Part 43 (1/2)

And below this again?

Below this, again, the dreaming heart of India, unchanged, unchangeable.

THE BOARD OF CONTROL

A.D. 1786 TO A.D. 1811

The heroic age of the history of British India is now past. Forced by Fate and by the strong right hand of two strong men, England, with one eye still fixed on gold, had had to turn the other on the duties of empire. So the Company was, as it were, split in twain. The old commercial interests were dealt with, as heretofore, by the Board of Directors, but the control ”of all acts, operations, or concerns, which in any wise relate to the civil or military government or revenues of the British possessions of the East Indies,” was vested in a Board of six members, all appointed by the Crown.

The word ”British” is noteworthy in conjunction with possessions, and shows the ease with which the English nation, while still loudly condemning the action of the East India Company, availed itself of the result of such actions. The chief point of interest in the New Act was the power given to Parliament to pay the salaries, charges, and expenses of the Board of Control out of the revenues of India, provided this charge did not exceed 16,000. This was the nucleus of the present payment of 144,000 in the India Office alone.

As regards the Const.i.tution in India few changes were made, and, after a brief tenure of office on the part of Mr Macpherson, Lord Cornwallis went out to India as Governor-General. He had served successfully in Ireland, but with disaster in America. Considering his entire ignorance of even the first conditions of Eastern life, his Governor-Generals.h.i.+p was much less disastrous than it might have been, though it was marred by the crystallisation of the Great Mistake which Mr Francis had first presented in nebulous form; that is to say, the engrafting on India of the Western idea that the land cannot possibly belong to the State, but that some proprietor most be found for it.

But ere this was embodied in the Permanent Settlement of Bengal, Lord Cornwallis found his hands full of minor diplomacies. Tippoo-Sultan was at war with the Mahrattas, and the latter had foolishly been given promise of a.s.sistance by the British.

”An awkward, foolish sc.r.a.pe,” writes the Governor-General. ”How we shall get out of it with honour, G.o.d knows; but out of it we must get somehow, and give no troops.”

That, practically, was the first charge on his administration. How to get out of minor squabbles, and leave the prime movers to fight it out amongst themselves. Hitherto the British troops had been mercenaries.

As such they had made their influence felt in every corner of India.

Now all was changed. England was a power in the East, hostile or friendly as she chose, not to be bribed to the support of any one. His next task was to interview the Nawab of Oude on the subject of the protection of _his_ state, and in so doing rather to sidewalk round this firm non-mercenary position adopted by the Board of Control. For 500,000 was taken yearly as payment for two brigades which were to bring ”the blessings of peace” under the aegis ”of the most formidable power in Hindustan.” Asaf-daula, however, was hardly worth protecting.

He extorted every penny he could get from everybody in order to spend it on debauchery, and allowed his ministers to cheat and plunder both him and his country.

Another and a more worthy visitor pleaded for an interview, and was refused the favour. This was Jiwan Bakht, the heir-apparent to the Emperor Shah-alam. He had been received by Warren Hastings, who, possibly because he saw in him a promise not often to be found in the Indian potentates of those days, allowed him 40,000 a year as maintenance. ”Gentle, lively, possessed of a high sense of honour, of a sound judgment, an uncommon quick penetration, a well-cultivated understanding, with a spirit of resignation and an equanimity almost exceeding any within reach of knowledge or recollection.”

Such was the character given by the great Proconsul after six months of daily intercourse; but caution was now the order of the day.

”The whole political use that may be derived” (from an interview) ”is at present uncertain, but there may arise _some future advantage_ if we can gain his affection and attachment ... but I have already prepared his mind not to expect many of the outward ceremonials usually paid in this country to the princes of the House of Timur, as they would not only be extremely irksome to me personally, but also, in my opinion, improper to be submitted to by the Governor-General at the seat of your Government.”

So wrote Lord Cornwallis, and Jiwan Bakht, with spirit _and_ resignation, contented himself finally with a request that he might be allowed at least asylum under British protection. He died of fever shortly after at Benares. Poor, proud prince of the blood royal! Was he really next-of-kin, as it were, to the Great Moghuls? If we had given him a chance, as we gave it to the monster Tippoo, to half-a-hundred scoundrels all over India, would he have regained the empire of Akbar? Who knows? He vanishes into the ”might-have-been”

with his high sense of honour, his spirit, and his resignation.

After this, Lord Cornwallis with a light heart took in hand the abuses of both the civil and the military services, and managed, by ”making it a complete opposition question” which ”brought forth all the secret foes and lukewarm friends of Government,” to obtain higher salaries and better positions for both soldiers and civilians.

So far well. Then once more Tippoo-Sultan intervened, and in a trice India was back in the old days of intrigue, secret treaties, allies, and war. Even Lord Cornwallis, the Liberal pillar of upright, straightforward policy, fell before the peculiar temptations of Oriental diplomacy. There is much to be said for him. Tippoo was an unwarrantable survival. He ought long before to have been hanged, drawn, and quartered. As it was, he burst in upon the coming civilisation and culture, as Mr Burke's 'meteor' burst upon the 'peaceful fields.'

It would take too long to tell the tale of the four years' war during which the Mahrattas, the Dekkanites, and the English, hunted Tippoo ineffectively from pillar to post, and he retaliated in kind. Finally, in 1792, he was cornered at Seringapatam, and once more peace was concluded with a man who deserved nothing but the death of a mad dog.

Then ensued a part.i.tion of spoil after the old style; each ally receiving so many lakhs of money, so much territory. After which Lord Cornwallis, covered with glory, found leisure to address himself towards crystallising into our rule for ever--unless some Government arises strong enough to put the wheel back and start afresh--the Fundamental Error, the Great Mistake of the British Empire in India.

In 1793 Mr Dundas and Mr Pitt, neither of them possessing a sc.r.a.p of first-hand knowledge of their subject, ”shut themselves up for ten days at Wimbledon” (Heaven save the mark!) and evolved out of their inner consciousness the Permanent Settlement; thus once and for ever--unless for the forlorn hope of a strong Government--alienating from the Sovereign power of India a possession which had been the Crown's by right beyond the memory of man--in all probability for over five thousand years.

As usual with all overwhelming errors, it was done from the purest motives of truth and honour, mercy and judgment; that is to say, from the Western definitions of these virtues. As Lord Cornwallis writes, he was restoring the rightful landowners

”to such circ.u.mstances as to enable them to support their families with decency and give a liberal education to their children according to the customs of their respective castes and religions,” thus securing ”a regular gradation of ranks ... nowhere more necessary than in this country for preserving order in civil society.”