In the year 1698, another East India Company was formed, and received an exclusive right of trade in consideration of a loan to government; but the charter of the old Company was a few months afterwards confirmed, and the trade to the East Indies was divided between the two Companies. The jarring interests of these bodies, who obtained advantages over each other according to the favour of corrupt and changing administrations in England, had brought such distress on both, that, in 1702, their prayer to unite was attended to; a new charter was granted, and from that period they have been denominated "The United East India Company." By this charter, they were permitted to employ civil servants, to raise troops, and to make war and peace in India. Their policy, however, had been to avoid (as being ruinous to their commercial pursuits) all grounds of offence to native states; and they had not even made those fortifications which were necessary to defend their property from spoliation. The conduct which they thus pursued had been strongly recommended[4] to them by Sir Thomas Roe when ambassador at the court of the Emperor of Delhi, and a modern historian[5] of India observes, that "if Sir Thomas Roe had lived to the present day, he might have urged the trade with China as a proof, by experiment, of the proposition he advanced." But assuredly no cases ever existed more opposite than those of China and India. Though the government of the former, by a rigid system of exclusion, keeps European settlers dependent upon its own power, it secures them against all enemies. The native powers of the latter, by engaging in alliance, and inviting to interference in internal politics, the subjects of one European state, leave to the other, who may be in rivalry or hostility with it, no option between certain ruin, and employing means of self-defence and retaliation. This truth was never more completely evinced than in 1744, when war was declared between France and England. On receipt of this intelligence, the forces under the control of the companies of the two nations on the coast of Coromandel, prepared to prosecute hostilities by land and sea, upon a scale which involved both in a scene of operations more suited to empires than to commercial factories. The results of these operations will appear wonderful to him who only considers the handful of troops which either party could bring into the field; but the improvements which, within the last two centuries, had taken place in Europe, gave its soldiers an incalculable advantage over those of Asia, before the latter were taught, by repeated defeats, to make war upon more equal terms with their European opponents. The superiority of a well-constructed machine over manual labour is not more extraordinary, than the advantages which discipline and the improvements in fire-arms and artillery afford to a regular body of troops over an irregular and badly armed force. No valour can equalise the combat, and the impressions produced by defeat are rendered tenfold greater by a comparison of numbers. The well-commanded, and well-trained battalion moves amidst ten thousand of its rabble opponents, like a giant with a thousand hands, which defend or strike, according to the dictates of one mind, and to whom an unconnected force, where every individual acts for himself, can offer neither injury nor resistance.
It is to this fact far more than to the want of personal courage in the men, or pusillanimity in their leaders, that we must refer the astonishing success of small numbers of disciplined troops, in the early wars of India; and it was from observing this success that the rulers of the country so eagerly courted their aid.
It was, undoubtedly, good policy in the English to abstain from all interference with native states. It must have been obvious that, from the moment they left the limits of their factories, they would be involved beyond the possibility of retreat; and that the consequence of the course of policy in which they engaged could be no further foreseen, than that it was opposed to all those principles of commercial pursuit, upon which their establishments were founded. With such a prospect, nothing could justify the authorities in India in the part they acted, but proof that it was one to which they were compelled, in order to prevent positive ruin, and to support the honour and the interests of their country against a powerful enemy. Whether or not they had this justification at the moment when the following Memoir opens, will be seen by a short view of the state of affairs in the Carnatic at that eventful period of our history in India.
The Payeen Ghaut, or Lower Carnatic, well known as the dominions of the Nabob of Arcot, extends along the coast of Coromandel, from the southern limits of the Guntoor Circar to Cape Comorin, a distance of about 560 miles. Its breadth, from the sea to the Ghauts (or mountains), which separate it from the territories of Hyderabad and Mysore, is no where above 100 miles; and in some parts little more than fifty. This country was formerly governed by Hindoo princes, but these had for several centuries acknowledged a Mahomedan superior. Its nabob, Sadut Oolla, in the beginning of the eighteenth century (A. D. 1710), having no children, adopted two nephews, the eldest of whom, Doost Ali, on the death of his uncle, declared himself his successor; and the younger, Bauker, became governor of the strong fortress of Vellore. Nizam-ul-Mûlk, who was at this period soubahdar of the Deckan[6], to which district of the empire the Carnatic belonged, offended at the want of deference to his supremacy, evinced by this act of the self-constituted nabob, prevented that regular confirmation of his title which was required from Delhi. Doost Ali had two sons, and several daughters, one of whom was married to Mortaza Ali, the son of his brother at Vellore, and another to a relation of the name of Chunda Sahib, who became soon afterwards his Dewan, or minister; and on the death of the Hindoo prince of Trichinopoly (A. D. 1736), this chief was sent with a force, under pretext of demanding tribute of the Ranee, or queen, but with the real design of making himself master of that fortress,—an object which he effected more by artifice than force. The part he acted after obtaining possession of the capital of the southern part of the Carnatic, combined with his having halted for some days at Pondicherry, with the governor of which he had several interviews, give reason to conclude that Chunda Sahib laid, at this period, the foundation of that friendship, which was subsequently publicly proclaimed between him and the French government.[7]
Sufder Ali, the son of the nabob who had gone with Chunda Sahib to Trichinopoly, returned, after its capture, to Arcot, where a new Dewan, or minister, Meer Assud, was appointed; who took every step he could to prevent the accomplishment of those ambitious designs which he seemed convinced his predecessor in office had formed.
The Marathas had formerly been in possession of a great part of the Carnatic; and one of their chiefs had become Rajah of Tanjore, a small but rich principality, lying to the southward of the Cavery, and fertilised by its waters, and those of the Coleroon. Incited by the reigning rajah, and by the Hindu family who had been expelled from Trichinopoly, 10,000 of this nation, under Ragojee Bhonsela (A. D. 1740), invaded the Carnatic. In the first action with these plunderers, Doost Ali was slain, and his son, Sufder Ali, immediately assumed the title of nabob; but, dreading the results of the Maratha invasion, he sent his family and treasures for protection to Pondicherry. When the war with the Marathas was concluded, he took his family away; but Chunda Sahib left his, fearing, perhaps, the result of the intrigues, which were going on against him. These became too soon apparent; the Marathas retired; but, secretly excited by the court of Arcot, they soon returned, and surrounded Trichinopoly, which they took, after a siege of three months; and, having appointed one of their leaders, Morari Row, to be its governor, they sent Chunda Sahib, whom they had made prisoner, to be confined in a fortress near Sattarah.
Sufder Ali, who was at this time (A. D. 1741) in great alarm at the apprehended resentment of the Soubahdar of the Deckan, to whom he had remitted little or no tribute, went, for security, to reside in the fortress of Vellore, pretending, at the same time, that he was in great poverty, and intended to proceed to Mecca; and, to give more currency to this last report, he sent his son and family to Madras, from whence he said he meant to embark. His minister, Meer Assud, is stated to have advised him to put his family and property under the protection of the English, from a conviction of the intrigues the French were carrying on at this period with Chunda Sahib, of whose ambitious views he continued to entertain the most serious alarm.
The retreat of the Marathas had been purchased by the promise of a large sum, and every district of the Carnatic was heavily assessed to make up this amount. This assessment produced great discontent, and the principal rulers of districts, leagued with Mortaza Ali, in a conspiracy against the nabob, who was assassinated; and his treacherous relative and murderer, having distributed largesses to the army, proclaimed himself nabob, and marched to Arcot.