The battle which was thus fought destroyed the power of the Peishwa. But the Peishwa was not merely sovereign of Poona. He enjoyed the reputation which attached to him as the head of the Mahratta Powers. Defeat at Poona made itself felt in Berar. Throughout October, Appa Appa Sahib defeated. Sahib had been collecting troops and preparing for hostilities. At the end of the month he ventured an attack on the British Residency. The small force at the Resident's disposal was withdrawn to Seeta-buldee, a hill which overlooks Nagpore. On this position 1400 of the Company's troops were exposed to the attack of 20,000 men. Never, perhaps, had British soldiers fought at such tremendous odds. But never did British courage and discipline achieve a more decisive victory. Appa Sahib, foiled in his purpose, was forced to negotiate. Nagpore itself was subsequently carried by the British army, and the Raja of Berar lay at the mercy of his conquerors.1 There was, however, one other Power which was still formidable. It has been already stated in this chapter, that the Holkar who had inflicted defeat on Monson, and who had braved the battalions of Lake, had sunk into insanity and the grave from the intemperance in which he had indulged. The reins of government at his death fell into the hands of a woman who occupies in the life of Holkar the position which Bath-sheba filled in the life of David.2 This woman, Toolsye Toolsye Bhye, was endowed by nature with both beauty and brains. As she had no child of her own, she adopted a son of Holkar's by another woman, and carried on the government in the name of this boy. She had no easy task to perform. On the one hand, her people, recollecting the successes which they had achieved in 1804, were clamorous for war; on the other hand, she had the wisdom to perceive that war with the Company must eventually end in the victory of the British. As her views inclined to peace, Bhye. 1 Thornton, vol. iv. pp. 467-480. 2 To Holkar's credit, however, it ought to be added, that his Uriah was only thrown into prison, and released on the entreaty of his Bath-sheba, Toolsye Bhye murdered, Malcolm, who was, at that time, in command of a division. of the army operating against the Mahrattas, was instructed to conduct a negotiation with her. But the conference ended in one of those acts of violence which occur so frequently in the history of the East. The war party seized Toolsye Bhye and put her to death. Her murder was the almost immediate signal for hostilities. The British and Mahratta forces were encamped near Mahidpore on opposite banks of the river Seepra. On the 20th of December, Sir Thomas Hislop, the British commander, crossed the river and inflicted a decisive defeat on the enemy. The power of Holkar was shattered by the battle; the Mahrattas were forced to sue for peace, and to consent to terms and Holkar which placed them in strict dependence on the defeated. Company; while the British possessions were largely increased by the cession of Holkar's territory in the Deccan.1 Thus the policy which Metcalfe had advised had been adopted. The strength of Berar, of Poona, and Malwa had been shattered. The example which had been thus given was not lost on other states. Scindia, wavering between hope and fear, refrained from risking a fresh war with the Company, whose strength he had already tested, and whose sword evidently retained its old sharpness. Minor principalities hastily ranged themselves on the side of the British, and Hastings found himself free to deal with the Patans and Pindarees who still swarmed in Central India. The Pin The task which remained for accomplishment was not difficult. The strength of the Pindarees was dependent on the support of Native states. From the Deccan and from Hindostan the British arms converged on all darees sides on these irregular troops. Battalion after battalion was broken up, put to flight or routed, and peace was restored to Central India. broken up. The wars which were thus undertaken consolidated the power of the British in India. The Peishwa was ultimately deposed and made a pensioner on the Company, while his 1 Thornton, vol. iv. pp. 483-494. The results of the war. vast territory was annexed to the Company's dominions. Appa Sahib was thrust from the throne of Berar; half his principality was placed under the nominal sovereignty of a boy who was kept in strict dependence on a British Resident. Malwa in the same way was brought under practical subjection, and Scindia was left as the solitary independent Power of any strength in Central India. These vast changes could never have been effected if the progress of events had not assisted the Governor-General's policy. For sixty years everything had tended to ensure British supremacy in India, and Hastings drifted to conquest on a tide which greater forces than his own will had set in motion. Great, however, as were the changes which the campaigns of 1817 and 1818 effected, the third Mahratta war is rather associated with misfortune than with victory. While The cholera. the armies which Hastings collected were preparing for hostilities, the cholera broke out among one of them which was encamped in Gwalior. The disease was no new scourge in India. Forty years before it had appeared in Madras, and it had subsequently reappeared at intervals in different parts of the Deccan. But in 1817 it burst forth among the soldiers with a virulence which had never previously been known, and since that time it has been permanently endemic in the valley of the Ganges. Hastings' army gradually escaped from its ravages by shifting its quarters, but the angel of death only left the army to strike down natives and Europeans in other parts of Hindostan and the Deccan. Nor was the mysterious disorder confined to India. It crossed the Himalayas, and found in China a field fertile with victims; it crossed the Indus and desolated Persia; it was carried slowly by travellers to the Russian Empire; it was wafted rapidly on the wings of commerce to Western Europe; and it left memories behind it which, after an interval of more than fifty years, are not obliterated. Such was one of the indirect consequences of the third Mahratta war. The historian of the war cannot avoid 1 For the outbreak in India, see Hastings' Private Journal, vol. ii. p. 238; cf. Marshman, vol. i. p. 375, and vol. ii. p. 330. of the war. the influence of a success which secured the supremacy of the British, and gave peace to the populations of Central India. The philanthropist cannot avoid the reflection that, The policy in the wars of Hastings as in the wars of Wellesley, the sword of the British was on the side of the people and only turned against their governors. If it be possible to assume, with some Indian statesmen, that the true mission of the English in the East is to break the rod of oppression and to relieve the oppressed, and to believe that, for the sake of remedying the wrongs of millions, it is lawful to exterminate Governments; if, in short, a war of conquest may be justified on grounds of humanity, if evil may be done that good may ensue, then Wellesley does not require a defence and Hastings is in no need of an apology. No reasonable man can doubt that the regular rule which the Company gave to Central India was a welcome substitute for the irregular exactions of Patan and Pindaree, and the brutal outrages of Appa Sahib or Bajee Rao. HowThe conduct of the Governor- More difficulty will perhaps be experienced in defending the Governor-General than in approving his policy. ever desirable the third Mahratta war may have been, no one can assert that Hastings was within his rights in undertaking it. He had received a reluctant permission to crush irregular bands of plunderers, and he framed a system of alliances and embarked on a war of conquest which were opposed to the statutes of the British Parliament and to the instructions of his employers. A splendid disregard of orders has won for many a hero immortality. But the position of the statesman is not comparable with that of the commander, and it may be doubted whether any statesman can be justified in plunging into a war which is not merely unauthorised, but which is expressly forbidden. His success may condone his insubordination; it ought not to blind us to his fault. It is remarkable, moreover, that the man who ventured to undertake a war of conquest on his own responsibility, and to reverse the policy of his immediate predecessors, had been Opposed to the opinions which he had expressed before reaching India. previously distinguished for the strong language in which he had denounced the policy of Wellesley. The atmosphere of India changed his opinion, and converted him to a system which he had uniformly opposed in the House of Lords.1 A change of this kind was no novel spectacle in history; the man who is weighted with the responsibilities of office frequently adopts a policy which is inconsistent with the views which he had previously formed in opposition; and the strongest statesmen have often pursued in power a course which it is difficult to reconcile with their previous doctrines. It would indeed be absurd to include Hastings in the limited category which includes the names of only the strongest statesmen. In many respects he was inferior to Minto, who preceded him; in almost every respect he was inferior to Canning, who nominally controlled his action. But, at the same time, he had a capacity for rule which is possessed by only few men. His inordinate vanity, which even his admirers admit, gave him a self-reliance which proved eminently useful to him in his Indian career. Persuaded of the soundness of his own judgment, he could not believe that any policy except that which he himself pursued was right, or that either his colleagues or his employers could, in the long-run, resist his arguments. Such was the man who completed the work of Wellesley, and proclaimed the supremacy of the British in India. He remained in India from 1814 to 1823. He thus enjoyed the Governor-Generalship for an unusually long period. By His death one of those strange metamorphoses which occasionally occur in public life, he descended, on leaving his higher office, into a lower field of action. man who had been thought of for the post of First Minister, who had displayed in his government of India a splendour which none of his predecessors except Wellesley had shown, in Malta. ་ The 1 This is clearly shown in Thornton, vol. iv. p. 497, note. Speaking as Lord Rawdon in 1791, Hastings "had denounced in the most unmeasured terms the establishment of a British government in India. That government,' his Lordship said, 'was founded on injustice, and had originally been established by force."" 2 Malcolm's Political History of India, vol. ii. p. 60. |