be driven out of it. The Mughal
Empire was completely broken up; and the sway had to pass
either to the local Muhammadan governors of that empire, or to
the Hindu Confederacy represented by the Marhattas, or to the
British. Lord Wellesley determined that it should pass to the
British. His work in Northern India was at first easy. The
treaty of Lucknow in 1801 made us territorial rulers as far as
the heart of the present North-Western Provinces, and
established our political influence in Oudh. Beyond those
limits, the northern branches of the Marhattas practically
held sway, with the puppet emperor in their hands. Lord
Wellesley left them untouched for a few years, until the
second Marhatta war (1802-1804) gave him an opportunity for
dealing effectively with their nation as a whole. In Southern
India, he saw that the Nizam at Haidarabad stood in need of
his protection, and he converted him into a useful follower
throughout the succeeding struggle. The other Muhammadan power
of the south, Tipu Sultan of Mysore, could not be so easily
handled.
{1730}
Lord Wellesley resolved to crush him, and had ample
provocation for so doing. The third power of Southern
India—namely, the Marhatta Confederacy—was so loosely
organized, that Lord Wellesley seems at first to have hoped to
live on terms with it. When several years of fitful alliance
had convinced him that he had to choose between the supremacy
of the Marhattas or of the British in Southern India, he did
not hesitate to decide. Lord Wellesley first addressed himself
to the weakest of the three southern powers, the Nizam of
Haidarabad. Here he won a diplomatic success, which turned a
possible rival into a subservient ally. The French battalions
at Haidarabad were disbanded, and the Nizam bound himself by
treaty not to take any European into his service without the
consent of the English Government,—a clause since inserted in
every engagement entered into with Native powers. Wellesley
next turned the whole weight of his resources against Tipu,
whom Cornwallis had defeated, but not subdued. Tipu's
intrigues with the French were laid bare, and he was given an
opportunity of adhering to the new subsidiary system. On his
refusal, war was declared, and Wellesley came down in
viceregal state to Madras to organize the expedition in
person, and to watch over the course of events. One English
army marched into Mysore from Madras, accompanied by a
contingent from the Nizam. Another advanced from the western
coast. Tipu, after a feeble resistance in the field, retired
into Seringapatam, and, when his capital was stormed, died
fighting bravely in the breach (1799). Since the battle of
Plassey, no event so greatly impressed the Native imagination
as the capture of Seringapatam, which won for General Harris a
peerage, and for Wellesley an Irish marquisate. In dealing
with the territories of Tipu, Wellesley acted with moderation.
The central portion, forming the old state of Mysore, was
restored to an infant representative of the Hindu Rajas, whom
Haidar Ali had dethroned; the rest of Tipu's dominion was
partitioned between the Nizam, the Marhattas, and the English.
At about the same time, the Karnatic, or the part of
South-Eastern India ruled by the Nawab of Arcot, and also the
principality of Tanjore, were placed under direct British
administration, thus constituting the Madras Presidency almost
as it has existed to the present day. … The Marhattas had
been the nominal allies of the English in both their wars with
Tipu. But they had not rendered active assistance, nor were
they secured to the English side as the Nizam now was. The
Marhatta powers at this time were five in number. The
recognised head of the confederacy was the Peshwa of Poona,
who ruled the hill country of the Western Ghats, the cradle of
the Marhatta race. The fertile Province of Guzerat was
annually harried by the horsemen of the Gaekwar of Baroda. In
Central India, two military leaders, Sindhia of Gwalior and
Holkar of Indore, alternately held the pre-eminence. Towards
the east, the Bhonsla Raja of Nagpur reigned from Berar to the
coast of Orissa. Wellesley laboured to bring these several
Marhatta powers within the net of his subsidiary system. In
1802, the necessities of the Peshwa, who had been defeated by
Holkar, and driven as a fugitive into British territory,
induced him to sign the treaty of Bassein. By this he pledged
himself to the British to hold communications with no other
power, European or Native, and granted to us Districts for the
maintenance of a subsidiary force. This greatly extended the
English territorial influence in the Bombay Presidency. But it
led to the second Marhatta war, as neither Sindhia nor the
Raja of Nagpur would tolerate the Peshwa's betrayal of the
Marhatta independence. The campaigns which followed are
perhaps the most glorious in the history of the British arms
in India. The general plan, and the adequate provision of
resources, were due to the Marquis of Wellesley, as also the
indomitable spirit which refused to admit of defeat. The
armies were led by Sir Arthur Wellesley (afterwards Duke of
Wellington) and General (afterwards Lord) Lake. Wellesley
operated in the Deccan, where in a few short months, he won
the decisive victories of Assaye [September 23, 1803] and
Argaum [November 28], and captured Ahmednagar. Lake's campaign
in Hindustan was equally brilliant, although it has received
less notice from historians. He won pitched battles at Aligarh
[August 29] and Laswari [November 1, 1803], and took the
cities of Delhi and Agra. He scattered the French troops of
Sindhia, and at the same time stood forward as the champion of
the Mughal Emperor in his hereditary capital. Before the end
of 1803, both Sindhia and the Bhonsla Raja of Nagpur sued for
peace. Sindhia ceded all claims to the territory north of the
Jumna, and left the blind old Emperor Shah Alam once more
under British protection. The Bhonsla forfeited Orissa to the
English, who had already occupied it with a flying column in
1803, and Berar to the Nizam, who gained fresh territory by
every act of complaisance to the British Government. … The
concluding years of Wellesley's rule were occupied with a
series of operations against Holkar, which brought little
credit on the British name. The disastrous retreat of Colonel
Monson through Central India (1804) recalled memories of the
convention of Wargaum, and of the destruction of Colonel
Baillie's force by Haidar Ali. The repulse of Lake in person
at the siege of Bhartpur (Bhurtpore) is memorable as an
instance of a British army in India having to turn back with
its object unaccomplished (1805). Bhartpur was not finally
taken till 1827. Lord Wellesley during his six years of office
carried out almost every part of his territorial scheme. In
Northern India, Lord Lake's campaigns brought the
North-Western provinces (the ancient Madhyadesa) under British
rule, together with the custody of the puppet emperor. The new
Districts were amalgamated with those previously acquired from
the Nawab Wazir of Oudh into the 'Ceded and Conquered
Provinces.' This partition of Northern India remained till the
Sikh wars of 1844 and 1847 gave us the Punjab."
W. W. Hunter,
Brief History of the Indian People,
chapter 13.
ALSO IN:
W. H. Maxwell,
Life of the Duke of Wellington,
volume 1, chapters 2-12.
J. M. Wilson.
Memoir of Wellington,
volume 1, chapters 2-9.
G. B. Malleson,
Decisive Battles of India,
chapters 9-10.
W. H. Hutton,
The Marquess Wellesley.
J. S. Cotton,
Mountstuart Elphinstone,
chapter 4.
{1731}
INDIA: A. D. 1805-1816.
Reversal of Lord Wellesley's policy.
Sepoy revolt at Vellore.
Influence established with Runjeet Singh and the Sikhs.
Conquest of the Mauritius.
The Ghorka War.
"The retreat of Monson was not only a disastrous blow to
British prestige, but ruined for a while the reputation of
Lord Wellesley. Because a Mahratta freebooter had broken loose
in Hindustan, the Home authorities imagined that all the
Mahratta powers had risen against the imperial policy of the
Governor-General. Lord Wellesley was recalled from his post,
and Lord Cornwallis was sent out to take his place, to reverse
the policy of his illustrious predecessor, to scuttle out of
Western Hindustan, to restore all the ceded territories, to
surrender all the captured fortresses, and to abandon large
tracts of country to be plundered and devastated by the
Mahrattas, as they had been from the days of Sivaji to those
of Wellesley and Lake. Before Lord Cornwallis reached Bengal
the political outlook had brightened. … But Lord Cornwallis
was sixty-seven years of age, and had lost the nerve which he
had displayed in his wars against Tippu; and he would have
ignored the turn of the tide, and persisted in falling back on
the old policy of conciliation and non-intervention, had not
death cut short his career before he had been ten weeks in the
country. Sir George Barlow, a Bengal civilian, succeeded for a
while to the post of Governor-General, as a provisional
arrangement. He had been a member of Council under both
Wellesley and Cornwallis, and he halted between the two. He
refused to restore the conquered territories to Sindia and the
Bhonsla, but he gave back the Indore principality to Holkar,
together with the captured fortresses. Worst of all, he
annulled most of the protective treaties with the Rajput
princes on the ground that they had deserted the British
government during Monson's retreat from Jaswant Rao Holkar.
For some years the policy of the British government was a
half-hearted system of non-intervention. … The Mahratta
princes were left to plunder and collect chout extortion, levied by the Mahrattas for a century] in
Rajputana, and practically to make war on each other, so long
as they respected the territories of the British government
and its allies. … All this while an under-current of
intrigue was at work between Indian courts, which served in
the end to revive wild hopes of getting rid of British
supremacy, and rekindling the old aspirations for war and
rapine. In 1806 the peace of India was broken by an alarm from
a very different quarter. In those days India was so remote
from the British Isles that the existence of the British
government mainly depended on the loyalty of its sepoy armies.
Suddenly it was discovered that the Madras army was on the
brink of mutiny. The British authorities at Madras had
introduced an obnoxious head-dress resembling a European hat,
in the place of the old time-honoured turban, and had,
moreover, forbidden the sepoys to appear on parade with
earrings and caste marks. India was astounded by a revolt of
the Madras sepoys at the fortress of Vellore, about eight
miles to the westward of Arcot. … The garrison at Vellore
consisted of about 400 Europeans and 1,500 sepoys. At
midnight, without warning, the sepoys rose in mutiny. One body
fired on the European barracks until half the soldiers were
killed or wounded. Another body fired on the houses of the
British officers, and shot them down as they rushed out to
know the cause of the uproar. All this while provisions were
distributed amongst the sepoys by the Mysore princes, and the
flag of Mysore was hoisted over the fortress. Fortunately the
news was carried to Arcot, where Colonel Gillespie commanded a
British garrison. Gillespie at once galloped to Vellore with a
troop of British dragoons and two field guns. The gates of
Vellore were blown open; the soldiers rushed in; 400 mutineers
were cut down, and the outbreak was over. … In 1807 Lord
Minto succeeded Barlow as Governor-General. He broke the spell
of non-intervention. … Lord Minto's main work was to keep
Napoleon and the French out of India. The north-west frontier
was still vulnerable, but the Afghans had retired from the
Punjab, and the once famous Runjeet Singh had founded a Sikh
kingdom between the Indus and the Sutlej. As far as the
British were concerned, the Sikhs formed a barrier against the
Afghans; and Runjeet Singh was apparently friendly, for he had
refused to shelter Jaswant Rao Holkar in his flight from Lord
Lake. But there was no knowing what Runjeet Singh might do if
the French found their way to Lahore. To crown the perplexity,
the Sikh princes on the British side of the river Sutlej, who
had done homage to the British government during the campaigns
of Lord Lake, were being conquered by Runjeet Singh, and were
appealing to the British government for protection. In 1808-9
a young Bengal civilian, named Charles Metcalfe, was sent on a
mission to Lahore. The work before him was difficult and
complicated, and somewhat trying to the nerves. The object was
to secure Runjeet Singh as a useful ally against the French

and Afghans, whilst protecting the Sikh states on the British
side of the Sutlej, namely, Jhind, Nabha, and Patiala. Runjeet
Singh was naturally disgusted at being checked by British
interference. It was unfair, he said, for the British to wait
until he had conquered the three states, and then to demand
possession. Metcalfe cleverly dropped the question of justice,
and appealed to Runjeet Singh's self-interest. By giving up
the three states, Runjeet Singh would secure an alliance with
the British, a strong frontier on the Sutlej, and freedom to
push his conquests on the north and west. Runjeet Singh took
the hint. He withdrew his pretensions from the British side of
the Sutlej, and professed a friendship which remained unbroken
until his death in 1839; but he knew what he was about. He
conquered Cashmere on the north, and he wrested Peshawar from
the Afghans; but he refused to open his dominions to British
trade, and he was jealous to the last of any attempt to enter
his territories. … Meanwhile the war against France and
Napoleon had extended to eastern waters. The island of the
Mauritius had become a French depot for frigates and
privateers, which swept the seas from Madagascar to Java,
until the East India Company reckoned its losses by millions,
and private traders were brought to the brink of ruin. Lord
Minto sent one expedition [1810], which wrested the Mauritius
from the French; and he conducted another expedition in
person, which wrested the island of Java from the Dutch, who
at that time were the allies of France. The Mauritius has
remained a British possession until this day, but Java was
restored to Holland at the conclusion of the war. …
Meanwhile war clouds were gathering on the southern slopes of
the Himalayas.
{1732}
Down to the middle of the 18th century, the territory of Nipal
had been peopled by a peaceful and industrious race of
Buddhists known as Newars, but about the year 1767, when the
British had taken over the Bengal provinces, the Newars were
conquered by a Rajput tribe from Cashmere, known as Ghorkas.
The Ghorka conquest of Nipal was as complete as the Norman
conquest of England. The Ghorkas established a military
despotism with Brahmanical institutions, and parcelled out the
country amongst feudal nobles known as Bharadars. … During
the early years of the 19th century the Ghorkas began to
encroach on British territory, annexing villages and revenues
from Darjeeling to Simla without right or reason. They were
obviously bent on extending their dominion southward to the
Ganges, and for a long time aggressions were overlooked for
the sake of peace. At last two districts were appropriated to
which the Ghorkas had not a shadow of a claim, and it was
absolutely necessary to make a stand against their
pretensions. Accordingly, Lord Minto sent an ultimatum to
Khatmandu, declaring that unless the districts were restored
they would be recovered by force of arms. Before the answer
arrived, Lord Minto was succeeded in the post of
Governor-General by Lord Moira, better known by his later
title of Marquis of Hastings. Lord Moira landed at Calcutta in
1813. Shortly after his arrival an answer was received from
the Ghorka government, that the disputed districts belonged to
Nipal, and would not be surrendered. Lord Moira at once fixed
a day on which the districts were to be restored; and when the
day had passed without any action being taken by the Ghorkas,
a British detachment entered the districts and set up police
stations. … The council of Bharadars resolved on war, but
they did not declare it in European fashion. A Ghorka army
suddenly entered the disputed districts, surrounded the police
stations, and murdered many of the constables, and then
returned to Khatmandu to await the action of the British
government in the way of reprisals. The war against the
Ghorkas was more remote and more serious than the wars against
the Mahrattas. … Those who have ascended the Himalayas to
Darjeeling or Simla may realise something of the difficulties
of an invasion of Nipal. The British army advanced in four
divisions by four different routes. … General David
Ochterlony, who advanced his division along the valley of the
Sutlej, gained the most brilliant successes. He was one of the
half-forgotten heroes of the East India Company. … For five
months in the worst season of the year he carried one fortress
after another, until the enemy made a final stand at Maloun on
a shelf of the Himalayas. The Ghorkas made a desperate attack
on the British works, but the attempt failed; and when the
British batteries were about to open fire, the Ghorka garrison
came to terms, and were permitted to march out with the
honours of war. The fall of Maloun shook the faith of the
Ghorka government in their heaven-built fortresses.
Commissioners were sent to conclude a peace. Nipal agreed to
cede Kumaon in the west, and the southern belt of forest and
jungle known as the Terai. It also agreed to receive a British
Resident at Khatmandu. Lord Moira had actually signed the
treaty, when the Ghorkas raised the question of whether the
Terai included the forest or only the swamp. War was renewed.
Ochterlony advanced an army within fifty miles of Khatmandu,
and then the Ghorkas concluded the treaty [1816], and the
British army withdrew from Nipal. The Terai, however, was a
bone of contention for many years afterwards. Nothing was said
about a subsidiary army, and to this day Nipal is outside the
pale of subsidiary alliances; but Nipal is bound over not to
take any European into her service without the consent of the
British government."
J. T. Wheeler,
India under British Rule,
chapter 3.
ALSO IN:
J. D. Cunningham,
History of the Sikhs,
chapters 5-6.
E. Thornton,
History of British Empire in India,
chapters 21-24 (volume 4).
INDIA: A. D. 1816-1819.
Suppression of the Pindaris.
Overthrow of the Mahratta power.
The last of the Peshwas.
"For some time past the Pindaris, a vast brotherhood of
mounted freebooters, who were ready to fight under any
standard for the chance of unbounded plunder, had been playing
a more and more prominent part in the wars of native princes.
As Free Lances, they had fought for the Peshwa at Panipat, had
shared in the frequent struggles of the Sindhias and Holkars
in Hindustan and Southern India, and made war on their own
account with every native prince whose weakness at any moment
seemed to invite attack. … From the hills and glens of
Central India thousands of armed ruffians sallied forth year
after year in quest of plunder, sparing no cruelty to gain
their ends, and widening the circle of their ravages with each
new raid, until in 1811 the smoke of their camp-fires could be
seen from Gaya and Mirzapur. … To thwart Maratha intrigues
and punish Pindari aggressions was the Governor-General's next
aim. In spite of hindrances offered by his own council and the
Court of Directors, he set himself to revive and extend Lord
Wellesley's policy of securing peace and order throughout
India by means of treaties, which placed one native prince
after another in a kind of vassalage to the paramount power
that ruled from Fort William. … By means of a little timely
compulsion, the able and accomplished Elphinstone baffled for
a while the plots which the Peshwa, Baji Rao, and his
villainous accomplice, Trimbakji Danglia, had woven against
their English allies. The treaty of June, 1817, left Lord
Hastings master of Sagar and Bundalkhand, while it bound the
Peshwa to renounce his friend Trimbakji, his own claims to the
headship of the Maratha League, to make no treaties with any
other native prince, and to accept in all things the counsel
and control of the Company's Government. Hard as these terms
may seem, there was no choice, averred Lord Hastings, between
thus crippling a secret foe and depriving him of the crown he
had fairly forfeited. Meanwhile Lord Hastings' fearless energy
had already saved the Rajputs of Jaipur from further suffering
at the hands of their Pathan oppressor, Amir Khan, and forced
from Sindia himself a reluctant promise to aid in suppressing
the Pindari hordes, whose fearful ravages had at length been
felt by the peaceful villagers in the Northern Sarkars. In the
autumn of 1817 Hastings took the field at the head of an army
which, counting native contingents, mustered nearly 120,000
strong, with some 300 guns. From east, west, north, and south,
a dozen columns set forth to hunt down the merciless ruffians
who had so long been allowed to harry the fairest provinces of
India.
{1733}
In spite of the havoc wrought among our troops by the great
cholera outbreak of that year, and of a sudden rising among
the Maratha princes for one last struggle with their former
conquerors, our arms were everywhere successful against
Marathas and Pindaris alike. The latter, hunted into the hills
and jungles of Central India, found no safety anywhere except
in small bodies and constant flight … and the famous
robber-league passed into a tale of yore. Not less swift and
sure was the punishment dealt upon the Maratha leaders who
joined the Peshwa in his sudden uprising against the British
power. His late submission had been nothing but a mask for
renewed plottings. Elphinstone, however, saw through the mask
which had taken in the confiding Malcolm. Before the end of
October an English regiment, summoned in hot haste from
Bombay, pitched its camp at Kirki, about two miles from Puna,
beside the small Sepoy brigade already quartered there. In the
first days of November Baji Rao began to assume a bolder tone
as his plans grew ripe for instant execution. On the 5th, a
body of Marathas attacked and destroyed the Residency, which
Elphinstone had quitted in the nick of time. A great Maratha
army then marched forth to overwhelm the little garrison at
Kirki, before fresh troops could come up to its aid from
Sirur. Elphinstone, however, who knew his foe, had no idea of
awaiting the attack. Colonel Burr at once led out his men, not
3,000 all told. A brilliant charge of Maratha horse was
heavily repulsed by a Sepoy regiment, and the English steadily
advancing drove the enemy from the field. A few days later
General Smith, at the head of a larger force, advanced on
Puna, occupied the city, and pursued the frightened Peshwa
from place to place. The heroic defence of Karigaum, a small
village on the Bhima, by Captain Staunton and 800 Sepoys, with
only two light guns, against 25,000 Marathas during a whole
day, proved once more how nobly native troops could fight
under English leading. Happily for Staunton's weary and
diminished band, Smith came up the next morning, and the
desponding Peshwa continued his retreat. Turn where he would,
there was no rest for his jaded soldiers. Munro with a weak
force, partly of his own raising, headed him on his way to the
Carnatic, took several of his strong places, and drove him
northwards within reach of General Smith. On the 19th
February, 1818, that officer overtook and routed the flying
foe at the village of Ashti. Bapu Gokla, the Peshwa's
staunchest and ablest follower, perished in the field, while
covering the retreat of his cowardly master. For some weeks
longer Baji Rao fled hither and thither before his resolute
pursuers. But at length all hope forsook him as the circle of
escape grew daily narrower; and in the middle of May the
great-grandson of Balaji Vishwanath yielded himself to Sir
John Malcolm at Indor, on terms far more liberal than he had
any reason to expect. Even for the faithful few who still
shared his fortunes due provision was made at his request. He
himself spent the rest of his days a princely pensioner at
Bithur, near Cawnpore; but the sceptre which he and his sires
had wielded for a hundred years passed into English hands,
while the Rajah of Satara, the long-neglected heir of the
house of Sivaji, was restored to the nominal headship of the
Maratha power. Meanwhile Appa Sahib, the usurping Rajah of
Berar, had no sooner heard of the outbreak at Puna, than he,
too, like the Peshwa, threw off his mask. On the evening of
the 24th November, 1817, his troops, to the number of 18,000,
suddenly attacked the weak English and Sepoy force of 1,400
men with four guns, posted on the Sitabaldi Hills, outside
Nagpur. A terrible fight for eighteen hours ended in the
repulse of the assailants, with a loss to the victors of more
than 300 men and twelve officers. A few weeks later Nagpur
itself was occupied after another fight. Even then the Rajah
might have kept his throne, for his conquerors were merciful
and hoped the best. But they hoped in vain. It was not long
before Appa Sahib, caught out in fresh intrigues, was sent off
a prisoner towards Allahabad. Escaping from his captors, he
wandered about the country for several years, and died at
Lahor a pensioner on the bounty of Ranjit Singh. The house of
Holkar had also paid the penalty of its rash resistance to our
arms. … On the 6th January, 1818, the young Holkar was glad
to sign a treaty which placed him and his heirs under English
protection at the cost of his independence and of some part of
his realm. Luckily for himself, Sindia had remained quiet, if
not quite loyal, throughout this last struggle between the
English and his Maratha kinsfolk. Thus in one short and
decisive campaign, the great Maratha power, which had survived
the slaughter of Panipat, fell shattered to pieces by the same
blow which crushed the Pindaris, and raised an English
merchant-company to the paramount lordship of all India. The
last of the Peshwas had ceased to reign, the Rajah of Berar
was a discrowned fugitive, the Rajah of Satara a king only in
name, while Sindia, Holkar, and the Nizam were dependent
princes who reigned only by sufferance of an English
Governor-General at Calcutta. The Moghal Empire lingered only
in the Palace of Dehli; its former viceroy, the Nawab of Audh,
was our obedient vassal; the haughty princes of Rajputana
bowed their necks, more or less cheerfully, to the yoke of
masters merciful as Akbar and mightier than Aurangzib. Ranjit
Singh himself cultivated the goodwill of those powerful
neighbours who had sheltered the Sikhs of Sirhind from his
ambitious inroads. With the final overthrow of the Marathas a
new reign of peace, order, and general progress began for
peoples who, during a hundred and fifty years, had lived in a
ceaseless whirl of anarchy and armed strife. With the capture
of Asirgarh in April, 1819, the fighting in Southern India
came to an end."
L. J. Trotter,
History of India,
book 5, chapters 2-3.
ALSO IN:
W. M. Torrens,
Empire in Asia: How we came by it,
chapters 19-20.
J. G. Duff,
History of the Mahrattas,
volume 3, chapters 17-20.
Major Ross-of-Bladensburg,
The Marquess of Hastings,
chapters 4-7.
INDIA: A. D. 1823-1833.
The first Burmese War.
English acquisition of Assam and Aracan.
Suppression of Suttee and Thuggee.
Rechartering of the East India Company.
It is deprived of its last trading monopoly.
"On Hastings' retirement, in 1823, the choice of the ministry
fell upon Canning. … Canning ultimately resigning the
Governor-Generalship, the choice of the authorities fell upon
Lord Amherst. The new Governor-General reached India at a time
when the authorities in London had a right to expect a long
period of peace.
{1734}
In fact, both in Hindostan and in the Deccan, the victories of
Hastings had left the Company no more enemies to conquer.
Unfortunately, however, for the prospects of peace, nature,
which had given India an impenetrable boundary on the north,
had left her with an undefined and open frontier on the east.
On the shores of the Bay of Bengal, opposite Calcutta, a
struggle had raged during the eighteenth century between the
inhabitants of Ava and Pegu. The former, known as Burmans or
Burmese, had the good fortune to find a capable leader, who
rapidly ensured their own victory and founded a Burmese
Empire. The successful competitors were not satisfied with
their own predominance in Pegu—they conquered Aracan, they
overran Assam, and they wrested from Siam a considerable
territory on the Tenasserim coast. The conquest of Aracan
brought the Burmese to the confines of the Company's dominions
in Chittagong. The conquered people, disliking the severe rule
of the conquerors, crossed the frontier and settled in British
territory. Many of them used their new home as a secure basis
for hostile raids on the Burmese. … The river Naf ran for a
portion of its course between the possessions of the British
in Chittagong and those of the Burmese in Aracan. With the
object of preventing the repetition of outrages, which had
occurred on the river, a small British guard was stationed on
a little island, called Shaporee, near its mouth. The Burmese,
claiming the island as their own, attacked the guard and drove
it from the post. It was impossible to ignore such a
challenge. The island was reoccupied; but the
Governor-General, still anxious for peace, offered to treat
its occupation by the Burmese as an action unauthorised by the
Burmese Government. The Burmese Court, however, instead of
accepting this offer, sent an army to reoccupy the island;
collisions almost simultaneously occurred between the British
and the Burmese on other parts of the frontier, and in
February 1824 the first Burmese war began. … If the war of
1824 may be excused as inevitable, its conduct must be
condemned as careless. No pains were taken to ascertain the
nature of the country which it was requisite to invade, or the
strength of the enemy whom it was decided to encounter. …
Burma is watered by two great rivers, the Irawaddy and the
Salwen. … In its upper waters the Irawaddy is a rapid
stream; in its lower waters it flows through alluvial plains,
and finds its way through a delta with nine mouths into the
Bay of Bengal. On one of its western mouths is the town of
Bassein, on one of its eastern mouths the great commercial
port of Rangoon. The banks of the river are clothed with
jungle and with forest; and malaria, the curse of all
low-lying tropical lands, always lingers in the marshes. The
authorities decided on invading Burma through the Rangoon
branch of the river. They gave Sir Archibald Campbell, an
officer who had won distinction in the Peninsula, the command
of the expedition, and, as a preliminary measure, they
determined to seize Rangoon. Its capture was accomplished with
ease, and the Burmese retired from the town. But the victory
was the precursor of difficulty. The troops dared not advance
in an unhealthy season; the supplies which they had brought
with them proved insufficient for their support; and the men
perished by scores during their period of forced inaction. …
When more favourable weather returned with the autumn,
Campbell was again able to advance. Burma was then attacked
from three separate bases. A force under Colonel Richards,
moving along the valley of the Bramaputra, conquered Assam; an
expedition under General Morrison, marching from Chittagong,
occupied Aracan; while Campbell himself, dividing his army
into two divisions, one moving by water, the other by land,
passed up the Irawaddy and captured Donabue and Prome. The
climate improved as the troops ascended the river, and the hot
weather of 1825 proved less injurious than the summer of 1824.
… The operations in 1825-6 drove home the lesson which the
campaign of 1824-5 had already taught. The Burmese realised
their impotence to resist, and consented to accept the terms
which the British were still ready to offer them. Assam,
Aracan, and the Tenasserim Coast were ceded to the Company;
the King of Burma consented to receive a Resident at his
capital, and to pay a very large sum of
money—£1,000,000—towards the expenses of the war. … The
increasing credit which the Company thus acquired did not add
to the reputation of the Governor-General. … The Company
complained of the vast additions which his rule had made to
expenditure, and they doubted the expediency of acquiring new
and unnecessary territory beyond the confines of India itself.
The ministry thought that these acquisitions were opposed to
the policy which Parliament had laid down, and to the true
interests of the empire. It decided on his recall. … William
Bentinck, whom Canning selected as Amherst's successor, was no
stranger to Indian soil. More than twenty years before he had
served as Governor of Madras. … Bentinck arrived in Calcutta
in difficult times. Amherst's war had saddled the Government
with a debt, and his successor with a deficit. …
Retrenchment, in the opinion of every one qualified to judge,
was absolutely indispensable, and Bentinck, as a matter of
fact, brought out specific instructions to retrench. … In
two other matters … Bentinck effected a change which
deserves to be recollected with gratitude. He had the courage
to abolish flogging in the native Indian army; he had the
still higher courage to abolish suttee. … In Bengal the
suttee, or 'the pure and virtuous woman,' who became a widow,
was required to show her devotion to her husband by
sacrificing herself on his funeral pile. … Successive
Governors-General, whose attention had been directed to this
barbarous practice, had feared to incur the unpopularity of
abolishing it. … Cornwallis and Wellesley, Hastings and
Amherst, were all afraid to prohibit murder which was
identified with religion, and it was accordingly reserved to
Bentinck to remove the reproach of its existence. With the
consent of his Council, suttee was declared illegal. The
danger which others had apprehended from its prohibition
proved a mere phantom. The Hindoos complied with the order
without attempting to resist it, and the horrible rite which
had disgraced the soil of India for centuries became entirely
unknown. For these humane regulations Bentinck deserves to be
remembered with gratitude. Yet it should not be forgotten that
these reforms were as much the work of his age as of himself.
… One other great abuse was terminated under Bentinck.
{1735}
In Central India life was made unsafe and travelling dangerous
by the establishment of a secret band of robbers known as
Thugs. The Thugs mingled with any travellers whom they met,
disarmed them by their conversation and courtesy, and availed
themselves of the first convenient spot in their journey to
strangle them with a rope and to rob them of their money. The
burial of the victim usually concealed all traces of the
crime; the secrecy of the confederates made its revelation
unlikely; and, to make treachery more improbable, the Thugs
usually consecrated their murders with religious rites, and
claimed their god as the patron of their misdoings. Bentinck
selected an active officer, Major Sleeman, whom he charged to
put down Thuggee. Sleeman's exertions were rewarded by a
gratifying success. The Thugs, like all secret societies, were
assailable in one way. The first discovery of crime always
produces an approver. The timid conspirator, conscious of his
guilt, is glad to purchase his own safety by sacrificing his
associates, and when one man turns traitor every member of the
band is anxious to secure the rewards and immunity of
treachery. Hence the first clue towards the practices of the
Thugs led to the unveiling of the whole organisation; and the
same statesman, who had the merit of forbidding suttee,
succeeded in extirpating Thuggee from the dominions over which
he ruled. Social reforms of this character occupy the greater
portion of the history of Bentinck's government. In politics
he almost always pursued a policy of non-intervention. The
British during his rule made few additions to their
possessions; they rarely interfered in the affairs of Native
states. … The privileges which the East India, Company
enjoyed had from time to time been renewed by the British
Parliament. The charter of the Company had been extended for a
period of twenty years in 1773, in 1793, and in 1813. But the
conditions on which it was continued in 1813 were very
different from those on which it had been originally granted.
Instead of maintaining its exclusive right of trade,
Parliament decided on throwing open the trade with India to
all British subjects. It left the Company a monopoly of the
China trade alone. The Act of 1813 of course excited the
strenuous opposition of the Company. The highest authorities
were brought forward to prove that the trade with India would
not be increased by a termination of the monopoly. Their
views, however, were proved false by the result, and the stern
logic of facts consequently pointed in 1833 to the further
extension of the policy of 1813 [see CHINA: A. D. 1839-1842].
… The inclination towards free trade was, in fact, so
prevalent, that it is doubtful whether, even if the Tories had
remained in office, they would have consented to preserve the
monopoly. … The fall of the Wellington administration made
its termination a certainty [see ENGLAND: A. D. 1832-1833].
… The Government consented to compensate the Company for the
loss of its monopoly by an annuity of £630,000 charged on the
territorial revenues of India. It is a remarkable circumstance
that the change of ministry which deprived the Company of its
trade possibly preserved its political power for nearly a
quarter of a century. … The Whig ministry shrank from
proposing an alteration for which the country was not
prepared, and which might have aroused the opposition by which
the Coalition of 1783 had been destroyed. Though, however, it
left the rule with Leadenhall Street, it altered the machinery
of government. The Governor-General of Bengal was made
Governor-General of India. A fourth member—an English
jurist—was added to his Council, and the Governor-General in
Council was authorised to legislate for the whole of India. At
the same time the disabilities which still clung to the
natives were in theory swept away, and Europeans were for the
first time allowed to hold land in India. These important
proposals were carried at the close of the first session of
the first reformed Parliament."
S. Walpole,
History of England from 1815,
chapter 25 (volume 5).
ALSO IN:
J. W. Kaye,
Administration of the East India Company,
parts 3-4.
Sir C. Trevelyan,
The Thugs
(Edin. Review, January, 1837).
Illustrations of the History of the Thugs.
M. Taylor,
Confessions of a Thug, introduction.
D. C. Boulger,
Lord William Bentinck,
chapters 4-6.
INDIA: A. D. 1836-1845.
The first Afghan war and its catastrophe.
Conquest and annexation of Scinde.
Threatened trouble with the Sikhs.
"With the accession of Lord Auckland, Bentinck's successor,
began a new era in Anglo-Indian history, in which the
long-sown seeds of fresh political complications, which even
now seem as far from solution as ever, began to put forth
fruit. All danger from French ambition had passed away: but
Russian intrigue was busy against us. We had brought the
danger on ourselves. False to an alliance with Persia, which
dated from the beginning of the century, we had turned a deaf
ear to her entreaties for help against Russian aggression, and
had allowed her to fall under the power of her tyrant, who
thenceforth used her as an instrument of his ambition. The
result of our selfish indifference appeared in 1837, when
Persia, acting under Russian influence, laid siege to Herat,
which was then under Afghan rule. While Herat was still
holding out, the Shah was at last threatened with war, and
raised the siege. Then was the time for Auckland to destroy
the Russian danger once for all, by making a friend of the
power which seemed to be the natural barrier against invasion
from the north-west. After a long series of revolutions, Dost
Mahomed, the representative of the now famous tribe of
Baruckzyes, had established himself upon the throne, with the
warm approval of the majority of the people; while Shah Sooja,
the leader of the rival Suddozyes, was an exile. The ruling
prince did not wait for Auckland to seek his friendship. He
treated the Russian advances with contempt, and desired
nothing better than to be an ally of the English. Auckland was
urged to seize the opportunity. It was in his power to deal
Russia a crushing blow, and to avert those troubles which are
even now harassing British statesmen. He did not let slip the
opportunity. He flung it from him, and clutched at a policy
that was to bring misery to thousands of families in England,
in India, and in Afghanistan, and to prove disastrous to the
political interests of all three countries. … Those who are
least interested in Indian history are not likely to forget
how the Afghan mob murdered the British Envoy and his
associates; how the British commander, putting faith in the
chiefs of a people whom no treaties can bind, began that
retreat from which but one man escaped to tell how 16,000 had
perished; how poor Auckland, unmanned by the disaster, lacked
the energy to retrieve it; how the heroic Sale held out at
Jellalabad till Pollock relieved him; how Auckland's
successor, Lord Ellenborough, dreading fresh disasters,
hesitated to allow his generals to act till, yielding to their
indignant zeal, he threw upon them the responsibility of that
advance to Cabul which retrieved the lost prestige of our
arms.
See AFGHANISTAN: A. D. 1838-1842, and 1842-1869.
{1736}
Thus closed the first act of a still unfinished drama. After
celebrating the triumph of the victorious army, Ellenborough
sent Charles Napier to punish the Ameers of Scinde [see
SCINDE], who, emboldened by the retreat from Cabul, had
violated a treaty which they had concluded with the British
Government. The result of the war was the annexation of the
country: but the whole series of transactions is only
remembered now as having given rise to the dispute on the
question of the guilt of the Ameers between Napier and James
Outram. Less talked of at the time, but historically more
important, was Ellenborough's reconstitution of the British
relations with the Sindia of the day. Political disturbances
had for some time agitated that prince's court, while his army
had swollen to a dangerous size, and, like the Sikh army since
Runjeet Singh's death, which had taken place a few years
before, had passed beyond the control of the civil power. In
these two armies Ellenborough saw a danger which might disturb
the peace of Hindostan. He foresaw that the Sikh soldiers,
released from the stern discipline of Runjeet Singh, would
soon force a government which they despised to let them cross
the Sutlej in quest of plunder. Two years later his character
as a prophet was vindicated; and, if he had not now, in
anticipation of the invasion which then took place, disbanded
the greater part of Sindia's army, and over-awed the remainder
by a native contingent under the command of British officers,
the Sikhs would probably have joined their forces with the
Mahrattas. … But the Directors took a different view of
their Governor-General's conduct of affairs. In June, 1844,
all India was astonished by the news that Ellenborough had
been recalled. He had helped to bring about his own downfall,
for in the controversies with his masters in which he, like
some of the ablest of his predecessors, had found himself
involved, he had shown an unfortunate want of discretion; but,
though by bombastic proclamations and a theatrical love of
display he had sometimes exposed himself to ridicule, many of
his subordinates felt that in him they had lost a vigorous and
able ruler. Sir Henry Hardinge, who was raised to the peerage
before the close of his administration, succeeded to the
office of Governor-General, and waited anxiously for the
breaking of the storm which his predecessor had seen
gathering. The Sikhs, the Puritans of India [see SIKHS], who
were not strictly speaking a nation, but a religious
brotherhood of warriors called the Khalsa, were animated by
two passions equally dangerous to the peace of those around
them, a fierce enthusiasm, half military, half religious, for
the glory of their order, and an insatiable desire for
plunder. By giving them full scope for the indulgence of these
passions, and by punishing all disobedience with merciless
severity, Runjeet Singh had governed his turbulent subjects
for forty years: but, when he died, they broke loose from all
control; and the weak Government of Lahore found that they
could only save their own capital from being plundered by the
Khalsa army by sending it to seek plunder in British
territory. Thus began the first Sikh war."
T. R. E. Holmes,
History of the Indian Mutiny,
chapter 1.
ALSO IN:
Sir L. Griffin,
Ranjit Singh.
L. J. Trotter,
The Earl of Auckland,
chapters 4-13.
INDIA: A. D. 1843.
Conquest of Scinde.
See SCINDE.
INDIA: A. D. 1845-1849.
The Sikh Wars.
Conquest and annexation of the Punjab.
"There had always been an expectation that whenever Runjeet
Singh died, there would be trouble with his soldiery; and it
soon appeared that some incursion was in contemplation, for
which the Sikh troops were prepared by an able European
training under French officers. While the strife about the
succession was going on in the Punjaub, the military element
of society there became supreme; and the government at
Calcutta considered it necessary to move troops to the
frontier to preserve peace, and reassure the inhabitants of
whole districts which dreaded the incursions of a haughty and
lawless soldiery. The Sikhs were alarmed at the approach of
English troops, and adopted the same course towards us that we
had tried with their western neighbours—they crossed the
frontier to forestall our doing it. Whether this move was a
device of the Sikh chiefs, as some say it was, to get rid of
the army, and perhaps to cause its destruction by the British,
and thus to clear the field for their own factions; or whether
war with the British was considered so inevitable that the
invasion of our territory was intended as a measure of
prudence, we need not here decide. The fact was that the Sikh
soldiery gathered round the tomb of Runjeet Singh, preparing
themselves for a great battle soon to happen; and that war was
virtually declared at Lahore in November, 1845, and fairly
begun by the troops crossing the Sutlej on the 11th of
December, and taking up a position near Ferozepore. The old
error prevailed in the British councils, the mistake denounced
by Charles Metcalfe as fatal—that of undervaluing the enemy.
The Sikhs had been considered unworthy to be opposed to the
Afghans in Runjeet's time; and now we expected to drive them
into the Sutlej at once; but we had never yet, in India, so
nearly met with our match. The battle of Moodkee was fought
under Sir Hugh Gough, on the 18th of December, and 'the
rabble' from the Punjaub astonished both Europeans and Sepoys
by standing firm, manœuvring well, and rendering it no easy
matter to close the day with honour to the English arms. This
ill-timed contempt was truly calamitous, as it had caused
miscalculations about ammunition, carriage, hospital-stores,
and everything necessary for a campaign. All these things were
left behind at Delhi or Agra; and the desperate necessity of
winning a battle was only enough barely to save the day. The
advantage was with the British in the battle of Moodkee, but
not so decisively as all parties had expected. After a
junction with reinforcements, the British fought the invaders
again on the 21st and 22nd, at Ferozeshur. On the first night
our troops were hardly masters of the ground they stood on,
and had no reserve, while their gallant enemy had large
reinforcements within reach.
{1737}
The next day might easily have been made fatal to the English
army, at times when their ammunition fell short; but the Sikhs
were badly commanded at a critical moment, then deserted by a
traitorous leader, and finally driven back. For a month after
this nothing was done by the British, and the Sikhs crossed
the Sutlej at their ease. The valour of Gough and of Hardinge,
who, while Governor-General, had put himself under the orders
of the Commander-in-Chief, had saved the honour of the
English; but their prestige was weakened among their own
Sepoys, and even the European regiments; much more among the
Sikhs; and most of all in the eyes of the vigilant surrounding
states. It was a matter of life and death now to bring up
guns, ammunition and treasure. A considerable portion fell
into the enemy's hands on the 21st of January, on its way to
the relief of Loodeeana; but the battle of Aliwal on the 28th
was again a true British fight. The Sikhs were driven into the
Sutlej; and as soon as they had collected in their stronghold
of Sobraon on the other side, they were driven thence by a
closing struggle on the 10th of February. The Sikhs were
beaten, with a slaughter of 5,000 (some say 8,000) men;
against 320 killed and 2,000 wounded on our side. The
Maharajah submitted, the road to Lahore lay open, and the
Governor-General could make his own terms. He flattered
himself that he had arranged a protectorate of the Punjaub
which would render annexation unnecessary; and all who could
believe in it rejoiced that means had been found to escape the
necessity of adding new conquests to a territory already much
too large. As the Punjaub could not pay its amount of tribute
to the Company, Cashmere and some other territory was accepted
instead, and given, as a kingdom, to Gholab Singh … on his
paying a portion of the debt, thus reimbursing the Company,
and lessening the overgrown power of the Punjaub rulers. When,
at the close of 1846, the English troops should be withdrawing
from Lahore, the Sikh chiefs begged that they might remain,
and take care of the Punjaub till the young Maharajah should
grow up to manhood."
H. Martineau,
British Rule in India,
chapter 20.
"Lord Hardinge entrusted the government of the Punjab to a
Council of Regency, consisting of Sikh nobles under the
guidance of Sir Henry Lawrence as British Resident. He refused
to create a subsidiary army, but he left a British force to
protect the government until the boy Dhuleep Singh reached his
majority. Two-thirds of the Sikh army of the Khalsa were
disbanded. The Jullunder Doab between the Sutlej and the Beyas
was added to the British empire. … Lord Dalhousie succeeded
Lord Hardinge in 1848. Shortly afterwards the Punjab was again
in commotion. Sikh government under British protection had
failed to keep the peace. The army of the Khalsa had
disappeared, but the old love of license and plunder was
burning in the hearts of the disbanded soldiery. The Sikh
governor of Multan revolted; two Englishmen were murdered. A
British force besieged the rebels in Multan. It was joined by
a Sikh force in the service of the Council of Regency
commanded by Shere Singh. So far the revolt at Multan was
regarded as a single outbreak which would be soon suppressed
by the capture of the fortress. In reality it was the
beginning of a general insurrection. Shere Singh, who
commanded the Sikh force in the besieging army, suddenly
deserted the British force and joined his father Chutter
Singh, who was already in open rebellion. The revolt was
secretly promoted by the queen mother, and spread over the
Punjab like wildfire. The old soldiers of the Khalsa rallied
round Shere Singh and his father. The half-and-half government
set up by Lord Hardinge was unable to cope with a revolution
which was restoring the old anarchy. In November, 1848, Lord
Gough advanced against the rebel army. Then followed the
famous campaign between the Chenab and Jhelum rivers about 100
miles to the north of Lahore. In January, 1849, Lord Gough
fought the dubious battle of Chillianwallah, near the spot
where Alexander the Great crossed the Jhelum and defeated the
army of Porus. Meanwhile Multan surrendered, and the besieging
force joined Lord Gough. In February the Sikh army was utterly
defeated at Gujerat."
J. T. Wheeler,
Indian History,
chapter 11.
"Gujrat was essentially a forenoon battle, with the whole day
before the combatants to finish their work. It commenced with
a magnificent duel of artillery; the British infantry
occupying post after post as they were abandoned by the enemy;
and the British cavalry breaking up the Sikh masses and
scattering them by pursuit. Of the sixty Sikh guns engaged,
fifty-three were taken. Lord Dalhousie resolved to make the
victory a final one. 'The war,' he declared, 'must be
prosecuted now to the entire defeat and dispersion of all who
are in arms against us, whether Sikhs or Afghans.' General
Gilbert hurried out with a pursuing force of 12,000, horse,
foot and artillery, the day after the battle. In the
breathless chase which followed across the plains of the
Punjab to the frontier mountain-wall, the Sikh military power
was destroyed for ever. On the 12th of March, 1849, General
Gilbert received the submission of the entire Sikh army at
Rawal Pindi, together with the last forty-one of the 160 Sikh
cannon captured by the British during the war. While the Sikh
army heaped up their swords and shields and matchlocks in
submissive piles, and salamed one by one as they passed
disarmed along the British line, their Afghan allies were
chased relentlessly westwards, and reached the safety of the
Khaibar Pass panting, and barely twenty miles in front of the
English hunters. The horsemen of Afghanistan, it was said,
'had ridden down through the hills like lions and ran back
into them like dogs.' The question remained what to do with
the Punjab. The victory of Sobraon in 1846 gave to Lord
Hardinge the right of conquest: the victory at Gujrat in 1849
compelled Lord Dalhousie to assert that right. Lord Hardinge
at the end of the first Punjab war in 1846, tried, as we have
seen, an intermediate method of ruling the province by British
officers for the benefit of the infant prince. This method had
failed. … In determining the future arrangements for the
Punjab, Lord Dalhousie had as his advisers the two Lawrences.
Sir Henry Lawrence, the former Resident at Lahore; hurried
back from his sick-leave in England on the breaking out of the
war. He was of opinion that the annexation of the Punjab might
perhaps be just, but that it would be inexpedient. His brother
John, afterwards Lord Lawrence, who had also acted as
Resident, although as much averse in general principle to
annexation as Henry, was convinced that, in this case,
annexation was not only just, but that its expediency was
'both undeniable and pressing.'
{1738}
Lord Dalhousie, after a full review of the efforts which had
been made to convert the Sikh nation into a friendly power
without annexation, decided that no course now remained to the
British Government but to annex. … The annexation of the
Punjab was deliberately approved of by the Court of Directors,
by Parliament, and by the English nation."
W. W. Hunter,
The Marquess of Dalhousie,
chapter 3.
ALSO IN:
Sir H. B. Edwardes and H. Merivale,
Life of Sir Henry Lawrence.
R. B. Smith,
Life of Lord Lawrence,
volume 1, chapters 7-11.
E. Arnold,
The Marquis of Dalhousie's Administration of British India,
volume 1, chapters 1-7.
H. B. Edwardes,
A Year on the Punjab Frontier, 1848-49.
Sir R. Temple,
Men and Events of My Time in India,
chapters 3-4.
INDIA: A. D. 1848-1856.
Lord Dalhousie's minor annexations.
The lapse of dependent Native States.
The case of Nana Sahib.
"In applying the doctrine of lapse to the Hindu chiefdoms, on
default of natural successors or of an heir legally adopted
with the sanction of the Ruling Power, Lord Dalhousie merely
carried out the declared law of the case, and the deliberately
formulated policy of the Government of India, years before he
arrived in the country. In so doing, however, Lord Dalhousie
became the unconscious but effective instrument by which the
old India of Lord Wellesley at the beginning of the century
was prepared for its conversion, in 1858, into the new India
of the Queen. … The fundamental question was whether we
should allow the government of a dependent State, in absence
of natural heirs, to pass like mere private property to an
adopted son. The Court of Directors had at one time permitted
the adoption of a successor in special cases to a principality
on failure of natural heirs. It declared, however, in 1834,
that such an 'indulgence should be the exception, not the
rule.' … As the evils of the old system of government by
sham royalties further developed themselves, the Government of
India determined in 1841 to enforce a more uniform policy. …
What Lord Dalhousie did, therefore, was not to invent a new
principle of Indian law, but to steadily apply an old
principle. … The first case in which this principle came to
be applied, shortly after Lord Dalhousie's arrival, was the
Native State of Satara. That Maratha principality had been
constituted by the British Government on the general break up
of the Maratha power in 1818, and confirmed to the 'sons and
heirs, and successors' of the recipient in 1819. In 1839 the
reigning prince was deposed for misconduct by the British
Government in the exercise of its Suzerain rights. By the same
rights the British Government then set up the brother of the
deposed prince on the throne. … The Raja, whom in 1839 we
had placed on the throne, applied for permission to adopt a
son. The British Government deliberately withheld the
permission; and in the last hours of his life the Raja, in
1848, hastily adopted a son without the consent of the
Government." Lord Dalhousie, with the advice of the Court of
Directors, declared in this case that the territory of Satara
had lapsed, on the death of the Raja, by failure of heirs, to
the Power which deposed, and it was annexed, accordingly, to
the British dominions. Under kindred circumstances the Native
States of Sambalpur, on the south-western frontier of Lower
Bengal, and Jhansi, a fragment of the Maratha dominions in
Northern India, were absorbed. "The same principle of lapse on
failure of heirs was applied by Lord Dalhousie to several
other dependent States. Jaitpur in Bundelkhand, Baghat a petty
hill Chiefdom of 36 square miles in the Punjab, Udaipur on the
Western frontier of Lower Bengal, and Budawal in Khandesh,
passed under direct British rule from this cause. The fort and
military fief of Tanjore were annexed after Lord Dalhousie's
departure from India, but practically on the grounds set forth
by his government. … By far the largest accession of
territory made during Lord Dalhousie's rule, to the British
dominions on the failure of heirs, was the great central tract
of India known as Nagpur. This Maratha principality as now
constituted into the Central Provinces, and after various
rectifications of frontier, has an area of 113,279 square
miles, with a population of 12,000,000 souls. The territories
annexed by Lord Dalhousie in 1854 make nearly four-fifths of
the present Central Provinces. … It is difficult to find any
ground for the charge which Mr. Kaye brought in 1865 against
Lord Dalhousie, for 'harshness' towards the man afterwards
known as the infamous Nana Sahib [see below: A. D. 1857
(MAY-AUGUST)]. As this charge, however, is still occasionally
repeated, and as it has even been suggested that Lord
Dalhousie was to some extent responsible for the Mutiny of
1857, in consequence of his action towards Nana Sahib in 1851,
I must briefly state the facts. In 1818, the Peshwa of the
Marathas, completely beaten in the field, threw himself on the
generosity of the British. Sir John Malcolm, then the
Governor-General's Agent in the Deccan, assured him of his
protection, and engaged that he should receive an allowance of
£80,000 a year for his support. … There could not be the
slightest pretension that it was ever anything more than a
personal annuity; and from first to last all mention of heirs
is carefully excluded. The records show that the ex-Peshwa,
Baji Rao, was well aware of this. Baji Rao lived until 1851,
leaving to his adopted son, Nana Sahib, an immense fortune
admitted to amount to £280,000, and believed by the Government
of the North-western Provinces to greatly exceed that sum. The
Government of India at once acknowledged the adopted son's
title to this splendid heritage, and out of its own
beneficence added to it the Jaghir, or grant of land, on which
his father had resided in the North-western Provinces. But the
pension, paid out of the tax-payers' pockets, lapsed upon the
death of the annuitant."
Sir W. W. Hunter,
The Marquess of Dalhousie,
chapters 6-7.
Duke of Argyll,
India under Dalhousie and Canning.
INDIA: A. D. 1849-1893.
The life in exile of Dhuleep Singh, heir to the Sikh throne.
"Few careers have ever been more instructive to those who can
see than that of the Maharajah Dhuleep Singh, who died in
Paris on Sunday [October 22, 1893] of apoplexy. He finished
life a despised exile, but no man of modern days ever had such
chances, or had seen them snatched, partly by fate, partly by
fault, so completely from his lips. But for an accident, if
there is such a thing as accident, he would have been the
Hindoo Emperor of India.
{1739}
His father, Runjeet Singh, that strange combination of Louis
XI. and Charles the Bold, had formed and knew how to control
an army which would have struck down all the native powers of
India much more easily than did any of the Tartar conquerors.
Without its master at its head, that army defeated the
British, and but for a magnificent bribe paid to its General
(vide Cunningham's 'History of the Sikhs') would have driven
the English from India, and placed the child, Dhuleep Singh,
upon the throne of the Peninsula, to be supported there by
Sikh and Rajpoot, Mahratta, and Beharee. Apart from the
English, there was nothing to resist them; and they were
guided by a woman, the Ranee Chunda Kour; who of all modern
women was most like Mary of Scots as her enemies have painted
her, and of whom, after her fall, Lord Dalhousie said that her
capture would be worth the sacrifice of a brigade. How Dhuleep
Singh would have reigned had Runjeet Singh's destiny completed
itself is another matter—probably like a Hindoo Humayoon—for
even if not the son of Runjeet Singh, who, be it remembered,
acknowledged him, he inherited ability from his mother; he was
a bold man, and he was, as his career showed, capable of wild
and daring adventure. He fell, however, from his throne under
the shock of the second Sikh War, and began a new and, to all
appearance, most promising career. Lord Dalhousie had a pity
for the boy, and the English Court—we never quite understood
why—an unusually kindly feeling. A fortune of £40,000 a year
was settled on him, he was sent to England, and he was granted
rank hardly less than that of a Prince of the Blood. He turned
Christian—apparently from conviction, though subsequent
events throw doubt on that—a tutor, who was quite competent,
devoted himself to his education, and from the time he became
of age he was regarded as in all respects a great English
noble. He knew, too, how to sustain that character,—made no
social blunders, became a great sportsman, and succeeded in
maintaining for years the sustained stateliness of life which
in England is held to confer social dignity. Confidence was
first shaken by his marriage, which, though it did not turn
out unsuccessfully, and though the lady was in after-life
greatly liked and respected, was a whim, his bride being a
half Coptic, half English girl whom he saw in an Egyptian
school-room, and who, by all English as well as Indian ideas
of rank, was an unfitting bride. Then he began over-spending,
without the slightest necessity, for his great income was
unburdened by a vast estate; and at last reduced his finances
to such a condition that the India Office, which had made him
advance after advance, closed its treasury and left him, as he
thought, face to face with ruin. Then the fierce Asiatic blood
in him came out. He declared himself wronged, perhaps believed
himself oppressed, dropped the whole varnish of civilisation
from him, and resolved to make an effort for the vengeance
over which he had probably brooded for years. He publicly
repudiated Christianity, and went through a ceremony intended
to readmit him within the pale of the Sikh variety of the
Hindoo faith. Whether it did readmit him, greater doctors than
we must decide. That an ordinary Hindoo who has eaten beef
cannot be readmitted to his own caste, even if the eating is
involuntary, is certain, as witness the tradition of the
Tagore family; but the rights of the Royal are, even in
Hindooism, extraordinarily wide, and we fancy that, had
Dhuleep Singh succeeded in his enterprise, Sikh doctors of
theology would have declared his re-admission legal. He did
not, however, succeed. He set out for the Punjab intending, it
can hardly be doubted, if the Sikhs acknowledged him, to make
a stroke for the throne, if not of India, at least of Runjeet
Singh; but he was arrested at Aden, and after months of fierce
dispute, let go, on condition that he should not return to
India. He sought protection in Russia, which he did not
obtain, and at last gave up the struggle, made his peace with
the India Office, took his pension again, and lived, chiefly
in Paris, the life of a disappointed but wealthy idler. There
was some spirit in his adventure, though it was unwisely
carried out. The English generally thought it a bit of
foolhardiness, or a dodge to extract a loan from the India
Office; but those who were responsible held a different
opinion, and would have gone nearly any length to prevent his
reaching the Punjab. They were probably wise. The heir of
Runjeet might have been ridiculed by the Sikhs as a Christian,
but he might also have been accepted as a reconverted man; and
one successful skirmish in a district might have called to
arms all the 'children of the sugar and the sword,' and set
all India on fire. The Sikhs are our very good friends, and
stood by us against any revival of the Empire of Delhi, their
sworn hereditary foe; but they have not forgotten Runjeet
Singh, and a chance of the Empire for themselves might have
turned many of their heads."
The Spectator,
October 28, 1893.
INDIA: A. D. 1852.
The second Burmese War.
Annexation of Pegu.
"While Lord Dalhousie was laying out the Punjab like a Scotch
estate, on the most approved principles of planting,
road-making, culture, and general management, the chance of
another conquest at the opposite extremity of his vice-kingdom
summoned him to Calcutta. The master of a trading barque from
Chittagong, who was charged unjustly with cruelty to a pilot,
had been fined £100 by the authorities of Rangoon, and the
captain of a brig had in like manner been amerced for alleged

ill-treatment of his crew. To support a claim for restitution,
two English ships of war had been sent to the mouth of the
Irrawadi. … Misunderstandings arose on some inexplicable
point of etiquette;" the British commodore seized a royal
yacht which lay in the river; the angry Burmese opened fire on
his ships from their forts; and, "with an unprecedented
economy of time and trouble in the discovery or making of
plausible pretexts, a second war with Burmah was thus begun. A
long catalogue of affronts, wrongs, and injuries, now for the
first time poured in. … The subjects of the 'Golden Foot'
… must make an official apology for their misbehaviour, pay
ten lacs compensation, and receive a permanent Resident at
Rangoon. If these demands were not met within five weeks,
further reparation would be exacted otherwise, and as there
was no fear that they would, preparations were made for an
expedition. … The Governor-General threw himself with
enthusiasm into an undertaking which promised him another
chance of gratifying, as his biographer says, his 'passion for
imperial symmetry.'
{1740}
He resolved 'to take in kingdoms wherever they made a gap in
the red line running round his dominions or broke its internal
continuity.' There was a gap in the ring-fence between Arracan
and Moulmein, which Pegu would fill. The logical inference was
clear, the duty of appropriation obvious. Let us have Pegu.
Ten millions of silver happening just then to lie in the
coffers of Fort William, how could they be better invested
than in a jungle on the sea coast, inhabited by quadrupeds and
bipeds after their various kinds, alike unworthy of being
consulted as to their future destiny? … In April, Martaban
and Rangoon were taken with trifling loss. Operations being
suspended during the rainy season, the city of Prome was not
attacked till October, and after a few hours' struggle it
fell, with the loss of a single sepoy on the side of the
victors. There was in fact no serious danger to encounter,
save from the climate; but that unfailing ally fought with
terrible effect upon the side of Ava. … On the 20th
December, 1852, a proclamation was issued, which, after
reciting undisguisedly the ineffably inadequate pretext for
the war, informed the inhabitants that the Governor in Council
had resolved that the maritime province of Pegu should
henceforth form a portion of the British territories in the
East, and warning the King of Ava, 'should he fail to renew
his former relations of friendship with the British
Government, and seek to dispute its quiet possession of the
province, the Governor-General would again put forth the power
he held, which would lead to the total subversion of the
Burman State, and to the ruin and exile of the King and his
race.' But no depth of humiliation could bring the Sovereign
or his Ministers to acknowledge the hopelessness of defeat or
the permanency of dismemberment. … Twenty years have passed,
and no treaty recognising the alienation of Pegu has yet [in
1872] been signed."
W. M. Torrens,
Empire in Asia: How we came by it,
chapter 24.
ALSO IN:
E. Arnold,
The Marquis of Dalhousie's Administration of British India,
chapters 15-16 (volume 2).
INDIA: A. D. 1856.
The annexation of Oudh.
See OUDH.
INDIA: A. D. 1857.
Causes of the Sepoy Mutiny.
"The various motives assigned for the Mutiny appear inadequate
to the European mind. The truth seems to be that Native
opinion throughout India was in a ferment, predisposing men to
believe the wildest stories, and to rush into action in a
paroxysm of terror. Panic acts on an Oriental population like
drink upon a European mob. The annexation policy of Lord
Dalhousie, although dictated by the most enlightened
considerations, was distasteful to the Native mind. The spread
of education, the appearance at the same moment of the
steam-engine and the telegraph wire, seemed to reveal a deep
plan for substituting an English for an Indian civilisation.
The Bengal sepoys especially thought that they could see
further than the rest of their countrymen. Most of them were
Hindus of high caste; many of them were recruited from Oudh.
They regarded our reforms on Western lines as attacks on their
own nationality, and they knew at first hand what annexation
meant. They believed it was by their prowess that the Punjab
had been conquered, and that all India was held. The numerous
dethroned princes, or their heirs and widows, were the first
to learn and to take advantage of this spirit of disaffection
and panic. They had heard of the Crimean war, and were told
that Russia was the perpetual enemy of England. Our munificent
pensions had supplied the funds with which they could buy the
aid of skilful intriguers. They had much to gain, and little
to lose, by a revolution. In this critical state of affairs,
of which the Government had no official knowledge, a rumour
ran through the cantonments that the cartridges of the Bengal
army had been greased with the fat of pigs,—animals unclean
alike to Hindu and Muhammadan. No assurances could quiet the
minds of the sepoys. Fires occurred nightly in the Native
lines; officers were insulted by their men; confidence was
gone, and only the form of discipline remained. In addition,
the outbreak of the storm found the Native regiments denuded
of many of their best officers. The administration of the
great empire to which Dalhousie put the corner-stone, required
a larger staff than the civil service could supply. The
practice of selecting able military men for civil posts, which
had long existed, received a sudden and vast development.
Oudh, the Punjab, the Central Provinces, British Burma, were
administered to a large extent by picked officers from the
Company's regiments. Good and skilful commanders remained; but
the Native army had nevertheless been drained of many of its
brightest intellects and firmest wills at the very crisis of
its fate."
W. W. Hunter,
Brief History of the Indian People,
chapter 15.
"The annexation of Oudh had nothing to do with the Mutiny in
the first place, though that measure certainly did add to the
number of our enemies after the Mutiny commenced. The old
government of Oudh was extremely obnoxious to the mass of our
native soldiers of the regular army, who came from Oudh and
the adjacent province of Behar, and with whom the Mutiny
originated. These men were the sons and kinsmen of the Hindu
yeomen of the country, all of whom benefited more or less by
annexation; while Oudh was ruled by a Muhammadan family which
had never identified itself with the people, and whose
government was extremely oppressive to all classes except its
immediate creatures and followers. But when the introduction
of the greased cartridges had excited the Native Army to
revolt, when the mutineers saw nothing before them short of
escape on the one hand or destruction on the other, they, and
all who sympathised with them, were driven to the most
desperate measures. All who could be influenced by love or
fear rallied round them. All who had little or nothing to lose
joined their ranks. All that dangerous class of religious
fanatics and devotees who abound in India, all the political
intriguers, who in peaceful times can do no mischief, swelled
the numbers of the enemy, and gave spirit and direction to
their measures. India is full of races of men, who, from time
immemorial, have lived by service or by plunder, and who are
ready to join in any disturbance which may promise them
employment. Oudh was full of disbanded soldiers who had not
had time to settle down. Our gaols furnished thousands of
desperate men let loose on society. The cry throughout the
country, as cantonment after cantonment became the scene of
triumphant mutiny was, 'The English rule is at an end. Let us
plunder and enjoy ourselves.' The industrious classes
throughout India were on our side, but for a long time feared
to act.
{1741}
On the one side they saw the few English in the country shot
down or flying for their lives, or at the best standing on the
defensive, sorely pressed; on the other side they saw summary
punishment, in the shape of the plunder and destruction of
their houses, dealt out to those who aided us. But when we
evinced signs of vigour, when we began to assume the offensive
and vindicate our authority, many of these people came forward
and identified themselves with our cause."
Lord Lawrence,
Speech at Glasgow, 1860 (quoted by Sir O. T. Burne,
in "Clyde and Strathnairn," chapter 1).
ALSO IN:
J. W. Kaye,
History of the Sepoy War in India,
book 2 (volume 1).
G. B. Malleson,
The Indian Mutiny of 1857,
chapters 1-5.
INDIA: A. D. 1857 (May).
The outbreak at Meerut.
Seizure of Delhi by the Mutineers.
Massacre of Europeans.
Explosion of the magazine.
"The station of Meerut, some 40 miles north-east of Delhi, was
one of the very few in India where adequate means existed for
quelling an outbreak of native troops. There was a regiment of
English Dragoons, a battalion of the 60th Rifles, and a strong
force of Horse and Foot Artillery, far more than sufficient to
deal with the three native regiments who were also quartered
in the cantonment. The court-martial on … eighty-five men of
the 3rd N. C., who had refused to take their cartridges, had
by this time completed its inquiry. The men were sentenced to
long terms of imprisonment. The sentence was carried out with
impressive solemnity. On a morning [May 9] presently to become
historical—the heavens sombre with rolling clouds—the
brigade assembled to hear their comrades' doom—to see them
stripped of their uniform and secured with felons' manacles.
The scene produced intense emotion. Resistance was impossible.
There were entreaties, tears, imprecations, as the prisoners
were marched away to jail. Discipline had been vindicated by a
terrible example. The next day was Sunday. In the evening, as
the European Riflemen were gathering for Church, a sudden
movement took place in the native quarters. The Cavalry dashed
off to the jail to rescue their imprisoned companions. The two
Infantry regiments, after a moment's wavering, threw in their
lot with the mutineers. Then ensued a scene such as,
unhappily, became too familiar in Upper India within the next
few weeks. Officers were shot, houses fired, Europeans—men,
women, and children, wherever found, were put to the sword. A
crowd of miscreants from the jail, suddenly set free, made a
long night of pillage. Meanwhile, paralysed by the sudden
catastrophe, the English General of the Division and the
Brigadier of the Station forbore to act, refused to let their
subordinates act, and the Sepoys who had fled, a disorganised
mob, in different directions, soon found themselves gathering
on the march for Delhi. In the early morning at Delhi, where
courts and offices had already begun the day's work, a line of
horsemen were descried galloping on the Meerut road. They
found their way into the city, into the presence of the King;
cut down the European officials, and, as they were gradually
reinforced by the arrival of fresh companions, commenced a
general massacre of the Christian population. A brave
telegraph clerk, as the mutineers burst in upon him, had just
time to flash the dreadful tidings to Lahore. Before evening,
the native regiments fired upon their officers and joined the
mutineers. After weary hours of hope for the help from Meerut
which never came, the British officers in command were
compelled to recognise that the only chance of safety lay in
flight. Ere the day closed, every European who had risen that
morning in Delhi, was dead, or awaiting death, or wandering
about the country in the desperate endeavor to reach a place
of safety. A day dark with disaster was, however, illumined by
the first of those heroic acts which will make the siege of
Delhi immortal. The insurgents had their first taste of the
quality of the race whose ascendancy they had elected to
assail. Lieutenant Willoughby, the officer in charge of the
Magazine, and eight gallant companions, resolved, early in the
day, that, if they could not defend their invaluable supply of
ammunition, they would destroy it, though its destruction
would almost certainly involve their own. For hours they
defended their stronghold against an overpowering crowd of
assailants. The train was laid: the sergeant who was to fire
it stood ready: Willoughby took a last look out upon the
Meerut road: the assailants were swarming on the walls. The
word was spoken: a vast column of flame and smoke shot upward.
Two thousand of the assailants were blown into the air [and
five of the defenders perished, while Willoughby and three of
his companions escaped]. The thunder of that explosion
announced to the mutineers that one great object in the
seizure of Delhi had escaped their grasp."
H. S. Cunningham,
Earl Canning,
chapter 5.
ALSO IN:
J. W. Kaye,
History of the Sepoy War in India,
book 4, chapters 1-3 (volume 2).
INDIA: A. D. 1857 (May-August).
The situation at Delhi.
Siege of the English at Cawnpur.
Their surrender and massacre.
The siege of Lucknow.
"A few days of inactivity allowed the flame to blaze up beyond
possibility of immediate extinction. The unchallenged
occupation of the Mughal capital by rebel sepoys and badmashes
was followed by risings and massacres in almost every station
within range of the example; and from Firozpur, Bareilly,
Moradabad, Shahjahanpur, Cawnpur, and numerous other places
came harrowing tales of massacre, suffering, and heroism. When
this terrible news reached army head-quarters, it was received
with a perhaps natural incredulity. Nevertheless, a force was
hastily assembled at Ambala; and with the troops thus
mobilised, General Anson, then Commander-in-Chief, made
preparations to march against the renowned city of the Mughal.
The little force had hardly started, however, when its leader
died of cholera (May 27th). It was not until the 1st of June
that General Barnard, who had succeeded temporarily to the
chief command, advanced in earnest against the now jubilant
rebels. Meanwhile, a small body of troops under Brigadier
Archdale Wilson marched out from Meerut, after a disastrous
delay; and the combined force, amounting to about 3,000
Europeans and one battalion of Gurkhas, fought its way onwards
till it reached the outskirts of the city on the 8th of June,
1857. We may now refer to the three great points,—Delhi,
Cawnpur, and Lucknow, round which the Mutiny was, so to speak,
centred during the earlier period of the revolt; namely, from
May, 1857, till the arrival in India of Sir Colin Campbell in
August of that year.
{1742}
The modern city of Delhi was founded by the Emperor Jahangir
in 1631. Situated on the right bank of a branch of the Jumna
river it was, as it still is, surrounded by a high wall some
seven miles in extent, strengthened by bastions and by a
capacious dry ditch. The British force held the elevated
ground known as the Ridge, which extends two miles along the
northern and western faces of the city—a position taken up
some centuries before by Timur Shah and his Tartar hordes when
advancing to attack old Delhi. At intervals along the Ridge
stood the Flagstaff Tower, the Observatory, a large mansion
called Hindu Rao's house, and other defensible buildings. The
space between the city and the Ridge was thickly planted, for
the most part with trees and shrubs; in the midst of which
might be seen numerous mosques and large houses, and the ruins
of older buildings. It soon became evident that the position
held by the British force on the Ridge was a false one; and
the question arose whether the city might not be taken by a
coup de main, seeing that it was impossible either to invest
it or to attempt a regular siege with any chance of success. A
plan of assault, to be carried out on the 12th of June, was
drawn up by a young Engineer officer and sanctioned. Had this
assault been delivered the city would in all likelihood have
been taken and held. … But owing to a series of accidents,
the plan fell through—a miscarriage the more to be regretted
because the early recapture of the city would in all human
probability have put a stop to further outbreaks. As matters
stood, however, the gallant little force before Delhi could
barely hold its own. It was an army of observation perpetually
harassed by an active enemy. As time went on, therefore, the
question of raising the siege in favour of a movement towards
Agra was more than once seriously discussed, but was
fortunately abandoned. On July 5th, 1857, General Barnard
died, worn out with fatigue and anxiety. He was succeeded in
command by General Archdale Wilson, an officer who, possessing
no special force of character, did little more than secure the
safe defence of the position until the arrival of Brigadier
Nicholson from the Punjab, August 14th, 1857, with a moveable
column of 2,500 men, Europeans and Sikhs. And here we may
leave Delhi, for the moment, deferring till later any further
details of the siege. The city of Cawnpur, situated on the
south bank of the river Ganges, 42 miles south-west of Lucknow
and 270 miles from Delhi, lies about a mile from the river in
a large sandy plain. On the strip of land between the river
and the town, a space broken by ravines, stretched the Civil
Station and cantonments. A more difficult position to hold in
an extremity cannot well be conceived, occupied as it was by
four disaffected Sepoy regiments with but sixty European
artillerymen to overawe them. There was, moreover, an
incompetent commander. Realising after the disasters at Meerut
and Delhi that his native garrison was not to be trusted, Sir
Hugh Wheeler threw up a make-shift entrenchment close to the
Sepoy lines. Commanded on all sides, it was totally unfitted
to stand a siege. But a worse mistake was to follow. Alarmed
as time went on at his growing difficulties, Sir Hugh Wheeler
at length asked the notorious Nana Sahib [see above: A. D.
1848-1856], who lived a few miles off at Bithur, to assist him
with troops to guard the Treasury. For some months previously
this archtraitor's emissaries had been spreading discontent
throughout India, but he himself had taken care to remain on
good terms with his European neighbours. He now saw his
opportunity. Cawnpur, delivered into his hands by the
misplaced confidence of its defenders, was virtually in his
keeping. Of European succour there was no immediate hope. The
place was doomed. The crash came three days before General
Barnard's force reached Delhi. With the exception of a few
devoted natives who remained faithful to their salt, the whole
Sepoy force on the 5th of June rose in revolt, opened the
doors of the jail, robbed the treasury, and made themselves
masters of the magazine. The Nana cast aside all further
pretence of friendship and, joined by the mutinous troops,
laid siege to the entrenchment already mentioned, which with
culpable military ignorance had been thrown up in one of the
worst positions that could have been chosen. The besieging
army numbered some 3,000 men. The besieged could only muster
about 400 English soldiers, more than 70 of which number were
invalids. For twenty-one days the little garrison suffered
untold horrors from starvation, heat, and the onslaughts of
the rebels; until the General in command listened to overtures
for surrender, and the garrison marched out on the 27th of
June, to the number of about 450 souls, provided with a
promise of safeguard from the Nana, who would allow them, as
they thought, to embark in country boats for Allahabad. Tantia
Topi, who afterwards became notorious in Central India,
superintended the embarkation. No sooner, however, were the
Europeans placed in the boats, in apparent safety, than a
battery of guns concealed on the river banks opened fire,
while at the same time a deadly fusillade of musketry was
poured on the luckless refugees. The Nana at length ordered
the massacre to cease. He celebrated what he called his
glorious victory by proclaiming himself Peshwa or Maratha
Sovereign, and by rewarding his troops for their 'splendid
achievements,' while the wretched survivors of his treachery,
numbering about 5 men and 206 women and children, were taken
back to Cawnpur and confined in a small building for further
vengeance and insult. On the 15th of July came the last act of
this tragedy. The Nana, having suffered a crushing defeat at
the hands of Brigadier Havelock's force within a day's march
of Cawnpur, as will presently be recorded, put the whole of
his prisoners to death. The men were brought out and killed in
his presence, while the women and children were hacked to
pieces by Muhammadan butchers and others in their prison.
Their bodies were thrown into what is now known as the
Cawnpur Well.' Lucknow, at the time of the Mutiny, was in
population, in extent, and in the number and importance of its
principal buildings, one of the foremost cities of India. …
The Residency stood on a hill gently sloping towards the
river, and was an imposing edifice of three stories. Near it
were the iron and stone bridges over the river. … At the
outbreak of the Mutiny the Sepoy regiments were stationed in
various localities within the city; while the 32nd Foot, the
only European regiment on the spot, was quartered in a barrack
about a mile or so from the Residency.
{1743}
As was the case elsewhere, so it happened at Lucknow. While
the population and native garrison were seething with
sedition, the British authorities were hampered by ignorance
of popular feeling, by the want of European troops, and by
divided counsels. So, by the end of May, 1857, the rebellion
in Oudh became an accomplished fact, although matters went on
with comparative smoothness in Lucknow itself. At length,
after a serious disaster at Chinhat, the British garrison was
forced to withdraw to the Residency and its adjacent
buildings; and on the 1st of July commenced the famous
investment of this position by the rebel forces. The position
was ill adapted for defence; for the lofty windows of the
Residency itself not only allowed free access to the enemy's
missiles, but its roof was wholly exposed. On the opposite
side of the street, leading from the Bailey Guard Gate, was
the house of the Residency Surgeon, Dr. (now Sir Joseph)
Fayrer. It was a large but not lofty building with a flat roof
which, protected by sand bags, afforded a good cover for our
riflemen, and with a tyekhana, or underground story, that
afforded good shelter for the women and children. But as a
whole, the defences of the Residency were more formidable in
name than in reality, and were greatly weakened by the
proximity of high buildings from which the rebels without
danger to themselves poured an unceasing fire. The siege had
an ominous commencement. On July 4th the much-beloved Sir
Henry Lawrence, the Resident, died of a wound received two
days before from an enemy's shell that had fallen into his
room. Brigadier Inglis succeeded him in command; and for three
months the heroic garrison of about 1,700 souls held their
weak position, amid inconceivable hardships and dangers,
against thousands of the rebels who were constantly reinforced
by fresh levies. It was well said in a general order by Lord
Canning that there could not be found in the annals of war an
achievement more heroic than this defence."
General Sir O. T. Burne,
Clyde and Strathnairn,
chapter 2.
ALSO IN:
J. W. Kaye,
History of the Sepoy War,
book 9, chapters 1-3 (volume 3).
G. O. Trevelyan,
Cawnpore.
T. R. E. Holmes,
History of the Indian Mutiny,
chapters 8-10.
Lady Inglis,
The Siege of Lucknow.
INDIA: A. D. 1857 (June-September).
The siege, the storming and the capture of Delhi.
Murder of the Moghul princes.
"During the four months that followed the revolt at Delhi on
the 11th of May, all political interest was centred at the
ancient capital of the sovereigns of Hindustan. The public
mind was occasionally distracted by the current of events at
Cawnpore and Lukhnow, as well as at other stations which need
not be particularised; but so long as Delhi remained in the
hands of the rebels, the native princes were bewildered and
alarmed; and its prompt recapture was deemed of vital
importance to the prestige of the British government, and the
re-establishment of British sovereignty in Hindustan. The
Great Moghul had been little better than a mummy for more than
half a century, and Bahadur Shah was a mere tool and puppet in
the hands of rebel sepoys; but nevertheless the British
government had to deal with the astounding fact that the
rebels were fighting under his name and standard, just as
Afghans and Mahrattas had done in the days of Ahmad Shah
Durani and Mahadaji Sindia. To make matters worse, the roads
to Delhi were open from the south and east; and nearly every
outbreak in Hindustan was followed by a stampede of mutineers
to the old capital of the Moghuls. Meanwhile, in the absence
of railways, there were unfortunate delays in bringing up
troops and guns to stamp out the fires of rebellion at the
head centre. The highway from Calcutta to Delhi was blocked up
by mutiny and insurrection; and every European soldier sent up
from Calcutta was stopped for the relief of Benares,
Allahabad, Cawnpore, or Lukhnow. But the possession of the
Punjab at this crisis proved to be the salvation of the
empire. Sir John Lawrence, the Chief Commissioner, was called
upon to perform almost superhuman work:—to maintain order in
a newly conquered province; to suppress mutiny and
disaffection amongst the very sepoy regiments from Bengal who
were supposed to garrison the country; and to send
reinforcements of troops and guns, and supplies of all
descriptions, to the siege of Delhi. Fortunately the Sikhs had
been only a few short years under British administration; they
had not forgotten the miseries that prevailed under the native
government, and could appreciate the many blessings they
enjoyed under British rule. They were staunch to the British
government, and eager to be led against the rebels. In some
cases terrible punishment was meted out to mutinous Bengal
sepoys within the Punjab; but the imperial interests at stake
were sufficient to justify every severity, although all must
regret the painful necessity that called for such extreme
measures. … The defences of Delhi covered an area of three
square miles. The walls consisted of a series of bastions,
about sixteen feet high, connected by long curtains, with
occasional martello towers to aid the flanking fire. … There
were seven gates to the city, namely, Lahore gate, Ajmir gate,
Turkoman gate, Delhi gate, Mori gate, Kabul gate, and Kashmir
gate. The principal street was the Chandni Chouk, which ran in
a direct line from the Delhi gate to the palace of the
Moghuls. … For many weeks the British army on the Ridge was
unable to attempt siege operations. It was, in fact, the
besieged, rather than the besiegers; for, although the bridges
in the rear were blown up, the camp was exposed to continual
assaults from all the other sides. On the 23rd of June, the
hundredth anniversary of the battle of Plassy, the enemy made
a greater effort than ever to carry the British position. The
attack began on the right from the Subzi Mundi, its object
being to capture the Mound battery. Finding it impossible to
carry the battery, the rebels confined themselves to a hand to
hand conflict in the Subzi Mundi. The deadly struggle
continued for many hours; and as the rebels came up in
overwhelming numbers, it was fortunate that the two bridges in
the rear had been blown up the night before, or the assault
might have had a different termination. It was not until after
sunset that the enemy was compelled to retire with the loss of
a thousand men. Similar actions were frequent during the month
of August; but meanwhile reinforcements were coming up, and
the end was drawing nigh. In the middle of August, Brigadier
John Nicholson, one of the most distinguished officers of the
time, came up from the Punjab with a brigade and siege train.
On the 4th of September a heavy train of artillery was brought
in from Ferozepore.
{1744}
The British force on the Ridge now exceeded 8,000 men.
Hitherto the artillery had been too weak to attempt to breach
the City walls; but now fifty-four heavy guns were brought
into position and the siege began in earnest. From the 8th to
the 12th of September four batteries poured in a constant
storm of shot and shell; number one was directed against the
Kashmir bastion, number two against the right flank of the
Kashmir bastion, number three against the Water bastion, and
number four against the Kashmir and Water gates and bastions.
On the 13th of September the breaches were declared to be
practicable, and the following morning was fixed for the final
assault upon the doomed city. At three o'clock in the morning
of the 14th September, three assaulting columns were formed in
the trenches, whilst a fourth was kept in reserve. The first
column was led by Brigadier Nicholson; the second by Brigadier
Jones; the third by Colonel Campbell; and the fourth, or
reserve, by Brigadier Longfield. The powder bags were laid at
the Kashmir gate by Lieutenants Home and Salkeld. The
explosion followed, and the third column rushed in, and pushed
towards the Juma Musjid. Meanwhile the first column under
Nicholson escaladed the breaches near the Kashmir gate, and
pushed along the ramparts towards the Kabul gate, carrying the
several bastions in the way. Here it was met by the second
column under Brigadier Jones, who had escaladed the breach at
the Water bastion. The advancing columns were met by a
ceaseless fire from terraced houses, mosques, and other
buildings; and John Nicholson, the hero of the day, whilst
attempting to storm a narrow street near the Kabul gate, was
struck down by a shot and mortally wounded."
J. T. Wheeler,
Short History of India,
part 3, chapter 25.
"The long autumn day was over, and we were in Delhi. But Delhi
was, by no means, ours. Sixty-six officers and 1,100 men—
nearly a third, that is, of the whole attacking force—had
fallen; while, as yet, not a sixth part of the town was in our
power. How many men, it might well be asked, would be left to
us by the time that we had conquered the remainder? We held
the line of ramparts which we had attacked and the portions of
the city immediately adjoining, but nothing more. The Lahore
Gate and the Magazine, the Jumma Musjid and the Palace, were
still untouched, and were keeping up a heavy fire on our
position. Worse than this, a large number of our troops had
fallen victims to the temptation which, more formidable than
themselves, our foes had left behind them, and were wallowing
in a state of bestial intoxication. The enemy, meanwhile, had
been able to maintain their position outside the town; and if
only, at this supreme hour, a heaven-sent General had appeared
amongst them, they might have attacked our camp, defended as
it was mainly by the sick, and the maimed, and the halt. …
Never, perhaps, in the history of the Mutiny were we in quite
so perilous a position as on the night which followed our
greatest military success. General Wilson, indeed, proposed,
as might have been expected from a man in his enfeebled
condition of mind and body, to withdraw the guns, to fall back
on the camp and wait for reinforcements there; a step which,
it is needless to point out, would have given us all the
deadly work to do over again, even if our force should prove
able to maintain itself on the Ridge till reinforcements came.
But the urgent remonstrances of Baird Smith and others, by
word of mouth; of Chamberlain, by letter; and, perhaps, also,
the echoes which may have reached him from the tempest-tossed
hero who lay chafing against his cruel destiny on his
death-bed, and exclaimed in a wild paroxysm of passion, when
he heard of the move which was in contemplation, 'Thank God, I
have strength enough left to shoot that man,' turned the
General once more from his purpose. On the following day, the
15th, vast quantities of the intoxicating drinks, which had
wrought such havoc amongst our men, were destroyed by General
Wilson's order, and the streets literally ran with rivers of
beer, and wine, and brandy. Meanwhile, the troops were
sleeping off their drunken debauch; and on the 16th active
operations were resumed. On that day the Magazine was taken,
and its vast stores of shot and shell, and of all the
'material' of war, fell once more into the hands of their
proper owners. By sapping gradually from house to house we
managed, for three days more, to avoid the street-fighting
which, once and again, has proved so demoralising to
Englishmen; and, slowly but surely, we pressed back the
defenders into that ever-narrowing part of the city of which,
fortunately for themselves, they still held the bolt-holes.
Many of them had already begun, like rats, to quit the sinking
vessel. And now the unarmed population of the city flocked in
one continuous stream out of the open gates, hoping to save
their lives, if nothing else, from our avenging swords. On the
19th, the palace of the Moguls, which had witnessed the last
expiring flicker of life in an effete dynasty, and the cruel
murder of English men, and women, and children, fell into our
hands; and by Sunday, the 20th, the whole of the city—in
large part already a city of the dead—was at our mercy. But
what of the King himself and the Princes of the royal house?
They had slunk off to the tomb of Humayoun, a huge building,
almost a city in itself, some miles from the modern Delhi, and
there, swayed this way and that, now by the bolder spirits of
his army who pressed him to put himself at their head and
fight it out to the death, as became the descendant of
Tamerlane and Baber, now by the entreaties of his young wife,
who was anxious chiefly for her own safety and that of her
son, the heir of the Moguls; and now, again, by the plausible
suggestions of a double-dyed traitor of his own house who was
in Hodson's pay, and who, approaching the head of his family
with a kiss of peace, was endeavoring to detain him where he
was till he could hand him over to his employer and receive
the price of blood, the poor old monarch dozed or fooled away
the few hours of his sovereignty which remained, the hours
which might still make or mar him, in paroxysms of imbecile
vacillation and despair. The traitor gained the day, and
Hodson, who could play the game of force as well as of fraud,
and was an equal adept at either, learning from his
craven-hearted tool that the King was prepared to surrender on
the promise of his life, went to Wilson and obtained leave, on
that condition, to bring him into Delhi. The errand, with such
a promise tacked on to it, was only half to Hodson's taste.
{1745}
'If I get into the Palace,' he had written in cool blood some
days before, 'the house of Timour will not be worth five
minutes' purchase, I ween.' … After two hours of bargaining
for his own life and that of his queen and favourite son, the
poor old Priam tottered forth and was taken back, in a
bullock-cart, a prisoner, to his own city and Palace, and was
there handed over to the civil authorities. But there were
other members of the royal family, as Hodson knew well from
his informants, also lurking in Humayoun's tomb. … With a
hundred of his famous horse Hodson started for Humayoun's
tomb, and, after three hours of negotiation, the three
princes, two of them the sons, the other the grandson of the
King, surrendered unconditionally into his hands. … Their
arms were taken from them, and, escorted by some of his
horsemen, they too were despatched in bullock-carts towards
Delhi. With the rest of his horse, Hodson stayed behind to
disarm the large and nerveless crowd, who, as sheep having no
shepherd, and unable, in their paralysed condition, to see
what the brute weight even of a flock of sheep might do by a
sudden rush, were overawed by his resolute bearing. This done,
he galloped after his prey and caught them up just before the
cavalcade reached the walls of Delhi. He ordered the princes
roughly to get out of the cart and strip,—for, even in his
thirst for their blood, he had, as it would seem, an eye to
the value of their outer clothes,—he ordered them into the
cart again, he seized a carbine from one of his troopers, and
then and there, with his own hand, shot them down deliberately
one after the other. It was a stupid, cold-blooded, three-fold
murder. … Had they been put upon their trial, disclosures of
great importance as to the origin of the Mutiny could hardly
fail to have been elicited. Their punishment would have been
proportioned to their offence, and would have been meted out
to them with all the patient majesty of offended law."
R. B. Smith,
Life of Lord Lawrence,
volume 2, chapter 5.
ALSO IN:
Sir R. Temple,
Lord Lawrence,
chapter 7.
Sir R. Temple,
Men and Events of my Time in India,
chapter 7.
J. Cave-Brown,
The Punjab and Delhi in 1857.
G. B. Malleson,
History of the Indian Mutiny,
book 10, chapter 1 (volume 2).
Major Hodson,
Twelve Years of a Soldier's Life in India,
part 2: The Delhi Campaign.
INDIA: A. D. 1857-1858 (July-June).
General Havelock's campaign.
Sir Colin Campbell's.
The Relief of Lucknow.
Substantial suppression of the Mutiny.
"Meanwhile the greatest anxiety prevailed with regard to our
countrymen and countrywomen at Lucknow and Cawnpore. The
Indian government made every effort to relieve them; but the
reinforcements which had been despatched from England and
China came in slowly, and the demands made for assistance far
exceeded the means at the disposal of the government. … The
task of relieving the city was entrusted to the heroic General
Havelock, who marched out with a mere handful of men, of whom
only 1,400 were British soldiers, to encounter a large army
and a whole country in rebellion. At Futtehpore, on the 12th
of July, he defeated a vastly superior force, posted in a very
strong position. After giving his men a day's rest, he
advanced again on the 14th, and routed the enemy in two
pitched battles. Next morning he renewed his advance, and with
a force of less than 900 men attacked 5,000 strongly
entrenched, and commanded by Nana Sahib. They were
outmanœuvred, out-flanked, beaten and dispersed. But for this
signal defeat they wreaked their vengeance on the unfortunate
women and children who still remained at Cawnpore. On the very
day on which the battle occurred, they were massacred under
circumstances of cruelty over which we must throw a veil. The
well of Cawnpore, in which their hacked and mutilated bodies
were flung, presented a spectacle from which soldiers who had
regarded unmoved the carnage of numerous battle-fields shrank
with horror. Of all the atrocities perpetrated during this
war, so fruitful in horrors, this was the most awful; and it
was followed by a terrible retribution. It steeled the hearts,
and lent a furious and fearless energy to the arms, of the
British soldiery. Wherever they came, they gave no quarter to
the mutineers; a few men often frantically attacked hundreds,
frantically but vainly defending themselves; and never ceased
till all had been bayoneted, or shot, or hewn in pieces. All
those who could be shown to have been accomplices in the
perpetration of the murders that had been committed were hung,
or blown from the cannon's mouth. Though the intrepid Havelock
was unable to save the women and children who had been
imprisoned in Cawnpore, he pressed forward to Lucknow. But the
force under his command was too small to enable him to drive
off the enemy. Meanwhile Sir J. Outram, who was now returning
from the Persian war, which had been brought to a successful
conclusion, was sent to Oude as chief commissioner, with full
civil and military power. This appointment was fully deserved;
but it had the effect, probably not thought of by those who
made it, of superseding Havelock just as he was about to
achieve the crowning success of his rapid and glorious career.
Outram, however, with a generosity which did him more real
honour than a thousand victories would have conferred, wrote
to Havelock to inform him that he intended to join him with
adequate reinforcements; adding: 'To you shall be left the
glory of relieving Lucknow, for which you have already
struggled so much. I shall accompany you only in my civil
capacity as commissioner, placing my military service at your
disposal, should you please, and serving under you as a
volunteer.' Thus Havelock, after gaining no fewer than twelve
battles against forces far superior in numbers to the little
band he originally led, was enabled at length, on the 25th of
August, to preserve the civilians, the women, and children of
Lucknow from the impending horrors of another massacre, which
would no doubt have been as fearful as that of Cawnpore. The
Highlanders were the first to enter, and were welcomed with
grateful enthusiasm by those whom they had saved from a fate
worse than death. However, the enemy, recovering from the
panic which the arrival of Havelock and his troops had caused,
renewed the siege. Sir Colin Campbell, who had assumed the
command of the Indian army, had determined to march to the
relief of Lucknow. He set out from Cawnpore on the 9th of
November, but was obliged to wait till the 14th for
reinforcements, which were on the way to join him, and which
raised the force under his command to 5,000—a force
numerically far inferior to that which it was to attack.
{1746}
On the 17th of November the relief of Lucknow was effected.
The music of the Highland regiments, playing 'The Campbells
are coming,' announced to their delighted countrymen inside
the city that the commander-in-chief himself was with the
relieving force. Little time, however, was allowed for
congratulations and rejoicings. The ladies, the civilians, and
the garrison were quietly withdrawn; the guns, which it was
thought not desirable to remove, were burst; and a retreat
effected, without affording the enemy the slightest suspicion
of what was going on until some hours after the town had been
evacuated by its defenders. The retreating force reached
Dilhasha on the 24th, without having sustained any serious
molestation. There the gallant Havelock sank under the trials
and hardships to which he had been exposed, and yielded up the
life which was instrumental in preserving so many others from
the most terrible of deaths. While Sir Colin Campbell was
engaged in effecting the relief of Lucknow, intelligence
reached Cawnpore that a large hostile army was making towards
it. General Windham, who commanded there, unacquainted with
the number or the position of the approaching force, marched
forth to meet it, in the hope that he should be able to rout
and cut up the advanced guard before the main body of the
enemy could come to its assistance. But in this expectation he
was disappointed. Instead of having to deal with the van, he
engaged with the whole rebel army, and his little force,
assailed on all sides, was obliged to retire. He at once
despatched a letter to the commander-in-chief, requesting him
to hasten to his assistance; but it was intercepted by the
enemy. Fortunately Sir Colin Campbell, though ignorant of the
critical position of his subordinate, came up just at the
moment when the danger was at its height. This was on the 28th
of November. He was, however, in no haste to attack the foe,
and was content for the present merely to hold them in check.
His first care was for the safety of the civilians, the women,
and the children, which was not secured till the 30th; and he
continued to protect them till the 5th of December, when they
were all safely lodged at Allahabad. The enemy, unaware of the
motive of his seeming inaction, imputed it to fear, and became
every day more confident and audacious. On the 6th he at
length turned fiercely on them, completely defeated them, and
seized their baggage; he then dispersed and drove away another
large force, under the command of Nana Sahib, which was
watching the engagement at a little distance. The army entered
the residence of Nana Sahib at Bithoor, and took possession of
much treasure, which had been concealed in a well. Nearly the
whole of the enemy's artillery was captured; and the army,
being overtaken as they were in the act of crossing into Oude,
great numbers of them were destroyed. Of course, for the
moment Lucknow, being no longer garrisoned, had fallen into
the hands of the insurgents; but they were not long permitted
to retain it. Strong reinforcements arrived, and the Indian
government was enabled to send a force against Lucknow
sufficient to overwhelm all resistance; and on the 15th of
December this important city was in the undisputed possession
of the British troops. This final recovery of the capital of
Oude decided the reconquest of that country. A struggle was,
indeed, maintained for some time longer; innumerable battles
were fought; and the final subjugation of the country was
effected in the month of June, 1858."
W. N. Molesworth,
History of England, 1830-1874,
volume 3, chapter 2.
ALSO IN:
A. Forbes,
Havelock,
chapters 5-7.
General Sir O. T. Burne,
Clyde and Strathnairn.
General Shadwell,
Life of Colin Campbell, Lord Clyde,
volume 1, chapter 11,
and volume 2, chapters 1-18.
T. Lowe,
Central India during 1857-8.
INDIA: A. D. 1858.
The Governor-General's Proclamation,
Termination of the rule of the East India Company.
The government transferred to the Crown.
"By a singular circumstance, when the mutiny was suppressed in
1858, the Governor-General, who in the previous year had been
condemned for leniency which was thought ill-timed, was
destined to receive censure for harshness which was declared
unnecessary. On the eve of the fall of Lucknow, he drew up a
proclamation confiscating the lands of all the great
landowners in Oudh. Exceptions were, indeed, made to this
sweeping decree. Landowners who could prove their loyalty were
promised exemption from it, just as rebels who unconditionally
surrendered, and whose hands were not stained with British
blood, were offered pardon. There is no doubt that Canning, in
drawing up this proclamation, relied on the exceptions which
it contained, while there is equally no doubt that the critics
who objected to it overlooked its parentheses. But its issue
was made the basis of an attack which well-nigh proved fatal
to the Governor-General's administration. The chances of party
warfare had replaced Palmerston with Derby; and the
Conservative minister had entrusted the Board of Control to
the brilliant but erratic statesman who, fifteen years before,
had astonished India with pageant and proclamation. …
Ellenborough thought proper to condemn Canning's proclamation
in a severe despatch, and to allow his censure to be made
public. For a short time it seemed impossible that the
Governor-General who had received such a despatch could
continue his government. But the lapse of a few days showed
that the minister who had framed the despatch, and not the
Viceroy who had received it, was to suffer from the
transaction. The public, recollecting the justice of Canning's
rule, the mercy of his administration, almost unanimously
considered that he should not have been hastily condemned for
a document which, it was gradually evident, had only been
imperfectly understood; and Ellenborough, to save his
colleagues, volunteered to play the part of Jonah, and retired
from the ministry. His retirement closes, in one sense, the
history of the Indian Mutiny. But the transactions of the
Mutiny had, almost for the first time, taught the public to
consider the anomalies of Indian government. In the course of
a hundred years a Company had been suffered to acquire an
empire nearly ten times as large and as populous as Great
Britain. It was true that the rule of the Company was in many
respects nominal. The President of the Board of Control was
the true head of the Indian Government, and spoke and acted
through the Secret Committee of the Court of Directors. But
this very circumstance only accentuated the anomaly. If the
President of the Board of Control was in fact Indian minister,
it was far simpler to make him Indian minister by name, and to
do away with the clumsy expedient which alone enabled him to
exercise his authority.
{1747}
Hence it was generally decided that the rule of the Company
should cease, and that India should thenceforward become one
of the possessions of the crown. … A great danger thus led
to the removal of a great anomaly, and the vast Indian empire
which Englishmen had won was thenceforward taken into a
nation's keeping."
S. Walpole,
History of England from 1815,
chapter 27 (volume 5).
The act "for the better government of India," which was passed
in the autumn of 1858, "provided that all the territories
previously under the government of the East India Company were
to be vested in her Majesty, and all the Company's powers to
be exercised in her name. One of her Majesty's principal
Secretaries of State was to have all the power previously
exercised by the Company, or by the Board of Control. The
Secretary was to be assisted by a Council of India, to consist
of fifteen members, of whom seven were to be elected by the
Court of Directors from their own body, and eight nominated by
the Crown. The vacancies among the nominated were to be filled
up by the Crown; those among the elected by the remaining
members of the Council for a certain time, but afterward by
the Secretary of State for India. The competitive principle
for the Civil Service was extended in its application, and
made thoroughly practical. The military and naval forces of
the Company were to be deemed the forces of her Majesty. A
clause was introduced declaring that, except for the purpose
of preventing or repelling actual invasion of India, the
Indian revenues should not, without the consent of both Houses
of Parliament, be applicable to defray the expenses of any
military operation carried on beyond the external frontiers of
her Majesty's Indian possessions. Another clause enacted that
whenever an order was sent to India directing the commencement
of hostilities by her Majesty's forces there, the fact should
be communicated to Parliament within three months, if
Parliament were then sitting, or, if not, within one month
after its next meeting. These clauses were heard of more than
once in later days. The Viceroy and Governor-General was to be
supreme in India, but was to be assisted by a Council. India
now has nine provinces, each under its own civil government,
and independent of the others, but all subordinate to the
authority of the Viceroy. In accordance with this Act the
government of the Company, the famed 'John Company,' formally
ceased on September 1st, 1858; and the Queen was proclaimed
throughout India in the following November, with Lord Canning
for her first Viceroy."
J. McCarthy,
History of Our Own Times,
chapter 36 (volume 3).
ALSO IN:
Sir H. S. Cunningham,
Earl Canning,
chapters 7-9.
Duke of Argyll,
India Under Dalhousie and Canning.
INDIA: A. D. 1861.
Institution of the Order of the Star of India.
See STAR OF INDIA.
INDIA: A. D. 1862-1876.
Vice-regal administrations of
Lords Lawrence, Mayo and Northbrook.
Lord Canning was succeeded as Viceroy by Lord Elgin, in 1862;
but Elgin only lived until November, 1863, and his successor
was Sir John Lawrence, the savior of the Punjab. "Sir John
Lawrence's Viceroyalty was an uneventful time. Great natural
calamities by famine and cyclone fell upon the country, which
called forth the philanthropic energies of Government and
people. Commerce passed through an unexampled crisis, taxing
skill and foresight. But the political atmosphere was calm.
With the exception of little frontier wars, wasteful of
resources that were sorely needed, there was nothing to divert
the Government from the prosecution of schemes for the
improvement of the physical and moral condition of the
people." Sir John Lawrence held the Viceroyalty until January,
1869, when he was succeeded by Lord Mayo and returned to
England. He was raised, in that year, to the peerage, under
the title of Baron Lawrence of Punjab and Grateley. He died
ten years later.
Sir C. Aitchison,
Lord Lawrence,
chapters 7-12.
Lord Lawrence's immediate successor, Lord Mayo, was
assassinated, while Viceroy, in 1872, by a convict—a
Highlander—at the convict settlement on the Andaman Islands,
for no reason of personal hatred, but only because he
represented the governing authority which had condemned the
man. Lord Mayo was succeeded by Lord Northbrook, who held the
office from 1872 to 1876.
Sir W. W. Hunter,
The Earl of Mayo.
INDIA: A. D. 1876.
Lord Lytton, Viceroy.
The successor of Lord Northbrook in the Vice-regal
office was Lord Lytton, appointed in 1876.
INDIA: A. D. 1877.
The Native States and their quasi feudatory relation to the
British Crown.
Queen Victoria's assumption of the title of Empress of India.
"In some sense the Indians were accustomed to consider the
Company, as they now consider the Queen, to be the heir of the
Great Mughal, and therefore universal suzerain by right of
succession. But it is easy to exaggerate the force of this
claim, which is itself a mere restatement of the fact of
conquest. Politically, India is divided into two parts,
commonly known as British territory and the native states. The
first portion alone is ruled directly by English officials,
and its inhabitants alone are subjects of the Queen. The
native states are sometimes called feudatory—a convenient
term to express their vague relation to the British crown. To
define that relation precisely would be impossible. It has
arisen at different times and by different methods; it varies
from semi-independence to complete subjection. Some chiefs are
the representatives of those whom we found on our first
arrival in the country; others owe their existence to our
creation. Some are parties to treaties entered into as between
equal powers; others have consented to receive patents from
their suzerain recording their limited rights; with others,
again, there are no written engagements at all. Some have
fought with us and come out of the struggle without dishonour.
Some pay tribute; others pay none. Their extent and power vary
as greatly as their political status. The Nizam of Haidarabad

governs a kingdom of 80,000 square miles and 10,000,000
inhabitants. Some of the petty chieftains of Kathiawar
exercise authority over only a few acres. It is, however,
necessary to draw a line sharply circumscribing the native
states, as a class, from British territory. Every native chief
possesses a certain measure of local authority, which is not
derivative but inherent. English control, when and as
exercised, is not so much of an administrative as of a
diplomatic nature. In Anglo-Indian terminology this shade of
meaning is expressed by the word 'political.' … As a general
proposition, and excepting the quite insignificant states, it
may be stated that the government is carried on not only in
the name but also by the initiative of the native chief.
{1748}
At all the large capitals, and at certain centres round which
minor states are grouped, a British officer is stationed under
the style of Resident or Agent. Through him all diplomatic
affairs are conducted. He is at once an ambassador and a
controller. His duty is to represent the majesty of the
suzerain power, to keep a watchful eye upon abuses, and to
encourage reforms."
J. S. Cotton,
Colonies and Dependencies,
part 1, chapter 3.
"The supremacy of the British Government over all the Native
States in India was declared in 1877, in a more emphatic form
than it had received before, by the assumption by the Queen of
the title of Kaisar-i-Hind, Empress of India. No such
gathering of chiefs and princes has taken place in historical
times as that seen at Delhi in January, 1877, when the rulers
of all the principal States of India formally acknowledged
their dependence on the British Crown. The political effect of
the assertion of the supremacy of the paramount power, thus
formally made for the first time in India, has been marked and
extremely important."
Sir J. Strachey,
India,
lecture 11.
ALSO IN:
G. B. Malleson,
Historical Sketch of the Native States of India.
INDIA: A. D. 1878-1881.
The second Afghan War.
See AFGHANISTAN: A. D. 1869-1881.
INDIA: A. D. 1880-1893.
Recent Viceroys.
On the defeat of the Conservative Beaconsfield Ministry in
England, in 1880, Lord Lytton resigned the Viceroyalty and was
succeeded by the Marquis of Ripon, who gave place in turn to
the Marquis of Dufferin in 1884. In 1888, the Marquis of
Lansdowne succeeded Lord Dufferin, and was himself succeeded
in 1893 by Sir Henry Norman.
INDIA: A. D. 1893.
Suspension of the free coinage of silver.
In June, 1893, the Indian Government, with the approval of the
British Cabinet, stopped the free coinage of silver, with a
view to the introduction of a gold standard. The Government,
it was announced, while stopping the coinage of the declining
metal for private persons, would continue on its own account
to coin rupees in exchange for gold at a ratio then fixed at
sixteen pence sterling per rupee. "The closing of the mints of
British India to the coinage of silver coins of
full-debt-paying power is the most momentous event in the
monetary history of the present century. It is the final and
disastrous blow to the use of silver as a measure of value and
as money of full-debt-paying power, and the relegation of it
to the position of a subsidiary, or token metal. It is the
culmination of the evolution from a silver to a gold standard
which has been progressing with startling rapidity in recent
years. … The remarkable series of events which have
characterized, or made manifest, this evolution from a silver
to a gold standard are nearly all condensed in the brief
period of twenty years, and are probably without a parallel in
ancient or modern monetary history. … With the single
exception of England, all Europe forty years ago had the
silver standard, not only legally but actually—silver coins
constituting the great bulk of the money of actual
transactions. To-day, not a mint in Europe is open to the
coinage of full-debt-paying silver coins, and the gateways of
the Orient have been closed against it. Twenty years ago one
ounce of gold exchanged in the markets of the world for
fifteen and one-half ounces of silver; to-day, one ounce of
gold will buy nearly thirty ounces of silver. … There is a
general impression that silver has been the money of India
from remote generations. This is a fallacy. It has not been a
great many years since India adopted the silver standard. The
ancient money of the Hindoos was gold, which in 1818 was
supplemented by silver, but gold coins remained legal tender
until 1835, when silver was made the sole standard of value
and legal tender money in British India, and gold was
demonetized. … During the last fifty odd years, India has
absorbed vast quantities of silver."
E. O. Leech,
The Doom of Silver
(The Forum, August, 1893).
----------INDIA: End--------
INDIAN EMPIRE, The Order of the.
An Order instituted by Queen Victoria in 1878.
----------INDIAN TERRITORY: Start--------
INDIAN TERRITORY: 1803.
Embraced in the Louisiana Purchase.
See LOUISIANA: A. D. 1798-1803.
INDIAN TERRITORY: A. D. 1824.
Set off from Arkansas Territory.
See ARKANSAS: A. D. 1819-1836.
----------INDIAN TERRITORY: End--------
INDIANA.
The Aboriginal Inhabitants.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ALGONQUIAN FAMILY,
ALLEGHANS, and DELAWARES.
INDIANA: A. D. 1700-1735.
Occupation by the French.
See CANADA: A. D. 1700-1735.
INDIANA: A. D. 1763.
Cession to Great Britain.
See SEVEN YEARS WAR: THE TREATIES.
INDIANA: A. D. 1763.
The King's proclamation excluding settlers.
See NORTHWEST TERRITORY: A. D. 1763.
INDIANA: A. D. 1765.
Possession taken by the English.
See ILLINOIS: A. D. 1765.
INDIANA: A. D. 1774.
Embraced in the Province of Quebec.
See CANADA: A. D. 1763-1774.
INDIANA: A. D. 1778-1779.
Conquest from the British by the Virginian General Clark, and
annexation to the Kentucky district of Virginia.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1778-1779, CLARK'S CONQUEST.
INDIANA: A. D. 1784.
Included in the proposed states of Assenisipia, Metropotamia,
Illinoia and Polypotamia.
See NORTHWEST TERRITORY: A. D. 1784.
INDIANA: A. D. 1786.
Partially covered by the western land claims of Connecticut,
ceded to the United States.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1781-1786.
INDIANA: A. D. 1787.
The Ordinance for the government of the Northwest Territory.
Perpetual exclusion of Slavery.
See NORTHWEST TERRITORY: A. D. 1787.
INDIANA: A. D. 1790-1795.
Indian War.
Disastrous expeditions of Harmar and St. Clair, and Wayne's
decisive victory.
See NORTHWEST TERRITORY: A. D. 1790-1795.
INDIANA: A. D. 1800.
The Territory of Indiana organized.
See NORTHWEST TERRITORY: A. D. 1788-1802.
{1749}
INDIANA: A. D. 1800-1818.
Successive partitions of the Territory.
Michigan and Illinois detached.
The remaining Indiana admitted as a State.
"Indiana Territory as originally organized [in 1800] …
included the county of Knox, upon the Wabash, from which has
sprung the State of Indiana; the county of St. Clair, on the
Upper Mississippi, or Illinois River, from which has sprung
the State of Illinois; and the county of Wayne, upon the
Detroit River, from which has sprung the State of Michigan.
… At this time, the inhabitants contained in all of them did
not amount to more than 5,640 souls, while the aggregate
number of the Indian tribes within the extreme limits of the
territory was more than 100,000. … By successive treaties,
the Indian title was extinguished gradually to all the country
lying upon the waters of the White River, and upon all the
lower tributaries of the Wabash, upon the Little Wabash, the
Kaskaskia, and east of the Mississippi, below the mouth of the
Illinois. Thus, before the close of the year 1805, nearly all
the southern half of the present State of Indiana, and one
third of the State of Illinois, was open to the advance of the
enterprising pioneer. … In 1807, the Federal government, in
like manner, purchased from the Indians extensive regions west
of Detroit River, and within the present State of Michigan,
far beyond the limits of the white settlements in that
quarter. Meantime, the settlements formerly comprised in Wayne
county, having increased in inhabitants and importance, had
been erected into a separate territorial government, known and
designated as the 'Territory of Michigan.' On the 1st of July,
1805, the territory entered upon the first grade of
territorial government, under the provisions of the ordinance
of 1787; and William Hull, formerly a lieutenant in the
Revolutionary army, was made the first governor. … Detroit
… was made the seat of the territorial government. … By
the close of the year 1808, the Indiana Territory east of the
Wabash had received such an increase in numbers that it was
desirable to assume the second grade of territorial
government. Having a population of 5,000 free white males,
Congress, with a view to a future state government, by an act
approved February 3d, 1809, restricted its limits, and
authorized a territorial Legislature. … The Indiana
Territory, from this time, was bounded on the west by a line
extending up the middle of the Wabash, from its mouth to
Vincennes, and thence by a meridian due north to the southern
extremity of Lake Michigan. On the north, it was bounded by
the southern line of the Michigan Territory. That portion west
of the Wabash was erected into a separate territorial
government of the first grade, known and designated as the
'Illinois Territory.' The inhabitants of the Indiana Territory
soon began to augment more rapidly. … In 1810 the people had
increased in numbers to 24,500, and in the newly-erected
Territory of Illinois there was an aggregate of 12,300
persons." In 1816 "it was ascertained that the Indiana
Territory possessed a population which entitled it to an
independent state government. Congress authorized the election
of a convention to form a state Constitution," and "the new
'State of Indiana' was formally admitted into the Union on the
19th of April, 1816." Two years later, on the 3d of December,
1818, the Territory of Illinois was similarly transformed and
became one of the states of the Union.
J. W. Monette,
The Discovery and Settlement of the Mississippi Valley,
book 5, chapter 16 (volume 2).
ALSO IN:
J. B. Dillon,
History of Indiana,
chapters 31-47.
A. Davidson and B. Stuvé,
History of Illinois,
chapters 20-26.
T. M. Cooley,
Michigan,
chapter 8.
INDIANA: A. D. 1811.
General Harrison's campaign against Tecumseh and his League.
The Battle of Tippecanoe.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1811.
INDIANA: A. D. 1863.
John Morgan's Rebel Raid.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1863 (JULY: KENTUCKY).
----------INDIANS: Start--------
INDIANS:
American: The Name.
"As Columbus supposed himself to have landed on an island at
the extremity of India, he called the natives by the general
appellation of Indians, which was universally adopted before
the true nature of his discovery was known, and has since been
extended to all the aboriginals of the New World."
W. Irving,
Life and Voyages of Columbus,
book 4, chapter 1 (volume 1).
"The Spanish writers from the outset, beginning with Columbus
in his letters, call the natives of America, Indians, and
their English translators do the same. So, too, Richard Eden,
the earliest English writer on American travel, applies the
name to the natives of Peru and Mexico. It is used in the same
way, both in translations and original accounts, during the
rest of the century, but it is always limited to those races
with whom the Spaniards were in contact. In its wider and
later application the word does not seem to have established
itself in English till the next century. The earliest instance
I can find, where it is applied to the natives of North
America generally in any original work, is by Hakluyt. In 1587
he translated Laudonnière's 'History of the French Colony in
Florida,' and dedicated his translation to Sir Walter Raleigh.
In this dedication he once uses the term Indian for the
natives of North America. Heriot and the other writers who
describe the various attempts at settlement in Virginia during
the sixteenth century, invariably call the natives 'savages.'
Perhaps the earliest instance where an English writer uses the
name Indian specially to describe the occupants of the land
afterwards colonized by the English is in the account of
Archer's voyage to Virginia in 1602. This account, written by
James Rosier, is published in Purchas (volume iv. b. viii.).
From that time onward the use of the term in the wider sense
becomes more common. We may reasonably infer that the use of
it was an indication of the growing knowledge of the fact that
the lands conquered by the Spaniards and those explored by the
English formed one continent."
J. A. Doyle,
The English in America: Virginia, &c.,
appendix A.
INDIANS: The tribes and families.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES.
----------INDIANS: End--------
INDICTIONS, The.
The indiction "was a cycle of 15 years, used only by the
Romans, for appointing the times of certain public taxes; as
appears from the title in the Code, 'De tributo indicto.' It
was established by Constantine, A. D. 312, in the room of the
heathen Olympiads; and was used in the acts of the General
Councils, Emperors, and Popes."
W. Hales,
New Analysis of Chronology,
volume 1, book 1.
"The indictions consisted of a revolution of 15 years, which
are separately reckoned as indiction 1, indiction 2, &c., up
to 15; when they recommence with indiction 1. … Doubt exists
as to the commencement of the indictions; some writers
assigning the first indiction to the year 312; the greater
number to the year 313; others to 314; whilst some place it
in the year 315.
{1750}
In 'L'Art de vérifier les Dates,' the year 313 is fixed upon
as that of the first indiction. There are four descriptions of
indictions. The first is that of Constantinople, which was
instituted by Constantine in A. D. 312, and began on the 1st
of September. The second, and more common in England and
France, was the Imperial or Cæsarean indiction, which began on
the 24th of September. The third kind of indiction is called
the Roman or Pontifical, from its being generally used in
papal bulls, at least from the ninth to the fourteenth
century; it commences on the 25th of December or 1st of
January, accordingly as either of these days was considered
the first of the year. The fourth kind of indiction, which is
to be found in the register of the parliaments of Paris, began
in the month of October. … After the 12th century, the
indiction was rarely mentioned in public instruments. … But
in France, in private charters, and in ecclesiastical
documents, the usage continued until the end of the 15th
century."
Sir H. Nicolas,
Chronology of History,
pages 6-7.
ALSO IN:
E. Gibbon,
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapter 17.
INDO-EUROPEAN.
INDO-GERMANIC.
See ARYAN.
INDULGENCE: Declarations of: by Charles II.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1672-1673.
INDULGENCE: By James II.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1687-1688.
INDULGENCES: The Doctrine.
Tetzel's sale.
Luther's attack.
See PAPACY: A. D. 1516-1517; and 1517.
INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION.
See EDUCATION, MODERN: REFORMS, &c.: A. D. 1865-1886.
INE, Laws of (or Dooms of).
See DOOMS OF INE.
INEXPIABLE WAR, The.
See CARTHAGE: B. C. 241-238.
INFALLIBILITY, Promulgation of the Dogma of Papal.
See PAPACY: A. D. 1869-1870.
INGÆVONES, The.
See GERMANY: AS KNOWN TO TACITUS.
INGAGO, Battle of (1881).
See SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1806-1881.
INGE I.,
King of Norway, A. D. 1157-1161.
Inge I. (called the Good), King of Sweden, 1090-1112.
Inge II., King of Norway, 1205-1207.
Inge II., King of Sweden, 1118-1129.
INGENUI.
LIBERTINI.
"Free men [among the Romans] might be either persons born free
(ingenui) and who had never been in slavery to a Roman, or
persons who had once been slaves but had been emancipated
(libertini)."
W. Ramsay,
Manual of Roman Antiquity,
chapter 3.
INI, King of West Saxons, A. D. 688-726.
INIS-FAIL.
INIS-EALGA.
See IRELAND: THE NAME.
INITIATIVE, The Swiss.
See REFERENDUM.
INKERMANN, Battle of.
See RUSSIA: A. D. 1854 (OCTOBER-NOVEMBER).
INNOCENT II., Pope, A. D. 1130-1143.
Innocent III., Pope, 1198-1216.
Innocent IV., Pope, 1243-1254.
Innocent V., Pope, 1276, January to June.
Innocent VI., Pope, 1352-1362.
Innocent VII., Pope, 1404-1406.
Innocent VIII., Pope, 1484-1492.
Innocent IX., Pope, 1591, October to December.
Innocent X., Pope, 1644-1655.
Innocent XI., Pope, 1676-1689.
Innocent XII., Pope, 1691-1700.
Innocent XIII., Pope, 1721-1724.
INNUITS, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ESKIMAUAN FAMILY.
----------INQUISITION: Start----------
INQUISITION, The: A. D. 1203-1525.
Origin of the Holy Office.
St. Dominic and the Dominicans.
The Episcopal Inquisition.
The Apostolical or Papal Inquisition.
The Spanish Inquisition and its terrible rule.
Estimate of victims.
Expulsion of Jews and Moors.
"In the earlier ages of the Church, the definition of heresy
had been committed to episcopal authority. But the cognisance
of heretics and the determination of their punishment remained
in the hands of secular magistrates. At the end of the 12th
century the wide diffusion of the Albigensian heterodoxy
through Languedoc and Northern Italy alarmed the chiefs of
Christendom, and furnished the Papacy with a good pretext for
extending its prerogatives. Innocent III. in 1203 empowered
two French Cistercians, Pierre de Castelnau and Raoul, to
preach against the heretics of Provence. In the following year
he ratified this commission by a Bull, which censured the
negligence and coldness of the bishops, appointed the Abbot of
Citeaux Papal delegate in matters of heresy, and gave him
authority to judge and punish misbelievers. This was the first
germ of the Holy Office as a separate Tribunal. … Being a
distinct encroachment of the Papacy upon the episcopal
jurisdiction and prerogatives, the Inquisition met at first
with some opposition from the bishops. The people for whose
persecution it was designed, and at whose expense it carried
on its work, broke into rebellion; the first years of its
annals were rendered illustrious by the murder of one of its
founders, Pierre de Castelnau. He was canonised, and became
the first Saint of the Inquisition. … In spite of
opposition, the Papal institution took root and flourished.
Philip Augustus responded to the appeals of Innocent; and a
crusade began against the Albigenses, in which Simon de
Montfort won his sinister celebrity. During those bloody wars
the Inquisition developed itself as a force of formidable
expansive energy. Material assistance to the cause was
rendered by a Spanish monk of the Augustine order, who settled
in Provence on his way back from Rome in 1206. Domenigo de
Guzman, known to universal history as S. Dominic, organised a
new militia for the service of the orthodox Church between the
years 1215 and 1219. His order, called the Order of the
Preachers, was originally designed to repress heresy and
confirm the faith by diffusing Catholic doctrine and
maintaining the creed in its purity. It consisted of three
sections: the Preaching Friars; nuns living in conventual
retreat; and laymen, entitled the Third Order of Penitence or
the Militia of Christ, who in after years were merged with the
Congregation of S. Peter Martyr, and corresponded to the
familiars of the Inquisition. Since the Dominicans were
established in the heat and passion of a crusade against
heresy, by a rigid Spaniard who employed his energies in
persecuting misbelievers, they assumed at the outset a
belligerent and inquisitorial attitude. Yet it is not strictly
accurate to represent S. Dominic himself as the first Grand
Inquisitor.
{1751}
The Papacy proceeded with caution in its design of forming a
tribunal dependent on the Holy See and independent of the
bishops. Papal Legates with plenipotentiary authority were
sent to Languedoc, and decrees were issued against the
heretics, in which the Inquisition was rather implied than
directly named; nor can I find that S. Dominic, though he
continued to be the soul of the new institution until his
death, in 1221, obtained the title of Inquisitor.
Notwithstanding this vagueness, the Holy Office may be said to
have been founded by S. Dominic; and it soon became apparent
that the order he had formed was destined to monopolise its
functions. … This Apostolical Inquisition was at once
introduced into Lombardy, Romagna and the Marches of Treviso.
The extreme rigour of its proceedings, the extortions of
monks, and the violent resistance offered by the communes, led
to some relaxation of its original constitution. More
authority had to be conceded to the bishops; and the right of
the Inquisitors to levy taxes on the people was modified. Yet
it retained its true form of a Papal organ, superseding the
episcopal prerogatives, and overriding the secular
magistrates, who were bound to execute its biddings. As such
it was admitted into Tuscany, and established in Aragon.
Venice received it in 1289, with certain reservations that
placed its proceedings under the control of Doge and Council.
In Languedoc, the country of its birth, it remained rooted at
Toulouse and Carcassonne; but the Inquisition did not extend
its authority over central and northern France. In Paris its
functions were performed by the Sorbonne. Nor did it obtain a
footing in England, although the statute 'De Haeretico
Comburendo,' passed in 1401 at the instance of the higher
clergy, sanctioned the principles on which it existed. … The
revival of the Holy Office on a new and far more murderous
basis, took place in 1484. We have seen that hitherto there
had been two types of inquisition into heresy. The first,
which remained in force up to the year 1203, may be called the
episcopal. The second was the Apostolical or Dominican: it
transferred this jurisdiction from the bishops to the Papacy,
who employed the order of S. Dominic for the special service
of the tribunal instituted by the Imperial Decrees of
Frederick II. The third deserves no other name than Spanish,
though, after it had taken shape in Spain, it was transferred
to Portugal, applied in all the Spanish and Portuguese
colonies, and communicated with some modifications to Italy
and the Netherlands. Both the second and the third types of
inquisition into heresy were Spanish inventions, patented by
the Roman Pontiffs and monopolised by the Dominican order. But
the third and final form of the Holy Office in Spain
distinguished itself by emancipation from Papal and Royal
control, and by a specific organisation which rendered it the
most formidable of irresponsible engines in the annals of
religious institutions. … Castile had hitherto been free
from the pest. But the conditions of that kingdom offered a
good occasion for its introduction at the date which I have
named. During the Middle Ages the Jews of Castile acquired
vast wealth and influence. Few families but felt the burden of
their bonds and mortgages. Religious fanaticism, social
jealousy, and pecuniary distress exasperated the Christian
population; and as early as the year 1391, more than 5,000
Jews were massacred in one popular uprising. The Jews, in
fear, adopted Christianity. It is said that in the 15th
century the population counted some million of
converts—called New Christians, or, in contempt, Marranos: a
word which may probably be derived from the Hebrew Maranatha.
These converted Jews, by their ability and wealth, crept into
high offices of state, obtained titles of aristocracy, and
founded noble houses. … It was a Sicilian Inquisitor, Philip
Barberis, who suggested to Ferdinand the Catholic the
advantage he might secure by extending the Holy Office to
Castile. Ferdinand avowed his willingness; and Sixtus IV. gave
the project his approval in 1478. But it met with opposition
from the gentler-natured Isabella. … Then Isabella yielded;
and in 1481 the Holy Office was founded at Seville. It began
its work by publishing a comprehensive edict against all New
Christians suspected of Judaising, which offence was so
constructed as to cover the most innocent observance of
national customs. Resting from labour on Saturday; performing
ablutions at stated times; refusing to eat pork or puddings
made of blood; and abstaining from wine, sufficed to colour
accusations of heresy. … Upon the publication of this edict,
there was an exodus of Jews by thousands into the fiefs of
independent vassals of the crown—the Duke of Medina Sidonia,
the Marquis of Cadiz, and the Count of Arcos. All emigrants
were 'ipso facto' declared heretics by the Holy Office. During
the first year after its foundation, Seville beheld 298
persons burned alive, and 79 condemned to perpetual
imprisonment. A large square stage of stone, called the
Quemadero, was erected for the execution of those multitudes
who were destined to suffer death by hanging or by flame. In
the same year, 2,000 were burned and 17,000 condemned to
public penitence, while even a larger number were burned in
effigy, in other parts of the kingdom. … In 1483 Thomas of
Torquemada was nominated Inquisitor General for Castile and
Aragon. Under his rule a Supreme Council was established, over
which he presided for life. … In 1484 a General Council was
held, and the constitution of the Inquisition was established
by articles. … The two most formidable features of the
Inquisition as thus constituted were the exclusion of the
bishops from its tribunal and the secrecy of its procedure.
… In the autumn of 1484 the Inquisition was introduced into
Aragon; and Saragossa became its headquarters in that State.
… The Spanish Inquisition was now firmly grounded. Directed
by Torquemada, it began to encroach upon the crown, to insult
the episcopacy, to defy the Papacy, to grind the Commons, and
to outrage by its insolence the aristocracy. … The Holy
Office grew every year in pride, pretensions and exactions. It
arrogated to its tribunal crimes of usury, bigamy, blasphemous
swearing, and unnatural vice, which appertained by right to
the secular courts. It depopulated Spain by the extermination
and banishment of at least three million industrious subjects
during the first 139 years of its existence. … Torquemada
was the genius of evil who created and presided over this foul
instrument of human crime and folly.
{1752}
During his eighteen years of administration, reckoning from
1480 to 1498, he sacrificed, according to Llorente's
calculation, above 114,000 victims, of whom 10,220 were burned
alive, 6,860 burned in effigy, and 97,000 condemned to
perpetual imprisonment or public penitence. He, too, it was
who in 1492 compelled Ferdinand to drive the Jews from his
dominions. … The edict of expulsion was issued on the last
of March. Before the last of July all Jews were sentenced to
depart, carrying no gold or silver with them. They disposed of
their lands, houses, and goods for next to nothing, and went
forth to die by thousands on the shores of Africa and Italy.
… The exodus of the Jews was followed in 1502 by a similar
exodus of Moors from Castile, and in 1524 by an exodus of
Mauresques from Aragon. To compute the loss of wealth and
population inflicted upon Spain by these mad edicts would be
impossible. … After Torquemada, Diego Deza reigned as second
Inquisitor General from 1498 to 1507. In these years,
according to the same calculation, 2,592 were burned alive,
896 burned in effigy, 34,952 condemned to prison or public
penitence. Cardinal Ximenes de Cisneros followed between 1507
and 1517. The victims of this decade were 3,564 burned alive.
… Adrian, Bishop of Tortosa, tutor to Charles V., and
afterwards Pope, was Inquisitor General between 1516 and 1525.
Castile, Aragon, and Catalonia, at this epoch, simultaneously
demanded a reform of the Holy Office from their youthful
sovereign. But Charles refused, and the tale of Adrian's
administration was 1,620 burned alive, 560 burned in effigy,
21,845 condemned to prison or public penitence. The total,
during 43 years, between 1481 and 1525, amounted to 234,526,
including all descriptions of condemned heretics. These
figures are of necessity vague, for the Holy Office left but
meagre records of its proceedings.".
J. A. Symonds,
Renaissance in Italy: The Catholic Reaction,
chapter 3 (part 1).
ALSO IN:
H. C. Lea,
History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages.
J. A. Llorente,
History of the Inquisition,
chapters 1-12.
W. H. Rule,
History of the Inquisition,
chapters 1-14.
W. H. Prescott,
History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella,
part 1, chapters 7 and 17.
See, also,
JEWS: 8TH-15TH CENTURIES; and MOORS: A. D. 1492-1609.
INQUISITION: A. D. 1521-1568.
Introduction and work in the Netherlands.
See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1521-1555; 1559-1562; and 1568.
INQUISITION: A. D. 1546.
Successful revolt against the Holy Office at Naples.
See ITALY (SOUTHERN): A. D. 1528-1570.
INQUISITION: A. D. 1550-1816.
Establishment in Peru.
See PERU: A. D. 1550-1816.
INQUISITION: A. D. 1814-1820.
Restoration and abolition in Spain.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1814-1827.
----------INQUISITION: End----------
INSTITUTES OF JUSTINIAN.
See CORPUS JURIS CIVILIS.
INSTRUMENT OF GOVERNMENT, The.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1653 (DECEMBER).
INSUBRIANS AND CENOMANIANS, The.
"North of the Po, in the country about Milan, dwelt [3d
century, B. C.] the great people of the Insubrians, while to
the east of these on the Mincio and the Adige lay the
Cenomanians; but these tribes, little inclined, seemingly, to
make common cause with their countrymen [the Boian and
Senonian Gauls] remained neutral in all the hostilities
against Rome." But the Insubrians were attacked and subdued,
B. C. 223.
W. Ihne,
History of Rome,
book 4, chapter 5 (volume 2).
See, also, ROME: B. C. 295-191.
INTERDICTS.
See EXCOMMUNICATIONS.
INTERIM OF CHARLES V., The.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1546-1552.
"INTERNATIONAL," The.
"The year of the London Exhibition, and under the auspices of
the Emperor Napoleon III., a number of Paris working-men
visited the English capital. They were welcomed by a London
Committee of artisans, and on this occasion the wish for a
closer union between the labourers of different countries was
expressed on both sides. Then the Polish insurrection broke
out, and masses of London and Paris working-men took steps
simultaneously to manifest sympathy with the insurgents. A
deputation was again sent over from Paris, and the result of
this measure was a resolution to delay preparations for
co-operation no longer. For some time the international idea
was carefully given prominence in labour circles in various
countries, and on September 28th, 1864, a congress of many
nations was held in St. Martin's Hall, London, under the
presidency of Professor Beesly. A committee was appointed,
representing England, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, and
Switzerland, for the drawing up of statutes for an
International Working Men's Association, whose seat should be
London. … It was not long before the International
Association became a power which caused alarm to not a few
European Governments."
W. H. Dawson,
German Socialism and Ferdinand Lassalle,
chapter 13.
INTERREGNUM, The Great.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1250-1272.
INTERREX.
A temporary king, in ancient Rome.
See ROME: B. C. 509; also, SENATE, ROMAN.
INTRANSIGENTISTS.
In European politics, the extreme radicals—the uncompromising
and irreconcilable factions—are frequently so called.
INVERLOCHY, Battle of (1645).
See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1644-1645.
INVESTITURES, The War of.
See PAPACY: A. D. 1056-1122;
and GERMANY: A. D. 973-1122.
INVISIBLE EMPIRE, The.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1866-1871.
IONA, Monastery and Schools of.
See COLUMBAN CHURCH;
and EDUCATION, MEDIÆVAL: IRELAND AND SCOTLAND.
IONIA.
The Ionian cities on the coast of Asia Minor bore collectively
the name Ionia, though no national union was signified by the
designation.
See ASIA MINOR: THE GREEK COLONIES, and after.
IONIAN (DELIAN) CONFEDERACY, The.
See GREECE: B. C. 478-477;
and ATHENS: B. C. 466-454, and after.
----------IONIAN ISLANDS: Start--------
IONIAN ISLANDS:
To 1814.
Under Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Venetian and French rule.
"Acarnania, as a glance at the map will show, is the most
western part of continental Greece. But in close proximity to
the mainland there stretch along the west coast a number of
islands, some of them of considerable area, the history and
traditions of which are inseparably intertwined with those of
Hellas. They have long been known as the Ionian Islands,
deriving the name, in all likelihood, from the sea in which
they are situated; for their ancient inhabitants were not, so
far as is known, of Ionic descent.
{1753}
They are very numerous, but only six of them are of
any historic importance. The most northerly is Corcyra
(Corfu), a long, narrow island, which extends like a lofty
breakwater in front of the coast of Epirus." The other five
are Paxos (Paxo), Leucadia (Santa Maura), Cephallenia
(Cephalonia), Ithaca (Thiaki), Zacynthus (Zante), and Cythera
(Cerigo). "Though not the largest, Corcyra is the most
populous and important of the islands. It has a place in the
mythic tradition, and a still greater one in the ascertained
history, of ancient Hellas.
See KORKYRA;
also, GREECE: B. C. 435-432, and 432.
… With the other islands in the Ionian Sea, Corcyra passed
under the dominion of Rome, and subsequently became part of
the Eastern Empire. In 540 A. D. the fleet of the Gothic
leader Totila ravaged the coasts of the island, but did not
capture the city, the fortifications of which had been greatly
strengthened by the Romans. Five centuries later the island
and its capital fell into the hands of a more formidable
invader—the Norman Robert Guiscard, who captured them on his
way from Italy to prosecute that invasion of the Byzantine
Empire which was at one time so nearly attended with success.
The first Norman supremacy did not last long; but in 1144 A.
D., Roger, the Norman king of Sicily, took occasion of a
rising of the Corcyreans (or, as they now began to be called,
the Corfiotes) against the Byzantine Emperor Manuel to
introduce a garrison into the city. Four years later Manuel,
who was an energetic and warlike prince, laid siege to Corfu,
and was assisted by the Venetians. The Norman garrison offered
a most determined resistance, but were ultimately obliged to
surrender on honourable terms. After the overthrow of the
Byzantine emperors, in the early part of the 13th century,
Corfu, with the other Ionian Islands, became part of the
dominions of the Venetian republic, and so continued, with
brief intervals, for nearly 500 years. The Venetian rule was
on the whole favourable to the material prosperity of the
island: it was admirably cultivated, and became the centre of
a large commerce. Unlike most of the other possessions of
Venice in the eastern Mediterranean, Corfu never fell into the
hands of the Turks. They overran and ravaged the island in
1537, carrying off, according to their custom, many of the
young women and children as slaves; and they besieged the
capital, but its fortifications had been much strengthened by
the Venetians, and the garrison was able to offer a successful
resistance. In 1716 another memorable siege [see TURKS: A. D.
1714-1718] took place, during the war in which Sultan Achmet
III. engaged with Austria and the Venetian republic. A large
Ottoman army under Kara Mustapha beleaguered Corfu; but the
garrison was commanded by a distinguished soldier, Count
Schulemburg, who baffled an the efforts of the Turks, and at
last compelled them to withdraw to their ships after they had
lost 15,000 men. By the Treaty of Campo Formio, dictated in
1797 to Austria by Napoleon after his marvellous Italian
campaign, the Ionian Islands were transferred to France [see
FRANCE: A. D. 1797 (MAY-OCTOBER)], the rest of the Venetian
territories falling to the share of Austria. The French
garrisons were, however, expelled in 1799 by a Russo-Turkish
expedition, and the islands constituted a republic [called the
Republic of the Seven Islands]. But in 1807, when the course
of events had changed Russia into an ally of the French
emperor, the latter again obtained possession of the islands
under the Treaty of Tilsit. The English, being masters of the
Mediterranean, soon drove the French out of all the islands
except Corfu. This was under French rule till 1814; and it is
only fair to say that they did much for the improvement of the
island, constructing some substantial roads in the interior.
In 1814, during the general cataclysm of the gigantic empire
of Napoleon, the French garrison was driven out of the island
after a gallant resistance, and in the following year the
Ionian Islands were reconstituted a republic under British
protection and supremacy."
C. H. Hanson,
The Land of Greece,
chapter 4.
IONIAN ISLANDS: A. D. 1815-1862.
The British protectorate.
Its relinquishment.
Annexation to the kingdom of Greece.
"These seven islands [the Ionian] were constituted a sort of
republic or commonwealth by the Treaty of Vienna [1815]. But
they were consigned to the protectorate of Great Britain;
which had the right of maintaining garrisons in them. Great
Britain used to appoint a Lord High Commissioner, who was
generally a military man, and whose office combined the duties
of Commander-in-Chief with those of Civil Governor. The little
republic had a Senate of six members and a Legislative
Assembly of forty members. It seems almost a waste of words to
say that the islanders were not content with British
government. For good or ill, the Hellenes, wherever they are
found, are sure to be filled with an impassioned longing for
Hellenic independence. The people of the Ionian Islands were
eager to be allowed to enter into one system with the kingdom
of Greece. It was idle to try to amuse them by telling them
they constituted an independent republic, and were actually
governing themselves, … while they saw themselves presided
over by an English Lord High Commissioner who was also the
Commander-in-Chief of a goodly British army garrisoned in
their midst. … It is certain that they got a great deal of
material benefit from the presence of the energetic
road-making British power. But they wanted to be, above all
things, Greek. … Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton [who was
then—1858—Secretary for the Colonies in the British
Government] … thought the causes of the complaints and the
dissatisfaction were well worth looking into, and he resolved
on sending a statesman of distinction out to the islands to
make the enquiry. Mr. Gladstone had been for some years out of
office. He had been acting as an independent supporter of Lord
Palmerston's Government. It occurred to Sir Edward Bulwer
Lytton that Mr. Gladstone was the man best fitted to conduct
the enquiry. … He offered, therefore, to Mr. Gladstone the
office of Lord High Commissioner Extraordinary to the Ionian
Islands, and Mr. Gladstone accepted the offer and its duties."
Arriving in Corfu in November, 1858, "he called together the
Senate, and endeavoured to satisfy them as to the real nature
of his mission. He explained that he had not come there to
discuss the propriety of maintaining the English protectorate,
but only to enquire into the manner in which the just claims
of the Ionian Islands might be secured by means of that
protectorate."
{1754}
But "the population of the islands persisted in regarding him,
not as the commissioner of a Conservative English Government,
but as 'Gladstone the Philhellene.' He was received wherever
he went with the honours due to a liberator. … The visit of
Mr. Gladstone, whatever purpose it may have been intended to
fulfil, had the effect of making them [the Ionians] agitate
more strenuously than ever for annexation to the kingdom of
Greece. Their wish, however, was not to be granted yet. A new
Lord High Commissioner was sent out after Mr. Gladstone's
return. … Still … the idea held ground that sooner or
later Great Britain would give up the charge of the islands. A
few years after, an opportunity occurred for making the
cession. The Greeks got rid quietly of their heavy German king
Otho [see GREECE: A. D. 1830-1862], and on the advice chiefly
of England they elected as sovereign a brother of the Princess
of Wales. … The second son of the King of Denmark was made
King of Greece; and Lord John Russell, on behalf of the
English Government, then [1862] handed over to the kingdom of
Greece the islands of which Great Britain had had so long to
bear the unwilling charge."
J. McCarthy,
History of our Own Times,
chapter 39 (volume 3).
----------IONIAN ISLANDS: End--------
IONIAN REVOLT, The.
See PERSIA: B. C. 521-493.
IONIANS, The.
See DORIANS AND IONIANS.
IONIC (PAN-IONIC) AMPHIKTYONY.
"There existed at the commencement of historical Greece, in
776 B. C., besides the Ionians in Attica and the Cyclades,
twelve Ionian cities of note on or near the coast of Asia
Minor, besides a few others less important. Enumerated from
south to north, they stand—Milêtus, Myûs, Priênê, Samos,
Ephesus, Kolophôn, Lebedus, Teôs, Erythræ, Chios, Klazomenæ,
Phôkæa. … Milêtus, Myûs and Priênê were situated on or near
the productive plain of the river Mæander; while Ephesus was
in like manner planted near the mouth of the Kaïster … :
Kolophon is only a very few miles north of the same river.
Possessing the best means of communication with the interior,
these towns seem to have thriven with greater rapidity than
the rest; and they, together with the neighbouring island of
Samos, constituted in early times the strength of the
Pan-Ionic Amphiktyony. The situation of the sacred precinct of
Poseidôn (where this festival was celebrated) on the north
side of the promontory of Mykalê, near Priênê, and between
Ephesus and Milêtus, seems to show that these towns formed the
primitive centre to which the other Ionian settlements became
gradually aggregated. For it was by no means a centrical site
with reference to all the twelve. … Moreover, it seems that
the Pan-Ionic festival [the celebration of which constituted
the Amphiktyony], though still formally continued, had lost
its importance before the time of Thucydidês, and had become
practically superseded by the more splendid festival of the
Ephesia, near Ephesus, where the cities of Ionia found a more
attractive place of meeting."
G. Grote,
History of Greece
part 2, chapter 13 (volume 3).
----------IOWA: Start--------
IOWA: The Aboriginal Inhabitants.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ALLEGHANS,
and ALGONQUIAN FAMILY.
IOWA: A. D. 1803.
Embraced in the Louisiana Purchase.
See LOUISIANA: A. D. 1798-1803.
IOWA: A. D. 1834-1838.
Joined to Michigan Territory;
then to Wisconsin;
then separately organized.
See WISCONSIN: A. D. 1805-1848.
IOWA: A. D. 1845.
Admission into the Union, with Florida for a slave-state
counterweight.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1845.
----------IOWA: End--------
IOWAS, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: SIOUAN FAMILY,
and PAWNEE (CADDOAN) FAMILY.
IPSUS, Battle of (B. C. 301).
See MACEDONIA: B. C. 310-301.
IQUIQUE, Battle of (1891).
See CHILE: A. D. 1885-1891.
IRACA.
See COLOMBIAN STATES: A. D. 1536-1731.
IRAK.
At the time of the Mahometan conquest, "Chaldea and Babylonia
occupied the rich region south of the river Tigris, watered by
the Euphrates, and were known as Irak of the Arabs, as
distinguished from Irak of the Persians, which corresponded
somewhat nearly to the modern kingdom of Persia. … Irak of
Arabia was at this time under the jurisdiction of Persia, and
the wandering Arabs who roamed over the broad desert were
tributary to Persia when they pitched their tents on the
eastern side, and to Rome when sojourning on the side towards
Syria; though they were at no time trusty allies or subjects.
The region of Irak contains many relics of a former
civilization; there are the mounds that mark the site of old
Babylon."
A. Gilman,
Story of the Saracens,
pages 226-227.
IRAN, Table-Land of.
"Between the valley of the Indus and the land of the Euphrates
and Tigris, bounded on the south by the ocean and the Persian
Gulf, on the north by the broad steppes which the Oxus and
Jaxartes vainly attempt to fertilise, by the Caspian Sea and
the valley of the Aras [embracing modern Persia, Baluchistan,
Afghanistan and Russian Turkestan], lies the table-land of
Iran. Rising to an average height of 4,000 feet above the
level of the sea, it forms an oblong, the length of which from
east to west is something more than 1,500 miles. … As far
back as our information extends, we find the table-land of
Iran occupied by a group of nations closely related to each
other, and speaking dialects of the same language."
M. Duncker,
History of Antiquity,
book 7, chapter 1.
See, also, ARYANS.
IRDJAR, Russian defeat at.
See RUSSIA: A. D. 1859-1876.
----------IRELAND: Start--------
A Logical Outline of Irish History
In Which The Dominant Conditions And
Influences Are Distinguished By Colors.
Physical or material. (Red)
Ethnological. (Blue)
Social and political. (Green)
Intellectual, moral and religious. (Tan)
Foreign. (Black)
(Blue)
In the history of the two islands which form the United
Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland there is a contrast of
fortune which nothing will account for save unexplainable
qualities of race. The Celtic warmth prevailing on one side of
St. George's Channel has worked ill in politics as against the
Teutonic coolness on the other; and it is probable that no
change of circumstances or conditions would have altered
greatly the relations of the two peoples. In their situation
as close neighbors, it was inevitable that one should dominate
the other. It seems to have been no less inevitable that the
mastery should settle where it did; and simply by the force of
more masterful qualities in the English race.
(Red)
If those who dwelt nearer to the mainland of Europe held
advantages over those of the farther island, they took nothing
from them in the earlier generations, but were overleaped and
passed by when the first movements of Christianity and
Christian culture into the West began; and it was Ireland, not
England, for three centuries, which nourished the purest faith
and the highest civilization of the age. If other advantages
belonged to the island which was richer in iron and coal, the
English were not helped by them to an ascendancy which they
had won before the mining of their riches began.
(Green)
In the early years of the eleventh century, when most of the
island had submitted to the rule of Brian Born, and when he
had shaken the grasp of the intruding Danes on the seaports of
the eastern and southern coasts, the state and prospects of
Ireland would have seemed to be well-nigh as good as those of
England at the same time. But that appearance vanished soon,
and it never returned. Among the English, the tendency toward
national union grew stronger with every generation; among the
Irish it got no growth. The political genius of the race,
remarkable to the present day in municipal politics, but
rarely successful in the greater political arenas, has always
been tribal or provincial in its range, and wanting in a
national comprehensiveness.
(Tan)
The Norman conquest of England was helpful to the
consolidation of an English kingdom. The Anglo-Norman conquest
of Ireland occurring a century later, promoted, on the
contrary, the divisions and disorders of the island. It
brought a new faction into Irish quarrels, instead of a new
sovereign to extinguish them. It was complete enough to forbid

the growth of order from any native root of influence or
authority, but not complete enough to carry order with itself.
In the full sense of the term it was never a conquest. It was
rather a persistent invasion, continued and repeated through
more than five centuries. In every generation it inflamed anew
the fierce animosity which an incomplete conquest will not
suffer to die out, until the very descendants of the older
intruders were infected with the native hatred of their
later-coming kindred. After four hundred years of inconclusive
conflict, the English were hardly nearer to mastery, the Irish
hardly nearer to submission, than at first.
Then arose between them a new difference to embitter their
antagonism. The Reformation of religion was accepted by one
race as naturally as it was rejected by the other. But
Protestantism under English patronage assumed a more hateful
aspect in Irish eyes, and Irishmen as Papists became doubly
odious to the English mind. So political hostilities and
religious enmities fomented one another, from that time, while
the primitive antagonism of race gave energy to both.
Under Cromwell and under William of Orange the subjugation was
completed at last in the spirit of a Protestant crusade, and
used as crusading victories have been wont to be used. The
triumphant Church, planting its strong settlements in the
land, assumed to itself all civil and political rights. Every
office and every honorable profession were closed against the
adherents of the defeated faith; its ministrations were
forbidden; its priests were expelled.
(Green)
But this was not all. As British commerce grew and British
industries were built up, they contributed yet another to the
malign confederacy of passions which oppressed the Irish
people. The merchant, the manufacturer, the landowner and the
farmer, on the English side, were banded by common jealousies
to suppress competition in Ireland. They hindered the
improvement of its resources and paralyzed its energies by
atrocious legislation. They reduced its population to
dependence on the most restricted production, leaving little
except husbandry for a vocation, and that under grinding
terms. They created by such measures a nation of peasants, as
poor and as helpless as serfs, living wretchedly on precarious
holdings of soil, at the mercy of landlords who regarded them
with dislike and contempt.
It was under such crushing conditions as these that Ireland
remained until near the end of the eighteenth century, always
hating the oppressors, often resisting the oppression, but
weakly or rashly, without judgment or enduring resolution.
Then began a great change in the tenor of her history. Two
influences of the age came into play, one acting on the
conscience of the English people, the other on the mind and
temper of the Irish. One has worked to the yielding of
justice, the other to the firmer pressing of demands for it.
At this day it may be said that oppression in Ireland, whether
religious or political, is wholly and forever extinct; that
whatever remains in dispute between Celt and Saxon is from
questions such as rise in every nation, and that the
bitterness which stays in Anglo-Irish politics is the
lingering rancor of a hateful past, not quickly to be
extinguished.
----------A Logical Outline of Irish History: End--------
IRELAND:
The name.
"Ireland was known by many names from very early ages. Thus,
in the Celtic it was called Inis-Fall, the isle of destiny;
Inis-Ealga, the noble island; Fiodh-Inis, the woody island;
and Eire, Fodhla, and Banba. By the Greeks it was called
Ierne, probably from the vernacular name of Eire, by
inflection Erin; whence, also, no doubt, its Latin name of
Juverna; Plutarch calls it Ogygia, or the ancient land; the
early Roman writers generally called it Hibernia, probably
from its Iberian inhabitants, and the later Romans and
mediæval writers Scotia, and sometimes Hibernia; and finally
its name of Ireland was formed by the Anglo-Normans from its
native name of Eire."
M. Haverty,
History of Ireland,
page 76, note.
See, also,
SCOTLAND: THE NAME;
and IRELAND: TRIBES OF EARLY CELTIC INHABITANTS.
{1755}
IRELAND:
The primitive inhabitants.
"The first people … of whose existence in Ireland we can be
said to know anything are commonly asserted to have been of
Turanian origin, and are known as 'Formorians.' As far as we
can gather, they were a dark, low-browed, stunted race,
although, oddly enough, the word Formorian in early Irish
legend is always used as synonymous with the word giant. They
were, at any rate, a race of utterly savage hunters and
fishermen, ignorant of metal, of pottery, possibly even of the
use of fire; using the stone hammers or hatchets of which vast
numbers remain in Ireland to this day, and specimens of which
may be seen in every museum. How long they held possession no
one can tell, although Irish philologists believe several
local Irish names to date from this almost inconceivably
remote epoch. Perhaps if we think of the Lapps of the present
day, and picture them wandering about the country, … it will
give us a fairly good notion of what these very earliest
inhabitants of Ireland were probably like.
See FOMORIANS.
Next followed a Belgic colony, known as the Firbolgs, who
overran the country, and appear to have been of a somewhat
higher ethnological grade, although, like the Formorians,
short, dark, and swarthy. Doubtless the latter were not
entirely exterminated to make way for the Firbolgs, any more
than the Firbolgs to make way for the Danaans, Milesians, and
other successive races; such wholesale exterminations being,
in fact, very rare, especially in a country which like Ireland
seems specially laid out by kindly nature for the protection
of a weaker race struggling in the grip of a stronger one.
After the Firbolgs, though I should be sorry to be obliged to
say how long after, fresh and more important tribes of
invaders began to appear. The first of these were the
Tuatha-da-Danaans, who arrived under the leadership of their
king Nuad, and took possession of the east of the country.
These Tuatha-da-Danaans are believed to have been large,
blue-eyed people of Scandinavian origin, kinsmen and possibly
ancestors of those Norsemen or 'Danes' who in years to come
were destined to work such woe and havoc upon the island. …
What their end was no man can tell you, save that they, too,
were, in their turn, conquered by the Milesians or 'Scoti,'
who next overran the country, giving to it their own name' of
Scotia, by which name it was known down to the end of the
twelfth century, and driving the earlier settlers before them,
who thereupon fled to the hills, and took refuge in the
forests, whence they emerged, doubtless, with unpleasant
effect upon their conquerors, as another defeated race did
upon their conquerors in later days."
E. Lawless,
The Story of Ireland,
chapter 1.
ALSO IN:
T. Moore,
History of Ireland,
volume 1, chapter 5.
IRELAND:
Tribes of early Celtic inhabitants.
"On the northern coast dwelt the Veniconii, in the modern
county of Donegal, and the Robogdii, in Londonderry and
Antrim. Adjoining to the Veniconii, westward, were the Erdini
or Erpeditani, and next to them the Magnatæ, all in Donegal.
Farther south were the Auteri, in Sligo; the Gangani, in Mayo;
and the Velibori, or Ellebri, in the district between Galway
and the Shannon. The south-west part of the island, with a
great portion of the interior, was inhabited by the Iverni,
who gave name not only to the great river but to the whole
island, and who may, perhaps, be considered as the aboriginal
inhabitants. … In the modern counties of Waterford and
Tipperary, Ptolemy places a tribe called the Usdiæ or Vodiæ,
according to the variations of the manuscripts. In the modern
county of Wexford dwelt the Brigantes; and northward from them
were the Coriondi, in Wicklow; the Menapii, in Dublin; the
Cauci, on the banks of the Boyne; the Blanii, or Eblani, on
the bay of Dundalk; the Voluntii, in Down; and the Darini,
bordering on the Robogdii, in Antrim. Three, at least, of the
tribes who held the eastern coast of Ireland, the Brigantes,
the Menapii, and the Voluntii, were, no doubt, colonies from
the opposite shores of Britain."
T. Wright,
Celt, Roman and Saxon,
chapter 2.
IRELAND:
5th-8th Centuries.
The coming of St. Patrick and the Christianizing of the Island.
Its Schools and its Missionaries.
"Lying on the extreme verge of Europe, the last land then
known to the adventurous Scandinavian, and beyond which fable
had scarcely projected its dreams, it was in the fifth century
since the Redemption that Christianity reached them.
Patricius, a Celt of Gaul it is said, carried into Erin as a
slave by one of the Pagan kings, some of whom made military
expeditions to North and South Britain, and even to the Alps
and the Loire, became the Apostle of Ireland. Patrick escaped
from slavery, was educated at Rome, but in mature manhood
insisted on returning to the place of his bondage, to preach
Christianity to a people who seem to have exercised over the
imagination of the Apostle the same spell of sympathy which in
later times subdued strangers of many nations. He was received
with extraordinary favour, and before his death nearly the
whole island had embraced Christianity. The coming of Patrick
took place in the year of our Lord 432, and he laboured for
sixty years after; planting churches and schools, rooting out
the practices and monuments of Paganism, and disciplining the
people in religion and humanity. It was a noble service, and
it impressed itself for ever on the memory of the race whom he
served. … In the succeeding century the Church which he
planted became possessed by a passion which it has never
entirely lost, the passion for missionary enterprise. Its
fathers projected the conversion of the fierce natives of the
Continent to the new creed of humility and self-denial, and by
the same humane agents which Patrick had employed in
Ireland—persuasion and prayer; a task as generous as any of
which history has preserved the record. In this epoch Ireland
may, without exaggeration, be said to have been a Christian
Greece, the nurse of science and civilisation. The Pagan
annals of the country are overlaid by fable and extravagance,
but the foundation of Oxford or the mission of St. Augustine
does not lie more visibly within the boundaries of legitimate
history than the Irish schools, which attracted students from
Britain and Gaul, and sent out missionaries through the
countries now known as Western Europe.
{1756}
Among the forests of Germany, on the desert shores of the
Hebrides, in the camp of Alfred, at the court of Charlemagne,
in the capital of the Christian world, where Michelet
describes their eloquence as charming the counsellors of the
Emperor, there might be found the fervid preachers and subtle
doctors of the Western Isle. It was then that the island won
the title still fondly cherished, 'insula sanctorum'. The
venerable Bede describes nobles and students at this epoch as
quitting the island of Britain to seek education in Ireland,
and he tells us that the hospitable Celts found them teachers,
books, food and shelter at the cost of the nation. The school
at Armagh, where St. Patrick had established the primacy of
the Church, is reputed to have attracted 7,000 students, and
there were schools at Lismore, Bangor, Clonmacnoise, and Mayo,
which rivalled it in importance. Monasteries multiplied in a
still greater number, and with results as beneficial. …
Writers who are little disposed to make any other concession
to Ireland admit that this was a period of extraordinary
intellectual activity, and of memorable services to
civilization. The arts, as far as they were the handmaidens of
religion, attained a surprising development. The illuminated
copies of the Scripture, the croziers and chalices which have
come down to us from those days, the Celtic crosses and Celtic
harps, the bells and tabernacles, are witnesses of a distinct
and remarkable national culture. The people were still partly
shepherds and husbandmen, partly soldiers, ruled by the Chief,
the Brehon, and the Priest. … After this generous work had
obtained a remarkable success, it was disturbed by contests
with the Sea Kings. … The Cathedral and city of St. Patrick,
the schools of Bangor, the cloisters of Clonmacnoise, and many
more seats of piety and learning, fell into their hands. The
sacred vessels of the altar were turned into drinking cups,
and the missals, blazing with precious stones, were torn from
their costly bindings to furnish ornaments for their sword
hilts, and gifts to the Scalds who sang their achievements.
These pagans burned monasteries, sacked churches, and murdered
women and priests, for plunder or sport. … Before the
dangers and troubles of a long internecine war, the School of
the West gradually dwindled away, and it had fallen into
complete decay before Brian Borhoime, at the beginning of the
11th century, finally subdued the invaders."
Sir C. G. Duffy,
A Bird's Eye View of Irish History, revised edition,
pages 7-12 (or chapter 4, in "Young Ireland").
"Ireland, that virgin island on which proconsul never set
foot, which never knew either the orgies or the exactions of
Rome, was also the only place in the world of which the Gospel
took possession without bloodshed. … From the moment that
this Green Erin, situated at the extremity of the known world,
had seen the sun of faith rise upon her, she had vowed herself
to it with an ardent and tender devotion which became her very
life. The course of ages has not interrupted this; the most
bloody and implacable of persecutions has not shaken it; the
defection of all northern Europe has not led her astray; and
she maintains still, amid the splendours and miseries of
modern civilisation and Anglo-Saxon supremacy, an
inextinguishable centre of faith, where survives, along with
the completest orthodoxy, that admirable purity of manners
which no conqueror and no adversary has ever been able to
dispute, to equal, or to diminish. … The Irish communities,
joined by the monks from Gaul and Rome, whom the example of
Patrick had drawn upon his steps, entered into rivalry with
the great monastic schools of Gaul. They explained Ovid there;
they copied Virgil; they devoted themselves especially to
Greek literature; they drew back from no inquiry, from no
discussion. … A characteristic still more distinctive of the
Irish monks, as of all their nation, was the imperious
necessity of spreading themselves without, of seeking or
carrying knowledge and faith afar, and of penetrating into the
most distant regions to watch or combat paganism. This monastic
nation, therefore, became the missionary nation 'par
excellence'."
Count de Montalembert,
The Monks of the West,
book 7 (volume 2).
ALSO IN:
T. Moore,
History of Ireland,
chapter 10-14 (volume 1),
and chapter 18 (volume 2).
D. DeVinné,
The Irish Primitive Church.
See, also, CHRISTIANITY; 5TH-9TH CENTURIES.
IRELAND: 9th-10th Centuries.
The Danish conquests and settlements.
"The people popularly known in our history as Danes comprised
swarms from various countries in the north of Europe, from
Norway, Sweden, Zealand, Jutland, and, in general, from all
the shores and islands of the Baltic. … In the Irish annals
they are variously called Galls, or foreigners; Geinti, or
Gentiles; and Lochlanni, or inhabitants of Lochlann, or
Lake-land, that is, Norway; and they are distinguished as the
Finn Galls, or White Foreigners, who are supposed to have been
the inhabitants of Norway; and the Dubh Galls, or Black
Foreigners, who were probably the people of Jutland, and of
the southern shores of the Baltic Sea. A large tract of
country north of Dublin still retains the name of the former.
… The Danes never obtained the dominion of Ireland as they
did that of England."
M. Haverty,
History of Ireland,
chapters 13-14.
"Ireland was as yet [in the 9th century] a more tempting prey
for the pirates than even Gaul. It was at the monasteries that
these earlier raids were mainly aimed; and nowhere were the
monastic houses so many and so rich. It was in these retreats
indeed, sheltered as men deemed by their holiness from the
greed of the spoiler, that the whole wealth of the country was
stored; and the gold work and jewelry of their shrines, their
precious chalices, the silver-bound horn which king or noble
dedicated at their altars, the curiously-wrought covering of
their mass-books, the hoard of their treasure-chests, fired
the imagination of the northern marauders as the treasures of
the Incas fired that of the soldiers of Spain. News spread
fast up dale and fiord how wealth such as men never dreamed of
was heaped up in houses guarded only by priests and shavelings
who dared not draw sword. The Wikings had long been drawing
closer to this tempting prey. From the coast of Norway a sail
of twenty-four hours with a fair wind brings the sailor in
sight of the Shetlands; Shetlands and Orkneys furnished a base
for the advance of the pirates along the western shores of
Britain, where they found a land like their own in the dales
and lochs of Ross and Argyll, and where the names of Caithness
and Sutherland tell of their conquest and settlement on the
mainland; while the physical appearance of the people still
records their colonization of the Hebrides. Names such as that
of the Orm's Head mark their entrance at last into the Irish
Channel."
J. R. Green,
The Conquest of England,
chapter 2.
{1757}
"The 9th century was the period of Danish plunder, and of
settlement along the coasts and in convenient places for
purposes of plunder. Towards the latter end of this century
the Irish in Ireland, like the English in England, succeeded
in driving out the enemy, and there was peace for forty years.
Then came the Danes again, but bent more definitely than
before on permanent settlement; and their most notable work
was the establishment of the Danish kingdom of Dublin, with
its centre at one of their old haunts, Ath Cliath on the
Liffey, where the city of Dublin was built by them. The
establishment of this kingdom dates from the year 919, and its
extent may be traced to-day as conterminous with the diocese
of Dublin, extending from Holmpatrick and Skerries on the
north, to Arklow and Wicklow on the south, and inland no
farther than seven or eight miles to Leixlip. Until quite
recently this was also the district over which extended the
jurisdiction of the Lord Mayor of Dublin as Admiral of the
Port of Dublin. On College Green used to be held the assembly
of the freemen of the kingdom of Dublin, while the chiefs took
their seats on the steep hill that once stood where St.
Andrew's Church now stands, opposite to 'the old house on
College Green,' which is so dear to the national aspirations
of the modern Irishmen. There the Danes held their
parliaments, agreeing on laws, consenting to judgments and
contracts, feasting and making merry, just as the old Irish
held their parliaments at Tara, Carman, Armagh, and elsewhere.
Nor was Dublin the only Danish city. Limerick, Cork,
Waterford, Wexford, all became the centres of petty Danish
kingdoms, active in commerce, skilful for those times, in
domestic architecture, and with political and legislative
ideas identical in their essence with those of the people
among whom they settled. In the course of the 10th century the
Danes nominally became, for the most part, converts to
Christianity. But it appears that they derived their
Christianity mainly from English sources; and when they began
to organize their Church, they did so after the Roman manner,
and in connection with the see of Canterbury. It was not,
however, till after the wars of Brian Born that Danish
Christianity became either very real or at all organized."
S. Bryant,
Celtic Ireland,
chapter 5.
ALSO IN:
C. Haliday,
The Scandinavian Kingdom of Dublin.
C. F. Keary,
The Vikings in Western Christendom,
chapter 6.
See, also,
NORMANS: 8TH-9TH CENTURIES,
IRELAND: A. D. 1014.
The Battle of Clontarf and the great defeat of the Danes.
By a revolution which occurred in the year 1000, Malachy II.
of the dynasty which had reigned long at Tara, was deposed
from the chief sovereignty, and Brian Boromh or Boru, of the
royal family of Munster, who had fought his way up to
masterful power, became the Ardrigh or over-king of Ireland.
In 1014 Brian was called upon to face a great combination
which the Danes of Dublin had effected with their fellow
Northmen, including those of Denmark, Norway, Scotland and all
the isles. It was the Danish intention now to accomplish
completely the conquest of Ireland and bring their long
struggle with its Celtic inhabitants to an effectual close,
King Brian and his countrymen made equal exertions on their
side to meet the attack, and the great battle of Clontarf,
fought on Good Friday of the year 1014, gave them a decisive
victory. "Clontarf, the lawn or meadow of bulls, stretches
along the crescent-shaped north strand of Dublin harbor, from
the ancient salmon weir at Ballyboght bridge, towards the
promontory of Howth. Both horns of the crescent were held by
the enemy, and communicated with his ships: the inland point
terminating in the roofs of Dublin, and the seaward marked by
the lion-like head of Howth. The meadow land between sloped
gently upward and inward from the beach, and for the myriad
duels which formed the ancient battle, no field could present
less positive vantage ground to combatants on either side. The
invading force had possession of both wings, so that Brian's
army, which had first encamped at Kilmainham, must have
crossed the Liffey higher up, and marched round by the present
Drumcondra in order to reach the appointed field. The day
seems to have been decided on by formal challenge. … The
forces on both sides could not have fallen short of 20,000
men. … The utmost fury was displayed on all sides. …
Hardly a nobly born man escaped, or sought to escape. The ten
hundred in armor, and 3,000 others of the enemy, with about an
equal number of the men of Ireland, lay dead upon the field.
One division of the enemy were, towards sunset, retreating to
their ships, when Brodar the Viking, perceiving the tent of
Brian, standing apart, without a guard, and the aged king on
his knees before the Crucifix, rushed in, cut him down with a
single blow, and then continued his flight. … The deceased
hero took his place at once in history, national and foreign.
… The fame of the event went out through all nations. The
chronicles of Wales, of Scotland, and of Man; the annals of
Ademar and Marianus; the Sagas of Denmark and the Isles, all
record the event. … 'Brian's battle,' as it is called in the
Sagas, was, in short, such a defeat as prevented any general
northern combination for the subsequent invasion of Ireland.
Not that the country was entirely free from their attacks till
the end of the 11th century; but, from the day of Clontarf
forward, the long cherished Northern idea of a conquest of
Ireland seems to have been gloomily abandoned by that
indomitable people."
T. D'Arcy McGee,
Popular History of Ireland,
book 2, chapter 6 (volume 1).
ALSO IN:
T. Moore,
History of Ireland,
chapter 21 (volume 2).
See, also,
NORMANS.—NORTHMEN: 10TH-13TH CENTURIES.
IRELAND: 12th Century.
The great tribes and kingdoms and the ruling families.
"Ireland was now [immediately before Strongbow's conquest]
divided into four confederations of tribes. The O'Neils held
Ulidia, which is now called Ulster; the O'Connors Conacia, or
Connaught; the O'Briens and the M'Carthys Mononia, or Munster;
and the Macmurroughs Lagenia, or Leinster—all under the
paramount but often-disputed rule of a branch of the Ulster
O'Neils. The royal demesne of Meath, the appanage of the
Ulster family, which included Westmeath, Longford, and a part
of King's County, was sometimes counted a fifth kingdom. In
the wild north, O'Neil, O'Donnel, O'Kane, O'Hara, O'Sheel,
O'Carrol, were mighty names.
{1758}
On the northern-most peninsula, where the Atlantic runs into
Lough Foyle and Lough Swilly, O'Dogherty reigned supreme. In
Connaught, O'Rourke, O'Reilly, O'Kelly, O'Flaherty, O'Malley,
O'Dowd, were lords. In Meath and Leinster, MacGeogeghan,
O'Farrell, O'Connor, O'Moore, O'Brennan, Macmurrough, ruled.
In Munster, by the western shore, MacCarthy More held sway.
MacCarthy Reagh swayed the south, by the pleasant waters of
Cork Bay. O'Sullivan Beare was lord of the fair promontory
between Bantry Bay and Kenmare River. O'Mahony reigned by
roaring Water Bay. O'Donoghue was chieftain by the haunted
Killarney Lakes. MacMahon ruled north of the Shannon. O'Loglin
looked on Galway Bay. All Ireland, with the exception of a few
seaport towns where the Danes had settled, was in the hands of
Irish chiefs of old descent and famous lineage. They
quarrelled amongst themselves as readily and as fiercely as if
they had been the heads of so many Greek states. The Danes had
been their Persians; their Romans were now to come."
J. H. McCarthy,
Outline of Irish History,
chapter 3.
IRELAND: A. D. 1169-1175.
The Anglo-Norman conquest.
"The conquest of Ireland is among the most important episodes
in the reign of Henry II. … There were reasons, besides the
mere lust of conquest, why an English king should desire to
reduce Ireland. It had given harbours and recruits to the
Northmen on their expeditions; Irish soldiers had fought at
Brunanbeorh [or Brunnanburgh] against Athelstane; English
exiles, like the sons of Harold, repeatedly fled to the
island, and awaited the opportunity of reprisals upon their
own government. Irish pirates infested the English coasts, and
carried off prisoners, whom they sold as slaves. Accordingly,
William the Conqueror had meditated subjugating Ireland, if he
lived two years longer; William Rufus once declared, as he
stood on the coast of Wales, that he would bridge St. George's
Channel with a fleet of ships. But it was reserved for John of
Salisbury to obtain from his intimate friend, the English
pope, Adrian IV., a grant of Ireland to the English crown [by
the Bull 'Laudabilitur'] as a hereditary fief (A. D. 1154).
… Nevertheless, the difficulty of invading Ireland seemed
greater than any profit likely to result from it. The king's
council opposed the enterprise; and for some years the project
was suffered to sleep. But the wretched disorders of Irish
politics invited the invader." Diarmaid MacMurchad, king of
Leinster, having been driven from his dominions, "repaired to
the court of Henry II. in Aquitaine. The offer to hold
Leinster, if Henry would reinstate him, as an English fief,
procured Diarmaid free quarters in Bristol, to which he
speedily returned, and letters patent authorizing any English
subject to assist him. Diarmaid published these, and promised
large rewards in land to those who would help him to win back
his kingdom. The most powerful ally whom Diarmaid's offers
attracted was Richard de Clare, surnamed Strongbow, earl of
Pembroke, and distant cousin to the king. … Three other
adventurers were enlisted. Two of them, Robert Fitz-Stephen
and Maurice Fitz-Gerald, were sons, by different fathers, of
Nest, a Welsh princess; the third was Maurice de Prendergast."
In May, 1169, Fitz-Stephen, with a small following, crossed
the channel and captured Wexford. Some other successes soon
enabled Diarmaid to make peace with his enemies and recover
his kingdom, even before Strongbow's expedition had left
Wales. "Diarmaid was reinstated, and English subjects had no
authority to carry on war on their own account in Ireland.
Strongbow accordingly went to Normandy, and asked permission
to push the advantages gained. Obtaining only an ambiguous
answer from the king, he determined to consider it in his
favour, and went back into Wales to prepare an expedition. In
May, A. D. 1170, he sent over Raymond le Gros, Fitz-Stephen's
half nephew, as his precursor." Raymond defeated the Irish
with great slaughter, in a battle near Waterford, and savagely
murdered seventy prisoners. "In August, A. D. 1170, as
Strongbow was preparing to embark, he received an explicit
order from the king not to proceed. Quietly disregarding it,
he crossed with a little army of 1,200 men, out of whom 200
were knights. The storm of Waterford was his first exploit;
and it illustrates the Irish architecture of the times, that
the city walls were trenched by cutting away the wooden props
of a house that was built into them. The frightful carnage of
the storm was succeeded by the earl's marriage with Eva
[daughter of King Diarmaid], who brought a kingdom as her
dower. Then the united forces marched upon Dublin." The Danish
city was treacherously stormed in the midst of a negotiation,
and "the inhabitants experienced the worst miseries of the
conquered. Hasculf [the Danish or Norse governor], and Asgall,
king of the Northmen, escaped on board some small vessels to
their countrymen in the Orkneys." The next year Hasculf
reappeared with 60 ships from the Orkneys and Norway and laid
siege to Dublin. He was defeated, taken prisoner and killed;
but another fleet soon arrived and Dublin was again under
siege. Reduced to a desperate strait, the small garrison
sallied and routed the besiegers; but meantime Strongbow had
lost ground elsewhere and Dublin and Waterford were the only
possessions he retained. The anger of King Henry at his
disobedience caused many of his followers to desert him, and
he soon found it necessary to make peace with his offended
sovereign. Crossing over to England, he succeeded in winning
the royal pardon, and Henry returned to Ireland with him, to
assist in the completing of the conquest. They were
accompanied by a fleet of 400 ships and some 4,000 men. The
appearance of the king was followed by a general submission of
the Irish princes, and he made a royal progress to Cashel,
where, in 1172, a synod was held to effect the Church reforms
which were, ostensibly, the chief object of the conquest. "The
court held at Lismore to establish order among the English
settlers is better evidence than any synod of the real objects
of the conquest. The country was partially distributed among
Norman nobles; but as the English conquest of Ireland, more
rapid than the Norman of England, had been effected by fewer
men, and was more insecure, the changes in the property and
laws of the nation were proportionately smaller. Meath, as the
appanage of royalty, of course accrued to the English crown,
and Henry assigned the whole of it to Hugh de Lacy, whom he
made justiciary of the realm and governor of Dublin. The
object of this enormous grant, no doubt, was to balance
Strongbow's power.
{1759}
The families of Desmond, Ormond, and Vernon received other
estates. But the number of those invested was small. … The
slightness of the change, no doubt, mainly contributed to the
readiness with which the supremacy of the English crown was
accepted. In April, A. D. 1172, Henry was able to return to
England, leaving only Ulster behind him nominally unsubdued. A
series of petty wars between Irish chiefs and Norman nobles
soon broke out. The precarious nature of the English dominion
became manifest; and Henry was forced to publish the papal
grant of Ireland, which he had hitherto suppressed. At last,
in A. D. 1175, Roderic O'Connor [king of Connaught, and
previously recognized over-king of Ireland] made a treaty with
the English crown, and agreed to render homage and submission,
and a tribute of every tenth hide, in return for royal rights
in his own kingdom of Connaught. At the same time, the limits
of the English pale, as it was afterwards called, were
defined. This district, which was immediately subject to the
king of England and his barons, comprised Dublin with its
appurtenances, Meath, Leinster, and the country from Waterford
to Dungarvon. … From the English point of view, the kings of
England were henceforth lords-paramount of Ireland, with the
fee of the soil vested in them, and all Irish princes in
future were no more than tenants-in-chief. From the Irish
point of view, the English kings were nothing more than
military suzerains in the districts outside the pale."
C. H. Pearson,
History of England during the Early and Middle Ages,
volume 1, chapter 30.
ALSO IN:
Mrs. J. R. Green,
Henry the Second,
chapter 8.
A. G. Richey,
Short History of the Irish People,
chapters 6-7.
W. A. O'Conor,
History of the Irish People,
book 2, chapters 1-2.
T. Moore,
History of Ireland,
chapters 26-29.
F. P. Barnard, editor,
Strongbow's Conquest of Ireland:
From Contemporary Writers.
IRELAND: 13th-14th Centuries.
Under the Anglo-Norman conquerors.
"The feudal system as established in Ireland differed in
important respects from that existing in England. It is usual
for Irish writers to attribute much of the sufferings of
Ireland to the misgovernment of England and the introduction
of feudalism, whereas most of these evils may be referred
rather to English non-government and to the peculiar anomalies
of the Irish feudal system. The feudal system as introduced
into Ireland, like most other institutions imported from
England, was altered in such a manner as to retain all its
evils, and lose all its advantages. The Crown in Ireland
possessed no power of controlling its vassals. … In Ireland
there were no manor or valuable estates that the Crown could
appropriate—the entire country had to be conquered; and as
the Crown did not assist in the conquest, it received no part
of the spoils. Thus we find the Crown had absolutely no
demesnes of its own, and, being deprived of any military force
of its own, it had to rely upon such of the great feudal
vassals as might remain loyal for the purpose of crushing
those who might be in rebellion. The inevitable result of this
policy was to kindle a civil war and excite personal feuds in
the attempt to maintain order. … We have thus a feudal
system, in which the Crown is powerless to fulfil its duties,
yet active in preventing the greater nobles from exercising
that influence which might have secured a reasonable degree of
order. The whole energy of the nobles was turned away from
government to war; and lest they should become local
potentates, they were allowed to degenerate into local
tyrants. But what, meanwhile, had become of the Irish nation?
As the feudal system ignored their existence, we have
permitted them to fall out of our view; but they still
existed, and still were politically independent. The invaders
had occupied the flat country, suitable for the operation of
their forces, and the original inhabitants had retired into
either the mountainous districts, impassable to cavalry, or
into districts protected by the bogs, and difficult of access;
nay, even in some parts of the island, where the Normans were
not in force, they had re-occupied large portions of the open
country. They did not retire as disorganised fugitives, but
the tribes retreated, keeping their social organisation
unbroken; and, although removed from their original
habitations, still preserved their social identity. The
remarkable point in the conquest was, that the Celtic
population was not driven back upon anyone portion of the
kingdom, but remained as it was, interpolated among the new
arrivals. … The Celtic population possessed no definite
legal position, filled no place in the feudal hierarchy, and
was in the eyes of the English Government hostile and alien;
the only exception to this was the case of the O'Briens, who,
though not actually feudal vassals, had their estates secured
by a charter, and five Irish families, through some unknown
reason, were considered as the king's men and entitled to his
protection; these were known as the five bloods, who enjoyed
the law of England to the extent of the privilege to sue in
the king's courts, viz., O'Neill, O'Molaghlin, O'Connor,
O'Brien, and M'Murrough. … The Irish in Ireland were treated
by the king's courts in Ireland as an alien and hostile
nation; an Irishman out of the king's peace could not bring an
action against an Englishman. … But, though legally ignored,
the Irish tribes could not be politically disregarded. The
English Government used their assistance to repress the
rebellions of insurgent vassals. … They were called on to
furnish assistance to the English armies, and on many
occasions we find their chiefs summoned by writ of Parliament,
as if feudal vassals; but the mode in which they were treated
depended upon the immediate objects and want of the English
Government, and the general course of conduct pursued towards
them was such as has been previously stated. … We thus find
the English and Irish races hopelessly at variance, and it
would seem that one or other must have been crushed out in the
contest; but such was not the result; they both survived, and,
contrary to reasonable expectations, the Irish exhibited the
greater vitality. The expulsion of the English colony was an
effort beyond the power of the disunited Irish tribes; for in
the darkest hours of the English settlement the power of
England was ready, by some sudden effort, to reassert the
English supremacy. But why did the Anglo-Normans wholly fail
to subdue the Irish? …
1. The large extent comprised in the grants made to the first
colonists led to a dispersion of the Norman nobles over the
more fertile portions of the country. The English colony never
formed one compact body capable of combined action. …
{1760}
2. The military equipment of the Normans, and their mode of
carrying on war, rendered their forces wholly inefficient,
when, leaving the flat country, they attempted to penetrate
the fastnesses of the native tribes. …
3. From the absence of any central government, civil wars
continually arose between the several Norman lords; thus the
military power of the colonists was frittered away in
dissensions. …
4. The English Government continually called upon the Irish
barons for aids and military service, to be employed in wars
elsewhere than in Ireland. …
5. Many of the estates of the Norman nobles descended to
heiresses who married Englishmen already possessing estates in
England: hence arose absenteeism.
6. Even the lords who resided constantly upon their Irish
estates gradually lost their Norman habits, and tended to
assimilate themselves to the manners, and to adopt the
language, of the Irish."
A. G. Richey,
Short History of the Irish People,
chapter 8.
ALSO IN:
P. W. Joyce,
Short History of Ireland,
part 3.
See, also,
PALATINE, THE IRISH COUNTIES;
and GERALDINES.
IRELAND:
The Celticizing of the Anglo-Norman conquerors.
"Prior to experience, it would have been equally reasonable to
expect that the modern Englishman would adopt the habits of
the Hindoo or the Mohican, as that the fiery knights of
Normandy would have stooped to imitate a race whom they
despised as slaves; that they would have flung away their very
knightly names to assume a barbarous equivalent [the De Burghs
became Bourkes or Burkes, the M'Sweenies had been Veres in
England, and the Munster Geraldines merged their family name
in that of Desmond.—Foot-note]; and would so utterly have
cast aside the commanding features of their Northern
extraction, that their children's children could be
distinguished neither in soul nor body, neither in look, in
dress, in language, nor in disposition, from the Celts whom
they had subdued. Such, however, was the extraordinary fact.
The Irish who had been conquered in the field revenged their
defeat on the minds and hearts of their conquerors; and in
yielding, yielded only to fling over their new masters the
subtle spell of the Celtic disposition. In vain the government
attempted to stem the evil. Statute was passed after statute
forbidding the 'Englishry' of Ireland to use the Irish
language, or intermarry with Irish families, or copy Irish
habits. Penalties were multiplied on penalties; fines,
forfeitures, and at last death itself, were threatened for
such offences. But all in vain. The stealthy evil crept on
irresistibly. Fresh colonists were sent over to restore the
system, but only for themselves or their children to be swept
into the stream; and from the century which succeeded the
Conquest till the reign of the eighth Henry, the strange
phenomenon repeated itself, generation after generation,
baffling the wisdom of statesmen, and paralysing every effort
at a remedy."
J. A. Froude,
History of England,
chapter 8 (volume 2).
IRELAND: A. D. 1314-1318.
Edward Bruce's invasion.
The crushing defeat of the English by the Scotch at
Bannockburn (1314) rekindled a spirit of rebellion in Ireland,
and the discontented chiefs made haste to solicit aid from
Scotland, offering the sovereignty of their island to Edward
Bruce, brother of king Robert, if he would come to their help
and conquer it. "By consent of king Robert, who was pleased to
make a diversion against England upon a vulnerable point, and
not, perhaps, sorry to be rid of a restless spirit, which
became impatient in the lack of employment, Edward invaded
Ireland at the head of a force of 6,000 Scots. He fought many
battles, and gained them all. He became master of the province
of Ulster, and was solemnly crowned king of Ireland; but found
himself amid his successes obliged to intreat the assistance
of king Robert with fresh supplies; for the impetuous Edward,
who never spared his own person, was equally reckless of
exposing his followers; and his successes were misfortunes, in
so far as they wasted the brave men with whose lives they were
purchased. Robert Bruce led supplies to his brother's
assistance, with an army which enabled him to overrun Ireland,
but without gaining any permanent advantage. He threatened
Dublin, and penetrated as far as Limerick in the west, but was
compelled, by scarcity of provisions, to retire again into
Ulster, in the spring of 1317. He shortly after returned to
Scotland, leaving a part of his troops with Edward, though
probably convinced that his brother was engaged in a desperate
and fruitless enterprise. … After his brother's departure,
Edward's career of ambition was closed at the battle of
Dundalk, where, October 5th, 1318, fortune at length failed a
warrior who had tried her patience by so many hazards. On that
fatal day he encountered, against the advice of his officers,
an Anglo-Irish army ten times more numerous than his own. A
strong champion among the English, named John Maupas, singling
out the person of Edward, slew him, and received death at his
hands. … A general officer of the Scots, called John
Thomson, led back the remnant of the Scottish force to their
own country. And thus ended the Scottish invasion of Ireland,
with the loss of many brave soldiers."
Sir W. Scott,
History of Scotland,
chapter 11 (volume 1).
ALSO IN:
T. Moore,
History of Ireland,
volume 3, chapter 36.
IRELAND: A. D. 1327-1367.
Oppressions of the reign of Edward III.
"Of all the legislative measures of this period the most
notable was the Statute of Kilkenny, passed at a Parliament
held in that town, in the last year of the decade, in the Lent
session of 1367. This 'famous, or infamous,' enactment
gathered up into one, and recapitulated with additional
aggravations and insults, all the former oppressive,
exasperating, and iniquitous ordinances by which English
legislation for Ireland had hitherto been disgraced. … Among
the earliest measures passed in the reign of Edward III. was a
statute directed against absenteeism, obliging all Englishmen
who were Irish proprietors either to reside on their estates
or to provide soldiers to defend them. But this enactment was
unproductive of good results. The O'Neills drove the colonists
out of the 'liberty of Ulster,' and the English De Burghs, so
far from helping to uphold English ascendency, appropriated to
themselves the entire lordship of Connaught, made common cause
with the native tribes, and adopting their dress, language,
and customs, became 'Hibernis ipsis Hiberniores,' threw off
their allegiance to King Edward, and bade defiance to the
King's authority. Thus it came to pass that before many years
of this reign had elapsed more than a third part of the
territories of the Pale was again in the hands of its original
possessors. … Edward III. inherited the barbarous and
iniquitous traditions of English rule in Ireland, but he
improved upon them.
{1761}
He ordered all his officers in that country who had Irish
estates to be removed and give place to Englishmen with no
Irish ties. He next declared void every grant of land in
Ireland since the time of Edward II., and made new grants of
the lands thus recovered to the Crown. The tendency of this
monstrous measure was to create two more antagonistic parties
in Ireland, destined by their bitter dissensions to bring
about the result that ere long 'all the King's land in Ireland
was on the point of passing away from the Crown of England,'—
viz., the 'English by blood,' as the established settlers were
called, and the 'English by birth,' or new grantees. Some of
the chief of the former, in despair of a career, or even of a
quiet life, at home, were about to bid good-bye to Ireland and
seek their fortunes elsewhere, when they were arrested by a
proclamation making it penal for any English subject capable
of bearing arms to leave the country. … The 'English by
blood' became more and more intimately connected and
identified with the native Irish, and the 'English by birth'
became more and more powerless to maintain the English
ascendency; till at last, in 1361, the King determined on
sending over a viceroy of the blood royal, and appointed to
the post his son Lionel, created shortly afterwards Duke of
Clarence, whom he had married to Elizabeth de Burgh, daughter
and representative of the last Earl of Ulster. But though
Prince Lionel, on his arrival, took the precaution of
forbidding any man born in Ireland to approach his camp, his
position soon became so critical that the King issued writs
commanding all the absentee Irish lords to hasten to Ireland
to the assistance of the Prince, 'for that his very dear son
and his companions in Ireland were in imminent peril.' The
next step was the passing of the Statute of Kilkenny. It
re-enacted the prohibition of marriage and foster-nursing,
rendered obligatory the adoption of the English language and
customs, forbade the national games of 'hurlings and
quoitings,' and the use of the ancient Gaelic code called the
Senchus Mor; a code by which the native brehons, or judges, of
the Irish septs had decided causes among them since the time
of the conversion of the race to Christianity in the fifth
century."
W. Warburton,
Edward III., 4th decade,
chapter 3.
ALSO IN:
W. Longman,
Life and Times of Edward III.,
volume 2, chapter 1.
T. Leland,
History of Ireland,
book 2, chapters 4-5 (volume 1).
IRELAND: A. D. 1494.
Poynings' Laws.
During the Wars of the Roses, "if Ireland had any preference
for either of the great contending parties in England, it was
… for the House of York; and from this cause chiefly sprang
the change of Henry VII.'s mode of governing the dependency
which on ascending the throne he had found all but severed
from his dominions. At first he had thought it best to employ
the native nobility for this purpose, and had chosen for
Deputy the Earl of Kildare—setting him, as the story ran, to
rule all Ireland, because all Ireland could not rule him.
When, however, he had time to reflect on the dangers springing
from the Irish support of Simnel and Warbeck, from which he
and his dynasty had escaped so narrowly, he perceived the
necessity of bringing the country under a more regular
government. Accordingly he sent over in 1494 (at the time when
Warbeck was preparing for his descent on England) Sir Edward
Poynings as Lord Deputy, a statesman and commander well
experienced in the most important affairs of the time."
C. E. Moberly,
The Early Tudors,
chapter 6.
After some military operations, which he found to be beset
with treacheries and difficulties, the new Lord Deputy held a
Parliament at Drogheda—"perhaps the most memorable that was
ever held in Ireland, as certainly no other Parliament in that
country made laws which endured so long as two which were then
enacted, and were known for centuries afterwards as the
'Poynings Acts.' By the first of these it was ordained that no
Parliament should be held in Ireland in future until the
king's Council in England had approved not only of its being
summoned, but also of the Acts which the Lieutenant and
Council of Ireland proposed to pass in it. By the second the
laws enacted before that time in England were extended to
Ireland also. Thus the Irish legislature was made entirely
dependent upon England. The Irish Parliament had no power to
originate anything, but was only free to accept or (if they
were very bold) to reject measures drawn up by the Irish
Council and approved already by the king and his Council in
England before they were submitted to discussion. Little as
this looks like parliamentary government, such was the state
of subjection in which the Irish Parliament remained by virtue
of this law for nearly three centuries later. Almost the whole
time, that is to say, that Ireland had a separate Parliament
at all it remained in this manner restricted in its action by
the legislation of Sir Edward Poynings. … It should be
remembered, however, that Henry VII. merely sought to do in
Ireland what there is every reason to suppose he practically
did in England. Legislation was not at this time considered to
be the chief business of a Parliament."
J. Gairdner,
Henry the Seventh,
chapter. 8.
ALSO IN:
R. Bagwell,
Ireland Under the Tudors,
chapter 8.
W. A. O'Conor,
History of the Irish People,
book 2, chapter 4, section 7.
H. Hallam,
Constitutional History of England,
chapter 18 (volume 3).
IRELAND: A. D. 1515.
The English Pale and the Clans and Chiefs beyond it.
"The events on which we are about to enter require for their
understanding a sketch of the position of the various chiefs,
as they were at this time scattered over the island. The
English pale, originally comprising 'the four shires,' as they
were called, of Dublin, Kildare, Meath, and Uriel or Louth,
had been shorn down to half its old dimensions. The line
extended from Dundalk to Ardee; from Ardee by Castletown to
Kells; thence through Athboy and Trim to the Castle of
Maynooth; from Maynooth it crossed to Claine upon the Liffey,
and then followed up the line of the river to Ballimore
Eustace, from which place it skirted back at the rear of the
Wicklow and Dublin mountains to the forts at Dalkey, seven
miles south of Dublin. This narrow strip alone, some fifty
miles long and twenty broad, was in any sense English. Beyond
the borders the common law of England was of no authority; the
king's writ was but a strip of parchment; and the country was
parcelled among a multitude of independent chiefs, who
acknowledged no sovereignty but that of strength, who levied
tribute on the inhabitants of the pale as a reward for a
nominal protection of their rights, and as a compensation for
abstaining from the plunder of their farms. …
{1762}
These chiefs, with their dependent clans, were distributed
over the four provinces in the following order. The
Geraldines, the most powerful of the remaining Normans, were
divided into two branches. The Geraldines of the south, under
the Earls of Desmond, held Limerick, Cork, and Kerry; the
Geraldines of Leinster lay along the frontiers of the English
pale; and the heads of the house, the Earls of Kildare, were
the feudal superiors of the greater portion of the English
counties. To the Butlers, Earls of Ormond and Ossory, belonged
Kilkenny, Carlow, and Tipperary. The De Burghs, or Bourkes, as
they called themselves, were scattered over Galway, Roscommon,
and the south of Sligo, occupying the broad plains which lie
between the Shannon and the mountains of Connemara and Mayo.
This was the relative position into which these clans had
settled at the Conquest, and it had been maintained with
little variation. The north, which had fallen to the Lacies
and the De Courcies, had been wholly recovered by the Irish.
The Lacies had become extinct. The De Courcies, once Earls of
Ulster, had migrated to the south, and were reduced to the
petty fief of Kinsale, which they held under the Desmonds. The
Celtic chieftains had returned from the mountains to which
they had been driven, bringing back with them, more intensely
than ever, the Irish habits and traditions. … The O'Neils
and O'Donnells had spread down over Ulster to the frontiers of
the pale. The O'Connors and O'Carrolls had recrossed the
Shannon and pushed forwards into Kildare; the O'Connor Don was
established in a castle near Portarlington, said to be one of
the strongest in Ireland; and the O'Carrolls had seized Leap,
an ancient Danish fortress, surrounded by bog and forest, a

few miles from Parsonstown. O'Brien of Inchiquin, Prince—as
he styled himself—of Thomond, no longer contented with his
principality of Clare, had thrown a bridge across the Shannon
five miles above Limerick, and was thus enabled to enter
Munster at his pleasure and spread his authority towards the
south; while the M'Carties and O'Sullivans, in Cork and Kerry,
were only not dangerous to the Earls of Desmond, because the
Desmonds were more Irish than themselves, and were accepted as
their natural chiefs. In Tipperary and Kilkenny only the
Celtic reaction was held in check. The Earls of Ormond,
although they were obliged themselves to live as Irish
chieftains, and to govern by the Irish law, yet … remained
true to their allegiance, and maintained the English authority
as far as their power extended. … Wexford, Wicklow, and the
mountains of Dublin, were occupied by the Highland tribes of
O'Bryne and O'Toole, who, in their wild glens and dangerous
gorges, defied attempts to conquer them, and who were able, at
all times, issuing down out of the passes of the hills, to cut
off communication with the pale. Thus the Butlers had no means
of reaching Dublin except through the county of Kildare, the
home of their hereditary rivals and foes. This is a general
account of the situation of the various parties in Ireland at
the beginning of the 16th century. I have spoken only of the
leading families. … 'There be sixty counties, called
regions, in Ireland,' says the report of 1515, 'inhabited with
the king's Irish enemies.'"
J. A. Froude,
History of England,
chapter 8 (volume 2).
See, also,
PALE, THE ENGLISH.
IRELAND: A. D. 1535-1553.
The reconquest under Henry VIII. and
the fall of the Geraldines.
The political pacification and the religious alienation.
"To Henry VIII. the policy which had been pursued by his
father was utterly hateful. His purpose was to rule in Ireland
as thoroughly and effectively as he ruled in England. … The
Geraldines, who had been suffered under the preceding reign to
govern Ireland in the name of the Crown, were quick to
discover that the Crown would no longer stoop to be their
tool. They resolved to frighten England again into a
conviction of its helplessness; and the rising of Lord Thomas
Fitzgerald followed the usual fashion of Irish revolts. A
murder of the Archbishop of Dublin, a capture of the city, a
repulse before its castle, a harrying of the Pale, ended in a
sudden disappearance of the rebels among the bogs and forests
of the border on the advance of the English forces. …
Unluckily for the Geraldines, Henry had resolved to take
Ireland seriously in hand, and he had Cromwell [Sir Thomas] to
execute his will. Skeffington, the new Lord Deputy, brought
with him a train of artillery, which worked a startling change
in the political aspect of the island. The castles which had
hitherto sheltered rebellion were battered into ruins. … Not
only was the power of the great Norman house which had towered
over Ireland utterly broken, but only a single boy was left to
preserve its name. With the fall of the Geraldines Ireland
felt itself in a master's grasp. … In seven years, partly
through the vigour of Skeffington's successor, Lord Leonard
Grey, and still more through the resolute will of Henry and
Cromwell, the power of the Crown, which had been limited to
the walls of Dublin, was acknowledged over the length and
breadth of Ireland. … Chieftain after chieftain was won over
to the acceptance of the indenture which guaranteed him in the
possession of his lands, and left his authority over his
tribesmen untouched, on conditions of a pledge of loyalty, of
abstinence from illegal wars and exactions on his
fellow-subjects, and of rendering a fixed tribute and service
in war-time to the Crown. … [This] firm and conciliatory
policy must in the end have won, but for the fatal blunder
which plunged Ireland into religions strife at the moment when
her civil strife seemed about to come to an end. … In
Ireland the spirit of the Reformation never existed among the
people at all. They accepted the legislative measures passed
in the English Parliament without any dream of theological
consequences, or of any change in the doctrine or ceremonies
of the Church. … The mission of Archbishop Browne 'for the
plucking-down of idols and extinguishing of idolatry' was the
first step in the long effort of the English Government to
force a new faith on a people who to a man clung passionately
to their old religion. Browne's attempts at 'tuning the
pulpits' were met by a sullen and significant opposition. …
Protestantism had failed to wrest a single Irishman from his
older convictions, but it succeeded in uniting all Ireland
against the Crown. … The population within the Pale and
without it became one, 'not as the Irish nation,' it has been
acutely said, 'but as Catholics.' A new sense of national
identity was found in the identity of religion."
J. R. Green,
Short History of the English People,
chapter 7, section 8.
ALSO IN:
R. Bagwell,
Ireland Under the Tudors,
volume 1, chapters 9-15.
M. Haverty,
History of Ireland,
chapter 30.
{1763}
IRELAND: A. D. 1559-1603.
The wars of Shane O'Neil and Hugh O'Neil, Earls of Tyrone.
The League of the Geraldines and the Ulster Confederacy.
"The Reformation begun under Henry VIII. was carried out with
pitiless determination under Edward VI., and was met by the
Catholics with unflinching opposition. Under Mary there was a
period of respite, but the strife was renewed with greater
fierceness in the succeeding reign. As authentic Irish history
begins with St. Patrick, so with Elizabeth modern Irish
history may be said to begin. … At her accession, Elizabeth
was too much occupied with foreign complications to pay much
heed to Ireland. Trouble first began in a conflict between the
feudal laws and the old Irish law of Tanistry. Con O'Neil,
Earl of Tyrone, had taken his title from Henry VIII., subject
to the English law of succession; but when Con died, the clan
O'Neil, disregarding the English principle of hereditary
succession, chose Shane O'Neil, an illegitimate son of Con,
and the hero of his Sept, to be The O'Neil. Shane O'Neil at
once put himself forward as the champion of Irish liberty, the
supporter of the Irish right to rule themselves in their own
way and pay no heed to England. Under the pretence of
governing the country, Elizabeth overran it with a soldiery
who, as even Mr. Froude acknowledges, lived almost universally
on plunder, and were little better than bandits. The time was
an appropriate one for a champion of Irish rights. Shane
O'Neil boldly stood out as sovereign of Ulster, and pitted
himself against Elizabeth. … Shane fought bravely against
his fate, but he was defeated [A. D. 1567], put to flight, and
murdered by his enemies, the Scots of Antrim, in whose
strongholds he madly sought refuge. His head was struck off,
and sent to adorn the walls of Dublin Castle. His lands were
declared forfeit, and his vassals, vassals of the Crown.
English soldiers of fortune were given grants from Shane's
escheated territory, but when they attempted to settle they
were killed by the O'Neils. Others came in their place, under
Walter Devereux, Earl of Essex, and did their best to simplify
the process of colonization by exterminating the O'Neils, men,
women, and children, wherever they could be got at. After two
years of struggle Essex was compelled to abandon his
settlement. But other colonizers were not disheartened. Some
West of England gentlemen, under Peter Carew, seized on Cork,
Limerick and Kerry, and sought to hold them by extirpating the
obnoxious natives. Against these English inroads the great
Geraldine League was formed. In the reign of Mary, that boy of
twelve whom Henry VIII. had not been able to include in the
general doom of his house had been allowed to return to
Ireland, and to resume his ancestral honours, Once more the
Geraldines were a great and powerful family in Ireland."
Defeated in their first rising, "the Geraldines and their
companion chiefs got encouragement in Rome and pledges from
Spain, and they rose again under the Earl of Desmond and Sir
James Fitzmaurice Fitzgerald. At first they had some
successes, They had many wrongs to avenge. … Sir Francis
Cosby, the Queen's representative in Leix and Offaly, had
conceived and executed the idea of preventing any further
possible rising of the chiefs in those districts by summoning
them and their kinsmen to a great banquet in the fort of
Mullaghmast, and there massacring them all. Out of 400 guests,
only one man, a Lalor, escaped from that feast of blood. …
With such memories in their minds, the tribes rose in all
directions to the Desmond call. … Elizabeth sent over more
troops to Ireland under the new Lord Deputy, Sir William
Pelham, who had with him as ally Ormonde, the head of the
house of Butler, hereditary foes of the Geraldines, and easily
induced to act against them. Pelham and Ormonde cut their way
over Munster, reducing the province by unexampled ferocity.
Ormonde boasted that he had put to death nearly 6,000
disaffected persons. Just at this moment some of the chiefs of
the Pale rose, and rose too late. They gained one victory over
Lord Grey de Wilton in the pass of Glenmalure [August, 1580].
… Grey immediately abandoned the Pale to the insurgents, and
turned to Smerwick [A. D. 1580], where some 800 Spanish and
Italian soldiers had just landed, too late to be of any
service to the rebellion, and had occupied the dismantled
fort. It was at once blockaded by sea and by land. In Grey's
army Sir Walter Raleigh and Edmund Spenser both held commands.
Smerwick surrendered at discretion, and the prisoners were
killed by Raleigh and his men in cold blood. Flushed by this
success, Grey returned to the Pale and carried all before him.
The Geraldines were disheartened, and were defeated wherever
they made a stand. … Munster was so vigorously laid waste
that Mr. Froude declares that 'the lowing of a cow or the
sound of a ploughboy's whistle was not to be heard from
Valentia to the Rock of Cashel.' Holinshed declares the
traveller would not meet any man, woman, or child, saving in
towns or cities, and would not see any beast; and Spenser
gives a melancholy picture of the misery of the inhabitants,
'as that any stony heart would rue the same.' … The next
step was to confiscate the estates of the rebellious
chieftains. … The estates of Desmond and some 140 of his
followers came to the Crown. The land was then distributed at
the cheapest rate in large tracts to English nobles and
gentlemen adventurers, who were pledged to colonize it with
English labourers and tradesmen. But of these labourers and
tradesmen not many came over, and those who did soon returned,
tired of struggling for their foothold with the dispossessed
Irish." During all this Geraldine or Desmond rebellion Ulster
had remained quiet; but in 1594 it began to show signs of
disturbance. "Hugh O'Neil, the grandson of that Con O'Neil
whom Henry VIII. had made Earl of Tyrone, had been brought up
at the English court, and confirmed in the lordship of Tyrone
by the English Government. In the brilliant court of Elizabeth
the young Irish chief was distinguished for his gifts of mind
and body. When he came of age he was allowed to return to
Ireland to his earldom. Once within his own country, he
assumed his ancestral title of The O'Neil, and revived all the
customs of independent Irish chieftains. For long enough he
took no part in any plots or movements against the Crown; but
many things, the ties of friendship and of love, combined to
drive him into rebellion.
{1764}
… Tyrone in the end consented to give the powerful support
of his name and his arms to a skilfully planned confederation
of the tribes. On all sides the Irish chiefs entered into the
insurrection. O'Neil was certainly the most formidable Irish
leader the English had yet encountered. … Victory followed
victory [that of the Yellow Ford, 1598, being the most
important]. In a little while all Ireland, with the exception
of Dublin and a few garrison towns, was in the hands of the
rebels. Essex, and the largest army ever sent to Ireland,
crossed the Channel to cope with him; but Essex made no
serious move, and after an interview with Tyrone, in which he
promised more than he could perform, he returned to England to
his death. His place was taken by Lord Mountjoy, who, for all
his love of angling and of Elizabethan 'play-books,' was a
stronger man. Tyrone met him, was defeated [at Kinsale, 1601].
From that hour the rebellion was over. … At last Tyrone was
compelled to come to terms. He surrendered his estates,
renounced all claim to the title of The O'Neil, abjured
alliance with all foreign powers, and promised to introduce
English laws and customs into Tyrone. In return he received a
free pardon and a re-grant of his title and lands by letters
patent. Rory O'Donnell, Red Hugh's brother, also submitted,
and was allowed to retain the title of Earl of Tyrconnel.
Elizabeth was already dead, and the son of Mary Stuart [James
I.] was King of England when these terms were made; but they
were not destined to do much good."
J. H. McCarthy,
Outline of Irish History,
chapter 4.
ALSO IN:
T. D. McGee,
Popular History of Ireland,
book 8, chapters 3-11 (volumes 1-2).
M. Haverty,
History of Ireland,
chapters 32-35.
R. Bagwell,
Ireland under the Tudors,
volume 2.
T. Leland,
History of Ireland,
book 4, chapters 1-5 (volume 2).
IRELAND: A. D. 1607-1611.
The flight of the Earls and the Plantation of Ulster.
"With the submission of the Earl of Tyrone terminated the
struggle between the Tudor princes and the native Celtic
tribes. No chieftain henceforward claimed to rule his district
in independence of the Crown of England. The Celtic land
tenure, the Brehon laws, the language, customs, and traditions
of the defeated race were doomed to gradual yet certain
extinction. … Before Elizabeth was laid in the grave, the
object for which during so many years she had striven was thus
at length accomplished; … but between the wars of the Tudors
and the civil government of the Stuarts, still remain (the
intermediate link, as it were, between the two) the fall of
the able man who had created and so long conducted an almost
national resistance, and the colonisation by English settlers
of his demesnes and the adjoining parts of Ulster."
A. G. Richey,
Short History of the Irish People,
chapter 20.
"Lord Bacon, with whom ideas grew plentifully, had a
suggestion at the service of the new king as profitable as the
'princelie policie' which he taught his predecessor. He was of
opinion that a great settlement of English husbandmen in
Ireland, able to guard as well as to till the land, would help
to secure the interest of the Crown. Till this was done
Ireland was not effectually reduced, as Sir Edward Coke
afterwards declared, 'for there was ever a back-door in the
north.' The only question was where to plant them. O'Neill and
Tyrconnell had proved dangerous adversaries; they possessed a
fertile territory, and as their 'loose order of inheritance'
had been duly changed into 'an orderly succession,' they were
quite ripe for confiscation. But they had been ostentatiously
received into favour at the close of the late war, and some
decent pretence for destroying them so soon was indispensable.
It was found in a letter conveniently dropped in the precincts
of Dublin Castle, disclosing a new conspiracy. Of a conspiracy
there was not then, and has not been since discovered, any
evidence worth recording. The letter was probably forged,
according to the practise of the times; but where so noble a
booty was to be distributed by the Crown, one can conceive how
ill-timed and disloyal any doubt of their treason would have
appeared at the Court of James, or of the Lord Deputy. They
were proclaimed traitors, and fled to the Continent to solicit
aid from the Catholic Powers. Without delay James and his
counsellors set to work. The King applied to the City of
London to take up the lands of the wild Irish. They were well
watered, he assured them, plentifully supplied with fuel, with
good store of all the necessaries for man's sustenance; and
moreover yielded timber, hides, tallow, canvas, and cordage
for the purposes of commerce. The Companies of Skinners,
Fishmongers, Haberdashers, Vintners and the like thereupon
became Absentee Proprietors, and have guzzled Irish rents in
city feasts and holiday excursions to Ireland from that day to
this. Six counties in Ulster were confiscated, and not merely
the chiefs, but the entire population dispossessed. The
fruitful plains of Armagh, the deep pastoral glens that lie
between the sheltering hills of Donegal, the undulating meadow
lands stretching by the noble lakes and rivers of Fermanagh,
passed from the race which had possessed them since before the
redemption of mankind. … The alluvial lands were given to
English courtiers whom the Scotch king found it necessary to
placate, and to Scotch partisans whom he dared not reward in
England. The peasants driven out of the tribal lands to burrow
in the hills or bogs were not treated according to any law
known among civilised men. Under Celtic tenure the treason of
the chief, if he committed treason, affected them no more than
the offences of a tenant for life affect a remainder man in
our modern practice. Under the feudal system they were
innocent feudatories who would pass with the forfeited land to
the Crown, with all their personal rights undisturbed. The
method of settlement is stated with commendable simplicity by
the latest historian. The 'plantators' got all the land worth
their having; what was not worth their having—the barren
mountains and trackless morass, which after two centuries
still in many cases yield no human food—were left to those
who in the language of an Act of Parliament of the period were
'natives of the realm of Irish blood, being descended from
those who did inherit and possess the land.' Lest the
frugality of the Celts should enable them to peacefully regain
some of their possessions, it was strictly conditioned that no
plantator or servitor should alienate his portion, or any part
thereof, to the mere Irish. The confiscated territory amounted
to two millions of acres. 'Of these a million and a half' says
Mr. Froude, 'bog, forest, and mountain were restored to the
Irish. The half million acres of fertile land were settled
with families of Scottish and English Protestants.' It was in
this manner that the famous Plantation of Ulster was founded."
Sir C. G. Duffy,
Bird's-Eye View of Irish History, revised edition,
pages 74-78
(or book 1, chapter 4, of "Young Ireland").
{1765}
"The City of London had taken in hand the settlement of Derry,
which was now to be rebuilt under the name of Londonderry, and
to give its name to the county in which it stood, and which
had hitherto been known as the county of Coleraine."
S. R. Gardiner,
History of England, 1603-1642,
chapter 10 (volume 1).
ALSO IN:
T. D'Arcy McGee,
Popular History of Ireland,
book 9, chapter 1 (volume 2).
J. Harrison,
The Scot in Ulster,
chapter 3.
C. P. Meehan,
Fate and Fortunes of Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone,
and Rory O'Donel, Earl of Tyrconnel.
IRELAND: A. D. 1625.
The Graces of Charles I.
On the accession of Charles I., "one more effort was made by
the Irish gentry to persuade, or rather to bribe, the
Government to allow them to remain undisturbed in the
possession of their property. They offered to raise by
voluntary assessment the large sum of £120,000 in three annual
instalments of £40,000, on condition of obtaining certain
Graces from the King. These Graces, the Irish analogue of the
Petition of Rights, were of the most moderate and equitable
description. The most important were that undisturbed
possession of sixty years should secure a landed proprietor
from all older claims on the part of the Crown, that the
inhabitants of Connaught should be secured from litigation by
the enrolment of their patents, and that Popish recusants
should be permitted, without taking the Oath of Supremacy, to
sue for livery of their estates in the Court of Arches, and to
practise in the courts of law. The terms were accepted. The
promise of the King was given. The Graces were transmitted by
way of instruction to the Lord Deputy and Council, and the
Government also engaged, as a further security to all
proprietors, that their estates should be formally confirmed
to them and to their heirs by the next Parliament which should
be held in Ireland. The sequel forms one of the most shameful
passages in the history of English government of Ireland. In
distinct violation of the King's solemn promise, after the
subsidies that were made on the faith of that promise had been
duly obtained, without provocation or pretext or excuse,
Wentworth, who now presided with stern despotism over the
government of Ireland, announced the withdrawal of the two
principal articles of the Graces, the limitation of Crown
claims by a possession of sixty years and the legalisation of
the Connaught titles."
W. E. H. Lecky,
History of England, 18th Century,
chapter 6 (volume 2).
IRELAND: A. D. 1633-1639.
Wentworth's system of "Thorough."
In the summer of 1633, Thomas Wentworth, afterwards Earl of
Strafford, was appointed Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. "It was
during his tenure of office as viceroy that he attempted to
establish absolutism in Ireland, in order that, by the thereby
enhanced power of the monarchy, he might be enabled to turn
the scale in favour of a despotic government in England. And,
never at a loss in the choice of his expedients, he contended
for his scheme with an energy and a recklessness
characteristic of the man. In the prosecution of his ends, he
treated some of the most influential English noblemen resident
in Ireland with the utmost indignity, simply with the object
of intimidating them, at the outset, from any further
opposition. One of them, Lord Mountnorris, was even condemned
to death on a charge of sedition and mutiny, merely for having
made use of a disrespectful expression with reference to the
lord-lieutenant, the representative of the sovereign. …
Every longing of the Irish Protestant Church for independence
was suppressed by Wentworth. According to his views, supreme
authority in Church matters belonged absolutely and
unconditionally to the king. He, therefore, abolished, in
1634, the 'Irish Articles,' which granted some concessions to
Puritanism, and which had been introduced by Archbishop Usher
in the reign of James I., and, at the same time, he united the
Irish Established Church indissolubly with that of England.
But above all things he considered it to be his duty to
increase the army, which had hitherto been in a disorganised
condition, and to put it in a state of complete efficiency; in
order to do this, however, it was of the first importance to
augment the revenue of the Crown, and in pursuance of this
object he disdained no means. He extorted large sums of money
from the Catholics by reminding them that, in case their
contributions were too niggardly, there still existed laws
against the Papists which could easily be put into operation
again. The City of London Company, which some years before had
effected the colonization of Londonderry, was suddenly called
to account for not having fulfilled the stipulations contained
in its charter, and condemned to pay a fine of £70,000. In the
same spirit he conceived the idea of obtaining additions to
the royal exchequer by a fresh settlement of Connaught; and,
accordingly, he induced the Government, regardless of the
engagements made some years previously at the granting of the
'graces,' to re-assert the claims it had formerly advanced to
the possession of this province. And now, as in the worst days
of James I., there again prevailed the old system of
investigation into the validity of the titles by which the
landed gentry of Connaught held their estates. Such persons as
were practised in disinterring these unregistered titles were
looked upon with favour, and as a means of inciting to more
vigorous efforts, a premium of 20 per cent. on the receipts
realized during the first year by the confiscation of property
thus imperfectly registered was guaranteed to the presidents
of the commission. With a cynical frankness, Wentworth
declared that no money was ever so judiciously expended as
this, for now the people entered into the business with as
much ardour and assiduity as if it were their own private
concern. … The collective titles of the province of
Connaught were at the unlimited disposal of the
lord-lieutenant; and, although, notwithstanding this result,
he, at the last moment, recoiled from the final act, and
shrank from ejecting the present owners, and re-settling the
province, it was not from any conscientious scruples that he
refrained from taking this last decisive step: to the man
whose motto was 'Thorough,' such scruples were unknown. …
Practical considerations alone … induced Wentworth to pause
in the path upon which he had entered.
{1766}
Just at that time the Crown was engaged in a contest with
Puritanism in Scotland, while, in England, the attempts of
Charles to make his rule absolute had produced a state of
public feeling which was in the highest degree critical. …
In view of these considerations, therefore, Strafford
postponed the colonization of the western province to a more
favourable season. While we turn with just abhorrence from the
contemplation of the reckless and despotic acts of this
remarkable man, we must not, on the other hand, fail to
acknowledge that his administration has features which present
a brighter aspect. … In the exercise of a certain
toleration, dictated, it is true, only by policy, he declined
to meddle directly in the religious affairs of the Catholics.
His greatest merit, however, consists in having advanced the
material well-being of the country. He took a lively interest
in agriculture and cattle-rearing, and by causing the rude and
antiquated methods of husbandry which prevailed among the
Irish agriculturalists to be superseded by more modern
appliances, he contributed very materially to the advancement
of this branch of industry. He also largely encouraged
navigation, in consequence of which the number of Irish ships
increased from year to year; and although it can not be denied
that he endeavoured to suppress the trade in woollen cloth,
from an apprehension that it might come into dangerous
competition with English manufactures, he, nevertheless,
sought to compensate the Irish in other ways, and the
development of the Irish linen industry in the north was
essentially his work. … The Irish revenue annually
increased, and the customs returns alone were trebled during
the administration of Lord Strafford. He was, accordingly, in
a position to place at the disposal of his royal master a
standing army of 9,000 men. … It was, therefore, no idle
boast, but a statement in strict accordance with the truth,
which he made when writing to Archbishop Laud on 16th
December, 1634: 'I can now say that the king is here as truly
absolute as any sovereign in the world can be.'"
R. Hassencamp,
History of Ireland,
chapter 3.
"Of all the suggesters of the infamous counsels of Charles,
Laud and Wentworth were the most sincere:—Laud, from the
intense faith with which he looked forward to the possible
supremacy of the ecclesiastical power, and to which he was
bent upon going, 'thorough', through every
obstacle;—Wentworth, from that strong sense, with which birth
and education had perverted his genius, of the superior
excellence of despotic rule. … The letters which passed
between them partook of a more intimate character, in respect
of the avowal of ulterior designs, than either of them,
probably, chose to avow elsewhere. … Laud had to regret his
position in England, contrasted with that of the Irish deputy.
'My lord,' he writes to Wentworth, speaking of the general
affairs of church and state, 'to speak freely, you may easily
promise more in either kind than I can perform: for, as for
the church, it is so bound up in the forms of the common law,
that it is not possible for me, or for any man, to do that
good which he would, or is bound to do. … And for the state,
indeed, my lord, I am for Thorough; but I see that both thick
and thin stays somebody, where I conceive it should not; and
it is impossible for me to go thorough alone.' … Every new
act of despotism which struck terror into Ireland shot comfort
to the heart of Laud. 'As for my marginal note,' exclaims the
archbishop, 'I see you deciphered it well, and I see you make
use of it too,—do so still; thorow and thorow. Oh that I were
where I might go so too I but I am shackled between delays and
uncertainties. You have a great deal of honour here for your
proceedings. Go on a God's name!' And on Wentworth went,
stopping at no gratuitous quarrel that had the slightest
chance of pleasing the archbishop, even to the demolishing the
family tomb of the earl of Cork,—since his grace, among his
select ecclesiastical researches, had discovered that the spot
occupied by my lord of Cork's family monuments, was precisely
that spot upon which the communion-table, to answer the
purposes of heaven, ought to stand!"
R. Browning,
Thomas Wentworth (Eminent British Statesmen, volume 2,
published under the name of John Forster).
ALSO IN:
S. R. Gardiner,
The First Two Stuarts and the Puritan Revolution,
chapter 5, section 4.
S. R. Gardiner,
History of England,
chapter 76 (volume 8) and
chapter 90 (volume 9).
W. A. O'Conor,
History of the Irish People,
volume 2, book 3, chapter 1.
T. Wright,
History of Ireland,
book 4, chapters 22-24.
T. Leland,
History of Ireland,
book 5, chapter 1.
IRELAND: A. D. 1641.
The Catholic rising and alleged Massacres of Protestants.
"The government which Strafford had established in Ireland
fell with him, the office of viceroy was entrusted to some of
the judges, and shorn of the powers which gave it authority
over the whole country. The Irish army, which had been formed
with so much difficulty, and maintained in spite of so much
opposition, was disbanded without any attention being
vouchsafed to the King's wish that it should be allowed to
enter the Spanish service. … Under the influence of events
in England, government based on prerogative, and on its
connexion with the English hierarchy, as it had existed in
Ireland since Elizabeth's time, fell to the ground. This
revolution however might entail important results. The Irish
people was Catholic: while the Protestant settlers were split
into two hostile factions, and thereby the highest authority
in the land, which bore a really Protestant character, was
systematically weakened and almost destroyed, the thought of
ridding themselves of it altogether was sure to arise in the
nation. The steed, never completely broken in, felt itself
suddenly free from the tight rein which hitherto it had
unwillingly obeyed. … It was the common object of all
Catholics, alike of Anglo-Saxon and of Celtic origin, to
restore to the Catholic Church the possession of the goods and
houses that had been taken from her, and above all to put an
end to the colonies established since James I. in which
Puritan tendencies prevailed. The Catholics of the old
settlements were as eager for this as the natives. The idea
originated in a couple of chiefs of old Irish extraction,
Roger O'More and Lord Macguire, who had been involved in
Tyrone's ruin, but were connected by marriage with several
English families. The first man whom O'More won over was Lord
Mayo, the most powerful magnate of old English descent in
Connaught, of the house of De Burgh. … The best military
leader in the confederacy, Colonel Plunkett, was a Catholic of
old English origin. … Among the natives the most notable
personage was Phelim O'Neil, who, after having been long in
England, and learning Protestantism there, on his return to
Ireland went back to the old faith and the old customs: he was
reckoned the rightful heir of Tyrone, and possessed unbounded
popular influence.
{1767}
The plan for which the Catholics of both Irish and English
extraction now united was a very far-reaching one. It involved
making the Catholic religion altogether dominant in Ireland:
even of the old nobility none but the Catholics were to be
tolerated: all the lands that had been seized for the new
settlements were to be given back to the previous possessors
or their heirs. In each district a distinguished family was to
be answerable for order, and to maintain an armed force for
the purpose. They would not revolt from the King, but still
would leave him no real share in the government. Two lords
justices, both Catholic, one of Irish, the other of old
English family, were to be at the head of the government. …
The preparations were made in profound silence: a man could
travel across the country without perceiving any stir or
uneasiness. But on the appointed day, October 23, the day of
St. Ignatius, the insurrection everywhere broke out." Dublin
was saved, by a disclosure of the plot to the government, on
the evening of the 22d, by a Protestant Irishman who had
gained knowledge of it. "Several other places also held out,
as Londonderry and Carrickfergus, and afforded places to which
the Protestants might fly. But no one can paint the rage and
cruelty which was vented, far and wide over the land, upon the
unarmed and defenceless. Many thousands perished: their
corpses filled the land and served as food for the kites. …
Religious abhorrence entered into a dreadful league with the
fury of national hatred. The motives of the Sicilian Vespers
and of the night of St. Bartholomew were united. Sir Phelim,
who at once was proclaimed Lord and Master in Ulster, with the
title of the native princes, as Tyrone had been, and who in
his proclamations assumed the tone of a sovereign, was not at
all the man to check these cruelties. … With all this
letting loose of ancient barbarism there was still some
holding back. The Scottish settlements were spared, although
they were the most hated of all, for fear of incurring the
hostility of the Scottish as well as of the English nation.
Immediately there was a rising in the five counties of the old
English Pale: the gentry of Louth, under the leadership of the
sheriff, took the side of the rebels. The younger men of Meath
assembled on the Boyne, and commenced hostilities against the
Protestants: so completely had their religious sympathies
prevailed over their patriotism."
L. Von Ranke,
History of England, 17th Century,
book 8, chapter 7 (volume 2).
"Some reference to the notorious story of the massacre of 1641
is required, not because the account of it is true and is a
part of history, nor because it is false and needs refutation,
but because it is a State fiction, a falsehood with a purpose,
and as such deserves mention as much as the levying of troops
or the passing of laws. The record of the period is not the
history of a massacre, but of the deliberate invention of a
massacre. … No word of massacre had been heard of in the
first State document that referred to the so-called rebellion.
The Catholic lords of the Pale would never have united their
names and fortunes with those of murderers. … The royalists
again and again urged in their treaties with their opponents
that an investigation of the cruelties committed on both sides
should be made, and the proposal was always absolutely
refused."
W. A. O'Conor,
History of the Irish People,
book 3, chapter 1, section 5 (volume 2).
"There were few places of strength in Ulster which had not
fallen by the end of the first week into the hands of the
insurgents. Sir Phelim O'Neill already found himself at the
head of some 30,000 men, as yet of course undisciplined, and
but few of them efficiently armed; and it is not to be
expected that such an irregular multitude, with wild passions
let loose, and so many wrongs and insults to be avenged, could
have been engaged in scenes of war, even so long, without
committing some deeds of blood which the laws of regular
warfare would not sanction. … Life was taken in some few
instances where the act deserved the name of murder; but the
cases of this nature, on the Irish side, at the commencement
of the rebellion, were isolated ones; and nothing can be more
unjust and false than to describe the outbreak of this war as
a 'massacre'."
M. Haverty,
History of Ireland,
chapter 37.
"This [Sir Wm. Petty's] estimate of 37,000 Protestants
supposed to have been murdered makes no allowance for those
who escaped to England and Scotland, and never returned to
Ireland. It seems to me more likely that about 27,000
Protestants were murdered by the sword, gun, rope, drowning,
&c., in the first three or four years of the rebellion. The
evidence of the depositions, after deducting all doubtful
exaggerations, leaves little doubt that the number so
destroyed could hardly have been less than 25,000 at all
events. But the truth is that no accurate estimate is
possible. After the Portnaw massacre the Protestants,
especially the Scotch, took an awful vengeance on their
enemies. Henceforward one side vied in cruelty with the
other."
M. Hickson,
Ireland in the 17th Century,
introduction, page 163.
ALSO IN:
T. Carte,
Life of James, Duke of Ormond,
book 3 (chapters 1-2).
W. E. H. Lecky,
History of England, 18th Century,
chapter 6 (volume 2).
T. Leland,
History of Ireland,
book 5, chapters 3-4 (volume 3).
IRELAND: A. D. 1643.
The king makes Peace with the rebels.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1643 (JUNE-SEPTEMBER).
IRELAND: A. D. 1645.
King Charles' treaty with the Catholics.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1645 (JUNE-DECEMBER).
IRELAND: A. D. 1646-1649.
The Rebels become Royalists.
"The truce [offered by King Charles to the rebels in 1643]
appears to have been well observed by each party, and resulted
in a treaty of peace which was signed in July, 1646, by which
the Roman Catholics obtained every demand which they put
forward. This peace was nevertheless at once broken, and
Ormond (who had been appointed Lord Lieutenant in January,
1643) was closely besieged in Dublin by a force, headed by
Cardinal Rinuccini, the Papal Nuncio, who had assumed the
command of the Irish Catholics. Finding himself in so
dangerous a position, Ormond, by express direction from the
king, offered his submission to the English Parliament, to
whom he surrendered Dublin, Drogheda, Dundalk, and such other
garrisons as remained in his hands. This transaction was
completed on the 25th of July, 1647, when Colonel Jones took
command of Dublin for the Parliament, and was made by them
Commander-in-Chief in Ireland; his total force however
amounted to but 5,000 men. The war now continued with varying
success, the commanders for the Parliament being, in addition
to Jones, Monk in Ulster and Lord Inchiquin in Munster;
{1768}
The latter in 1648 joined Ormond, who in September, upon the
invitation of the Catholics, returned to Ireland, the Papal
Nuncio having been driven from the country by his own party,
who were alienated from him by his folly and insolence. At the
end of 1648 there were therefore two parties in Ireland; the
Parliamentary, which had been the English, holding Dublin and
a few garrisons, and the Catholics, who, formerly rebels, were
now held as Royalists, and whose new leader Ormond, on the
death of Charles I., proclaimed the Prince of Wales, on the
16th of February, 1649, at Carrick, as King of England,
Scotland, France, and Ireland. The English Parliament now at
last resolved to put an end to disorder in Ireland, and with
this object, in March, 1649, appointed Cromwell to the supreme
command." Before Cromwell arrived in Ireland, however, the
Irish Royalists had reduced every garrisoned place except
Dublin and Londonderry, defeating Monk, who held Dundalk, but
being defeated (August 2) by Jones when they laid siege to the
capital. Though fought at the gates of Dublin, this was called
the battle of Rathmines, Ormond retreated with a loss of 4,000
killed and 2,500 prisoners.
N. L. Walford,
Parliamentary Generals of the Great Civil War,
chapter 7.
ALSO IN:
T. Carte,
Life of James Duke of Ormond,
books 4-5 (volume 3).
D. Murphy,
Cromwell in Ireland,
chapters 1-3.
IRELAND: A. D. 1649-1650.
Cromwell's campaign.
The slaughter at Drogheda and Wexford.
'When Cromwell arrived in Ireland at the head of 12,000 men,
he found almost the whole country under the power of the
Royalists (August 15th). A Parliamentary garrison in Dublin
itself had only escaped a siege by surprising the enemy on the
banks of the Liffey (August 2nd). The general first marched
against Drogheda, then called Droghdagh or Tredah, and
summoned the garrison to surrender; Sir Arthur Ashton, the
governor, refused; he had 3,000 of the choicest troops of the
confederates and enough provisions to enable him to hold out
till winter should compel the enemy to raise the siege. But
within twenty-four hours the English batteries had made a
breach in the wall, Oliver, after twice seeing his soldiers
beaten off, led them on in person and carried the breach. A
terrible massacre followed. 'Being in the heat of action I
forbade them,' Cromwell wrote in his despatch to the
Parliament, 'to spare any that were in arms in the town; and I
think that night they put to the sword about 2,000 men.' Of
these, one-half probably fell in the streets; the other half
Cromwell describes as having been slain at early dawn in St.
Peter's Church. This he looks upon as a judgment for their
previous proceedings there. 'It is remarkable,' he writes,
'that these people at first set up the mass in some places of
the town that had been monasteries; but afterwards grew so
insolent that, the last Lord's day before the storm, the
Protestants were thrust out of the great church called St.
Peter's, and they had public mass there; and in this very
place near 1,000 of them were put to the sword, fleeing
thither for safety. I believe all the friars were knocked on
the head promiscuously but two.' … Royalist accounts assert
that many hundreds of women and children were slain in St.
Peter's Church: It is, of course, possible that some of the
townspeople, fleeing thither for safety, lost their lives in
the general massacre of the garrison. There is, however, no
trustworthy witness for any lives being taken except those of
soldiers and friars. Cromwell did not sanction the killing of
any but those with arms in their hands, though he seems to
have approved of the fate of the friars. The fanatical zeal of
his letter, and the fact that he takes the full credit, or
discredit, for the slaughter of the garrison; makes it
improbable that he concealed anything; and this substantiated
by his subsequent declaration, in which he gives this
challenge:—'Give us an instance of one man, since my coming
into Ireland, not in arms, massacred, destroyed, or banished,
concerning the massacre or the destruction of whom justice
hath not been done, or endeavoured to be done.' With the
enemy's troops Cromwell carried out the determined mode of
warfare which he began at Drogheda. They were mostly scattered
over the country, occupied in garrison duty. Before whatever
town he came he demanded immediate surrender, or threatened to
refuse quarter. Town after town opened its gates to this grim
summons. Wexford, which refused to surrender, was stormed, and
the whole garrison, 2,000 in number, put to the sword (October
11th). … In other respects, while Cromwell's rigour and
determination saved bloodshed in the end by the rapidity and
completeness of his conquests, his conduct in Ireland
contrasted favourably on many points with that of the
Royalists there. His own soldiers, for ill-using the people
contrary to regulations, were sometimes cashiered the army,
sometimes hanged. When a treaty was made, he kept faithfully
to its terms. Garrisons that yielded on summons were allowed
either to march away with arms and baggage, or else to go
abroad and enter the service of any government at peace with
England. Before the war was over he had rid the country, on
these terms, of some 45,000 soldiers. Taking advantage of the
divisions of his enemies, he persuaded several garrisons of
English soldiers to desert the cause of Charles Stuart for the
Commonwealth. His conduct of the war was so successful that,
during the nine months of his stay in Ireland, the forces of
the Royalists were shattered, and the provinces of Leinster
and Munster recovered for the Parliament. Cromwell returned to
England in May, 1650, leaving his son-in-law Ireton to
complete the conquest of the country. The last garrisons in
Ulster and Munster surrendered during the course of the
ensuing summer and autumn. Ireton crossed the Shannon and
drove the Irish back into the bogs and mountain fastnesses of
Connaught, their last refuge, where fighting still continued
for two years after all the rest of the country had been
reduced (1651-2)."
B. M. Cordery and J. S. Phillpotts,
King and Commonwealth,
chapter 12.
"No admiration for Cromwell, for his genius, courage, and
earnestness—no sympathy with the cause that he upheld in
England—can blind us to the truth, that the lurid light of
this great crime [the massacre at Drogheda] burns still after
centuries across the history of England and of Ireland; that
it is one of those damning charges which the Puritan theology
has yet to answer at the bar of humanity."
F. Harrison,
Oliver Cromwell,
chapter 8.
{1769}
"Oliver's proceedings here [at Drogheda] have been the theme
of much loud criticism, and sibylline execration; into which
it is not our plan to enter at present. … To those who think
that a land overrun with Sanguinary Quacks can be healed by
sprinkling it with rose-water, these letters must be very
horrible. Terrible Surgery this: but is it Surgery and
Judgment, or atrocious Murder merely? That is a question which
should be asked; and answered. Oliver Cromwell did believe in
God's Judgments; and did not believe in the rose-water plan of
Surgery;—which, in fact, is this Editor's case too. … Here
is a man whose word represents a thing! Not bluster this, and
false jargon scattering itself to the winds: what this man
speaks out of him comes to pass as a fact; speech with this
man is accurately prophetic of deed. This is the first King's
face poor Ireland ever saw; the first Friend's face, little as
it recognises him,—poor Ireland! … To our Irish friends we
ought to say likewise that this Garrison of Tredah consisted,
in good part, of Englishmen. Perfectly certain this:—and
therefore let 'the bloody hoof of the Saxon,' &c., forbear to
continue itself on that matter."
T. Carlyle,
Oliver Cromwell's Letters and Speeches,
part 5.
"Cromwell met with little resistance: wherever he came, he
held out the promise of life and liberty of conscience; …
liberty of conscience he explained to mean liberty of internal
belief, not of external worship; … but the rejection of the
offer, though it were afterwards accepted, was punished with
the blood of the officers; and, if the place were taken by
force, with indiscriminate slaughter."
J. Lingard,
History of England,
volume 10, chapter 5, with foot-note.
ALSO IN:
D. Murphy,
Cromwell in Ireland.
IRELAND: A. D. 1651.
The Massachusetts colonists invited to Ireland by Cromwell.
See MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1649-1651.
IRELAND: A. D. 1652.
The Kilkenny Articles.
"On 12th May, 1652, the Leinster army of the Irish surrendered
on terms signed at Kilkenny, which were adopted successively
by the other principal armies between that time and the
September following, when the Ulster forces surrendered. By
these Kilkenny articles, all except those who were guilty of
the first blood were received into protection, on laying down
their arms; those who should not be satisfied with the
conclusions the Parliament might come to concerning the Irish
nation, and should desire to transport themselves with their
men to serve any foreign state in amity with the Parliament,
should have liberty to treat with their agents for that
purpose."
J. P. Prendergast,
The Cromwellian Settlement of Ireland,
part 1, section 2.
IRELAND: A. D. 1653.
The Cromwellian Settlement.
"By the term Cromwellian Settlement is to be understood the
history of the dealings of the Commonwealth of England with
the lands and habitations of the people of Ireland after their
conquest of the country in the year 1652. … The officers of
the army were eager to take Irish lands in lieu of their
arrears, though it does not appear that the common soldiers
were, who had small debentures and no capital, and no chance
of founding families and leaving estates to their posterity.
But the adventurers [national creditors, who had loaned money
to the government for the Irish War] must be first settled
with, as they had a claim to about one million of acres, to
satisfy the sums advanced for putting down the rebellion on
the faith of the Act of 17 Charles I. (A. D. 1642), and
subsequent Acts and Ordinances, commonly called 'The Acts of
Subscription.' By these, lands for the adventurers must be
first ascertained, before the rest of the country could be
free for disposal by the Parliament to the army. … Towards
the close of the year 1653, the island seemed sufficiently
desolated to allow the English to occupy it. On the 26th of
September in that year, the Parliament passed an Act for the
new planting of Ireland with English. The government reserved
for themselves all the towns, all the church lands and tithes;
for they abolished all archbishops, bishops, deans, and other
officers, belonging to that hierarchy, and in those days the
Church of Christ sat in Chichester House on College-green.
They reserved also for themselves the four counties of Dublin,
Kildare, Carlow, and Cork. Out of the lands and tithes thus
reserved, the government were to satisfy public debts, private
favourites, eminent friends of the republican cause in
Parliament, regicides, and the most active of the English
rebels, not being of the army. They next made ample provision
for the adventurers. The amount due to the adventurers was
£360,000. This they divided into three lots, of which £110,000
was to be satisfied in Munster, £205,000 in Leinster, and
£45,000 in Ulster, and the moiety of ten counties was charged
with their payment:—Waterford, Limerick, and Tipperary, in
Munster; Meath, Westmeath, King's and Queen's Counties, in
Leinster; and Antrim, Down, and Armagh, in Ulster. But, as all
was required by the Adventurers Act to be done by lot, a
lottery was appointed to be held in Grocers' Hall, London, for
the 20th July, 1653. … A lot was then to be drawn by the
adventurers, and by some officer appointed by the Lord General
Cromwell on behalf of the soldiery, to ascertain which
baronies in the ten counties should be for the adventurers,
and which for the soldiers. The rest of Ireland, except
Connaught, was to be set out amongst the officers and
soldiers, for their arrears, amounting to £1,550,000, and to
satisfy debts of money or provisions due for supplies advanced
to the army of the Commonwealth, amounting to £1,750,000.
Connaught was by the Parliament reserved and appointed for the
habitation of the Irish nation; and all English and
Protestants having lands there, who should desire to remove
out of Connaught into the provinces inhabited by the English,
were to receive estates in the English parts, of equal value,
in exchange. … The Earl of Ormond, Primate Bramhall, and all
the Catholic nobility, and many of the gentry, were declared
incapable of pardon of life or estate, and were banished. …
Connaught was selected for the habitation of all the Irish
nation by reason of its being surrounded by the sea and the
Shannon, all but ten miles, and the whole easily made into one
line by a few forts. To further secure the imprisonment of the
nation, and cut them off from relief by sea, a belt four miles
wide, commencing one mile to the west of Sligo, and so winging
along the coast and Shannon, was reserved by the Act of 27th
September, 1653, from being set out to the Irish, and was
given to the soldiery to plant. Thither all the Irish were to
remove at latest by the first day of May, 1654, except Irish
women married to English Protestants before the 2d December,
1650, provided they became Protestants; except, also, boys
under fourteen and girls under twelve, in Protestant service
and to be brought up Protestants; and, lastly, those who had
shown during the ten years' war in Ireland their constant good
affection to the Parliament of England in preference to the
king.
{1770}
There they were to dwell without entering a walled town, or
coming within five miles of some, on pain of death. All were
to remove thither by the 1st of May, 1654, at latest, under
pain of being put to death by sentence of a court of military
officers, if found after that date on the English side of the
Shannon." In the actual enforcement of the law—found
impracticable in all its rigor—there were many special
dispensations granted, and extensions of time.
J. P. Prendergast,
The Cromwellian Settlement of Ireland,
preface, and parts 1-2.
ALSO IN:
J. A. Froude,
The English in Ireland in the 18th Century,
book 1, chapter 2 (volume 1).
J. Lingard,
History of England,
volume 10, chapter 6.
IRELAND: A. D. 1655.