operations arguments which were urged in support of and against this claim. It is sufficient for an English writer to observe that the Governor-General's brother, who had negotiated the treaty, sided with Scindia;1 and that Malcolm, the British envoy at Scindia's court, was of the same opinion as Colonel Wellesley.2 The disasters of Monson's detachment predisposed Scindia to a new quarrel with the Company; the subsequent successes of Lake, however, made him shrink from entering upon hostilities; but the evident failure of the siege of Bhurtpore again roused him to action, and induced him to march Wellesley's upon the town and propose to mediate between Holkar and the Company. A year before, such in England. conduct would have extorted only one answer from Wellesley. In 1805 he had not the power, if he had retained the will, to embark on a new war. His employers in London had seen with dismay the progress of his policy; they were bent on pursuing peace, and they saw themselves committed to war; they had forbidden fresh annexations, and the Governor-General was annexing province after province. Wars for which they had to pay, and for which they were responsible, were commenced without their knowledge and concluded without their authority, and their opinions were treated with contempt by their own officers.3 disapproved Unfortunately for Wellesley, moreover, the Court of Directors was not alone in distrusting his policy. Wellesley was mortified to find that, while he was urging in his despatches the conquest of Holkar's possessions in the Deccan and in Malwa, Castlereagh was doubting the justice, necessity, and policy of the first Mahratta war. Finding that his pro Wellesley superseded by Cornwallis. ceedings were disapproved by the Court and distrusted by the Government, he naturally desired to withdraw from his high office. His continuance in it was, in 1 Wellington Despatches, vol. iii. pp. 486, 532. 2 Marsham, vol. ii. p. 175. 8 Wellesley wrote to Castlereagh as President of the Board of Control in March 1804. "It is unnecessary to repeat to your Lordship my utter contempt of any opinion which may be entertained by Mr. and the Court of Directors." Pearce's Wellesley, vol. ii. p. 361. 4 Ibid., pp. 373, 374. fact, impossible. Government and Directors saw plainly that they must either supersede the Governor-General or abdicate their own functions of control. They naturally adopted the former alternative. Cornwallis, who had formulated a policy of non-intervention, and who was known to disapprove the proceedings of Wellesley, was persuaded to return to his old post and resume the duties of Governor-General. A knowledge that his successor was already on the seas naturally modified Wellesley's policy. Active measures were suspended; the reinforcements which had been ordered were countermanded; and the Governor-General expressed a readiness to make concessions to his opponents.1 Before, however, these arrangements were concluded his own authority was terminated by Cornwallis's arrival, and the career of the statesman who, against the orders of his employers and in defiance of their wishes, had conquered an empire was terminated. The thirteen years which had passed since Cornwallis had left India had exhausted the frame of a statesman who had seen active service in many climates and in both hemispheres. He came out to Calcutta, but he came only to die. During the few months of his remaining life, he laboured to reverse the policy of his predecessor. He was ready to conciliate Scindia by ceding Gwalior and Gohud,2 and he was anxious to make the cession the occasion for a general statement of his policy, "with a view to restore to the Native States that confidence in the justice and moderation of the British Government which past events have considerably impaired." 3 1 Thornton, vol. iii. p. 550; Marshman, vol. ii. p. 178. 2 Marshman, vol. ii. p. 178. The lavish abuse which has been bestowed on Cornwallis by Wellesley's admirers (e g., Thornton, vol. iv. pp. 2–35) makes it necessary to point out that in this his chief decision he had been anticipated by his predecessor. Those who are led away by Thornton's angry remarks would do well to compare them with Wilson's temperate examination of this policy in vol. i. p. 100. The Duke of Wellington's defence of it will be found in a note to the passage. Cf. Malcolm's Political History of India, vol. i. pp. 334-355. 3 Cornwallis, vol. iii. p. 552; Thornton, vol. iv. p. 30. However much the reader may agree with Cornwallis's principles, it is impossible to avoid a regret that he should have so frequently indulged in unnecessary reflections on his predecessor's policy. The death of Cornwallis. Cornwallis, however, did not even live to receive the vigorous remonstrance which his policy elicited from Lake. He died on the 5th of October, sixteen days after his views had been reduced to writing, and the government fell on the shoulders of the first member of his Council, Sir George Barlow. This change, however, made no alteration in the policy of the Government. Barlow, though he had held high office under Wellesley, loyally carried out the orders which Cornwallis had brought with him from England. Gohud and Gwalior were given up to Scindia; Holkar was assured in his dominions south of the Chumbul; the Company declined to interfere in the affairs of any Native States west of the Jumna, and peace on these terms was secured to British India.1 Sir John Barlow concludes peace. News of Cornwallis's death and of Barlow's accession to office reached England in the troubled period which immediately succeeded the death of Pitt. The Coalition Ministry, before it was fully formed, adopted a recommendation of the Company and confirmed Barlow in his high office. But the Cabinet, when fully constituted, decided on reversing this decision. Some of its members resented the appointment of an officer who was understood to be opposed to Wellesley's policy; others of them disliked the promotion of one of the Company's servants; others again desired to secure the appointment for one of their own friends. These various reasons determined them to cancel Barlow's appointment and to confer the office on the Earl of Lauderdale. This nomination aroused the heated opposition of the Directors. Lauderdale's opinions were calculated to excite the alarm of sober merchants. He was a reformer, and reform in 1806 was synonymous with rebellion; he was a free-trader, and free trade in 1806 was the most pestilent heresy. He had, moreover, in the past, dared to support Fox's India Bill and to oppose the Company's privileges. Leadenhall Street could hardly have been expected to submit unmoved to such a nomination. It angrily resisted the right of the Crown to 1 Marshman, vol. ii. pp. 191-197; Thornton, vol. iv. pp. 35-55. Governor dispose at pleasure of the highest offices of the Company. To some extent its opposition was successful. The ministry clung to its own power of cancelling Barlow's appoint- Lord Minto ment, but it consented to withdraw an obnoxious is made nomination. Lauderdale was persuaded to resign; General. and Lord Minto, whom the Coalition Ministers had already made President of the Board of Control, accepted the office and set out for India.1 Minto came to India intent on carrying out the policy of non-interference which Cornwallis had initiated, and which both Leadenhall Street and Downing Street approved. And in one sense he was successful. Throughout the period of his rule he was engaged in no extensive military operations, and his troops were employed chiefly in establishing His policy. order in the Company's territory, and not in curbing the pretensions of foreign princes.2 Yet if he were not, like Wellesley, notorious for his wars, he was at any rate famous for his embassies. If he did not attempt to make his country supreme by force of arms, he tried to stop the advance of its enemies by negotiation. He did not, like Napoleon, crush rival potentates into submission; he occupied himself, like William III., in projecting alliances. Indian politics had hitherto been chiefly concerned with Hindostan and the Deccan. But the victories of Wellesley had practically terminated for a time both war and diplomacy in these regions. In both of them the Company enjoyed a preponderating influence. The Mahrattas—the only people capable of disputing its empire-were prostrated by the defeats which they had experienced and the increasing incapacity of their own leaders. Even Holkar, whose cavalry was still formidable, was earning, by drink and indulgence, in- The Northsanity and death. But in the far North-West, where Western no British army had yet appeared, other chieftains were gradually consolidating their power. At the beginning of 1 Thornton, vol. iv. p. 86 et seq.; Wilson, vol. i. p. 149. frontier. 2 This statement is made of India itself. It perhaps requires some modification in connection with Minto's expeditions to Java and Mauritius. the nineteenth century, indeed, it was not easy to see that any of the disorganised tribes who occupied Central Asia could. venture on an enterprise which would bring them ultimately into collision with the armed strength of Britain. But there was one Power, bent apparently on subduing the whole world, whose ambition no British statesman could ignore. The period of Minto's rule was precisely that in which Napoleon attained the summit of his renown; and an English statesman who had seen the greatest empires in Europe struck down, and who was as ignorant of the geography of Central Asia as modern statesmen are of the physical conditions of Central Africa might be pardoned for imagining that the soldier who had begun his career by marching from Africa upon Asia, and who had just dictated terms to a continent at Tilsit, could have no difficulty in following the footsteps of Alexander, and in deciding the long struggle between French and English by a decisive battle on the banks of the Ganges. A statesman occupied with such apprehensions as these naturally turned with interest to the North-Western frontier of India. In the country which is watered by the five great rivers which join their waters in the Indus, and which owes its name of Punjab to these streams, a few people, under a remarkable leader, had established a new religion. Recognis ing much that was pure both in the Hindoo and Mohammedan creeds, their founder, Nanuk, had succeeded in attracting both Hindoos and Mohammedans to his faith, and in thus collecting many "Sikhs," or disciples. Toleration is as rare in the East as in the West. The new sect, proscribed and persecuted, was forced to arm in self-defence. Organised for defensive purposes, "the puritans of India" soon found themselves strong enough to pursue a policy of aggression, and, obtaining a capable leader in Runjeet Singh, overran the Punjab, and threatened the independence of adjacent principalities. Up to 1806 Runjeet had confined his operations to the right bank of the Sutlej. In 1806 he crossed Runjeet 1 The expression is Mr. Arnold's, in History of Dalhousie Administration, vol. i. p. 344; cf. for the Sikhs, Life of Lord Lawrence, vol. i. p. 51. |