Observations on the Disturbances in the Madras Army in 1809

by John Malcolm

I have this day transmitted to the Commander-in-Chief of the forces an account of the inquiry into the proceedings of the officers at Masulipatam, previous to my assuming the command at that station. I now consider it my duty to report every event that occurred during my command of that garrison. It is, however, essential to my own character and to the information of Government, that I should state the peculiar circumstances under which I proceeded on this duty, as well as the impressions which existed at that moment on my mind, respecting your intentions not only regarding the garrison of Masulipatam, but the whole army; as it is with reference to those impressions alone that my conduct in the discharge of this delicate and important duty can be judged.

I received a message to attend at your Gardens on the 1st July; and was informed, when I arrived there, of the mutiny which had occurred at Masulipatam, and of an improper and disrespectful remonstrance which you had that day received from the Company's officers of the subsidiary force in the Deckan. You did me the honour to ask my opinion on both subjects; and I suggested, that an officer of rank should be immediately ordered to Masulipatam, to inquire into, and report upon, the proceedings of the officers of that garrison; and that a letter should be written to the commanding officers of the subsidiary forces at Hyderabad and Jaulnah, informing them of your having received, with regret and disapprobation, a Memorial from the officers under their command, soliciting that you should rescind the orders of the 1st of May; and pointing out, in the most forcible manner, the dangerous tendency of such addresses, and the total impossibility of complying with their request; and directing the commanding officers to call upon the officers under their command to reflect upon the serious consequences which a perseverance in such measures must produce.

After some discussion regarding the officer it would be proper to nominate to the command of the European regiment and the garrison of Masulipatam, I offered to proceed myself upon that service; and you accepted my offer with an apparent confidence in my success, of which I could not but be proud. The emergency gave no time for the preparation of instructions, and I was immediately appointed to command the garrison of Masulipatam and the Madras European regiment; while two respectable officers, Lieutenant-Colonel W. Berkeley and Major Evans, were nominated to act with me, as members of a military committee that was directed to investigate the conduct of the garrison.

I was repeatedly assured by you, at the last interview with which I was honoured, that you committed the dignity and interests of Government (as far as those were implicated on this occasion) into my hands with perfect confidence, and that you gave me the fullest latitude of action: adding, that I was fully acquainted with your sentiments upon the whole subject of the existing discontents among the officers of the Company's army. I certainly was, from the confidence with which you had honoured me, fully aware of your sentiments. I knew that you were most solicitous to allay the ferment that had arisen in the army, and that you were at that moment resolved to use every means in your power to effect that object, but such as you deemed derogatory to the honour and dignity of the Government with which you were charged. You regarded, I knew, the occurrence of a rupture between the state and any part of its army, one of the most desperate evils that could arise, and thought every moment that such an event was delayed was of ultimate importance, as it gave time for reflection and the action of better feeling, and strengthened the hope that deluded men might yet return to that path of duty and good order from which they had so widely departed.

The act of my appointment to Masulipatam of itself proclaimed these sentiments; and I was confirmed in them from the approbation you gave to my suggestion regarding the mode of treating the Memorial you had received from the officers of the subsidiary force, which you desired I would put into the form of a letter, and send to you; which I did, through the medium of your military secretary, Lieutenant-Colonel Barclay. Impressed with these sentiments, I sailed for Masulipatam early on the morning of the 2d of July, and arrived there on the 4th. I found the officers of that garrison in a state of open and bold mutiny against Government, with every thing prepared to march towards Hyderabad, to effect a junction with the subsidiary force at that place, by whom they had been promised complete support in the opposition they had commenced to the authority of Government. The most violent among the officers of the garrison saw, in recognising my authority, a complete suspension, if not a total discomfiture, of their plans, and argued loudly against my being acknowledged: and it was not till after a discussion of near five hours that I was enabled to bring these deluded men to a sense of all the perils of their situation, and of the consequences that must ensue from their throwing off their allegiance to the state. They at last were subdued by the force of reason; for no other means were used, as I thought it equally my duty to avoid any promise of amnesty for the past, or of consideration for the future: and they, after repeated and fruitless trials, desisted from all applications upon these points. A repetition of the discussions which occurred at this scene (accompanied, however, with less violence) took place next day: after which, the question of disputing my authority was abandoned.

I was happy to find, by a letter from Lieutenant-Colonel Barclay, under date 12th July, that the mode as well as substance of the proceedings that I adopted on my arrival at Masulipatam was honoured with your entire approbation.

I took every opportunity of mixing with the officers of the garrison, and circulated among them a variety of letters, which I had written with a view of reclaiming the more violent of my brother officers to better feelings and better sentiments; and I found that my conversation, and the perusal of these papers, had soon a very visible effect; and that though they continued to share the general proceedings of the army, they no longer (as they had done before my arrival) thought it incumbent upon them to take the lead in an insurrection against Government, though they were excited to that measure by the most violent letters from almost every station in the army, and were also impelled to it by their own sense of danger from what had passed, which they thought would be greatly diminished when the majority of the officers of the army were sharers in the general guilt. I considered, that by effecting this change in the temper of the garrison of Masulipatam, one of the chief objects which you had in contemplation when you sent me to that garrison, was accomplished. The rupture which had recurred, and which was likely to be followed by an insurrection of a great part of the officers of the army, had been arrested in its progress, without the slightest sacrifice of the authority, or compromise of the dignity, of the state; and time was gained, which, under every view that could be taken of the subject, appeared of the greatest advantage to Government.

The first serious interruption to this progressive improvement of good feeling among the officers of the garrison of Masulipatam, was caused by a letter from an established committee at Hyderabad, which reached that garrison on the 18th July. This letter, which, like all other papers of a similar tendency, was shown to me, reproached the officers at Masulipatam with want of wisdom in having admitted me to assume the command of the garrison. The committee desired they would instantly demand from me an assurance that the order of the 1st of May would be rescinded; and, if I refused it, recommended that measures should be immediately taken to oblige me to quit Masulipatam. A paper of demands, which the Hyderabad committee termed their Ultimatum, and which they said they intended to forward to Government, accompanied this letter. These papers were shown to me by an officer of some rank and influence, with whom I was in the habit of confidential intercourse. He told me the senior officers of the garrison were far from approving of the sentiments of the Hyderabad committee, but much was to be feared from the violence of the juniors. I took this occasion of exposing all the fallacy of the grounds on which they were proceeding, and of impressing, in the most forcible language I could, the dangers into which many of the officers of the Company's army were precipitately rushing. As the substance of the communication I made to this officer was afterwards circulated in the form of a letter, I enclose an extract from my journal, in which it was immediately entered: and this extract will show you the nature of those arguments I used to reclaim men from their deep delusion. This communication had evidently a great effect upon the person to whom it was addressed; and he promised me he would not only communicate my sentiments to some of the most reflecting among the officers of the garrison, and obtain, through their means, the rejection of the proposals from Hyderabad, but would endeavour, in concert with them, to effect an arrangement that would exclude the younger part of the officers from any right of deliberation on the questions with which the army was now agitated; which I agreed with him would be a point of the greatest importance, and the first step towards a final settlement of existing evils.

All these measures were happily effected. An answer was sent to Hyderabad, that the officers of Masulipatam must assert their right of judging for themselves, and that they could not comply with their demand regarding me; and the garrison committees, which were mobbish meetings of the whole of the officers, were dissolved, and all future proceedings entrusted to a few of the senior officers, who were (it was agreed) not to be influenced either by the opinions of other committees, or by the opinion of any officer in the garrison not included in their number, which was limited to eleven.

I had at this period received a report that Lieutenant-Colonel Berkeley was too unwell to come to Masulipatam, and there was likely to be some delay in the arrival of Major Evans. I also found that formal examinations before a regular committee would be likely to excite an irritation, which it had been, throughout, my study to avoid. I therefore took advantage of the authority conveyed to me by Lieutenant-Colonel Barclay's letter of the 12th of July, to commence myself the investigation of the conduct of the garrison previous to my arrival.