The state of things at Baroda was not satisfactory. The French govern their colonies too much, the English too little. The latter, instead of taking their stand as the Masters, instead of declaring, Sic volo, sic jubeo, sit pro ratione voluntas, seemed, in Baroda at least, to rule on sufferance: they were thoroughly the Masters of the position; they could have superseded the Gaikwar, or destroyed the town in a week. But the rule of the Court of Directors was not a rule of honour.
The officers in Cantonments, distant only half an hour's ride from the Palace, were actually obliged to hire rámosis (Paggis) to protect their lives and properties. These men were simply professed thieves, who took blackmail to prevent their friends and relations from plundering. In the bungalows, on the borders of the camp, a couple of these scoundrels were necessary. In two bungalows, officers had been cut down, and the one in which I lived showed, on the door-lintel, sabre cuts. Officers were constantly robbed and even murdered when travelling in the districts, and the universally expressed wish was, that some Director's son might come to grief, and put an end to this miserable state of things. Now, these things could have been put a stop to by a single dispatch of the Court of Directors to the Resident at Baroda. They had only to make the Gaikwar and the Native Authorities answerable for the lives and property of their officers. A single hanging and a few heavy fines would have settled the business once and for ever; but, I repeat, the Government of the Court of Directors was not a rule of honour, and already the hateful doctrine was being preached, that "prestige is humbug."
The officers marvelled at the proceedings of their Rulers, and marvelled without understanding things. Little could they know what was going on at home. Here Mr. Richard Cobden, one of the most single-sided of men, whose main strength was that he embodied most of the weakness, and all the prejudice, of the British middle-class public, was watching the affairs of India with a jealous and unfriendly eye, as a Military and Despotic Government, as an acquisition of impolitic violence and fraud, and as the seat of unsafe finance. India appeared to him utterly destitute of any advantage either to the natives or to their foreign masters.
He looked upon the East India Company in Asia as simply monopoly, not merely as regards foreigners, but against their own countrymen. He openly asserted that England had attempted an impossibility in giving herself to the task of governing one hundred millions of Asiatics. Rumours of an Asiatic war were in the air, especially when it was known that Lieut.-Colonel Stoddart and Captain Conolly had been foully murdered by the Amir of Bokhara. He declared (as if he had been taken into supernatural confidence), that God and His visible Natural Laws have opposed insuperable obstacles to the success of such a scheme. His opinion as a professional reformer was, that Hindostan must be ruled by those that live on that side of the globe, and that its people will prefer to be ruled badly by its own colour, kith, and kin, than subject itself to the humiliation of being better governed by a succession of transient intruders from the Antipodes. He declared that ultimately, of course, Nature (of which he knew nothing) will assert the supremacy of her laws, and the white skins will withdraw to their own latitudes, leaving the Hindús to the enjoyment of the climate, for which their dingy skins are suited.
All this was the regular Free-trade bosh, and the Great Bagsman would doubtless have been thunderstruck, had he heard the Homeric shouts of laughter with which his mean-spirited utterances were received by every white skin in British India. There was not a subaltern in the 18th Bombay N.I. who did not consider himself perfectly capable of governing a million Hindús. And such a conviction realizes itself—
"By the sword we won the land,
And by the sword we'll hold it still;"
for every subaltern felt (if he could not put the feeling into words) that India had been won, despite England, by the energy and bravery of men like himself. Every history tells one so in a way that all can understand. The Company began as mere traders, and presently they obtained the right of raising guards to defend themselves. The guards naturally led to the acquisition of territory. The territory increased, till its three centres, Bengal, Madras, and Bombay, became centres of little Kingdoms.
The native Princes were startled and frightened. They attacked their energetic neighbours, with more or less success, and the intruders became more intrusive than before. Next day they began to elect Governors, and Governor-Generals. Whenever a new man was sent out from England, the natives, after the fashion of their kind, thought that they saw an opportunity, and, losing their fear of the old Governor, declared war against the new one. The latter assembled an army, and duly reported the fact home. It took from eight to nine months before the document was received and answered. The general tone of the reply was a fierce diatribe against territorial aggrandizement, but in the mean time a great battle or two had been fought, a province had been conquered and duly plundered, and a large slice of territory had been added to Anglo-Indian rule. This is the way in which British Empire in the East arose, and probably this was the least objectionable way. For when the Company rose to power, it began to juggle native Princes out of their territory, to deny the right of adopting a sacred privilege amongst the Hindús, and to perpetrate all kinds of injustice. A fair example was the case of the Rajah of Patara, and the same proceedings in Oudh, led to the celebrated Mutiny in 1857, and nearly wrecked British dominion in India.
At last a bright day dawned. The whole of the little Cantonment was electrified by the news of the battle of Meeanee, which had been fought on February 21st, 1843. After a number of reverses truly humiliating to British self-esteem, the Sun of Victory had at last shone upon her bayonets. Sir Charles Napier had shown that, with a little force of mixed Englishmen and Sepoys, he could beat the best and bravest army that any Native Power could bring into the field. It was a gallant little affair, because the few white faces had done nearly the whole work. The Sepoys, as usual, had behaved like curs, and five of their officers had been killed, to one of the Queen's service.