This trifling but irritating circumstance confirmed me in the resolution I had taken regarding my own conduct. I had come from Bombay with the intention of joining my station at Mysore; but I had received, when at Masulipatam, a letter from Lord Minto reappointing me to Persia; and I had, since I reached Madras, been directed by a letter from his Lordship, under date the 15th of July, to await his arrival at that place. With such orders I could only offer my service as a volunteer to Sir George Barlow; and I had little encouragement to do that. He had, it is true, at the interview I had on the 27th, expressed in a cold manner his wish that I should go to Mysore; but that wish had never been repeated: he had made no further communication to me since my return; nor had I even been required to give that information which he knew I possessed. Under such circumstances, I felt that it was my duty to obey the orders of the Governor-General, and not to intrude my voluntary services when they were evidently not sought. In consequence of this determination I addressed a private letter to Sir George Barlow on the 1st of August; in which, after explaining very fully the sentiments by which my conduct was regulated, I offered the following observations on what had passed, and what might be expected from the measure he had adopted:
"You are no stranger to that enthusiasm with which I embarked in the present scene: and, whatever has been my success, I am assured that you are satisfied I have not been deficient in zeal in the exertion of my humble endeavours to reclaim my brother officers to temper and to the path of duty: and I indulged, to the very moment of my arrival at Madras from Masulipatam, a hope that this great object of your solicitude would be effected without having recourse to coercive measures; or at least that a great proportion of the officers of the Company's army (including almost all who had weight and influence with the men) would be recovered, and that the early submission of the rest would have been a certain consequence of the return of their seniors to their duty.
"The highly criminal violence of the force at Hyderabad, which is known to the whole army to be guided by weak and wrong-headed men, has unfortunately precipitated a very different issue to that which I was so sanguine as to expect. That force has declared that they speak the sentiments of the whole, or at least those of a great proportion of the Madras army; though it is evident, at the moment they made such an assertion, they could not have received an answer from any station to that absurd paper which they term an Ultimatum, which they have had the audacity to forward to Government; but which, I conscientiously believe, would, if it had been publicly promulgated, have been disowned and disclaimed by great numbers of the senior and most respectable officers at every station in the army. I can speak positively with regard to some, indeed all of the senior officers of the garrison of Masulipatam upon this subject, and they have lately been considered as the most violent of the whole. I am far from meaning (such meaning would, indeed, be as contrary to that high respect I have ever entertained for your character, as to the duties of my situation) to offer even an opinion on the wisdom and policy of that step which Government has lately adopted with the Company's officers of this establishment. The test these were required to sign was, as far as I understood it, a mere repetition of the obligations of the commission that every one of them held; and the only rational objection that could be made to it by men who were devoted to their duty, and who had never deviated from it in thought, word, or deed, was, that it was unnecessary; that it was, with regard to them at least, an act of supererogation, and one that had a taint of suspicion in it. These were, indeed, the feelings that passed in my mind when this paper was first put into my hands; but they were instantly subdued by a paramount sense of public duty; and I signed it to show (as far as my example could show) my perfect acquiescence in a measure which the Government I served had thought proper to adopt: but I am satisfied it was not the terms of this paper which led the great majority of the Company's officers both in camp and at the Mount, and in the garrison, to refuse their signatures; it was the manner in which it was presented, and the circumstances by which the whole proceeding was accompanied. The minds of the most honourable, and of those most attached to Government and to their Country, revolted more at the mode than the substance of the act: they felt (perhaps erroneously) that they were disgraced, because the manner in which their consent was asked showed they were not in the least trusted: and this was, I am assured, one of the chief causes of their almost general rejection of this proposed test of fidelity. It appears to me of the greatest importance that you should be aware of every feeling that this proceeding excited; and it is in discharge of the duties of that friendship with which you have ever honoured me that I have stated my sentiments so freely upon this subject. I am very intimately acquainted with a great number of the officers of whom I speak: some of them would, I am certain, have given their lives for Government at the very moment they refused to give a pledge which they thought, from the mode in which it was proposed, reflected upon their honour; and others, who had unfortunately gone to a certain extent in the late culpable and unmilitary proceedings, but who viewed the criminal excesses of some of their brother officers with undisguised horror and indignation, would, I am assured, if it had been possible for Government to have pardoned what was past, and to have expressed, in indulgent language, its kind intentions for the future, have been the most forward in their efforts to punish those who, by an unwarrantable perseverance in a guilty career, merited all the wrath of the state: but, unfortunately, (though such an intention, I am assured, never entered into your mind,) an almost general sentiment prevailed, that it was meant the service should be destroyed by the first blow, and that all were therefore included in one general mass, as just objects of suspicion and disgrace.
"I am far from defending such an interpretation of this measure of Government; I have only stated what I consider to be the fact, and explained, as far as I could, those causes by which I believe it to have been produced: their operation is, I fear, now almost irremediable, and events must take their course. I know (and my personal conduct has proved it,) that my brother officers are deeply wrong; and I am quite heart-broken when I reflect on the consequences to themselves and country which the guilt of some of them is likely to produce. I need not assure you of my sincere happiness at the success which has hitherto attended the execution of the measure you have adopted, and I anxiously hope it may meet with no opposition. I have never doubted the success of this measure, if it was resorted to, as far as related to the accomplishment of its immediate object; and I most earnestly pray that my judgment may have deceived me with regard to the collateral and remote consequences by which I have always deemed it likely to be attended."
The only reply I received to this communication, was by a note from Colonel Barclay, under date the 2d of August, to acquaint me, that, for the reasons I had stated, "Sir George Barlow would not press me to go to Mysore, and that it was the Governor's intention to reply to the other parts of my letter at more leisure." He never, however, condescended to make such a reply, or indeed to honour me with any subsequent communication whatever, either personally, or through the medium of any of his staff: and an event occurred sometime afterwards, which produced such irritation upon his mind, as to make him deny me the common civilities due to an officer in my public station. Some time after my return to Madras, an address[65] from the inhabitants of Madras to Sir George Barlow was drawn up, and sent in circulation. This address was said to have originated with a staff officer of rank. None of the usual forms of convening the inhabitants had taken place; and the mode adopted to obtain signatures was still more extraordinary than this glaring departure from common usage. Gentlemen of the first respectability in the civil service informed me, that when they had testified an aversion to sign this address unless parts of it were modified, they had received such plain intimations regarding the consequences with which their refusal would be attended, as left them in no doubt but that they must either sacrifice their opinions, or bring immediate distress, and perhaps final ruin, upon themselves and their families. Under these circumstances some had signed; while others had actually absented themselves for days from their own houses, to escape the painful importunities to which they were exposed. It is necessary here to state, that almost all ranks were ready at this moment to come forward with a public declaration of duty and attachment to Government, and of their readiness to sacrifice their lives and fortunes in its defence; but a strong objection was entertained by many to that part of the circulated address which cast reflections upon that body of officers who had embraced the alternative of retiring for a period from their duty, rather than sign the test which Government had proposed. It was said, and with great truth, that at the moment when Government professed its desire to reclaim these officers to a more active allegiance, nothing could be more unwise and useless than exasperating their minds to a sullen perseverance in error, by an abuse of them in an address signed by a few civil and military inhabitants of Madras; and that it was perfectly evident such an expression of sentiment could only have the effect of widening a breach it was most desirable to close, and of creating (by exciting discussion) further dissensions and difference of opinion among those of whose devoted attachment to Government there could be no doubt. Such were my own sentiments regarding this address: and while I foresaw the mischief it was calculated to produce, I could divine no possible good from its agitation. It was sent for my signature, with the following note from Colonel Leith:
"The accompanying address is submitted to Lieutenant-Colonel Malcolm for his consideration, which, as soon as he is done with, it is requested he will return to the bearer."
To this I immediately sent an answer, as follows:
"Lieutenant-Colonel Malcolm returns the address to Lieutenant-Colonel Leith. He has not signed it, for reasons very foreign to any want of respect and regard for Sir George Barlow, or of duty, obedience, and attachment to that constituted authority of his country under which he is placed."
I cannot recollect that I ever in my life took a step in which my mind was more decided respecting its propriety, on every public and private principle, than upon this occasion. I considered the address, both from the irregular mode in which it was brought forward, the unbecoming means resorted to in order to obtain signatures, and the expressions contained in it, as an unwise measure, which had originated in that spirit of undistinguishing violence which I conscientiously believed had been the chief means of producing a crisis that this act was calculated to inflame. It did not appear to my mind to be attended with the slightest benefit, for it brought no new friends to Government: and though it could not shake the attachment to the legitimate authority of their country of any persons whose principles were fixed, its tendency was to excite jealousy and division among those who were most warmly attached to order and Government: and among these, however actuated by a sense of public duty, it was natural that a difference of private opinion should exist. Some were, no doubt, more disposed than others to approve violent and unqualified proceedings, or perhaps less disposed to maintain that independence of mind which no man should ever be censured for maintaining upon such points; otherwise addresses of this stamp would not only lose their value, but become tests of the most odious and invidious nature that a tyrannic Government could invent, to degrade or alienate the minds of its subjects.