I have, in my observations on the disturbances at Madras, said little on the question of the suspension of Colonel Capper and Major Boles; but I conceive all that the reviewer has said upon that subject will be deemed by those who consider it attentively, as more ingenious than solid. The whole of that discussion would appear to resolve itself into a very short question. The act of disobedience to his superior, in a military officer or soldier, can alone be justified in a case where the civil law would punish his obedience. A great deal must of course be decided by the circumstances of the moment. "To your tents, O Israel!" would, in the present state of Great Britain, be an unobjectionable text. It certainly was not so in the reign of Charles the First. But we have only to suppose Major Boles on his trial before a civil court, for publishing, or aiding in the publication, of a seditious libel. Among the circumstances to be considered in such a case, that prompt and undeliberate obedience which it is the habit of an officer to give to the orders of his superiors, would assuredly be one of the most prominent; and an English jury would, I imagine, be slow in condemning an officer situated as Major Boles was. They would probably think, that the great and vital principle of prompt obedience, on which the existence of that armed force which guarded the civil community depended, was of too important and sacred a nature to have its plain meaning frittered away by casuists and lawyers. These reflections would certainly lead plain men to decide, that we ought not to refine too much upon such delicate points, and that no military order should be disobeyed, the illegality of which was not of so obvious a nature as to be clear to the most common understanding. But, after all, the justice or injustice of this act of authority is but a small part of a very large question. The wisdom and policy of the measure, (which is the point on which the character of the Government of Fort St. George is chiefly concerned,) appear, however, to be given up even by those who are the warm advocates of many other parts of that system which was pursued.
The writer of the review traces what he deems an exact similarity of character between Sir George Barlow's measures and those adopted by Lord Clive, in 1766, to quell a sedition among the officers of the Bengal army; and infers, from a general and sweeping conclusion, that the reputation of these two Governors must stand or fall by the same arguments. To those who are satisfied with the superficial and general facts,—that both Lord Clive and Sir George Barlow exercised power in India, that there were discontents and combinations among a part of the European officers of the native troops during their respective administrations, which terminated, on both occasions, in submission to authority,—the observations made in the Quarterly Review on this part of the subject will be satisfactory, and conclusive: but to such as examine the particulars of these two important events, and trace to its true cause the defection of the officers of the Bengal army in 1766, and then observe the open, military, and manly conduct of Lord Clive, there will appear much more grounds for a contrast than a comparison. The conduct of the officers of the Bengal army, their limited number, and the actual constitution of the native army[34] at that period of our dominion in India, make a still wider difference in all those considerations, that render the late measures of the Government of Madras, as they affect the personal attachment and fidelity of the sepoys to their European officers, dangerous to our future security. But supposing the difference in this respect did not exist, Lord Clive, when actually engaged in war, might have been compelled, by the conduct of officers, which the situation of affairs rendered doubly disgraceful, to adopt a measure that was most deeply injurious to those principles upon which our empire is founded. We have escaped this danger; but is that any reason for incurring a similar hazard? It has never been stated that the danger from weakening the respect and attachment of the sepoy for his officer was inevitable, and must be destructive to our power within a specific period. Its alarming tendency has been shown: and it is this which must be disproved, and the absolute necessity of having had resort to it established, before the course pursued in this instance by the Government of Fort St. George can be efficiently defended.
The reviewer appears resolved to deny every fact that can even palliate the guilt of the officers of the Madras army. He terms their desire to submit to Lord Minto a difference in point of form, "a saving to their pride, not to their consciences;" and he is amused with the assertion, that the love of their country had a decided operation in defeating their guilty proceedings. The man who reasons thus coolly upon such events, has probably never witnessed a scene at all resembling that of which he treats; or he would have discovered, that when passion seizes that ground which reason has abandoned, men act more under the influence of feelings than forms; and with minds deluded, but not debased, they make a vain attempt to reconcile the most opposite principles of conduct, and fall, self-subdued, by those virtues which are implanted too deeply in their hearts to be eradicated by the sudden action, however violent, of a guilty but transient impulse.
The able writer in the review conceives that he has at once discovered the chief cause of the late disturbances, and the best apology for the Company's officers concerned in them, in the constitution of the Company's service, and the habits of those that belong to it. The atmosphere they imbibe is calculated, in his opinion, to relax all just ideas of subordination; and they are, he infers, predisposed, from such causes, to an opposition to the authority placed over them. Some disposition to resistance may no doubt be found in every community, civil as well as military, that ever existed; and to the existence of this universal and natural feeling every excellence of human government may be traced. But let us suppose that this disposition had, from local circumstances and other causes, attained such a degree among the Company's officers in India, as to threaten the public tranquillity; what does this prove? It is, if true to the extent stated in the review, not an excuse for those who produced that crisis which has been described; but an eulogium, and a very high one, upon the wisdom and vigour of those rulers of our Indian possessions, who have not only repressed this disposition to opposition, but have rendered those to whom it is ascribed the instruments of the advancement of the interests and glory of their country: and a reflecting man would probably find much more to admire, than condemn, even in that case[35] which is triumphantly brought forward to prove this assertion. When events led a wise and moderate Governor-General[36], and an able and politic Indian minister[37], to prefer a course which certainly made many and important sacrifices of ordinary maxims of rule, but which led to a quiet and just settlement of all complaints; to the pursuit of a severe, inflexible system, which (anxious only for its own character) defends a principle at the hazard of a state: most persons, when they contemplated the great end, would at least pardon the means by which it was obtained, and perhaps see more of wisdom and generosity, than of "short-sightedness and absurdity," in the measures of those who exercised their powers with such temper, forbearance, and indulgence, upon that memorable occasion. Those who endeavour to heap obloquy upon their names, in order to exalt a contrary course of proceeding, will find no support to their arguments from the conduct of the officers of the Bengal army subsequent to that occurrence: that has been exactly the reverse of what it ought to have been, agreeable to the conclusions of the writer of the review; and the great progress made in the discipline of that army, their strict adherence to every principle of order and subordination, (particularly on the occasion of the late agitations at Madras,) affords a most convincing proof of the wide difference between a spirit of discontent carried even to the extreme of opposition to authority, among a body of officers, (who, however lost to reason and duty for the moment, must soon return, instructed by their deviation, to that order on which their condition depends,) and a mutiny of common soldiers. Men solely educated in civil life are too apt to confound this great distinction: and to that ignorance of the different shades of military feeling which varies from the proud but rational submission of a cultivated mind, to the mere habit of mechanical obedience in one of a more vulgar mould, a great part of the evils which occurred at Madras may be ascribed.
It has always been discovered, on a near view of human affairs, that smaller causes than the self-importance of man is willing to believe, produce the greatest changes in society. The difference between a general view of a subject, and a minute observation of all its parts, is immense: and to this difference, more than to any other cause, I am disposed to ascribe the opposite opinions I entertain, on many points of this large question, from the able writer of the review. He has, with a full sense of the advantage, dwelt upon those general principles that regulated the conduct of Sir George Barlow; and has enlarged, with great force and effect, upon their importance to good order and government. While he maintains this ground he is unassailable; and he seldom quits it: but if truth be the object of our search, we must go deeper. There perhaps never was an administration which exhibited, during the period of which we treat, so extraordinary a mixture of good principles, and a bad application of them; of an inflexible regard to form, and a total neglect of feeling, as that of the Governor of Fort St. George. It is from this reason, that every man of impartiality, who peruses a general statement of the late transactions at Madras, will give Sir George Barlow the highest praise: but if he looks further, and examines with a minute attention, not only his measures, but the season and mode of their execution; his admiration will infallibly diminish. He will be compelled (though perhaps reluctantly,) to abandon some abstract ideas regarding the beauty of general principles, which he may have long and fondly cherished, and to confess the force of that observation which experience taught Mr. Burke to make, upon all such general questions—"I have lost," said that great orator and statesman, "all confidence in your swaggering majors, having always found that the truth lurked in the little minor of circumstances."
In the conclusion of the article of the review the writer animadverts on the description given by Mr. Petrie of the cold and repulsive manners of Sir George Barlow; and in observing upon this "deficiency in the charm of demeanour," though he admits it must subtract from the influence of a statesman, he makes an allusive comparison (on the ground of common defects) between his character and that of some of the greatest names in history[38], who, notwithstanding their defective manners, have, by the force of their superior genius, been able to command the support of mankind: and, to give more effect to this allusion, the reviewer quotes a public dispatch from Lord Minto, in which that nobleman ascribes the great unpopularity of Sir George Barlow to "a pure and inflexible discharge of ungrateful, but sacred and indispensable duties." Self-defence has alone compelled me to discuss the acts of Sir George Barlow. On his character my opinion was long ago formed. It will be seen, that at the commencement of these disturbances I confidentially stated that opinion[39]. I then represented him as a man of excellent talent, of unsullied integrity, of indefatigable industry, and distinguished by long and meritorious services to the Company. I still retain that opinion; and no injustice of which he may be guilty towards me, shall ever prevent me from expressing it. I then foresaw that the defects of his character would, in his situation, probably produce very pernicious consequences. My opinion has been confirmed by the event. Experience seems to me to have most fully proved, that the very qualities which eminently fit a man for subordinate situations, may unfit him for the supreme; and that the rules which are necessary to the good order of many of the inferior departments, may, in their undistinguishing application, prove destructive in the general administration of a great state.
FOOTNOTES:
[2] Cicero's Letters to his Friends, Vol. I. p. 194. Octavo. London, 1753.