206 STATE OF THE FINANCES. [CHAP. culties had arisen out of the wars in which it was involved. There was no elasticity in a revenue derived almost exclusively from the land, and it became necessary to have recourse to loans whenever the expenditure was found to exceed the income. On the return of peace and the removal of the military pressure, the finances had always, with one exception, resumed their spring. The extensive military operations of Lord Wellesley's administration had necessarily augmented the public debt, but this pecuniary strain, though manifestly of a temporary character, brought on one of the intermittent fevers of alarm at the India House, and large and comprehensive views of policy were needlessly sacrificed to obtain immediate relief. It appears to have been entirely overlooked that our wars in India had always been marked by this peculiarity, that they terminated in an accession of territory and revenue, which served to balance whatever incumbrance they had entailed. Thus, the increase to the debt during Lord Wellesley's administration was eight crores and a half of rupees, while the permanent increase of annual revenue was not less than seven crores. The Indian debt has seldom exceeded the income of two years; and this rule of proportion appears indeed to be the normal condition of Indian finance. In the year preceding the arrival of Lord Wellesley the revenue was eight crores, the debt seventeen. At the close of his administration the former had increased to fifteen crores and a half, and the latter to thirty-one. After the lapse of sixty years, the relative proportion remains without alteration. In the present year the revenues of the empire are forty-five crores, and the debt is ninety-two crores. By the cessation of the war and the reduction of the military charges, Sir George was enabled to reduce the annual expenditure, and within two years the deficit was converted into a surplus, which remained steady, with occasional variations, for twenty years, till the first Burmese war again depressed the scale. Supersession of The great zeal manifested by Sir George Barlow in carrying out the views of the India House, re xxm.] SUPERSESSION OF SIR GEORGE BARLOW. 207 commended him to the Directors as the fittest successor of Lord Cornwallis, the news of whose death reached England at the end of January, 1806. The death of Mr. Pitt, and the dissolution of his ministry had just introduced the Whigs to power, after an exclusion of more than twenty years. Within twenty-four hours of their accession to office they were called on to make provision for the exercise of the full powers of the Governor-General, and Lord Minto, the President of the Board of Control, agreed, as a temporary measure, to the nomination of Sir George Barlow. His commission was accordingly made out and signed in February, 1806, but only ten days after, the Ministry informed the Court of Directors that they had selected Lord Lauderdale for that office. They passed a high encomium on Sir George Barlow, but his policy was not in accordance with the views of some of the leading members of the new Cabinet. Lord Grenville, more especially, considered the administration of Lord Wellesley the most splendid and glorious that India had ever seen, and he vigorously opposed the appointment, as his successor, of one whose chief merit, in the opinion of the Court of Directors, consisted in a determination to reverse his measures. The Directors strenuously resisted the appointment of Lord Lauderdale, not only as an abrupt and contemptuous rejection of their favourite, but also on personal grounds. He had been a warm admirer of the French revolution, and during the height of its mania had dropped his ancient and noble title, and assumed a costume symbolical of Jacobinism. These follies had passed, but the Court did not forget that he had also been a zealous advocate of Mr. Fox's India Bill, and, more recently, of Lord Wellesley's doctrine of free trade with India, which was considered a pestilent heresy in Leadenhall-street. The Act of 1784 had vested in the Crown the right of vacating any appointment in India under the sign manual, and without the consent of the Court of Directors. The Ministry now, for the first time, brought it into exercise, and retaliated on them by a warrant cancelling the commission of Sir George Barlow. The discussion between 208 APPOINTMENT OF LORD MINTO. [CHAP. the Board of Control and the India House was carried on for many weeks, with great warmth, inasmuch as it not only involved the immediate question of Lord Lauderdale's appointment, but the more important point connected with the interpretation of the Act of 1784, of the general right of nomination to the office of Governor-General. In such a contest the ministers of the Crown, being the stronger party, could not fail to triumph, and the difference was accommodated by the appointment of Lord Minto. The Vellore In the month of July, the Government was astounded by a portentous event, unprecedented in its annals-the massacre of European officers and soldiers by the sepoys at Vellore. This fortress, situated eighty-eight miles west of Madras, and only forty miles from the frontier of Mysore, had been selected, contrary to the wiser judgment of the Court of Directors, for the residence of Tippoo's family, and was speedily filled with eighteen hundred of their adherents and three thousand Mysoreans. The princes were treated with the usual liberality of the British Government, and were subjected to little personal restraint. The European troops in the garrison consisted of about 370, and the sepoys amounted to 1,500. One of the native regiments was composed of Mysore Mahomedans, many of whom had been in the service of Tippoo. At three in the morning of the 10th July, the sepoys rose in rebellion, and having secured the main guard and the powder magazine, suddenly assaulted the European barracks. They had not the courage to encounter the bayonets of the soldiers, but poured in upon them volley after volley through the venetians, till eighty-two had been killed and ninety-one wounded. Parties of sepoys then proceeded to the residences of the officers, of whom thirteen fell victims to their treachery. During the massacre, an active communication was kept up between the mutineers and the palace of the Mysore princes, many of whose followers were conspicuous in the assault. Provisions were also sent out to the sepoys, and the royal ensign of Mysore was hoisted on XXIII.] Mutiny, 1806. THE VELLORE MUTINY. 209 the flag-staff amidst the shouts of a large crowd. The remaining Europeans, though destitute of ammunition, maintained their position under cover of a gateway and a bastion, till they were rescued by Colonel Gellispie. He was in garrison at Arcot, eight miles distant, and, on hearing of the outbreak, started without a moment's delay with a portion of the 19th Dragoons, and arrived in time to save the survivors. The gate was blown open with his galloper guns, and his men rushed in and obtained possession of the fort. Between three and four hundred of the mutineers were put to death, many were taken prisoners, and the remainder escaped by dropping from the walls. Cause of the The searching investigation which was immediately made, clearly revealed the cause of the mutiny. The new Commander-in-chief, Sir John Cradock, soon after his arrival, had obtained permission from the Governor in Council, Lord William Bentinck, to codify the voluminous regulations of the military department, on the condition that no rules should be added to those in force without the express sanction of Government. The code on its completion was submitted to the Governor, and received his sanction, as a matter of form, but several innovations had been introduced by the Adjutant-General, of which no intimation was given to him. The sepoys, for instance, were forbidden to appear on parade with earrings, or any distinctive marks of caste, and they were required to shave the chin, and to trim the moustache after a particular model. These unnecessary orders were sufficiently vexatious, but it was the new form prescribed for the turban, which gave the sepoys the greatest offence, because it was said to bear a resemblance to a European hat. Orientals consider the head dress an object of particular importance, and cling to the national fashion with great tenacity. The Turk, who does not object to a European coat, trousers, and boots, wil! not relinquish the cap of his nation. The Parsee readily adopts a European costume, but retains his own distinguishing head-dress. Even the Hindoo, who apes European fashions, shrinks from 210 CAUSE OF THE MUTINY. [CHAP. the use of the hat, which among Asiatics is an object of instinctive abhorrence. In the present case, this feeling was aggravated by a report industriously circulated in the native army by the Mahomedans who led the movement, that it was the precursor of an attempt to force Christianity on the sepoys. Of all the Presidencies that of Madras had been the most officious in patronising the religions of the country. Forgetting the duty due to their own creed, and to the consistency of their own characters, the Madras functionaries had been in the habit of firing royal salutes on the birthdays of the gods, of constraining their own Christian servants to make offerings at different shrines in the name of the Company, and of employing the police to impress the poor ryots to drag the cars of the idols. At the same time, the ministrations of Christianity were so completely neglected, as to lead the natives to believe that their European conquerors were without a religion. But all these humiliating concessions to native prejudices did not secure the Government from the suspicion of a design to destroy the religion of the people, and to force a foreign faith upon them. A spirit of deep disaffection was diffused through the army, which was diligently fomented by the intrigues of the Tippoo family, who upbraided the sepoys with the badge of the infidel creed, which they were already obliged to wear. It was this family, to whom we had generously, but unwisely, given the large pecuniary resources now turned against us, which applied the torch to the mine which the Government had unconsciously laid. The exasperated sepoys were thus led on to rebellion and massacre. feeling of dissatisfaction was also manifested by the troops at Hyderabad, but it was extinguished by the judicious proceedings of the Resident and Colonel Montresor. The members of Tippoo's family were removed without loss of time to Calcutta, and their pensions were not curtailed, notwithstanding their complicity in these treasons and murders. Recal of Lord The same The Court of Directors were overwhelmed by William Ben- the news of this mutiny, and in that spirit of tinck, 1806. |