XXV.]

DACOITY.

271

police arrangements. The great body of the dacoits followed their occupation of agriculturists and mechanics by day, and the vocation of dacoity by night, under the guidance of professional leaders. They were generally assembled in gangs of forty or fifty by one of the acknowledged chiefs, who organised the expedition against some wealthy shopkeeper or moneylender, or some one who had given information against them. On reaching the rendezvous, a priest performed a religious service to propitiate Doorga, the goddess of thieves, to whom a portion of their spoil was devoted. They then lighted their torches and proceeded to the village, often letting off a gun to warn the villagers to remain within doors. The house marked for plunder was surrounded, and the inmates tortured to reveal their property. The gang then departed with their plunder, and resumed their usual occupations the next morning. The great object of the villagers was to conceal the robbery, in order to avoid a visit from the daroga, whom they dreaded more than the dacoits. When he was able to obtain information of such an occurrence, he came down on the village, seized the most respectable householders, and exacted all they would pay to escape being sent up, either as suspected accomplices or as witnesses, to the magistrate's court, forty or fifty miles distant, to be indefinitely detained, or fleeced by his native officers. The dread of being obliged to give evidence also operated powerfully in keeping the crime concealed. Under the established judicial system, the chances of the dacoit's escape greatly exceeded those of his conviction, and, if liberated, he never failed to wreak his vengeance on the witnesses, sometimes to the extent to putting them and their families to death. Hence, when a requisition for evidence reached a village, it was no uncommon thing to find it at once emptied of all its inhabitants. To remedy this "monstrous and disorganized state of society," as it was aptly described in a minute of Lord Minto, the zemindar was invested with the office of commissioner of police, but as he was expected to bear all the expenses connected with it, and was to act in subordination to the detested daroga, the

272

REMARKS ON THE CORNWALLIS SYSTEM. [CHAP

scheme fell to the ground. Special magistrates were then appointed to repress dacoity, one of whom was the farfamed linguist and poet, John Leyden; but they acted with a vigour beyond the laws, and apprehended men by thousands, of whom not one in forty was convicted. Their agency was speedily dispensed with, but the rigour of their proceedings served for a time to diminish the crime.

Remarks on the Cornwallis system, 1813.

It is a painful task to record the defects of the Cornwallis system, which was once pronounced "the noblest monument of a just and liberal policy that was ever erected in a conquered country." It was, undoubtedly, distinguished by a complete absence of selfishness and an earnest feeling of benevolence, and the sterling purity of motive which dictated it was a legitimate object of national pride. But it aimed at too much, and established judicial institutions unsuited to the native character and habits. The permanent settlement was a generous and self-denying act, and it developed the resources of Bengal and Behar, beyond all expectation; but it inflicted poverty and wretchedness on the great body of the cultivators. A singular fatality, indeed, seems to have attended all our revenue settlements in every province throughout an entire century, as we shall repeatedly have occasion to remark hereafter, and though devised with the best intentions, they have never been successful in promoting the welfare of the agricultural community. The failure of Lord Cornwallis's institutions was for the first time disclosed in the celebrated Fifth Report of the House of Commons, drawn up by Mr. Cumming, one of the ablest officers of the Board of Control. It took the public, who reposed entire confidence in the perfection of the system, completely by surprise; but it produced a salutary effect. It dissolved the dream of optimism in which the public authorities had indulged, and directed their attention to those reforms which have now been zealously and successfully prosecuted for half a century.

XXVI.]

273

CHAPTER XXVI.

CHARTER OF 1813-LORD HASTINGS'S ADMINISTRATION-NEPAL WAR, 1814-1816.

Negotiations for

THE period was now approaching when the the Charter, question of the exclusive privileges of the East 1809-1812. India Company, which had been extended for twenty years in 1793, was to be submitted to Parliament, and the President of the Board of Control placed himself in communication with the India House several years before the expiration of the Act. The Chairman assumed a lofty tone, and had the presumption to assert the right of the Company to all the territories acquired in India by their armies; but he was ready to pay due attention to any modifications of the existing system which were not incompatible with the principle of leaving the commerce and the government of India in their hands. He proposed, moreover, that the Proprietors of India stock should receive enhanced dividends in proportion to the improvement of the revenues of India; that the British public should contribute towards the liquidation of their debt, and that their privileges should be renewed for a further period of twenty years. The President of the Board replied that the Ministry were not prepared to encourage any arrangement which should preclude the merchants of England from embarking in the trade of India, from their own ports, and in their own ships. The negotiation then came to a pause, and before it was renewed the finances of the Company had become totally deranged. Drafts had been drawn from Calcutta to the extent of five crores of rupees towards the discharge of the debt in India. A crore of rupees had been lost by vessels which had perished at sea, or had been captured by French privateers. The Directors were, therefore, obliged to resort to Parliament for relief, and in June, 1810,

274

CHARTER NEGOCIATIONS.

[CHAP. a loan of a crore and a half of rupees was granted to them. In the following year they obtained permission to raise two crores on their own bonds, and in 1812 a further loan of two crores and a half of rupees was sanctioned by the House of Commons. These embarrassments did not, however, abate the resolution of the Directors to insist on what they represented as their right—a renewal of the charter on the existing basis; and they refused to recommend to their constituents to accept it on any conditions which would despoil them of their "most valuable privileges." Lord Melville, the President of the Board of Control, proposed, by way of compromise, to restrict the import trade of private merchants to London, and to subject it to the system of the Company's sales and management, on condition that the Directors should throw open the export trade to the nation. The Court refused to accede to this arrangement, and time was thus afforded to the out-ports to survey their interests and to urge their claim to a participation in the entire trade with increased energy.

Opening of the out-ports to import trade,

1813.

The questions at issue between the Ministry and the India House were at length reduced to the single point of opening the out-ports to the admission of cargoes from India, but upon this both the Directors and the Proprietors determined to make a peremptory stand. On the 5th May, 1812, a series of resolutions was passed at the India House, which asserted that the removal of this trade from the port of London to the out-ports would break up large and important establishments, and throw thousands out of bread; that it would increase smuggling beyond the possibility of control, and entail the ruin of the China trade; that it would reduce the Company's dividends, depreciate their stock, and paralyze their power to govern India; that the tranquillity and happiness of the people of India would thus be compromised; that the interests of Great Britain in Asia would be impaired, and even the British constitution itself imperilled. The Ministry were not, however, appalled by this phantom of calamities which the genius of monopoly

XXVI.] GROWTH OF MANUFACTURES AND COMMERCE.

275

had conjured up, and informed the Court that if they still thought the extension of commercial privileges to the nation incompatible with the government of India in their hands, some other agency might be provided for administering it upon principles consistent with the interests of the public, and the integrity of the British constitution; but the Court of Directors refused to give way, and they were vigorously supported by the great body of the Proprietors, who regarded the admission of the out-ports to a share in the import trade a vital question, on which there could be no concession. They expressed their confidence that the wisdom of Parliament would never consent to gratify a few interested speculators by abolishing a commercial system which had existed for two centuries, and was fortified by a dozen Acts. In conformity with this resolution, a petition was presented to Parliament on the 22nd February, 1813, praying for a renewal of the privileges granted to the Company in 1793, and deprecating any interference with the China trade, or any extension of the import trade to the out-ports. Another petition was at the same time, unseasonably, submitted to the House soliciting the payment of a bill of two crores and thirty lacs of rupees, which the Company asserted was still due to them from the nation.

Growth of

and commerce,

The claim advanced by the Company to a remanufactures newal of their exclusive privileges for another 1793-1813. generation encountered a very strenuous opposition throughout the country. During the twenty years which had elapsed since 1793, the commercial and manufacturing industry of England had been developed beyond all former example, and new interests of extraordinary magnitude and power had grown up. The cotton manufacturers of Manchester, in the infancy of their enterprize, had solicited the Government to foster their exertions by imposing a protecting duty on the importation of piece goods from India. In the intermediate period, however, their textile fabrics had been brought to such a state both of perfection and cheapness as