[20] Sir Thomas Roe was sent in 1614, on an embassy to the Great Mogul. In his letters to the Company, he strongly advised them against the expensive ambition of acquiring territory. He tells them, “It is greater than trade can bear; for to maintain a garrison will cut out your profit: a war and traffic are incompatible. The Portuguese, notwithstanding their many rich residences, are beggared by keeping of soldiers: and yet their garrisons are but mean. They never made advantage of the Indies since they defended them;—observe this well. It has also been the error of the Dutch, who seek plantations here by the sword. They turn a wonderful stock; they prowl in all places; they possess some of the best: yet their dead pays consume all the gain. Let this be received as a rule, that if you will profit, seek it at sea, and in quiet trade: for without controversy, it is an error to affect garrisons, and land-wars in India.”
Had Sir Thomas been inspired, could he have been a truer prophet? The East India Company, after fighting and conquering in India for two centuries, have found themselves, at the dissolution of their charter, nearly fifty millions in debt; while their trade with China, a country in which they did not possess a foot of land, had become the richest commerce in the world! The article of tea alone returning between three and four millions annually, and was their sole preventive against bankruptcy. Can, indeed, any colonial acquisition be pointed out that is not a loss to the parent state?
[21] Macpherson’s Annals, ii. 652, 662.
[22] Mills, ii. 560–2.
[23] It is said that infanticide, spite of the legal prohibition, is still privately perpetrated to a great extent in Cutch and Guzerat.
[24] Nominally, in 1829; but not actually till considerably later.
[25] Even so recently as 1827 we find some tolerably regal instances of regal gifts to our Indian representatives. Lord and Lady Amherst on a tour in the provinces arrived at Agra. Lady Amherst received a visit from the wife of Hindoo Row and her ladies. They proceeded to invest Lady Amherst with the presents sent for her by the Byza Bhye. They put on her a turban richly adorned with the most costly diamonds, a superb diamond necklace, ear-rings, anklets, bracelets, and amulets of the same, valued at 30,000l. sterling. A complete set of gold ornaments, and another of silver, was then presented. Miss Amherst was next presented with a pearl necklace, valued at 5,000l., and other ornaments of equal beauty and costliness. Other ladies had splendid presents—the whole value of the gifts amounting to 50,000l. sterling!
In the evening came Lord Amherst’s turn. On visiting the Row, his hat was carried out and brought back on a tray covered. The Row uncovered it, and placed it on his lordship’s head, overlaid with the most splendid diamonds. His lordship was then invested with other jewels to the reputed amount of 20,000l. sterling. Presents followed to the members of his suite. Lady Amherst took this opportunity of retiring to the tents of the Hindu ladies, where presents were again given; and a bag of 1000 rupees to her ladyship’s female servants, and 500 rupees to her interpretess.
Oriental Herald, vol. xiv. p. 444.
[26] How clearly these shrewd Indians saw through the designs of their enemies, and how happily they could ridicule them, is shewn by the speech of Garangula, one of their chiefs, when M. de la Barre, the governor in 1684, was proposing one of these hollow alliances. All the time that de la Barre spoke, Garangula kept his eyes fixed on the end of his pipe. As soon as the governor had done, he rose up, and said most significantly, “Yonondio!” (the name they always gave to the governor of Canada), “you must have believed, when you left Quebec, that the sun had burnt up all the forests which render our country inaccessible to the French; or that the lakes had so far overflowed their banks that they had surrounded our castles, and that we could not get out of them. Yes, Yonondio, surely you must have dreamt so, and the curiosity of seeing so great a wonder has brought you so far. Now you are undeceived, since I and the warriors here present, are come to assure you that the Senekas, Cayugas, Onondagas, Oneidas, and Mohawks, are yet alive! I thank you, in their name, for bringing back into their country the Calumut which your predecessor received from their hands. It was happy for you that you left under ground that murdering hatchet that has been so often dyed in the blood of the French. Hear, Yonondio! I do not sleep; I have my eyes open; and the sun which enlightens me, shews me a great captain at the head of a company of soldiers, who speaks as if he were dreaming. He says that he came to the lake to smoke on the great Calumut with the Onondagas; but Garangula says that he sees to the contrary—it was to knock them on the head, if sickness had not weakened the arms of the French.”