Part 66 (1/2)

10. Mill observes upon these transactions: 'The conduct of the Company's servants upon this occasion furnishes one of the most remarkable instances upon record of the power of self-interest to extinguish all sense of justice and even of shame. They had hitherto insisted, contrary to all right and all precedent, that the government of the country should exempt all their goods from duty; they now insisted that it should impose duties upon all other traders, and accused it as guilty of a breach of the peace towards the English nation, because it proposed to remit them.' [W. H. S.]

The quotation is from Book iv, chapter 5 (5th ed., 1858, vol. iii, p.

237).

11. The 3rd of October was the day of slaughter at Patna. The Europeans at other places in Mir Kasim's power were also ma.s.sacred; and the total number slain, men, women, and children, amounted to about two hundred. Sumroo personally butchered about one hundred and fifty at Patna.

12. Our troops, under Sir David Ochterlony, took the fort of Makwanpur in 1815, and might in five days have been before the defenceless capital; but they were here arrested by the romantic chivalry of the Marquis of Hastings. The country had been virtually conquered; the prince, by his base treachery towards us and outrages upon others, had justly forfeited his throne; but the Governor- General, by perhaps a misplaced lenity, left it to him without any other guarantee for his future good behaviour than the recollection that he had been soundly beaten. Unfortunately he left him at the same time a sufficient quant.i.ty of fertile land below the hills to maintain the same army with which he had fought us, with better knowledge how to employ them, to keep us out on a future occasion.

Between the attempt of Kasim Ali and our attack upon Nepal, the Gorkha masters of the country had, by a long series of successful aggressions upon their neighbours, rendered themselves in their own opinion and in that of their neighbours the beat soldiers of India.

They have, of course, a very natural feeling of hatred against our government, which put a stop to the wild career of conquest, and wrested from their grasp all the property and all the pretty women from Kathmandu to Kashmir. To these beautify regions they were what the invading Huns were in former days to Europe, absolute fiends. Had we even exacted a good road into their country with fortifications at the proper places, it might have checked the hopes of one day resuming the career of conquest that now keeps up the army and military spirit, to threaten us with a renewal of war whenever we are embarra.s.sed on the plains. [W. H. S.]

The author's uneasiness concerning the att.i.tude of Nepal was justified. During the Afghan troubles of 1838-43 the Nepalese Government was in constant communication with the enemies of the Indian Government. The late Maharaja Sir Jang Bahadur obtained power in 1846, and, after his visit to England in 1850, decided to abide by the English alliance. He did valuable service in 1857 and 1858, and the two governments have ever since maintained an unbroken, though reserved, friends.h.i.+p. The Gorkha regiments in the English service are recruited in Nepal.

13. Aasaye (a.s.sye, Asai) is in the Nizam's dominions. Here, on the 23rd of September, 1803, Sir Arthur Wellesley, afterwards Duke of Wellington, with less than 5,000 men, defeated the Maratha host of at least 32,000 men, including more than 10,000 under European leaders.

Ajanta, or Ajanta Ghat, is in the same region. (Owen, _Sel. from Wellington Despatches_ (1880), pp. 301-9.)

14. His tombstone bears a Portuguese inscription: 'Aqui iaz Walter Reinhard, morreo aos 4 de Mayo no anno de 1778.'

(_N.W.P. Gazetteer_, vol. ii, p. 96.)

15. According to this statement she must have been born in or about 1741, not in 1753, as stated by Atkinson. If the earlier date were correct, she would have been ninety-five when she died in 1836.

Higginbotham, referring to Bacon's work, says she died at the age of eighty-nine, which places her birth in 1747. According to Beale, she was aged eighty-eight lunar years when she died, on the 27th January, 1836, equivalent to about eighty-five solar years. This computation places her birth in A.D. 1751, which may be taken as the correct date. The date of her baptism is correctly stated in the text.

16. She added the name n.o.bilis, when she married Le Vaisseau.

(_N.W.P. Gazetteer_, vol. ii, p. 106, note.)

17. The author spells the German's name Pauly; I have followed Atkinson's spelling. The man was a.s.sa.s.sinated in 1783.

18. This circ.u.mstance indicates that the execution of the slave girls took place in 1782. (See _N.W.P. Gazetteer_, vol. ii, p. 91.)

19. The darker aide of the Begam's character is shown by the story of the slave girl's murder. By some it is said that the girl's crime consisted in her having attracted the favourable notice of one of the Begam's husbands. Whatever may have been the offence, her barbarous mistress visited it by causing the girl to be buried alive. The time chosen for the execution was the evening, the place the tent of the Begam; who caused her bed to be arranged immediately over the grave, and occupied it until the morning, to prevent any attempt to rescue the miserable girl beneath. By acts like this the Begam inspired such terror that she was never afterwards troubled with domestic dissensions.' (_N.W.P. Gazetteer_, 1st ed., vol. ii, p. 110.) It will be observed that this version mentions only one girl. According to Higginbotham (_Men whom India has Known_, 2nd ed., s.v. 'Sumroo'), this execution took place on the evening of the day on which Le Vaisseau perished in 1795. (See _post._) He adds that 'it is said that this act preyed upon her conscience in after life'. This account professes to be based on Bacon's _First Impressions and Studies from Nature in Hindustan_, which is said to be 'the most reliable, as the author saw the Begam, attended and conversed with her at one of her levees, and gained all his information at her Court'. But Bacon's account of the Begam's history, as quoted by Higginbotham, is full of gross errors; and Sir William Sleeman may be relied on as giving the most accurate obtainable version of the horrid story. He had the beat possible opportunities, as well as a desire, to ascertain the truth.

20. Atkinson (_N.W.P. Gazetteer_, vol. ii, p. 106) uses the spelling Le Vaisseau, which probably is correct, and observes that the name is also written Le Va.s.sont. The author writes Le Va.s.soult; and Francklin (_Military Memoirs of Mr. George Thomas_, London, 8vo reprint (Stockdale), p. 55) spells the name phonetically as Leva.s.so. 'On every occasion he was the declared and inveterate enemy of Mr.

Thomas.'

21. Thomas was an Irishman, born in the county of Tipperary. 'From the best information we could procure, it appears that Mr. George Thomas first came to India in a British s.h.i.+p of war, in 1781-2. His situation in the fleet was humble, having served as a quarter-master, or, as is affirmed by some, in the capacity of a common sailor. . . .

His first service was among the Polygars to the southward, where he resided a few years. But at length setting out overland, he spiritedly traversed the central part of the peninsula, and about the year 1787 arrived at Delhi. Here he received a commission in the service of the Begam Sumroo. . . . Soon after his arrival at Delhi, the Begam, with her usual judgement and discrimination of character, advanced him to a command in her army. From this period his military career in the north-west of India may be said to have commenced.'

Owing to the rivalry of Le Vaisseau, Thomas 'quitted the Begam Sumroo, and about 1792 betook himself to the frontier station of the British army at the post of Anops.h.i.+re (Anupshahr). . . . Here he waited several months. . . . In the beginning of the year 1793, Mr.

Thomas, being at Anops.h.i.+re, received letters from Appakandarow (Apakanda Rao), a Mahratta chief, conveying offers of service, and promises of a comfortable provision.' (Francklin, op. cit., p. 20.) The author states that Thomas left the Begam's service in 1793, after her marriage with Le Vaisseau in that year. Francklin (see also p.

55) was clearly under the impression that the marriage did not take place till after Thomas had thrown up his command under the Begam. He made peace with her in 1795. The capital of the princ.i.p.ality which he carved out for himself in 1798 was at Hansi, eighty-nine miles north- west of Delhi. He was driven out at the close of 1801, entered British territory in January 1802, and died on the 22nd of August in that year at Barhampur, being about forty-six years of age. A son of his was an officer in the Begam's service at the time of her death in 1836. A great-granddaughter of George Thomas was, in 1867, the wife of a writer on a humble salary in one of the Government offices at Agra. (Beale.)

22. This incident happened in 1788. (See _N.W.P. Gazetteer_, vol. ii, p. 99; _I.G._, 1908, vol. xii, p. 106.)

23. 'A more competent estimate may perhaps be formed of his abilities if we reflect on the nature and extent of one of his plans, which he detailed to the compiler of these memoirs during his residence at Benares. When fixed in his residence at Hansi, he first conceived, and would, if unforeseen and untoward circ.u.mstances had not occurred, have executed the bold design of extending his conquests to the mouths of the Indus. This was to have been effected by a fleet of boats, constructed from timber procured in the forests near the city of Firozpur, on the banks of the Satlaj river, proceeding down that river with his army, and settling the countries he might subdue on his route; a daring enterprise, and conceived in the true spirit of an ancient Roman. On the conclusion of this design it was his intention to turn his arms against the Panjab, which he expected to reduce in a couple of years; and which, considering the wealth he would then have acquired, and the amazing resources he would have possessed, these successes combined would doubtless have contributed to establish his authority on a firm and solid basis.' He offered to conquer the Panjab on behalf of the Government of India, for the welfare of his king and country. (Francklin, pp. 334-6.)

24. A small town in the Bulandshahr district of the North-Western Provinces, seventy-three miles south-east of Delhi. Its fort used to be considered strong and of strategical importance.

25. Afterwards Lord Teignmouth.

26. Major Bernier was killed at the storm of Hansi in 1801. His tombstone at Barsi village was found ninety years later (_Pioneer_, Dec. 14, 1894). For epitaph of Joseph Even Bahadur see _N.I.N. & Qu._, vol. i, note 265.

27. Francklin says that the troops overtook the fugitives 'at the village of Kerwah, in the begum's jaghire, four miles distant from her capital', (p. 58.)

28. 'For three days it lay exposed to the insults of the rabble, and was at length thrown into a ditch.' (Francklin, p. 60.)