Having determined his policy and selected his agent, Warren Hastings gave him the following instructions,[[1]] dated May 13, 1774: "I desire you will proceed to Lhasa.... The design of your mission is to open a mutual and equal communication of trade between the inhabitants of Bhutan [Tibet] and Bengal, and you will be guided by your own judgment in using such means of negotiation as may be most likely to effect this purpose. You will take with you samples, for a trial of such articles of commerce as may be sent from this country.... And you will diligently inform yourself of the manufactures, productions, goods, introduced by the intercourse with other countries, which are to be procured in Bhutan.... The following will be also proper objects of your inquiry: the nature of the roads between the borders of Bengal and Lhasa, and of the country lying between; the communications between Lhasa and the neighbouring countries, their government, revenue, and manners.... The period of your stay must be left to your discretion. I wish you to remain a sufficient time to fulfil the purposes of your deputation, and obtain a complete knowledge of the country and the points referred to your inquiry. If you shall judge that a residence may be usefully established at Lhasa without putting the Company to any expense, but such as may be repaid by the advantages which may be hereafter derived from it, you will take the earliest opportunity to advise me of it; and if you should find it necessary to come away before you receive my orders upon it, you may leave such persons as you shall think fit to remain as your agents till a proper resident can be appointed.... You will draw on me for your charges, and your drafts shall be regularly answered. To these I can fix no limitation, but empower you to act according to your discretion, knowing that I need not recommend to you a strict frugality and economy where the good of the service on which you are commissioned shall not require a deviation from these rules."
Did ever an agent despatched on an important mission receive more satisfactory instructions? The object clearly defined, and the fullest discretion left to him as to the manner of carrying it out. Hastings, having selected the fittest agent to carry out his purpose, leaves everything to his judgment. Whatever would most effectively carry out the main purpose, that the agent was at perfect liberty to do, and time and money were freely at his disposal. “I want the thing done,” says Warren Hastings in effect, “and all you require to get it done you shall have.”
The only equally good instructions I have personally seen issued to an agent were given by Cecil Rhodes in Rhodesia. I travelled up to Fort Salisbury with Major Forbes, whom Rhodes had summoned from a place two months’ journey distant to receive instructions, for he did not believe in letters, but only in personal communication. After dinner Rhodes questioned Forbes most minutely as to his requirements, as to the condition of things, as to the difficulties which were likely to be encountered, and as to his ideas on how those difficulties should be overcome. He said he wanted to know now what Forbes required in order to accomplish the object in view, because he did not wish to see him coming back later on, saying he could have carried it out if only he had had this, that, or the other. Let him therefore say now whatever he required to insure success. All that he asked, and more than he asked, Rhodes gave him, and then despatched him, saying, “Now, I don’t want to hear of you again till I get a telegram saying your job is done.”
These are, of course, ideal methods of conveying instructions to an agent, which it is not always possible for a high official to give. Lord Curzon would, I know, have liked to give similar instructions to me, and, as far as providing money, staff, military support, etc., he did. But, with the closer interconnection of public affairs, public business is now so complicated that it is not, I suppose, possible to leave to an agent the same amount of discretion that Warren Hastings did to Bogle. Still, great results in many fields, and, what is more, great men, have been produced by the use of Warren Hastings’ method of selecting the fittest agent, and then leaving everything in his hands. I do not see that any better results have been obtained by utilizing human agents as mere telephones. If the conduct of affairs has become complicated, that does not appear to be any reason in itself for abandoning the method. It appears only a reason for principals and agents rising to the higher occasion while still pursuing the old successful method. Ease of communication has brought nations more closely together and complicated affairs, but it has also made possible readier personal communication between principal and agent. And therefore there is need not so much for curtailing the discretion of the agent while he is at work as for utilizing the greater facility for personal intercourse now possible. In conversation the agent will be able to impress his principals with whatever local and personal difficulties he has to contend with, and the means required for carrying out their object, and they will be able to impress him with the limits outside which it is impossible to allow him to act. It is a clear certainty that the present tendency to concentrate, not merely control, but also direction, in London, cannot go on for ever. An Empire like ours, immense in size and immensely complicated, cannot be managed in detail from headquarters. The time must come when the House of Commons and the constituencies, overburdened with the great affairs with which they have to deal, will, by the sheer force and weight of circumstances, see the advantages of leaving more to the men on the spot. They will probably insist on agents being more carefully selected. They will require them to keep in much closer personal contact with headquarters. They will expect, too, that politicians who control should already be personally acquainted, or make themselves personally acquainted, with the countries they control. But with these conditions fulfilled they will, it may be hoped, be able to leave more to the men on the spot, removing them relentlessly if they act wrongly, but while they are acting, leaving them to act in their own way.
Bogle, with these free instructions and this ample support, set out from Calcutta in the middle of May, 1774, that is, less than two months from the date of the despatch of the Tashi Lama’s letter from Shigatse, so that Warren Hastings, if he had left ample leisure to his agent to carry out his purpose, had himself acted with the utmost promptitude, even in so important a matter as sending a mission to Lhasa with the possibility of establishing there a permanent resident. Rapidity of communication has not resulted in the rapidity of the transaction of public affairs, and the consideration of despatching a mission to Lhasa nowadays takes as many years as weeks were occupied in the days of Warren Hastings.
During his passage through Bhutan, Bogle found many obstacles placed in his way; but he eventually left the capital in the middle of October, and on the 23rd of that month reached Phari, at the head of the Chumbi Valley, up which we marched to Lhasa 130 years later. Here he was received by two Lhasa officers, and farther on, at Gyantse, where the Mission of 1904 was attacked and besieged for nearly two months, he was entertained by a priest, “an elderly man of polite and pleasant manners,” who sat with him most of the afternoon, and drank “above twenty cups of tea.” Crowds of people appear to have assembled to look at him, but beyond the irksomeness of these attentions he suffered no inconvenience or opposition.
On November 8, 1774, he arrived at the place near Shigatse where the Tashi Lama was at the time in residence. The day following he had an interview with the Lama, and delivered to him a letter and a necklace of pearls from Warren Hastings. This was the first official interview which had ever taken place between a British officer and a Tibetan, and as such is particularly worthy of note.
The Tashi Lama received Bogle[[2]] “with a very courteous and smiling countenance,” seated him near him on a high stool covered with a carpet, and spoke to him in Hindustani, of which he had “a moderate knowledge.” After inquiring about Warren Hastings’ health, and Bogle’s journey through Bhutan, he introduced the subject of the war in Behar—that is, the Bhutanese invasion of the plains of Bengal. “I always,” said the Lama, “disapproved of Deb Judhur (the Bhutanese Chief) seizing the Behar Raja (the Raja of Kuch Behar) and going to war with the Fringies (the English); but the Deb considered himself as powerful in arms, and would not listen to my advice. After he was defeated, I wrote to the Governor, who, in ceasing hostilities against the Bhutanese, in consequence of my application, and restoring to them their country, has made me very happy, and has done a very pious action. My servants who went to Calcutta were only little men, and the kind reception they had from the Governor I consider as another mark of friendship.”