Part 34 (1/2)

But Nadir left Delhi something which, possibly, it might have done better without; for ere leaving, he solemnly reinstated the puppet-king, and swore fearful oaths as to the revenge he would take on the n.o.bles when he returned in a year or two should they fail in allegiance. But he never did return; he really never meant to return.

He was a robber _pur et simple_, and he had got all that he had any hopes of getting.

So he disappeared northwards again, to die a violent death ere long.

For despite his success, something of remorse had come to him, uninvited, with the spoils of ravaged Delhi. He became cruel, capricious, tyrannical; finally, he grew half-mad, until one night the n.o.bles, whose arrest he had decreed, the captain of his own body-guard, the very chief of his own clan, entered his tent at midnight. Then from the darkness came the challenge in the deep voice which had so often led them to victory.

”Who goes there?”

For an instant they drew back, uncertain; but only for an instant.

They went for him with their sabres as they might have gone at a mad dog, and Nadir, their hero, their pride, their tyrant, their horror, ended his life.

How had he affected India?

First of all it had for the moment checked Mahratta aggrandis.e.m.e.nt.

The appearance of this unknown, hitherto almost unheard-of foe, who traversed with such ease the country he had hoped to annex, and did the things he had meant to do, seemed to paralyse Baji-Rao. His first impulse was to aid in a general defence of India. ”Our domestic quarrels,” he wrote, ”are now insignificant; there is but one enemy in Hindustan. The whole power of the Dekkan, Hindu and Mahomedan alike, must a.s.semble for resistance.”

And even when Nadir-Shah had retreated without further progress southward, Baji-Rao, free-booter, as all the Mahrattas were at heart, must have felt himself frustrated. What use was there in reaching a city desolate utterly, still infected by the stench of unburied bodies; a city whose treasury doors stood wide open, empty, deserted; a city, briefly, which an Afghan had pillaged? So he and his Saho retired southwards.

As for the effects which Nadir's sudden swoop on the interior of the plum-cake had on the nibbling mice upon its circ.u.mference, there is little to be said. It must have been a surprise to the civilised communities which were so rapidly coming into existence at such centres as Calcutta, Madras, Bombay; centres in which life went elegantly, and people began to talk of the latest news by mail from England. Still, the mere brute-force of the invasion cannot have shocked them much, for Europe itself was a prey at this time to wars and rumours of wars. The 1715 rebellion was over in England; the 1745 had not yet begun. In France affairs were working up towards the Revolution. Spain and Germany were alike, either at the beginning or the end of disastrous struggles.

Yet the mere fact which must have filtered through to the seacoast--_that thirty millions worth of solid plunder had just been filched away from the treasury of India by foreigners_--cannot have been pleasing news. The East India Company, however, seems to have made no great efforts at aggrandis.e.m.e.nt during the years between the special granting to it of lands by Farokhs.h.i.+r and 1746, when it formally entered into grips with the French East Indian Company, which about this time began that dispute for supremacy in India which virtually ended with the taking of Trichinoply in 1761.

In truth we have very little information indeed regarding the doings of John Company during this period. All we know is that British imports into India fell from 617,000 in 1724 to 157,000 in 1741, which, taken with a corresponding decrease in dividends, would seem to show some depression, some check to trade.

One thing is certain. The Const.i.tution of the Company was not satisfactory. An attempt had been made to avoid a monopoly of large shareholders by ruling that, no matter what the share held might be, it should only, whether 500 or 50,000, carry one vote for the election of the Court of Directors. But this ruling could be, and was, easily evaded. All that had to be done was to split the 50,000 into a hundred 500 shares, registered in the names of confidential agents, who--in consideration of an honorarium, no doubt--voted according to direction. It was not very straightforward, of course; on the other hand, the original ruling was silly in the extreme, since it prevented those who had a real interest in the Company from exercising their due share of influence.

Unfortunately, this f.a.ggot-voting brought with it a corrupt atmosphere. Appointments under the Company were a common bribe, and as the Court of Directors had to be reappointed every year, there was endless opportunity for jobbery.

So, after a time, opposition to the monopoly of the trade began once more to take form. Proposals for yet a new company were floated.

Parliament once more took up the matter; which was finally settled by the existing company offering 200,000 to Government, and a reduction of 1 per cent. on the rate of interest payable on the previous loan of some three-and-a-half millions (that is to say, a yearly income of 35,000), as payment for the extension of their monopoly till 1766.

This offer was accepted, and in 1744 the term of monopoly was still further extended until 1780, in consideration of a further loan to Government of 1,000,000 sterling at the low rate of 3 per cent.

Coming as it did in the middle of a very expensive war, the temptation of this pecuniary a.s.sistance must have been potent; but there can be but little doubt that, publicly at any rate, the trade of India suffered considerably from the exclusion of private enterprise.

Certain it is that while the English East India Company found themselves forced to reduce their dividends to 7 per cent, the Dutch Company was dividing 25.

Altogether, then, it is not surprising that, until the French, by a.s.suming the aggressive, forced the East India Company to bestir itself, it did nothing of importance in the way of progress.

THE GAME OF FRENCH AND ENGLISH

A.D. 1742 TO A.D. 1748

The eye of France had been on India for a century and a half, for it was in 1601 that a fleet of French merchant s.h.i.+ps set out from St Malo for Hindustan, but failed of their destination.

The first French East India Company was formed in 1604, the second in 1611, a third in 1615; a fourth was founded by Cardinal Richelieu in 1642, yet a fifth in 1664, and finally a sixth, made up by the co-ordination of various older ventures, began in 1719 to trade under the name of ”Compagnies des Indes.”

There was thus no lack of organisation; of action, there had been, up to 1742, comparatively little. They had secured a factory at Surat, they captured Trincomalee from the Dutch, and they had occupied Pondicherry, which they still hold. Aurungzebe had ceded Chandanagore to them, and they had also obtained Mahe and Karikal, which they bought from the Rajah of Tanjore.