And barter, with their gold, eternal shame.
Pleasures of Hope.
We have in some degree caught a glimpse of the subject of this chapter in the course of the last. The treatment of the native chiefs in our pursuit of territorial possession is in part the treatment of the natives, but it is unhappily a very small part. The scene of exaction, rapacity, and plunder which India became in our hands, and that upon the whole body of the population, forms one of the most disgraceful portions of human history; and while the temptations to it existed in full force, defied all the powers of legislation, or the moral influence of public opinion to check the evil. In vain the East India Company itself, in vain the British Parliament legislated on the subject; in vain did the Court of Directors from year to year, send out the most earnest remonstrances to their servants,—the allurement was too splendid, the opportunities too seducing, the example too general, the security too great, to permit any one to attend to either law, remonstrance, or the voice of humanity. The fame of India, as a vast region of inexhaustible wealth, had resounded through the world for ages; the most astonishing notions of it floated through Europe, before the sea-track to it was discovered; and when that was done, the marvellous fortunes made there by bold men, as it were in a single day, and by a single stroke of policy, seemed more than to warrant any previous belief. Men in power received their presents of ten, twenty, or a hundred thousand pounds. Clive, for the assistance of the British army, was presented with the magnificent gift of a jaghire, or hereditary revenue of 30,000l. a year! On another occasion he received his 28,000l., and his fellow-rulers each a similar sum. Hastings received his twenty and his hundred thousand pounds, as familiarly as a gold snuff-box or a piece of plate would be given as a public testimony of respect for popular services, in England. Every man, according to his station and his influence, found the like golden harvest. Who could avoid being inflamed with the thirst for Indian service?—who avoid the most exaggerated anticipations of fortune? It was a land, and a vast land, hedged about with laws of exclusion to all except such as went through the doors of the Company. There were there no interlopers,—no curious, because obstructed observers. There was but one object in going thither, and one interest when there. It was a soil made sacred, or rather, doomed, to the exclusive plunder of a privileged number. The highest officers in the government had the strongest motives to corruption, and therefore could by no possibility attempt to check the the same corruption in those below them. When the power and influence of the Company became considerably extended over Bengal, Bahar, Orissa, Oude, the Carnatic, and Bombay, the harvest of presents grew into a most affluent one. Nothing was to be expected, no chance of justice, of attention, of alleviation from the most abominable oppression, but through the medium of presents, and those of such amounts as fairly astonish European ears. Every man, in every department, whether civil, military, or mercantile, was in the certain receipt of splendid presents. When the government had found it necessary to forbid the receipt of presents by any individual in the service, not only for themselves, but for the Company, the highest officers set the laws at defiance, and the mischief was made more secret, but not less existent.
But besides presents and official incomes, there were the farming of the revenues, and domestic trade, which opened up boundless sources of profit. The revenues were received in each district by zemindars from the ryots or husbandmen, and handed, after a fixed deduction, to the chief office of the revenue. But between these zemindars and the ryots were aumils, or other inferior officers, who farmed the revenues in each lesser district or village; that is, contracted with the zemindars for the revenues at a certain sum, and took the trouble of exacting them from the ryots, who paid a rate fixed by law or ancient custom, and could not be turned out of their lands while such rate was regularly paid. Wherever the English obtained a claim over the revenues of a prince, which we have seen they speedily did, they soon became the zemindars, or their agents, the aumils, or other middlemen between them and the ryots. Anciently, the ryots paid one tenth of their produce, for all their taxes were paid in kind, but in time the rate grew to more than half. When the English power became more fixed and open, and it was found that under the native zemindars the exactions of the revenues did not at all satisfy their demands, they took on themselves the whole business of collecting these revenues. This, as we shall see, on the evidence of the Company’s own officers, became a dreadful system to the people. The Mahomedan exactions had been generally regarded more considerate than those of the native Hindu chiefs; but the grinding pressure of the English system brought on the unfortunate ryot the most unexampled misery. Of this, however, anon. It only requires here to be pointed out as one of the various sources of enormous profits and jobbing which made India so irresistibly attractive to Englishmen.
The private trade was another grand source of revenue. The public trade, that is, the transit of goods to and from Europe, was the peculiar monopoly of the Company; but all coasting trade—trade to and between the isles, and in the interior of India, became a monopoly of the higher servants of the Company, who were at once engaged in the Company’s concerns and their own. The monopoly of salt, opium, betel, and other commodities became a mine of wealth. The Company’s servants could fix the price at whatever rate they pleased, and thus enhance it to the unfortunate people so as to occasion them the most intense distress. Fortunes were made in a day by this monopoly, and without the advance of a single shilling. The very Governor-general himself engaged in this private trade; and contracts were given to favourites on such terms, that two or three fortunes were made out of them before they reached the merchant. In one case that came out on the trial of Warren Hastings, a contract for opium had been given to Mr. Sullivan, though he was going into quite a different part of India, and on public business; this, of course, he sold again, to Mr. Benn, for 40,000l.; and Mr. Benn immediately sold it again for 60,000l., clearing 20,000l. by the mere passing of the contract from one hand to the other; and the purchaser then declared that he made a large sum by it.
All these things put together, made India the theatre of sure and splendid fortune to the adventurer, and of sore and abject misery to the native. We have only to look about us in any part of England, but especially in the metropolis, and within fifty miles round it, to see what streams of wealth have flowed into this country from India. What thousands of splendid mansions and estates are lying in view, which, when the traveller inquires their history, have been purchased by the gold of India. We are told that those days of magical accumulation of wealth are over; that this great fountain of affluence is drained comparatively dry; that fortunes are not now readily made in India; yet the Company, though they have lost their monopoly of trade, and their territories are laid open to the free observation of their countrymen, are in possession of the government with a revenue of twenty millions. But all this time, what has been doing with and for the natives. We shall see that anon; yet it may here be asked, What could be doing? For what did men go to India? For what did they endure its oppressive and often fatal climate? Was it from philanthropical or personal motives? Did they seek the good of the Indians or their own? The latter, assuredly: and it was not to be expected that the majority of men should be so high-minded or disinterested as to seek the good of others at the expense of their own. The temptations to visit India were powerful, but not the less powerful were the motives to hasten away at the very earliest possible period. It was not to be expected from human nature that the natives could be much thought of. What has been done for them by the devoted few, we shall recognise with delight; at present we must revert to the evil influences of nearly two hundred years.
Amongst the first to claim our attention, are those doings in high places which have excited so strongly the cupidity of thousands, and especially those dazzling presents which became the direct causes of the most violent exactions on the people, for out of them had all these things to be drawn. The Company could, indeed, with a very bad grace, condemn bribery in its officers, for it has always been accused of this evil practice at home in order to obtain its exclusive privileges from government; and so early as 1693, it appeared from parliamentary inquiry, that its annual expenditure under the head of gifts to men in power previous to the Revolution, seldom exceeded 1,200l., but from that period to that year it had grown to nearly 90,000l. annually. The Duke of Leeds was impeached for a bribe of 5,000l., and 10,000l. were even said to be traced to the king.[21] Besides this, whenever any rival company appeared in the field, government was tempted with the loans of enormous sums, at the lowest interest. Like fruits were to be expected in India, and were not long wanting. We cannot trace this subject to its own vast extent—it would require volumes—we can only offer a few striking examples:—
None can be more remarkable than the following list, which, besides sums that we may suppose it to have been in the power of the receivers to conceal, and of the amount of which it is not easy to form a conjecture, were detected and disclosed by the Committee of the House of Commons in 1773.
The rupees are valued according to the rate of exchange of the Company’s bills at the different periods.
Account of such sums as have been proved or acknowledged before the Committee to have been distributed by the Princes and other natives of Bengal, from the year 1757 to the year 1766, both inclusive; distinguishing the principal times of the said distributions, and specifying the sums received by each person respectively:—