Part 44 (1/2)
My Dear Sir James,
I wrote to you on the 23rd October, 20th November, and the 2nd of this month; I mention this lest any of my letters miscarry; of the first letter I sent a duplicate on the 2nd, but I shall not send duplicates of the last two, or of this. I now write chiefly to call your attention to a rabid article in the ”Friend of India,” of the 6th of this month, written by Mr. Marshman, when about to proceed to England, to become, it is said, one of the writers in the London ”Times.” Of coa.r.s.e, he will be engaged to write the Indian articles; and you will find him advocating the doctrines of the school mentioned in my last letter of the 2nd of this month. I consider their doctrines to be prejudicial to the stability of our rule in India, and to the welfare of the people, which depends on it. The Court of Directors is our only safeguard against these Machiavellian doctrines; and it may be rendered too powerless to stem them by the new arrangements for the Government of India. The objects which they propose for attainment--religion, commerce, &c.--are plausible; and the false logic by which they attempt to justify the means required to attain them, however base, unjust, and cruel, is no less so. I was asked by Dr. Duff, the editor of the ”Calcutta Review,” before he went home to write some articles for that journal, to expose the fallacies, and to counteract the influences of the doctrines of this school; but I have for many years ceased to contribute to the periodical papers, and have felt bound by my position not to write for them. Few old officers of experience, with my feelings and opinions on this subject, now remain in India; and the influence of this school is too great over the rising generation, whose hopes and aspirations they tend so much to encourage. Mr. Elphinstone, Mr.
Robertson, and George Clerk will be able to explain their danger to you. India must look to the Court of Directors alone for safety against them, and they will require the exertion of all its wisdom and strength.
Mr. Robertson will be able to tell you that, when I was sent to Bundelcund, in 1842, the feelings of the people of that province were so strongly against us, under the operation of the doctrines of this school, that no European officer could venture, with safety, beyond the boundary of a cantonment of British troops; and their servants were obliged to disguise themselves in order to pa.s.s from one cantonment to another. In a brief period, I created a feeling entirely different, and made the character of British officers respected and beloved. In the Gwalior territories the same result was obtained by the same means. However impulsive on other occasions, Lord Ellenborough behaved magnanimously after his victories over the Gwalior troops; but in sparing the State, he acted, I believe, against the feelings of his Council, amongst whom the doctrines of the absorbing, annexing, and confiscating schools prevailed; and the ”Friend of India” condemned him, though the invasion was never justified, except on the ground of expediency. Had I, on these occasions, adopted the doctrines of the absorbing school, I might have become one of the most popular and influential men in India; but I should, at the same time, have rendered our rule and character odious to the people of India, and so far have injured our permanent interest in the country. I mention all this merely to show that my opposition to the doctrines of this school is not new, nor in theory only, but of long standing and practice, as far as my influence has extended. I deem them to be dangerous to our rule in India, and prejudicial to the best interests of the country. The people see that these annexations and confiscations go on, and that rewards and honorary distinctions are given for them, and for the victories which lead to them, and for little else; and they are too apt to infer that they are systematic, and encouraged, and prescribed from home. The native States I consider to be breakwaters, and when they are all swept away, we shall be left to the mercy of our native army, which may not always be sufficiently under our control. Such a feeling as that which pervaded Bundelcund and Gwalior in 1842 and 1843, must, sooner or later, pervade all India, if these doctrines are carried out to their full extent; and our rule could not, probably, exist under it. With regard to Oude, I can only say that the King pursues the same course, and every day shows that he is unfit to reign. He has not the slightest regard for the duties or responsibilities of his high position; and the people, and even the members of his own family, feel humiliated at his misconduct, and grow weary of his reign. The greater part of these members have not received their stipends for from two to three years, and they despair of ever receiving them as long as he reigns. He is neither tyrannical nor cruel, but altogether incapable of devoting any of his time or attention to business of any kind, but spends the whole of his time with women, eunuchs, fiddlers, and other parasites. Should he be set aside, as he deserves to be, three courses are open: 1. To appoint a regency during the minority of the heir-apparent, who is now about eleven years of age, to govern with the advice of the Resident; 2. To manage the country by European agency during the regency, or in perpetuity, leaving the surplus revenue to the royal family; 3. To confiscate and annex the country, and pension the royal family. The first plan was prescribed by Lord Hardinge, in case of accident to the King; the second is what was done at Nagpore, with so much advantage, by Sir Richard Jenkins in 1817; the third is what the absorbing school would advocate, but I should most deprecate. It would be most profitable for us, in a pecuniary point of view, but most injurious, I think, in a political one. It would tend to accelerate the crisis which the doctrines of that school must, sooner or later, bring upon us. Which course the Governor-General may prefer I know not.
Believe me, My Dear Sir James, Yours very faithfully (Signed) W. H. SLEEMAN
To Sir James Weir Hogg, Bart., &c. &c. &c.
Lucknow, 12th January, 1853.
My Dear Sir,
I shall send you by this mail a copy of my Diary under cover, addressed, as you suggest, to Mr. Secretary Melvill. It is coa.r.s.ely bound, as I could find no good binder here. I printed eighteen copies, and have sent one to Government, in Calcutta, for itself, and one for the Court of Directors; one to the Governor-General, and one each to the Chairman and Deputy-Chairman. I have also sent one to a brother, and one to each of my five children. All to whom I have sent it of my family have been enjoined to consider it as private and confidential, and they will do so. Government may publish any portion of it they please. A memorandum of errata has been added to the copy to be sent to you.
Over and above what you justly observe as to the cultivation and population not being much diminished, and the State not having incurred any public debt, I may mention the fact noticed, I believe, somewhere in the Diary, that the landed aristocracy of the half of Oude, reserved in 1801, has been better preserved than that of the half made over to us. Had they not combined generally against the Government, they would all have been crushed ere this, as ours have been. This makes me mention a school of too much influence in India, of whose doctrines I have a great abhorrence. They are best expounded by the so-called ”Friend of India,” in the last number of which (6th January, 1851) there is a rabid article on the subject worthy of your perusal, and that of all men interested in the welfare of India and the stability of our rule over it. It is in the true Machiavellian spirit, which justifies, or would persuade the world to justify, every means, however base, dishonest, and cruel, required to attain any object which they have persuaded themselves to be desirable for ourselves. This school is impatient at the existence of any native princ.i.p.ality in India, however related to or dependent upon us. Mr.
George Campbell is a disciple of this school, almost as rabid as the ”Friend of India,” as you will see in the fourth chapter of his book on ”Modern India.” If Mr. Marshman is to write the Indian articles for the ”Times,” as reports give out, you will see these doctrines advocated in that influential journal. The Court of Directors is the only safeguard of India, and of our stability in it, against those doctrine which, in my opinion, tend strongly to the injury of both; and its power may be rendered too powerless to shun them.
Believe me, My Dear Sir, Yours sincerely, (Signed) W. H. SLEEMAN.
To Colonel Sykes, Director Hon. East India Company, London.
P.S.--I have felt much interested in the geology of Central and Southern India; and if you have seen any satisfactory account of the origin of the stratum which caps the basaltic plateau, shall feel obliged if you will point it out to me.
Lucknow, 24th April, 1853.
My Dear Sir,
By the last mail I received from a friend in London two articles, whose merits had been much canva.s.sed at the clubs, one from the London ”Times,” of the 9th February, and the other from the ”Daily News,” a Manchester paper. The ”Times” article must have been written by Mr. J. Marshman, or one of the most rabid members of the school of which he is the great organ, and whose chief characteristic is impatience at the existence of any native territorial chief or great landholder in India. The other article is a reply to it, and generally supposed to have been written by Sir George Clerk. I feel quite sure that it was written either by him or by Mr. T. C.
Robertson, who preceded him in the government of our North-West Provinces. The article from the ”Times” has been noticed in most of the Indian papers--the ”Friend of India,” April 7th, 1853, and the ”Englishman,” 15th April. But I have not seen that in the ”Daily News” noticed in any Indian papers, though admirably written. I intended to send it to you, but have mislaid it. I think you can advocate the cause it adopts more consistently, more powerfully, and more wisely than any other editor now in India. I hope you will do so; for I consider the doctrines of the ”Times” disgraceful to our morality, and dangerous to the stability of our rule. As I consider the welfare of the people of India to depend upon the stability of our rule, I am very anxious to see the fallacies of the atrocious doctrines which endanger it ably exposed. In no publication are these fallacies more obvious or more numerous than in Mr. George Campbell's ”Modern India,” chapter fourth, with, perhaps, the exception of the ”Friend of India.” With the ”Friend,” the theory of confiscation and annexation has become a disease, and he cannot praise or even tolerate any public officer or statesman who is not known to be a convert to the doctrines of this school.
I forget the date of the ”Daily News” in which Sir George Clerk's article appeared, but it was immediately after the article appeared in the London ”Times” of the 9th February. I hope you will give the article a prominent place in your paper, for it really deserves to be printed in letters of gold. Though I feel that the character of our nation, and our safety in India, are compromised by the open avowal of such atrocious doctrines in our leading journals, still the orders against officers in political employ writing in the papers are so strict, that I dare not attempt to expose the fallacies on which they are based, or express the indignation which they excite in me, in any public paper. To my superiors, and in the discharge of my public duties, I shall never cease to express my abhorrence of such doctrines, for I look upon them as worse than any that Machiavelli ever wrote.
Believe me, Yours very sincerely, (Signed) W. H. SLEEMAN.
To G. Buist, Esq.
P.S.--Of course, this note will be considered as confidential.