Part 2 — Chapter III. (These four articles abrogated by the four articles following them, 118-122.) Article 118. The Federal Constitution may at any time be amended. (continued 81)

Sir A. Lyall, Warren Hastings, chapter 9.

ALSO IN: E. Burke, Works, volumes 8-12.

Speeches of Managers and Counsel in the Trial of Warren Hastings, edited by E. A. Bond.

INDIA: A. D. 1798-1805. The administration and imperial policy of the Marquis Wellesley. Treaty with the Nizam. Overthrow and death of Tippoo, Sultan of Mysore. War with the Mahrattas. Assaye and Laswari. Territorial acquisitions.

"The period of Sir John Shore's rule as Governor-General, from 1793 to 1798 [after which he became Lord Teignmouth], was uneventful. In 1798, Lord Mornington, better known as the Marquis of Wellesley, arrived in India, already inspired with imperial projects which were destined to change the map of the country. Mornington was the friend and favourite of Pitt, from whom he is thought to have derived his far-reaching political vision, and his antipathy to the French name. From the first he laid down as his guiding principle, that the English must be the one paramount power in the peninsula, and that Native princes could only retain the insignia of sovereignty by surrendering their political independence. The history of India since his time has been but the gradual development of this policy, which received its finishing touch when Queen Victoria was proclaimed Empress of India on the 1st of January, 1877. To frustrate the possibility of a French invasion of India, led by Napoleon in person, was the governing idea of Wellesley's foreign policy. France at this time, and for many years later, filled the place afterwards occupied by Russia in the minds of Indian statesmen. Nor was the danger so remote as might now be thought. French regiments guarded and overawed the Nizam of Haidarabad. The soldiers of Sindhia, the military head of the Marhatta Confederacy, were disciplined and led by French adventurers. Tipu Sultan of Mysore carried on a secret correspondence with the French Directorate, allowed a tree of liberty to be planted in his dominions, and enrolled himself in a republican club as 'Citizen Tipu.' The islands of Mauritius and Bourbon afforded a convenient half-way rendezvous for French intrigue and for the assembling of a hostile expedition. Above all, Napoleon Buonaparte was then in Egypt, dreaming of the conquests of Alexander, and no man knew in what direction he might turn his hitherto unconquered legions. Wellesley conceived the scheme of crushing for ever the French hopes in Asia, by placing himself at the head of a great Indian confederacy. In Lower Bengal, the sword of Clive and the policy of Warren Hastings had made the English paramount. Before the end of the century, our power was consolidated from the seaboard to Benares, high up the Gangetic valley. … In 1801, the treaty of Lucknow made over to the British the Doab, or fertile tract between the Ganges and the Jumna, together with Rohilkhand. In Southern India, our possessions were chiefly confined, before Lord Wellesley, to the coast Districts of Madras and Bombay. Wellesley resolved to make the British supreme as far as Delhi in Northern India, and to compel the great powers of the south to enter into subordinate relations to the Company's government. The intrigues of the Native princes gave him his opportunity for carrying out this plan without breach of faith. The time had arrived when the English must either become supreme in India, or be driven out of it. The Mughal Empire was completely broken up; and the sway had to pass either to the local Muhammadan governors of that empire, or to the Hindu Confederacy represented by the Marhattas, or to the British. Lord Wellesley determined that it should pass to the British. His work in Northern India was at first easy. The treaty of Lucknow in 1801 made us territorial rulers as far as the heart of the present North-Western Provinces, and established our political influence in Oudh. Beyond those limits, the northern branches of the Marhattas practically held sway, with the puppet emperor in their hands. Lord Wellesley left them untouched for a few years, until the second Marhatta war (1802-1804) gave him an opportunity for dealing effectively with their nation as a whole. In Southern India, he saw that the Nizam at Haidarabad stood in need of his protection, and he converted him into a useful follower throughout the succeeding struggle. The other Muhammadan power of the south, Tipu Sultan of Mysore, could not be so easily handled. {1730} Lord Wellesley resolved to crush him, and had ample provocation for so doing. The third power of Southern India—namely, the Marhatta Confederacy—was so loosely organized, that Lord Wellesley seems at first to have hoped to live on terms with it. When several years of fitful alliance had convinced him that he had to choose between the supremacy of the Marhattas or of the British in Southern India, he did not hesitate to decide. Lord Wellesley first addressed himself to the weakest of the three southern powers, the Nizam of Haidarabad. Here he won a diplomatic success, which turned a possible rival into a subservient ally. The French battalions at Haidarabad were disbanded, and the Nizam bound himself by treaty not to take any European into his service without the consent of the English Government,—a clause since inserted in every engagement entered into with Native powers. Wellesley next turned the whole weight of his resources against Tipu, whom Cornwallis had defeated, but not subdued. Tipu's intrigues with the French were laid bare, and he was given an opportunity of adhering to the new subsidiary system. On his refusal, war was declared, and Wellesley came down in viceregal state to Madras to organize the expedition in person, and to watch over the course of events. One English army marched into Mysore from Madras, accompanied by a contingent from the Nizam. Another advanced from the western coast. Tipu, after a feeble resistance in the field, retired into Seringapatam, and, when his capital was stormed, died fighting bravely in the breach (1799). Since the battle of Plassey, no event so greatly impressed the Native imagination as the capture of Seringapatam, which won for General Harris a peerage, and for Wellesley an Irish marquisate. In dealing with the territories of Tipu, Wellesley acted with moderation. The central portion, forming the old state of Mysore, was restored to an infant representative of the Hindu Rajas, whom Haidar Ali had dethroned; the rest of Tipu's dominion was partitioned between the Nizam, the Marhattas, and the English. At about the same time, the Karnatic, or the part of South-Eastern India ruled by the Nawab of Arcot, and also the principality of Tanjore, were placed under direct British administration, thus constituting the Madras Presidency almost as it has existed to the present day. … The Marhattas had been the nominal allies of the English in both their wars with Tipu. But they had not rendered active assistance, nor were they secured to the English side as the Nizam now was. The Marhatta powers at this time were five in number. The recognised head of the confederacy was the Peshwa of Poona, who ruled the hill country of the Western Ghats, the cradle of the Marhatta race. The fertile Province of Guzerat was annually harried by the horsemen of the Gaekwar of Baroda. In Central India, two military leaders, Sindhia of Gwalior and Holkar of Indore, alternately held the pre-eminence. Towards the east, the Bhonsla Raja of Nagpur reigned from Berar to the coast of Orissa. Wellesley laboured to bring these several Marhatta powers within the net of his subsidiary system. In 1802, the necessities of the Peshwa, who had been defeated by Holkar, and driven as a fugitive into British territory, induced him to sign the treaty of Bassein. By this he pledged himself to the British to hold communications with no other power, European or Native, and granted to us Districts for the maintenance of a subsidiary force. This greatly extended the English territorial influence in the Bombay Presidency. But it led to the second Marhatta war, as neither Sindhia nor the Raja of Nagpur would tolerate the Peshwa's betrayal of the Marhatta independence. The campaigns which followed are perhaps the most glorious in the history of the British arms in India. The general plan, and the adequate provision of resources, were due to the Marquis of Wellesley, as also the indomitable spirit which refused to admit of defeat. The armies were led by Sir Arthur Wellesley (afterwards Duke of Wellington) and General (afterwards Lord) Lake. Wellesley operated in the Deccan, where in a few short months, he won the decisive victories of Assaye [September 23, 1803] and Argaum [November 28], and captured Ahmednagar. Lake's campaign in Hindustan was equally brilliant, although it has received less notice from historians. He won pitched battles at Aligarh [August 29] and Laswari [November 1, 1803], and took the cities of Delhi and Agra. He scattered the French troops of Sindhia, and at the same time stood forward as the champion of the Mughal Emperor in his hereditary capital. Before the end of 1803, both Sindhia and the Bhonsla Raja of Nagpur sued for peace. Sindhia ceded all claims to the territory north of the Jumna, and left the blind old Emperor Shah Alam once more under British protection. The Bhonsla forfeited Orissa to the English, who had already occupied it with a flying column in 1803, and Berar to the Nizam, who gained fresh territory by every act of complaisance to the British Government. … The concluding years of Wellesley's rule were occupied with a series of operations against Holkar, which brought little credit on the British name. The disastrous retreat of Colonel Monson through Central India (1804) recalled memories of the convention of Wargaum, and of the destruction of Colonel Baillie's force by Haidar Ali. The repulse of Lake in person at the siege of Bhartpur (Bhurtpore) is memorable as an instance of a British army in India having to turn back with its object unaccomplished (1805). Bhartpur was not finally taken till 1827. Lord Wellesley during his six years of office carried out almost every part of his territorial scheme. In Northern India, Lord Lake's campaigns brought the North-Western provinces (the ancient Madhyadesa) under British rule, together with the custody of the puppet emperor. The new Districts were amalgamated with those previously acquired from the Nawab Wazir of Oudh into the 'Ceded and Conquered Provinces.' This partition of Northern India remained till the Sikh wars of 1844 and 1847 gave us the Punjab."

W. W. Hunter, Brief History of the Indian People, chapter 13.

ALSO IN: W. H. Maxwell, Life of the Duke of Wellington, volume 1, chapters 2-12.

J. M. Wilson. Memoir of Wellington, volume 1, chapters 2-9.

G. B. Malleson, Decisive Battles of India, chapters 9-10.

W. H. Hutton, The Marquess Wellesley.

J. S. Cotton, Mountstuart Elphinstone, chapter 4.

{1731}

INDIA: A. D. 1805-1816. Reversal of Lord Wellesley's policy. Sepoy revolt at Vellore. Influence established with Runjeet Singh and the Sikhs. Conquest of the Mauritius. The Ghorka War.

"The retreat of Monson was not only a disastrous blow to British prestige, but ruined for a while the reputation of Lord Wellesley. Because a Mahratta freebooter had broken loose in Hindustan, the Home authorities imagined that all the Mahratta powers had risen against the imperial policy of the Governor-General. Lord Wellesley was recalled from his post, and Lord Cornwallis was sent out to take his place, to reverse the policy of his illustrious predecessor, to scuttle out of Western Hindustan, to restore all the ceded territories, to surrender all the captured fortresses, and to abandon large tracts of country to be plundered and devastated by the Mahrattas, as they had been from the days of Sivaji to those of Wellesley and Lake. Before Lord Cornwallis reached Bengal the political outlook had brightened. … But Lord Cornwallis was sixty-seven years of age, and had lost the nerve which he had displayed in his wars against Tippu; and he would have ignored the turn of the tide, and persisted in falling back on the old policy of conciliation and non-intervention, had not death cut short his career before he had been ten weeks in the country. Sir George Barlow, a Bengal civilian, succeeded for a while to the post of Governor-General, as a provisional arrangement. He had been a member of Council under both Wellesley and Cornwallis, and he halted between the two. He refused to restore the conquered territories to Sindia and the Bhonsla, but he gave back the Indore principality to Holkar, together with the captured fortresses. Worst of all, he annulled most of the protective treaties with the Rajput princes on the ground that they had deserted the British government during Monson's retreat from Jaswant Rao Holkar. For some years the policy of the British government was a half-hearted system of non-intervention. … The Mahratta princes were left to plunder and collect chout [a blackmail extortion, levied by the Mahrattas for a century] in Rajputana, and practically to make war on each other, so long as they respected the territories of the British government and its allies. … All this while an under-current of intrigue was at work between Indian courts, which served in the end to revive wild hopes of getting rid of British supremacy, and rekindling the old aspirations for war and rapine. In 1806 the peace of India was broken by an alarm from a very different quarter. In those days India was so remote from the British Isles that the existence of the British government mainly depended on the loyalty of its sepoy armies. Suddenly it was discovered that the Madras army was on the brink of mutiny. The British authorities at Madras had introduced an obnoxious head-dress resembling a European hat, in the place of the old time-honoured turban, and had, moreover, forbidden the sepoys to appear on parade with earrings and caste marks. India was astounded by a revolt of the Madras sepoys at the fortress of Vellore, about eight miles to the westward of Arcot. … The garrison at Vellore consisted of about 400 Europeans and 1,500 sepoys. At midnight, without warning, the sepoys rose in mutiny. One body fired on the European barracks until half the soldiers were killed or wounded. Another body fired on the houses of the British officers, and shot them down as they rushed out to know the cause of the uproar. All this while provisions were distributed amongst the sepoys by the Mysore princes, and the flag of Mysore was hoisted over the fortress. Fortunately the news was carried to Arcot, where Colonel Gillespie commanded a British garrison. Gillespie at once galloped to Vellore with a troop of British dragoons and two field guns. The gates of Vellore were blown open; the soldiers rushed in; 400 mutineers were cut down, and the outbreak was over. … In 1807 Lord Minto succeeded Barlow as Governor-General. He broke the spell of non-intervention. … Lord Minto's main work was to keep Napoleon and the French out of India. The north-west frontier was still vulnerable, but the Afghans had retired from the Punjab, and the once famous Runjeet Singh had founded a Sikh kingdom between the Indus and the Sutlej. As far as the British were concerned, the Sikhs formed a barrier against the Afghans; and Runjeet Singh was apparently friendly, for he had refused to shelter Jaswant Rao Holkar in his flight from Lord Lake. But there was no knowing what Runjeet Singh might do if the French found their way to Lahore. To crown the perplexity, the Sikh princes on the British side of the river Sutlej, who had done homage to the British government during the campaigns of Lord Lake, were being conquered by Runjeet Singh, and were appealing to the British government for protection. In 1808-9 a young Bengal civilian, named Charles Metcalfe, was sent on a mission to Lahore. The work before him was difficult and complicated, and somewhat trying to the nerves. The object was to secure Runjeet Singh as a useful ally against the French and Afghans, whilst protecting the Sikh states on the British side of the Sutlej, namely, Jhind, Nabha, and Patiala. Runjeet Singh was naturally disgusted at being checked by British interference. It was unfair, he said, for the British to wait until he had conquered the three states, and then to demand possession. Metcalfe cleverly dropped the question of justice, and appealed to Runjeet Singh's self-interest. By giving up the three states, Runjeet Singh would secure an alliance with the British, a strong frontier on the Sutlej, and freedom to push his conquests on the north and west. Runjeet Singh took the hint. He withdrew his pretensions from the British side of the Sutlej, and professed a friendship which remained unbroken until his death in 1839; but he knew what he was about. He conquered Cashmere on the north, and he wrested Peshawar from the Afghans; but he refused to open his dominions to British trade, and he was jealous to the last of any attempt to enter his territories. … Meanwhile the war against France and Napoleon had extended to eastern waters. The island of the Mauritius had become a French depot for frigates and privateers, which swept the seas from Madagascar to Java, until the East India Company reckoned its losses by millions, and private traders were brought to the brink of ruin. Lord Minto sent one expedition [1810], which wrested the Mauritius from the French; and he conducted another expedition in person, which wrested the island of Java from the Dutch, who at that time were the allies of France. The Mauritius has remained a British possession until this day, but Java was restored to Holland at the conclusion of the war. … Meanwhile war clouds were gathering on the southern slopes of the Himalayas. {1732} Down to the middle of the 18th century, the territory of Nipal had been peopled by a peaceful and industrious race of Buddhists known as Newars, but about the year 1767, when the British had taken over the Bengal provinces, the Newars were conquered by a Rajput tribe from Cashmere, known as Ghorkas. The Ghorka conquest of Nipal was as complete as the Norman conquest of England. The Ghorkas established a military despotism with Brahmanical institutions, and parcelled out the country amongst feudal nobles known as Bharadars. … During the early years of the 19th century the Ghorkas began to encroach on British territory, annexing villages and revenues from Darjeeling to Simla without right or reason. They were obviously bent on extending their dominion southward to the Ganges, and for a long time aggressions were overlooked for the sake of peace. At last two districts were appropriated to which the Ghorkas had not a shadow of a claim, and it was absolutely necessary to make a stand against their pretensions. Accordingly, Lord Minto sent an ultimatum to Khatmandu, declaring that unless the districts were restored they would be recovered by force of arms. Before the answer arrived, Lord Minto was succeeded in the post of Governor-General by Lord Moira, better known by his later title of Marquis of Hastings. Lord Moira landed at Calcutta in 1813. Shortly after his arrival an answer was received from the Ghorka government, that the disputed districts belonged to Nipal, and would not be surrendered. Lord Moira at once fixed a day on which the districts were to be restored; and when the day had passed without any action being taken by the Ghorkas, a British detachment entered the districts and set up police stations. … The council of Bharadars resolved on war, but they did not declare it in European fashion. A Ghorka army suddenly entered the disputed districts, surrounded the police stations, and murdered many of the constables, and then returned to Khatmandu to await the action of the British government in the way of reprisals. The war against the Ghorkas was more remote and more serious than the wars against the Mahrattas. … Those who have ascended the Himalayas to Darjeeling or Simla may realise something of the difficulties of an invasion of Nipal. The British army advanced in four divisions by four different routes. … General David Ochterlony, who advanced his division along the valley of the Sutlej, gained the most brilliant successes. He was one of the half-forgotten heroes of the East India Company. … For five months in the worst season of the year he carried one fortress after another, until the enemy made a final stand at Maloun on a shelf of the Himalayas. The Ghorkas made a desperate attack on the British works, but the attempt failed; and when the British batteries were about to open fire, the Ghorka garrison came to terms, and were permitted to march out with the honours of war. The fall of Maloun shook the faith of the Ghorka government in their heaven-built fortresses. Commissioners were sent to conclude a peace. Nipal agreed to cede Kumaon in the west, and the southern belt of forest and jungle known as the Terai. It also agreed to receive a British Resident at Khatmandu. Lord Moira had actually signed the treaty, when the Ghorkas raised the question of whether the Terai included the forest or only the swamp. War was renewed. Ochterlony advanced an army within fifty miles of Khatmandu, and then the Ghorkas concluded the treaty [1816], and the British army withdrew from Nipal. The Terai, however, was a bone of contention for many years afterwards. Nothing was said about a subsidiary army, and to this day Nipal is outside the pale of subsidiary alliances; but Nipal is bound over not to take any European into her service without the consent of the British government."

J. T. Wheeler, India under British Rule, chapter 3.

ALSO IN: J. D. Cunningham, History of the Sikhs, chapters 5-6.

E. Thornton, History of British Empire in India, chapters 21-24 (volume 4).

INDIA: A. D. 1816-1819. Suppression of the Pindaris. Overthrow of the Mahratta power. The last of the Peshwas.

"For some time past the Pindaris, a vast brotherhood of mounted freebooters, who were ready to fight under any standard for the chance of unbounded plunder, had been playing a more and more prominent part in the wars of native princes. As Free Lances, they had fought for the Peshwa at Panipat, had shared in the frequent struggles of the Sindhias and Holkars in Hindustan and Southern India, and made war on their own account with every native prince whose weakness at any moment seemed to invite attack. … From the hills and glens of Central India thousands of armed ruffians sallied forth year after year in quest of plunder, sparing no cruelty to gain their ends, and widening the circle of their ravages with each new raid, until in 1811 the smoke of their camp-fires could be seen from Gaya and Mirzapur. … To thwart Maratha intrigues and punish Pindari aggressions was the Governor-General's next aim. In spite of hindrances offered by his own council and the Court of Directors, he set himself to revive and extend Lord Wellesley's policy of securing peace and order throughout India by means of treaties, which placed one native prince after another in a kind of vassalage to the paramount power that ruled from Fort William. … By means of a little timely compulsion, the able and accomplished Elphinstone baffled for a while the plots which the Peshwa, Baji Rao, and his villainous accomplice, Trimbakji Danglia, had woven against their English allies. The treaty of June, 1817, left Lord Hastings master of Sagar and Bundalkhand, while it bound the Peshwa to renounce his friend Trimbakji, his own claims to the headship of the Maratha League, to make no treaties with any other native prince, and to accept in all things the counsel and control of the Company's Government. Hard as these terms may seem, there was no choice, averred Lord Hastings, between thus crippling a secret foe and depriving him of the crown he had fairly forfeited. Meanwhile Lord Hastings' fearless energy had already saved the Rajputs of Jaipur from further suffering at the hands of their Pathan oppressor, Amir Khan, and forced from Sindia himself a reluctant promise to aid in suppressing the Pindari hordes, whose fearful ravages had at length been felt by the peaceful villagers in the Northern Sarkars. In the autumn of 1817 Hastings took the field at the head of an army which, counting native contingents, mustered nearly 120,000 strong, with some 300 guns. From east, west, north, and south, a dozen columns set forth to hunt down the merciless ruffians who had so long been allowed to harry the fairest provinces of India. {1733} In spite of the havoc wrought among our troops by the great cholera outbreak of that year, and of a sudden rising among the Maratha princes for one last struggle with their former conquerors, our arms were everywhere successful against Marathas and Pindaris alike. The latter, hunted into the hills and jungles of Central India, found no safety anywhere except in small bodies and constant flight … and the famous robber-league passed into a tale of yore. Not less swift and sure was the punishment dealt upon the Maratha leaders who joined the Peshwa in his sudden uprising against the British power. His late submission had been nothing but a mask for renewed plottings. Elphinstone, however, saw through the mask which had taken in the confiding Malcolm. Before the end of October an English regiment, summoned in hot haste from Bombay, pitched its camp at Kirki, about two miles from Puna, beside the small Sepoy brigade already quartered there. In the first days of November Baji Rao began to assume a bolder tone as his plans grew ripe for instant execution. On the 5th, a body of Marathas attacked and destroyed the Residency, which Elphinstone had quitted in the nick of time. A great Maratha army then marched forth to overwhelm the little garrison at Kirki, before fresh troops could come up to its aid from Sirur. Elphinstone, however, who knew his foe, had no idea of awaiting the attack. Colonel Burr at once led out his men, not 3,000 all told. A brilliant charge of Maratha horse was heavily repulsed by a Sepoy regiment, and the English steadily advancing drove the enemy from the field. A few days later General Smith, at the head of a larger force, advanced on Puna, occupied the city, and pursued the frightened Peshwa from place to place. The heroic defence of Karigaum, a small village on the Bhima, by Captain Staunton and 800 Sepoys, with only two light guns, against 25,000 Marathas during a whole day, proved once more how nobly native troops could fight under English leading. Happily for Staunton's weary and diminished band, Smith came up the next morning, and the desponding Peshwa continued his retreat. Turn where he would, there was no rest for his jaded soldiers. Munro with a weak force, partly of his own raising, headed him on his way to the Carnatic, took several of his strong places, and drove him northwards within reach of General Smith. On the 19th February, 1818, that officer overtook and routed the flying foe at the village of Ashti. Bapu Gokla, the Peshwa's staunchest and ablest follower, perished in the field, while covering the retreat of his cowardly master. For some weeks longer Baji Rao fled hither and thither before his resolute pursuers. But at length all hope forsook him as the circle of escape grew daily narrower; and in the middle of May the great-grandson of Balaji Vishwanath yielded himself to Sir John Malcolm at Indor, on terms far more liberal than he had any reason to expect. Even for the faithful few who still shared his fortunes due provision was made at his request. He himself spent the rest of his days a princely pensioner at Bithur, near Cawnpore; but the sceptre which he and his sires had wielded for a hundred years passed into English hands, while the Rajah of Satara, the long-neglected heir of the house of Sivaji, was restored to the nominal headship of the Maratha power. Meanwhile Appa Sahib, the usurping Rajah of Berar, had no sooner heard of the outbreak at Puna, than he, too, like the Peshwa, threw off his mask. On the evening of the 24th November, 1817, his troops, to the number of 18,000, suddenly attacked the weak English and Sepoy force of 1,400 men with four guns, posted on the Sitabaldi Hills, outside Nagpur. A terrible fight for eighteen hours ended in the repulse of the assailants, with a loss to the victors of more than 300 men and twelve officers. A few weeks later Nagpur itself was occupied after another fight. Even then the Rajah might have kept his throne, for his conquerors were merciful and hoped the best. But they hoped in vain. It was not long before Appa Sahib, caught out in fresh intrigues, was sent off a prisoner towards Allahabad. Escaping from his captors, he wandered about the country for several years, and died at Lahor a pensioner on the bounty of Ranjit Singh. The house of Holkar had also paid the penalty of its rash resistance to our arms. … On the 6th January, 1818, the young Holkar was glad to sign a treaty which placed him and his heirs under English protection at the cost of his independence and of some part of his realm. Luckily for himself, Sindia had remained quiet, if not quite loyal, throughout this last struggle between the English and his Maratha kinsfolk. Thus in one short and decisive campaign, the great Maratha power, which had survived the slaughter of Panipat, fell shattered to pieces by the same blow which crushed the Pindaris, and raised an English merchant-company to the paramount lordship of all India. The last of the Peshwas had ceased to reign, the Rajah of Berar was a discrowned fugitive, the Rajah of Satara a king only in name, while Sindia, Holkar, and the Nizam were dependent princes who reigned only by sufferance of an English Governor-General at Calcutta. The Moghal Empire lingered only in the Palace of Dehli; its former viceroy, the Nawab of Audh, was our obedient vassal; the haughty princes of Rajputana bowed their necks, more or less cheerfully, to the yoke of masters merciful as Akbar and mightier than Aurangzib. Ranjit Singh himself cultivated the goodwill of those powerful neighbours who had sheltered the Sikhs of Sirhind from his ambitious inroads. With the final overthrow of the Marathas a new reign of peace, order, and general progress began for peoples who, during a hundred and fifty years, had lived in a ceaseless whirl of anarchy and armed strife. With the capture of Asirgarh in April, 1819, the fighting in Southern India came to an end."

L. J. Trotter, History of India, book 5, chapters 2-3.

ALSO IN: W. M. Torrens, Empire in Asia: How we came by it, chapters 19-20.

J. G. Duff, History of the Mahrattas, volume 3, chapters 17-20.

Major Ross-of-Bladensburg, The Marquess of Hastings, chapters 4-7.

INDIA: A. D. 1823-1833. The first Burmese War. English acquisition of Assam and Aracan. Suppression of Suttee and Thuggee. Rechartering of the East India Company. It is deprived of its last trading monopoly.

"On Hastings' retirement, in 1823, the choice of the ministry fell upon Canning. … Canning ultimately resigning the Governor-Generalship, the choice of the authorities fell upon Lord Amherst. The new Governor-General reached India at a time when the authorities in London had a right to expect a long period of peace. {1734} In fact, both in Hindostan and in the Deccan, the victories of Hastings had left the Company no more enemies to conquer. Unfortunately, however, for the prospects of peace, nature, which had given India an impenetrable boundary on the north, had left her with an undefined and open frontier on the east. On the shores of the Bay of Bengal, opposite Calcutta, a struggle had raged during the eighteenth century between the inhabitants of Ava and Pegu. The former, known as Burmans or Burmese, had the good fortune to find a capable leader, who rapidly ensured their own victory and founded a Burmese Empire. The successful competitors were not satisfied with their own predominance in Pegu—they conquered Aracan, they overran Assam, and they wrested from Siam a considerable territory on the Tenasserim coast. The conquest of Aracan brought the Burmese to the confines of the Company's dominions in Chittagong. The conquered people, disliking the severe rule of the conquerors, crossed the frontier and settled in British territory. Many of them used their new home as a secure basis for hostile raids on the Burmese. … The river Naf ran for a portion of its course between the possessions of the British in Chittagong and those of the Burmese in Aracan. With the object of preventing the repetition of outrages, which had occurred on the river, a small British guard was stationed on a little island, called Shaporee, near its mouth. The Burmese, claiming the island as their own, attacked the guard and drove it from the post. It was impossible to ignore such a challenge. The island was reoccupied; but the Governor-General, still anxious for peace, offered to treat its occupation by the Burmese as an action unauthorised by the Burmese Government. The Burmese Court, however, instead of accepting this offer, sent an army to reoccupy the island; collisions almost simultaneously occurred between the British and the Burmese on other parts of the frontier, and in February 1824 the first Burmese war began. … If the war of 1824 may be excused as inevitable, its conduct must be condemned as careless. No pains were taken to ascertain the nature of the country which it was requisite to invade, or the strength of the enemy whom it was decided to encounter. … Burma is watered by two great rivers, the Irawaddy and the Salwen. … In its upper waters the Irawaddy is a rapid stream; in its lower waters it flows through alluvial plains, and finds its way through a delta with nine mouths into the Bay of Bengal. On one of its western mouths is the town of Bassein, on one of its eastern mouths the great commercial port of Rangoon. The banks of the river are clothed with jungle and with forest; and malaria, the curse of all low-lying tropical lands, always lingers in the marshes. The authorities decided on invading Burma through the Rangoon branch of the river. They gave Sir Archibald Campbell, an officer who had won distinction in the Peninsula, the command of the expedition, and, as a preliminary measure, they determined to seize Rangoon. Its capture was accomplished with ease, and the Burmese retired from the town. But the victory was the precursor of difficulty. The troops dared not advance in an unhealthy season; the supplies which they had brought with them proved insufficient for their support; and the men perished by scores during their period of forced inaction. … When more favourable weather returned with the autumn, Campbell was again able to advance. Burma was then attacked from three separate bases. A force under Colonel Richards, moving along the valley of the Bramaputra, conquered Assam; an expedition under General Morrison, marching from Chittagong, occupied Aracan; while Campbell himself, dividing his army into two divisions, one moving by water, the other by land, passed up the Irawaddy and captured Donabue and Prome. The climate improved as the troops ascended the river, and the hot weather of 1825 proved less injurious than the summer of 1824. … The operations in 1825-6 drove home the lesson which the campaign of 1824-5 had already taught. The Burmese realised their impotence to resist, and consented to accept the terms which the British were still ready to offer them. Assam, Aracan, and the Tenasserim Coast were ceded to the Company; the King of Burma consented to receive a Resident at his capital, and to pay a very large sum of money—£1,000,000—towards the expenses of the war. … The increasing credit which the Company thus acquired did not add to the reputation of the Governor-General. … The Company complained of the vast additions which his rule had made to expenditure, and they doubted the expediency of acquiring new and unnecessary territory beyond the confines of India itself. The ministry thought that these acquisitions were opposed to the policy which Parliament had laid down, and to the true interests of the empire. It decided on his recall. … William Bentinck, whom Canning selected as Amherst's successor, was no stranger to Indian soil. More than twenty years before he had served as Governor of Madras. … Bentinck arrived in Calcutta in difficult times. Amherst's war had saddled the Government with a debt, and his successor with a deficit. … Retrenchment, in the opinion of every one qualified to judge, was absolutely indispensable, and Bentinck, as a matter of fact, brought out specific instructions to retrench. … In two other matters … Bentinck effected a change which deserves to be recollected with gratitude. He had the courage to abolish flogging in the native Indian army; he had the still higher courage to abolish suttee. … In Bengal the suttee, or 'the pure and virtuous woman,' who became a widow, was required to show her devotion to her husband by sacrificing herself on his funeral pile. … Successive Governors-General, whose attention had been directed to this barbarous practice, had feared to incur the unpopularity of abolishing it. … Cornwallis and Wellesley, Hastings and Amherst, were all afraid to prohibit murder which was identified with religion, and it was accordingly reserved to Bentinck to remove the reproach of its existence. With the consent of his Council, suttee was declared illegal. The danger which others had apprehended from its prohibition proved a mere phantom. The Hindoos complied with the order without attempting to resist it, and the horrible rite which had disgraced the soil of India for centuries became entirely unknown. For these humane regulations Bentinck deserves to be remembered with gratitude. Yet it should not be forgotten that these reforms were as much the work of his age as of himself. … One other great abuse was terminated under Bentinck. {1735} In Central India life was made unsafe and travelling dangerous by the establishment of a secret band of robbers known as Thugs. The Thugs mingled with any travellers whom they met, disarmed them by their conversation and courtesy, and availed themselves of the first convenient spot in their journey to strangle them with a rope and to rob them of their money. The burial of the victim usually concealed all traces of the crime; the secrecy of the confederates made its revelation unlikely; and, to make treachery more improbable, the Thugs usually consecrated their murders with religious rites, and claimed their god as the patron of their misdoings. Bentinck selected an active officer, Major Sleeman, whom he charged to put down Thuggee. Sleeman's exertions were rewarded by a gratifying success. The Thugs, like all secret societies, were assailable in one way. The first discovery of crime always produces an approver. The timid conspirator, conscious of his guilt, is glad to purchase his own safety by sacrificing his associates, and when one man turns traitor every member of the band is anxious to secure the rewards and immunity of treachery. Hence the first clue towards the practices of the Thugs led to the unveiling of the whole organisation; and the same statesman, who had the merit of forbidding suttee, succeeded in extirpating Thuggee from the dominions over which he ruled. Social reforms of this character occupy the greater portion of the history of Bentinck's government. In politics he almost always pursued a policy of non-intervention. The British during his rule made few additions to their possessions; they rarely interfered in the affairs of Native states. … The privileges which the East India, Company enjoyed had from time to time been renewed by the British Parliament. The charter of the Company had been extended for a period of twenty years in 1773, in 1793, and in 1813. But the conditions on which it was continued in 1813 were very different from those on which it had been originally granted. Instead of maintaining its exclusive right of trade, Parliament decided on throwing open the trade with India to all British subjects. It left the Company a monopoly of the China trade alone. The Act of 1813 of course excited the strenuous opposition of the Company. The highest authorities were brought forward to prove that the trade with India would not be increased by a termination of the monopoly. Their views, however, were proved false by the result, and the stern logic of facts consequently pointed in 1833 to the further extension of the policy of 1813 [see CHINA: A. D. 1839-1842]. … The inclination towards free trade was, in fact, so prevalent, that it is doubtful whether, even if the Tories had remained in office, they would have consented to preserve the monopoly. … The fall of the Wellington administration made its termination a certainty [see ENGLAND: A. D. 1832-1833]. … The Government consented to compensate the Company for the loss of its monopoly by an annuity of £630,000 charged on the territorial revenues of India. It is a remarkable circumstance that the change of ministry which deprived the Company of its trade possibly preserved its political power for nearly a quarter of a century. … The Whig ministry shrank from proposing an alteration for which the country was not prepared, and which might have aroused the opposition by which the Coalition of 1783 had been destroyed. Though, however, it left the rule with Leadenhall Street, it altered the machinery of government. The Governor-General of Bengal was made Governor-General of India. A fourth member—an English jurist—was added to his Council, and the Governor-General in Council was authorised to legislate for the whole of India. At the same time the disabilities which still clung to the natives were in theory swept away, and Europeans were for the first time allowed to hold land in India. These important proposals were carried at the close of the first session of the first reformed Parliament."

S. Walpole, History of England from 1815, chapter 25 (volume 5).

ALSO IN: J. W. Kaye, Administration of the East India Company, parts 3-4.

Sir C. Trevelyan, The Thugs (Edin. Review, January, 1837).

Illustrations of the History of the Thugs.

M. Taylor, Confessions of a Thug, introduction.

D. C. Boulger, Lord William Bentinck, chapters 4-6.

INDIA: A. D. 1836-1845. The first Afghan war and its catastrophe. Conquest and annexation of Scinde. Threatened trouble with the Sikhs.

"With the accession of Lord Auckland, Bentinck's successor, began a new era in Anglo-Indian history, in which the long-sown seeds of fresh political complications, which even now seem as far from solution as ever, began to put forth fruit. All danger from French ambition had passed away: but Russian intrigue was busy against us. We had brought the danger on ourselves. False to an alliance with Persia, which dated from the beginning of the century, we had turned a deaf ear to her entreaties for help against Russian aggression, and had allowed her to fall under the power of her tyrant, who thenceforth used her as an instrument of his ambition. The result of our selfish indifference appeared in 1837, when Persia, acting under Russian influence, laid siege to Herat, which was then under Afghan rule. While Herat was still holding out, the Shah was at last threatened with war, and raised the siege. Then was the time for Auckland to destroy the Russian danger once for all, by making a friend of the power which seemed to be the natural barrier against invasion from the north-west. After a long series of revolutions, Dost Mahomed, the representative of the now famous tribe of Baruckzyes, had established himself upon the throne, with the warm approval of the majority of the people; while Shah Sooja, the leader of the rival Suddozyes, was an exile. The ruling prince did not wait for Auckland to seek his friendship. He treated the Russian advances with contempt, and desired nothing better than to be an ally of the English. Auckland was urged to seize the opportunity. It was in his power to deal Russia a crushing blow, and to avert those troubles which are even now harassing British statesmen. He did not let slip the opportunity. He flung it from him, and clutched at a policy that was to bring misery to thousands of families in England, in India, and in Afghanistan, and to prove disastrous to the political interests of all three countries. … Those who are least interested in Indian history are not likely to forget how the Afghan mob murdered the British Envoy and his associates; how the British commander, putting faith in the chiefs of a people whom no treaties can bind, began that retreat from which but one man escaped to tell how 16,000 had perished; how poor Auckland, unmanned by the disaster, lacked the energy to retrieve it; how the heroic Sale held out at Jellalabad till Pollock relieved him; how Auckland's successor, Lord Ellenborough, dreading fresh disasters, hesitated to allow his generals to act till, yielding to their indignant zeal, he threw upon them the responsibility of that advance to Cabul which retrieved the lost prestige of our arms.

See AFGHANISTAN: A. D. 1838-1842, and 1842-1869.

{1736}

Thus closed the first act of a still unfinished drama. After celebrating the triumph of the victorious army, Ellenborough sent Charles Napier to punish the Ameers of Scinde [see SCINDE], who, emboldened by the retreat from Cabul, had violated a treaty which they had concluded with the British Government. The result of the war was the annexation of the country: but the whole series of transactions is only remembered now as having given rise to the dispute on the question of the guilt of the Ameers between Napier and James Outram. Less talked of at the time, but historically more important, was Ellenborough's reconstitution of the British relations with the Sindia of the day. Political disturbances had for some time agitated that prince's court, while his army had swollen to a dangerous size, and, like the Sikh army since Runjeet Singh's death, which had taken place a few years before, had passed beyond the control of the civil power. In these two armies Ellenborough saw a danger which might disturb the peace of Hindostan. He foresaw that the Sikh soldiers, released from the stern discipline of Runjeet Singh, would soon force a government which they despised to let them cross the Sutlej in quest of plunder. Two years later his character as a prophet was vindicated; and, if he had not now, in anticipation of the invasion which then took place, disbanded the greater part of Sindia's army, and over-awed the remainder by a native contingent under the command of British officers, the Sikhs would probably have joined their forces with the Mahrattas. … But the Directors took a different view of their Governor-General's conduct of affairs. In June, 1844, all India was astonished by the news that Ellenborough had been recalled. He had helped to bring about his own downfall, for in the controversies with his masters in which he, like some of the ablest of his predecessors, had found himself involved, he had shown an unfortunate want of discretion; but, though by bombastic proclamations and a theatrical love of display he had sometimes exposed himself to ridicule, many of his subordinates felt that in him they had lost a vigorous and able ruler. Sir Henry Hardinge, who was raised to the peerage before the close of his administration, succeeded to the office of Governor-General, and waited anxiously for the breaking of the storm which his predecessor had seen gathering. The Sikhs, the Puritans of India [see SIKHS], who were not strictly speaking a nation, but a religious brotherhood of warriors called the Khalsa, were animated by two passions equally dangerous to the peace of those around them, a fierce enthusiasm, half military, half religious, for the glory of their order, and an insatiable desire for plunder. By giving them full scope for the indulgence of these passions, and by punishing all disobedience with merciless severity, Runjeet Singh had governed his turbulent subjects for forty years: but, when he died, they broke loose from all control; and the weak Government of Lahore found that they could only save their own capital from being plundered by the Khalsa army by sending it to seek plunder in British territory. Thus began the first Sikh war."

T. R. E. Holmes, History of the Indian Mutiny, chapter 1.

ALSO IN: Sir L. Griffin, Ranjit Singh.

L. J. Trotter, The Earl of Auckland, chapters 4-13.

INDIA: A. D. 1843. Conquest of Scinde.

See SCINDE.

INDIA: A. D. 1845-1849. The Sikh Wars. Conquest and annexation of the Punjab.

"There had always been an expectation that whenever Runjeet Singh died, there would be trouble with his soldiery; and it soon appeared that some incursion was in contemplation, for which the Sikh troops were prepared by an able European training under French officers. While the strife about the succession was going on in the Punjaub, the military element of society there became supreme; and the government at Calcutta considered it necessary to move troops to the frontier to preserve peace, and reassure the inhabitants of whole districts which dreaded the incursions of a haughty and lawless soldiery. The Sikhs were alarmed at the approach of English troops, and adopted the same course towards us that we had tried with their western neighbours—they crossed the frontier to forestall our doing it. Whether this move was a device of the Sikh chiefs, as some say it was, to get rid of the army, and perhaps to cause its destruction by the British, and thus to clear the field for their own factions; or whether war with the British was considered so inevitable that the invasion of our territory was intended as a measure of prudence, we need not here decide. The fact was that the Sikh soldiery gathered round the tomb of Runjeet Singh, preparing themselves for a great battle soon to happen; and that war was virtually declared at Lahore in November, 1845, and fairly begun by the troops crossing the Sutlej on the 11th of December, and taking up a position near Ferozepore. The old error prevailed in the British councils, the mistake denounced by Charles Metcalfe as fatal—that of undervaluing the enemy. The Sikhs had been considered unworthy to be opposed to the Afghans in Runjeet's time; and now we expected to drive them into the Sutlej at once; but we had never yet, in India, so nearly met with our match. The battle of Moodkee was fought under Sir Hugh Gough, on the 18th of December, and 'the rabble' from the Punjaub astonished both Europeans and Sepoys by standing firm, manœuvring well, and rendering it no easy matter to close the day with honour to the English arms. This ill-timed contempt was truly calamitous, as it had caused miscalculations about ammunition, carriage, hospital-stores, and everything necessary for a campaign. All these things were left behind at Delhi or Agra; and the desperate necessity of winning a battle was only enough barely to save the day. The advantage was with the British in the battle of Moodkee, but not so decisively as all parties had expected. After a junction with reinforcements, the British fought the invaders again on the 21st and 22nd, at Ferozeshur. On the first night our troops were hardly masters of the ground they stood on, and had no reserve, while their gallant enemy had large reinforcements within reach. {1737} The next day might easily have been made fatal to the English army, at times when their ammunition fell short; but the Sikhs were badly commanded at a critical moment, then deserted by a traitorous leader, and finally driven back. For a month after this nothing was done by the British, and the Sikhs crossed the Sutlej at their ease. The valour of Gough and of Hardinge, who, while Governor-General, had put himself under the orders of the Commander-in-Chief, had saved the honour of the English; but their prestige was weakened among their own Sepoys, and even the European regiments; much more among the Sikhs; and most of all in the eyes of the vigilant surrounding states. It was a matter of life and death now to bring up guns, ammunition and treasure. A considerable portion fell into the enemy's hands on the 21st of January, on its way to the relief of Loodeeana; but the battle of Aliwal on the 28th was again a true British fight. The Sikhs were driven into the Sutlej; and as soon as they had collected in their stronghold of Sobraon on the other side, they were driven thence by a closing struggle on the 10th of February. The Sikhs were beaten, with a slaughter of 5,000 (some say 8,000) men; against 320 killed and 2,000 wounded on our side. The Maharajah submitted, the road to Lahore lay open, and the Governor-General could make his own terms. He flattered himself that he had arranged a protectorate of the Punjaub which would render annexation unnecessary; and all who could believe in it rejoiced that means had been found to escape the necessity of adding new conquests to a territory already much too large. As the Punjaub could not pay its amount of tribute to the Company, Cashmere and some other territory was accepted instead, and given, as a kingdom, to Gholab Singh … on his paying a portion of the debt, thus reimbursing the Company, and lessening the overgrown power of the Punjaub rulers. When, at the close of 1846, the English troops should be withdrawing from Lahore, the Sikh chiefs begged that they might remain, and take care of the Punjaub till the young Maharajah should grow up to manhood."

H. Martineau, British Rule in India, chapter 20.

"Lord Hardinge entrusted the government of the Punjab to a Council of Regency, consisting of Sikh nobles under the guidance of Sir Henry Lawrence as British Resident. He refused to create a subsidiary army, but he left a British force to protect the government until the boy Dhuleep Singh reached his majority. Two-thirds of the Sikh army of the Khalsa were disbanded. The Jullunder Doab between the Sutlej and the Beyas was added to the British empire. … Lord Dalhousie succeeded Lord Hardinge in 1848. Shortly afterwards the Punjab was again in commotion. Sikh government under British protection had failed to keep the peace. The army of the Khalsa had disappeared, but the old love of license and plunder was burning in the hearts of the disbanded soldiery. The Sikh governor of Multan revolted; two Englishmen were murdered. A British force besieged the rebels in Multan. It was joined by a Sikh force in the service of the Council of Regency commanded by Shere Singh. So far the revolt at Multan was regarded as a single outbreak which would be soon suppressed by the capture of the fortress. In reality it was the beginning of a general insurrection. Shere Singh, who commanded the Sikh force in the besieging army, suddenly deserted the British force and joined his father Chutter Singh, who was already in open rebellion. The revolt was secretly promoted by the queen mother, and spread over the Punjab like wildfire. The old soldiers of the Khalsa rallied round Shere Singh and his father. The half-and-half government set up by Lord Hardinge was unable to cope with a revolution which was restoring the old anarchy. In November, 1848, Lord Gough advanced against the rebel army. Then followed the famous campaign between the Chenab and Jhelum rivers about 100 miles to the north of Lahore. In January, 1849, Lord Gough fought the dubious battle of Chillianwallah, near the spot where Alexander the Great crossed the Jhelum and defeated the army of Porus. Meanwhile Multan surrendered, and the besieging force joined Lord Gough. In February the Sikh army was utterly defeated at Gujerat."

J. T. Wheeler, Indian History, chapter 11.

"Gujrat was essentially a forenoon battle, with the whole day before the combatants to finish their work. It commenced with a magnificent duel of artillery; the British infantry occupying post after post as they were abandoned by the enemy; and the British cavalry breaking up the Sikh masses and scattering them by pursuit. Of the sixty Sikh guns engaged, fifty-three were taken. Lord Dalhousie resolved to make the victory a final one. 'The war,' he declared, 'must be prosecuted now to the entire defeat and dispersion of all who are in arms against us, whether Sikhs or Afghans.' General Gilbert hurried out with a pursuing force of 12,000, horse, foot and artillery, the day after the battle. In the breathless chase which followed across the plains of the Punjab to the frontier mountain-wall, the Sikh military power was destroyed for ever. On the 12th of March, 1849, General Gilbert received the submission of the entire Sikh army at Rawal Pindi, together with the last forty-one of the 160 Sikh cannon captured by the British during the war. While the Sikh army heaped up their swords and shields and matchlocks in submissive piles, and salamed one by one as they passed disarmed along the British line, their Afghan allies were chased relentlessly westwards, and reached the safety of the Khaibar Pass panting, and barely twenty miles in front of the English hunters. The horsemen of Afghanistan, it was said, 'had ridden down through the hills like lions and ran back into them like dogs.' The question remained what to do with the Punjab. The victory of Sobraon in 1846 gave to Lord Hardinge the right of conquest: the victory at Gujrat in 1849 compelled Lord Dalhousie to assert that right. Lord Hardinge at the end of the first Punjab war in 1846, tried, as we have seen, an intermediate method of ruling the province by British officers for the benefit of the infant prince. This method had failed. … In determining the future arrangements for the Punjab, Lord Dalhousie had as his advisers the two Lawrences. Sir Henry Lawrence, the former Resident at Lahore; hurried back from his sick-leave in England on the breaking out of the war. He was of opinion that the annexation of the Punjab might perhaps be just, but that it would be inexpedient. His brother John, afterwards Lord Lawrence, who had also acted as Resident, although as much averse in general principle to annexation as Henry, was convinced that, in this case, annexation was not only just, but that its expediency was 'both undeniable and pressing.' {1738} Lord Dalhousie, after a full review of the efforts which had been made to convert the Sikh nation into a friendly power without annexation, decided that no course now remained to the British Government but to annex. … The annexation of the Punjab was deliberately approved of by the Court of Directors, by Parliament, and by the English nation."

W. W. Hunter, The Marquess of Dalhousie, chapter 3.

ALSO IN: Sir H. B. Edwardes and H. Merivale, Life of Sir Henry Lawrence.

R. B. Smith, Life of Lord Lawrence, volume 1, chapters 7-11.

E. Arnold, The Marquis of Dalhousie's Administration of British India, volume 1, chapters 1-7.

H. B. Edwardes, A Year on the Punjab Frontier, 1848-49.

Sir R. Temple, Men and Events of My Time in India, chapters 3-4.

INDIA: A. D. 1848-1856. Lord Dalhousie's minor annexations. The lapse of dependent Native States. The case of Nana Sahib.

"In applying the doctrine of lapse to the Hindu chiefdoms, on default of natural successors or of an heir legally adopted with the sanction of the Ruling Power, Lord Dalhousie merely carried out the declared law of the case, and the deliberately formulated policy of the Government of India, years before he arrived in the country. In so doing, however, Lord Dalhousie became the unconscious but effective instrument by which the old India of Lord Wellesley at the beginning of the century was prepared for its conversion, in 1858, into the new India of the Queen. … The fundamental question was whether we should allow the government of a dependent State, in absence of natural heirs, to pass like mere private property to an adopted son. The Court of Directors had at one time permitted the adoption of a successor in special cases to a principality on failure of natural heirs. It declared, however, in 1834, that such an 'indulgence should be the exception, not the rule.' … As the evils of the old system of government by sham royalties further developed themselves, the Government of India determined in 1841 to enforce a more uniform policy. … What Lord Dalhousie did, therefore, was not to invent a new principle of Indian law, but to steadily apply an old principle. … The first case in which this principle came to be applied, shortly after Lord Dalhousie's arrival, was the Native State of Satara. That Maratha principality had been constituted by the British Government on the general break up of the Maratha power in 1818, and confirmed to the 'sons and heirs, and successors' of the recipient in 1819. In 1839 the reigning prince was deposed for misconduct by the British Government in the exercise of its Suzerain rights. By the same rights the British Government then set up the brother of the deposed prince on the throne. … The Raja, whom in 1839 we had placed on the throne, applied for permission to adopt a son. The British Government deliberately withheld the permission; and in the last hours of his life the Raja, in 1848, hastily adopted a son without the consent of the Government." Lord Dalhousie, with the advice of the Court of Directors, declared in this case that the territory of Satara had lapsed, on the death of the Raja, by failure of heirs, to the Power which deposed, and it was annexed, accordingly, to the British dominions. Under kindred circumstances the Native States of Sambalpur, on the south-western frontier of Lower Bengal, and Jhansi, a fragment of the Maratha dominions in Northern India, were absorbed. "The same principle of lapse on failure of heirs was applied by Lord Dalhousie to several other dependent States. Jaitpur in Bundelkhand, Baghat a petty hill Chiefdom of 36 square miles in the Punjab, Udaipur on the Western frontier of Lower Bengal, and Budawal in Khandesh, passed under direct British rule from this cause. The fort and military fief of Tanjore were annexed after Lord Dalhousie's departure from India, but practically on the grounds set forth by his government. … By far the largest accession of territory made during Lord Dalhousie's rule, to the British dominions on the failure of heirs, was the great central tract of India known as Nagpur. This Maratha principality as now constituted into the Central Provinces, and after various rectifications of frontier, has an area of 113,279 square miles, with a population of 12,000,000 souls. The territories annexed by Lord Dalhousie in 1854 make nearly four-fifths of the present Central Provinces. … It is difficult to find any ground for the charge which Mr. Kaye brought in 1865 against Lord Dalhousie, for 'harshness' towards the man afterwards known as the infamous Nana Sahib [see below: A. D. 1857 (MAY-AUGUST)]. As this charge, however, is still occasionally repeated, and as it has even been suggested that Lord Dalhousie was to some extent responsible for the Mutiny of 1857, in consequence of his action towards Nana Sahib in 1851, I must briefly state the facts. In 1818, the Peshwa of the Marathas, completely beaten in the field, threw himself on the generosity of the British. Sir John Malcolm, then the Governor-General's Agent in the Deccan, assured him of his protection, and engaged that he should receive an allowance of £80,000 a year for his support. … There could not be the slightest pretension that it was ever anything more than a personal annuity; and from first to last all mention of heirs is carefully excluded. The records show that the ex-Peshwa, Baji Rao, was well aware of this. Baji Rao lived until 1851, leaving to his adopted son, Nana Sahib, an immense fortune admitted to amount to £280,000, and believed by the Government of the North-western Provinces to greatly exceed that sum. The Government of India at once acknowledged the adopted son's title to this splendid heritage, and out of its own beneficence added to it the Jaghir, or grant of land, on which his father had resided in the North-western Provinces. But the pension, paid out of the tax-payers' pockets, lapsed upon the death of the annuitant."

Sir W. W. Hunter, The Marquess of Dalhousie, chapters 6-7.

Duke of Argyll, India under Dalhousie and Canning.

INDIA: A. D. 1849-1893. The life in exile of Dhuleep Singh, heir to the Sikh throne.

"Few careers have ever been more instructive to those who can see than that of the Maharajah Dhuleep Singh, who died in Paris on Sunday [October 22, 1893] of apoplexy. He finished life a despised exile, but no man of modern days ever had such chances, or had seen them snatched, partly by fate, partly by fault, so completely from his lips. But for an accident, if there is such a thing as accident, he would have been the Hindoo Emperor of India. {1739} His father, Runjeet Singh, that strange combination of Louis XI. and Charles the Bold, had formed and knew how to control an army which would have struck down all the native powers of India much more easily than did any of the Tartar conquerors. Without its master at its head, that army defeated the British, and but for a magnificent bribe paid to its General (vide Cunningham's 'History of the Sikhs') would have driven the English from India, and placed the child, Dhuleep Singh, upon the throne of the Peninsula, to be supported there by Sikh and Rajpoot, Mahratta, and Beharee. Apart from the English, there was nothing to resist them; and they were guided by a woman, the Ranee Chunda Kour; who of all modern women was most like Mary of Scots as her enemies have painted her, and of whom, after her fall, Lord Dalhousie said that her capture would be worth the sacrifice of a brigade. How Dhuleep Singh would have reigned had Runjeet Singh's destiny completed itself is another matter—probably like a Hindoo Humayoon—for even if not the son of Runjeet Singh, who, be it remembered, acknowledged him, he inherited ability from his mother; he was a bold man, and he was, as his career showed, capable of wild and daring adventure. He fell, however, from his throne under the shock of the second Sikh War, and began a new and, to all appearance, most promising career. Lord Dalhousie had a pity for the boy, and the English Court—we never quite understood why—an unusually kindly feeling. A fortune of £40,000 a year was settled on him, he was sent to England, and he was granted rank hardly less than that of a Prince of the Blood. He turned Christian—apparently from conviction, though subsequent events throw doubt on that—a tutor, who was quite competent, devoted himself to his education, and from the time he became of age he was regarded as in all respects a great English noble. He knew, too, how to sustain that character,—made no social blunders, became a great sportsman, and succeeded in maintaining for years the sustained stateliness of life which in England is held to confer social dignity. Confidence was first shaken by his marriage, which, though it did not turn out unsuccessfully, and though the lady was in after-life greatly liked and respected, was a whim, his bride being a half Coptic, half English girl whom he saw in an Egyptian school-room, and who, by all English as well as Indian ideas of rank, was an unfitting bride. Then he began over-spending, without the slightest necessity, for his great income was unburdened by a vast estate; and at last reduced his finances to such a condition that the India Office, which had made him advance after advance, closed its treasury and left him, as he thought, face to face with ruin. Then the fierce Asiatic blood in him came out. He declared himself wronged, perhaps believed himself oppressed, dropped the whole varnish of civilisation from him, and resolved to make an effort for the vengeance over which he had probably brooded for years. He publicly repudiated Christianity, and went through a ceremony intended to readmit him within the pale of the Sikh variety of the Hindoo faith. Whether it did readmit him, greater doctors than we must decide. That an ordinary Hindoo who has eaten beef cannot be readmitted to his own caste, even if the eating is involuntary, is certain, as witness the tradition of the Tagore family; but the rights of the Royal are, even in Hindooism, extraordinarily wide, and we fancy that, had Dhuleep Singh succeeded in his enterprise, Sikh doctors of theology would have declared his re-admission legal. He did not, however, succeed. He set out for the Punjab intending, it can hardly be doubted, if the Sikhs acknowledged him, to make a stroke for the throne, if not of India, at least of Runjeet Singh; but he was arrested at Aden, and after months of fierce dispute, let go, on condition that he should not return to India. He sought protection in Russia, which he did not obtain, and at last gave up the struggle, made his peace with the India Office, took his pension again, and lived, chiefly in Paris, the life of a disappointed but wealthy idler. There was some spirit in his adventure, though it was unwisely carried out. The English generally thought it a bit of foolhardiness, or a dodge to extract a loan from the India Office; but those who were responsible held a different opinion, and would have gone nearly any length to prevent his reaching the Punjab. They were probably wise. The heir of Runjeet might have been ridiculed by the Sikhs as a Christian, but he might also have been accepted as a reconverted man; and one successful skirmish in a district might have called to arms all the 'children of the sugar and the sword,' and set all India on fire. The Sikhs are our very good friends, and stood by us against any revival of the Empire of Delhi, their sworn hereditary foe; but they have not forgotten Runjeet Singh, and a chance of the Empire for themselves might have turned many of their heads."

The Spectator, October 28, 1893.

INDIA: A. D. 1852. The second Burmese War. Annexation of Pegu.

"While Lord Dalhousie was laying out the Punjab like a Scotch estate, on the most approved principles of planting, road-making, culture, and general management, the chance of another conquest at the opposite extremity of his vice-kingdom summoned him to Calcutta. The master of a trading barque from Chittagong, who was charged unjustly with cruelty to a pilot, had been fined £100 by the authorities of Rangoon, and the captain of a brig had in like manner been amerced for alleged ill-treatment of his crew. To support a claim for restitution, two English ships of war had been sent to the mouth of the Irrawadi. … Misunderstandings arose on some inexplicable point of etiquette;" the British commodore seized a royal yacht which lay in the river; the angry Burmese opened fire on his ships from their forts; and, "with an unprecedented economy of time and trouble in the discovery or making of plausible pretexts, a second war with Burmah was thus begun. A long catalogue of affronts, wrongs, and injuries, now for the first time poured in. … The subjects of the 'Golden Foot' … must make an official apology for their misbehaviour, pay ten lacs compensation, and receive a permanent Resident at Rangoon. If these demands were not met within five weeks, further reparation would be exacted otherwise, and as there was no fear that they would, preparations were made for an expedition. … The Governor-General threw himself with enthusiasm into an undertaking which promised him another chance of gratifying, as his biographer says, his 'passion for imperial symmetry.' {1740} He resolved 'to take in kingdoms wherever they made a gap in the red line running round his dominions or broke its internal continuity.' There was a gap in the ring-fence between Arracan and Moulmein, which Pegu would fill. The logical inference was clear, the duty of appropriation obvious. Let us have Pegu. Ten millions of silver happening just then to lie in the coffers of Fort William, how could they be better invested than in a jungle on the sea coast, inhabited by quadrupeds and bipeds after their various kinds, alike unworthy of being consulted as to their future destiny? … In April, Martaban and Rangoon were taken with trifling loss. Operations being suspended during the rainy season, the city of Prome was not attacked till October, and after a few hours' struggle it fell, with the loss of a single sepoy on the side of the victors. There was in fact no serious danger to encounter, save from the climate; but that unfailing ally fought with terrible effect upon the side of Ava. … On the 20th December, 1852, a proclamation was issued, which, after reciting undisguisedly the ineffably inadequate pretext for the war, informed the inhabitants that the Governor in Council had resolved that the maritime province of Pegu should henceforth form a portion of the British territories in the East, and warning the King of Ava, 'should he fail to renew his former relations of friendship with the British Government, and seek to dispute its quiet possession of the province, the Governor-General would again put forth the power he held, which would lead to the total subversion of the Burman State, and to the ruin and exile of the King and his race.' But no depth of humiliation could bring the Sovereign or his Ministers to acknowledge the hopelessness of defeat or the permanency of dismemberment. … Twenty years have passed, and no treaty recognising the alienation of Pegu has yet [in 1872] been signed."

W. M. Torrens, Empire in Asia: How we came by it, chapter 24.

ALSO IN: E. Arnold, The Marquis of Dalhousie's Administration of British India, chapters 15-16 (volume 2).

INDIA: A. D. 1856. The annexation of Oudh.

See OUDH.

INDIA: A. D. 1857. Causes of the Sepoy Mutiny.

"The various motives assigned for the Mutiny appear inadequate to the European mind. The truth seems to be that Native opinion throughout India was in a ferment, predisposing men to believe the wildest stories, and to rush into action in a paroxysm of terror. Panic acts on an Oriental population like drink upon a European mob. The annexation policy of Lord Dalhousie, although dictated by the most enlightened considerations, was distasteful to the Native mind. The spread of education, the appearance at the same moment of the steam-engine and the telegraph wire, seemed to reveal a deep plan for substituting an English for an Indian civilisation. The Bengal sepoys especially thought that they could see further than the rest of their countrymen. Most of them were Hindus of high caste; many of them were recruited from Oudh. They regarded our reforms on Western lines as attacks on their own nationality, and they knew at first hand what annexation meant. They believed it was by their prowess that the Punjab had been conquered, and that all India was held. The numerous dethroned princes, or their heirs and widows, were the first to learn and to take advantage of this spirit of disaffection and panic. They had heard of the Crimean war, and were told that Russia was the perpetual enemy of England. Our munificent pensions had supplied the funds with which they could buy the aid of skilful intriguers. They had much to gain, and little to lose, by a revolution. In this critical state of affairs, of which the Government had no official knowledge, a rumour ran through the cantonments that the cartridges of the Bengal army had been greased with the fat of pigs,—animals unclean alike to Hindu and Muhammadan. No assurances could quiet the minds of the sepoys. Fires occurred nightly in the Native lines; officers were insulted by their men; confidence was gone, and only the form of discipline remained. In addition, the outbreak of the storm found the Native regiments denuded of many of their best officers. The administration of the great empire to which Dalhousie put the corner-stone, required a larger staff than the civil service could supply. The practice of selecting able military men for civil posts, which had long existed, received a sudden and vast development. Oudh, the Punjab, the Central Provinces, British Burma, were administered to a large extent by picked officers from the Company's regiments. Good and skilful commanders remained; but the Native army had nevertheless been drained of many of its brightest intellects and firmest wills at the very crisis of its fate."

W. W. Hunter, Brief History of the Indian People, chapter 15.

"The annexation of Oudh had nothing to do with the Mutiny in the first place, though that measure certainly did add to the number of our enemies after the Mutiny commenced. The old government of Oudh was extremely obnoxious to the mass of our native soldiers of the regular army, who came from Oudh and the adjacent province of Behar, and with whom the Mutiny originated. These men were the sons and kinsmen of the Hindu yeomen of the country, all of whom benefited more or less by annexation; while Oudh was ruled by a Muhammadan family which had never identified itself with the people, and whose government was extremely oppressive to all classes except its immediate creatures and followers. But when the introduction of the greased cartridges had excited the Native Army to revolt, when the mutineers saw nothing before them short of escape on the one hand or destruction on the other, they, and all who sympathised with them, were driven to the most desperate measures. All who could be influenced by love or fear rallied round them. All who had little or nothing to lose joined their ranks. All that dangerous class of religious fanatics and devotees who abound in India, all the political intriguers, who in peaceful times can do no mischief, swelled the numbers of the enemy, and gave spirit and direction to their measures. India is full of races of men, who, from time immemorial, have lived by service or by plunder, and who are ready to join in any disturbance which may promise them employment. Oudh was full of disbanded soldiers who had not had time to settle down. Our gaols furnished thousands of desperate men let loose on society. The cry throughout the country, as cantonment after cantonment became the scene of triumphant mutiny was, 'The English rule is at an end. Let us plunder and enjoy ourselves.' The industrious classes throughout India were on our side, but for a long time feared to act. {1741} On the one side they saw the few English in the country shot down or flying for their lives, or at the best standing on the defensive, sorely pressed; on the other side they saw summary punishment, in the shape of the plunder and destruction of their houses, dealt out to those who aided us. But when we evinced signs of vigour, when we began to assume the offensive and vindicate our authority, many of these people came forward and identified themselves with our cause."

Lord Lawrence, Speech at Glasgow, 1860 (quoted by Sir O. T. Burne, in "Clyde and Strathnairn," chapter 1).

ALSO IN: J. W. Kaye, History of the Sepoy War in India, book 2 (volume 1).

G. B. Malleson, The Indian Mutiny of 1857, chapters 1-5.

INDIA: A. D. 1857 (May). The outbreak at Meerut. Seizure of Delhi by the Mutineers. Massacre of Europeans. Explosion of the magazine.

"The station of Meerut, some 40 miles north-east of Delhi, was one of the very few in India where adequate means existed for quelling an outbreak of native troops. There was a regiment of English Dragoons, a battalion of the 60th Rifles, and a strong force of Horse and Foot Artillery, far more than sufficient to deal with the three native regiments who were also quartered in the cantonment. The court-martial on … eighty-five men of the 3rd N. C., who had refused to take their cartridges, had by this time completed its inquiry. The men were sentenced to long terms of imprisonment. The sentence was carried out with impressive solemnity. On a morning [May 9] presently to become historical—the heavens sombre with rolling clouds—the brigade assembled to hear their comrades' doom—to see them stripped of their uniform and secured with felons' manacles. The scene produced intense emotion. Resistance was impossible. There were entreaties, tears, imprecations, as the prisoners were marched away to jail. Discipline had been vindicated by a terrible example. The next day was Sunday. In the evening, as the European Riflemen were gathering for Church, a sudden movement took place in the native quarters. The Cavalry dashed off to the jail to rescue their imprisoned companions. The two Infantry regiments, after a moment's wavering, threw in their lot with the mutineers. Then ensued a scene such as, unhappily, became too familiar in Upper India within the next few weeks. Officers were shot, houses fired, Europeans—men, women, and children, wherever found, were put to the sword. A crowd of miscreants from the jail, suddenly set free, made a long night of pillage. Meanwhile, paralysed by the sudden catastrophe, the English General of the Division and the Brigadier of the Station forbore to act, refused to let their subordinates act, and the Sepoys who had fled, a disorganised mob, in different directions, soon found themselves gathering on the march for Delhi. In the early morning at Delhi, where courts and offices had already begun the day's work, a line of horsemen were descried galloping on the Meerut road. They found their way into the city, into the presence of the King; cut down the European officials, and, as they were gradually reinforced by the arrival of fresh companions, commenced a general massacre of the Christian population. A brave telegraph clerk, as the mutineers burst in upon him, had just time to flash the dreadful tidings to Lahore. Before evening, the native regiments fired upon their officers and joined the mutineers. After weary hours of hope for the help from Meerut which never came, the British officers in command were compelled to recognise that the only chance of safety lay in flight. Ere the day closed, every European who had risen that morning in Delhi, was dead, or awaiting death, or wandering about the country in the desperate endeavor to reach a place of safety. A day dark with disaster was, however, illumined by the first of those heroic acts which will make the siege of Delhi immortal. The insurgents had their first taste of the quality of the race whose ascendancy they had elected to assail. Lieutenant Willoughby, the officer in charge of the Magazine, and eight gallant companions, resolved, early in the day, that, if they could not defend their invaluable supply of ammunition, they would destroy it, though its destruction would almost certainly involve their own. For hours they defended their stronghold against an overpowering crowd of assailants. The train was laid: the sergeant who was to fire it stood ready: Willoughby took a last look out upon the Meerut road: the assailants were swarming on the walls. The word was spoken: a vast column of flame and smoke shot upward. Two thousand of the assailants were blown into the air [and five of the defenders perished, while Willoughby and three of his companions escaped]. The thunder of that explosion announced to the mutineers that one great object in the seizure of Delhi had escaped their grasp."

H. S. Cunningham, Earl Canning, chapter 5.

ALSO IN: J. W. Kaye, History of the Sepoy War in India, book 4, chapters 1-3 (volume 2).

INDIA: A. D. 1857 (May-August). The situation at Delhi. Siege of the English at Cawnpur. Their surrender and massacre. The siege of Lucknow.

"A few days of inactivity allowed the flame to blaze up beyond possibility of immediate extinction. The unchallenged occupation of the Mughal capital by rebel sepoys and badmashes was followed by risings and massacres in almost every station within range of the example; and from Firozpur, Bareilly, Moradabad, Shahjahanpur, Cawnpur, and numerous other places came harrowing tales of massacre, suffering, and heroism. When this terrible news reached army head-quarters, it was received with a perhaps natural incredulity. Nevertheless, a force was hastily assembled at Ambala; and with the troops thus mobilised, General Anson, then Commander-in-Chief, made preparations to march against the renowned city of the Mughal. The little force had hardly started, however, when its leader died of cholera (May 27th). It was not until the 1st of June that General Barnard, who had succeeded temporarily to the chief command, advanced in earnest against the now jubilant rebels. Meanwhile, a small body of troops under Brigadier Archdale Wilson marched out from Meerut, after a disastrous delay; and the combined force, amounting to about 3,000 Europeans and one battalion of Gurkhas, fought its way onwards till it reached the outskirts of the city on the 8th of June, 1857. We may now refer to the three great points,—Delhi, Cawnpur, and Lucknow, round which the Mutiny was, so to speak, centred during the earlier period of the revolt; namely, from May, 1857, till the arrival in India of Sir Colin Campbell in August of that year. {1742} The modern city of Delhi was founded by the Emperor Jahangir in 1631. Situated on the right bank of a branch of the Jumna river it was, as it still is, surrounded by a high wall some seven miles in extent, strengthened by bastions and by a capacious dry ditch. The British force held the elevated ground known as the Ridge, which extends two miles along the northern and western faces of the city—a position taken up some centuries before by Timur Shah and his Tartar hordes when advancing to attack old Delhi. At intervals along the Ridge stood the Flagstaff Tower, the Observatory, a large mansion called Hindu Rao's house, and other defensible buildings. The space between the city and the Ridge was thickly planted, for the most part with trees and shrubs; in the midst of which might be seen numerous mosques and large houses, and the ruins of older buildings. It soon became evident that the position held by the British force on the Ridge was a false one; and the question arose whether the city might not be taken by a coup de main, seeing that it was impossible either to invest it or to attempt a regular siege with any chance of success. A plan of assault, to be carried out on the 12th of June, was drawn up by a young Engineer officer and sanctioned. Had this assault been delivered the city would in all likelihood have been taken and held. … But owing to a series of accidents, the plan fell through—a miscarriage the more to be regretted because the early recapture of the city would in all human probability have put a stop to further outbreaks. As matters stood, however, the gallant little force before Delhi could barely hold its own. It was an army of observation perpetually harassed by an active enemy. As time went on, therefore, the question of raising the siege in favour of a movement towards Agra was more than once seriously discussed, but was fortunately abandoned. On July 5th, 1857, General Barnard died, worn out with fatigue and anxiety. He was succeeded in command by General Archdale Wilson, an officer who, possessing no special force of character, did little more than secure the safe defence of the position until the arrival of Brigadier Nicholson from the Punjab, August 14th, 1857, with a moveable column of 2,500 men, Europeans and Sikhs. And here we may leave Delhi, for the moment, deferring till later any further details of the siege. The city of Cawnpur, situated on the south bank of the river Ganges, 42 miles south-west of Lucknow and 270 miles from Delhi, lies about a mile from the river in a large sandy plain. On the strip of land between the river and the town, a space broken by ravines, stretched the Civil Station and cantonments. A more difficult position to hold in an extremity cannot well be conceived, occupied as it was by four disaffected Sepoy regiments with but sixty European artillerymen to overawe them. There was, moreover, an incompetent commander. Realising after the disasters at Meerut and Delhi that his native garrison was not to be trusted, Sir Hugh Wheeler threw up a make-shift entrenchment close to the Sepoy lines. Commanded on all sides, it was totally unfitted to stand a siege. But a worse mistake was to follow. Alarmed as time went on at his growing difficulties, Sir Hugh Wheeler at length asked the notorious Nana Sahib [see above: A. D. 1848-1856], who lived a few miles off at Bithur, to assist him with troops to guard the Treasury. For some months previously this archtraitor's emissaries had been spreading discontent throughout India, but he himself had taken care to remain on good terms with his European neighbours. He now saw his opportunity. Cawnpur, delivered into his hands by the misplaced confidence of its defenders, was virtually in his keeping. Of European succour there was no immediate hope. The place was doomed. The crash came three days before General Barnard's force reached Delhi. With the exception of a few devoted natives who remained faithful to their salt, the whole Sepoy force on the 5th of June rose in revolt, opened the doors of the jail, robbed the treasury, and made themselves masters of the magazine. The Nana cast aside all further pretence of friendship and, joined by the mutinous troops, laid siege to the entrenchment already mentioned, which with culpable military ignorance had been thrown up in one of the worst positions that could have been chosen. The besieging army numbered some 3,000 men. The besieged could only muster about 400 English soldiers, more than 70 of which number were invalids. For twenty-one days the little garrison suffered untold horrors from starvation, heat, and the onslaughts of the rebels; until the General in command listened to overtures for surrender, and the garrison marched out on the 27th of June, to the number of about 450 souls, provided with a promise of safeguard from the Nana, who would allow them, as they thought, to embark in country boats for Allahabad. Tantia Topi, who afterwards became notorious in Central India, superintended the embarkation. No sooner, however, were the Europeans placed in the boats, in apparent safety, than a battery of guns concealed on the river banks opened fire, while at the same time a deadly fusillade of musketry was poured on the luckless refugees. The Nana at length ordered the massacre to cease. He celebrated what he called his glorious victory by proclaiming himself Peshwa or Maratha Sovereign, and by rewarding his troops for their 'splendid achievements,' while the wretched survivors of his treachery, numbering about 5 men and 206 women and children, were taken back to Cawnpur and confined in a small building for further vengeance and insult. On the 15th of July came the last act of this tragedy. The Nana, having suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of Brigadier Havelock's force within a day's march of Cawnpur, as will presently be recorded, put the whole of his prisoners to death. The men were brought out and killed in his presence, while the women and children were hacked to pieces by Muhammadan butchers and others in their prison. Their bodies were thrown into what is now known as the Cawnpur Well.' Lucknow, at the time of the Mutiny, was in population, in extent, and in the number and importance of its principal buildings, one of the foremost cities of India. … The Residency stood on a hill gently sloping towards the river, and was an imposing edifice of three stories. Near it were the iron and stone bridges over the river. … At the outbreak of the Mutiny the Sepoy regiments were stationed in various localities within the city; while the 32nd Foot, the only European regiment on the spot, was quartered in a barrack about a mile or so from the Residency. {1743} As was the case elsewhere, so it happened at Lucknow. While the population and native garrison were seething with sedition, the British authorities were hampered by ignorance of popular feeling, by the want of European troops, and by divided counsels. So, by the end of May, 1857, the rebellion in Oudh became an accomplished fact, although matters went on with comparative smoothness in Lucknow itself. At length, after a serious disaster at Chinhat, the British garrison was forced to withdraw to the Residency and its adjacent buildings; and on the 1st of July commenced the famous investment of this position by the rebel forces. The position was ill adapted for defence; for the lofty windows of the Residency itself not only allowed free access to the enemy's missiles, but its roof was wholly exposed. On the opposite side of the street, leading from the Bailey Guard Gate, was the house of the Residency Surgeon, Dr. (now Sir Joseph) Fayrer. It was a large but not lofty building with a flat roof which, protected by sand bags, afforded a good cover for our riflemen, and with a tyekhana, or underground story, that afforded good shelter for the women and children. But as a whole, the defences of the Residency were more formidable in name than in reality, and were greatly weakened by the proximity of high buildings from which the rebels without danger to themselves poured an unceasing fire. The siege had an ominous commencement. On July 4th the much-beloved Sir Henry Lawrence, the Resident, died of a wound received two days before from an enemy's shell that had fallen into his room. Brigadier Inglis succeeded him in command; and for three months the heroic garrison of about 1,700 souls held their weak position, amid inconceivable hardships and dangers, against thousands of the rebels who were constantly reinforced by fresh levies. It was well said in a general order by Lord Canning that there could not be found in the annals of war an achievement more heroic than this defence."

General Sir O. T. Burne, Clyde and Strathnairn, chapter 2.

ALSO IN: J. W. Kaye, History of the Sepoy War, book 9, chapters 1-3 (volume 3).

G. O. Trevelyan, Cawnpore.

T. R. E. Holmes, History of the Indian Mutiny, chapters 8-10.

Lady Inglis, The Siege of Lucknow.

INDIA: A. D. 1857 (June-September). The siege, the storming and the capture of Delhi. Murder of the Moghul princes.

"During the four months that followed the revolt at Delhi on the 11th of May, all political interest was centred at the ancient capital of the sovereigns of Hindustan. The public mind was occasionally distracted by the current of events at Cawnpore and Lukhnow, as well as at other stations which need not be particularised; but so long as Delhi remained in the hands of the rebels, the native princes were bewildered and alarmed; and its prompt recapture was deemed of vital importance to the prestige of the British government, and the re-establishment of British sovereignty in Hindustan. The Great Moghul had been little better than a mummy for more than half a century, and Bahadur Shah was a mere tool and puppet in the hands of rebel sepoys; but nevertheless the British government had to deal with the astounding fact that the rebels were fighting under his name and standard, just as Afghans and Mahrattas had done in the days of Ahmad Shah Durani and Mahadaji Sindia. To make matters worse, the roads to Delhi were open from the south and east; and nearly every outbreak in Hindustan was followed by a stampede of mutineers to the old capital of the Moghuls. Meanwhile, in the absence of railways, there were unfortunate delays in bringing up troops and guns to stamp out the fires of rebellion at the head centre. The highway from Calcutta to Delhi was blocked up by mutiny and insurrection; and every European soldier sent up from Calcutta was stopped for the relief of Benares, Allahabad, Cawnpore, or Lukhnow. But the possession of the Punjab at this crisis proved to be the salvation of the empire. Sir John Lawrence, the Chief Commissioner, was called upon to perform almost superhuman work:—to maintain order in a newly conquered province; to suppress mutiny and disaffection amongst the very sepoy regiments from Bengal who were supposed to garrison the country; and to send reinforcements of troops and guns, and supplies of all descriptions, to the siege of Delhi. Fortunately the Sikhs had been only a few short years under British administration; they had not forgotten the miseries that prevailed under the native government, and could appreciate the many blessings they enjoyed under British rule. They were staunch to the British government, and eager to be led against the rebels. In some cases terrible punishment was meted out to mutinous Bengal sepoys within the Punjab; but the imperial interests at stake were sufficient to justify every severity, although all must regret the painful necessity that called for such extreme measures. … The defences of Delhi covered an area of three square miles. The walls consisted of a series of bastions, about sixteen feet high, connected by long curtains, with occasional martello towers to aid the flanking fire. … There were seven gates to the city, namely, Lahore gate, Ajmir gate, Turkoman gate, Delhi gate, Mori gate, Kabul gate, and Kashmir gate. The principal street was the Chandni Chouk, which ran in a direct line from the Delhi gate to the palace of the Moghuls. … For many weeks the British army on the Ridge was unable to attempt siege operations. It was, in fact, the besieged, rather than the besiegers; for, although the bridges in the rear were blown up, the camp was exposed to continual assaults from all the other sides. On the 23rd of June, the hundredth anniversary of the battle of Plassy, the enemy made a greater effort than ever to carry the British position. The attack began on the right from the Subzi Mundi, its object being to capture the Mound battery. Finding it impossible to carry the battery, the rebels confined themselves to a hand to hand conflict in the Subzi Mundi. The deadly struggle continued for many hours; and as the rebels came up in overwhelming numbers, it was fortunate that the two bridges in the rear had been blown up the night before, or the assault might have had a different termination. It was not until after sunset that the enemy was compelled to retire with the loss of a thousand men. Similar actions were frequent during the month of August; but meanwhile reinforcements were coming up, and the end was drawing nigh. In the middle of August, Brigadier John Nicholson, one of the most distinguished officers of the time, came up from the Punjab with a brigade and siege train. On the 4th of September a heavy train of artillery was brought in from Ferozepore. {1744} The British force on the Ridge now exceeded 8,000 men. Hitherto the artillery had been too weak to attempt to breach the City walls; but now fifty-four heavy guns were brought into position and the siege began in earnest. From the 8th to the 12th of September four batteries poured in a constant storm of shot and shell; number one was directed against the Kashmir bastion, number two against the right flank of the Kashmir bastion, number three against the Water bastion, and number four against the Kashmir and Water gates and bastions. On the 13th of September the breaches were declared to be practicable, and the following morning was fixed for the final assault upon the doomed city. At three o'clock in the morning of the 14th September, three assaulting columns were formed in the trenches, whilst a fourth was kept in reserve. The first column was led by Brigadier Nicholson; the second by Brigadier Jones; the third by Colonel Campbell; and the fourth, or reserve, by Brigadier Longfield. The powder bags were laid at the Kashmir gate by Lieutenants Home and Salkeld. The explosion followed, and the third column rushed in, and pushed towards the Juma Musjid. Meanwhile the first column under Nicholson escaladed the breaches near the Kashmir gate, and pushed along the ramparts towards the Kabul gate, carrying the several bastions in the way. Here it was met by the second column under Brigadier Jones, who had escaladed the breach at the Water bastion. The advancing columns were met by a ceaseless fire from terraced houses, mosques, and other buildings; and John Nicholson, the hero of the day, whilst attempting to storm a narrow street near the Kabul gate, was struck down by a shot and mortally wounded."