XXVI.]

INSURRECTION AT BAREILLY.

301

mer, as the Mogul emperors were wont periodically to exchange the feverish temperature of Agra and Delhi for the delicious climate of Cashmere. The distance between Calcutta and Simla is abridged by a rail, and a thousand miles are now traversed with greater speed than a hundred in the days of Akbar and Jehangeer; while the electric telegraph, which conveys messages to the extremities of the empire in a few minutes, gives a character of ubiquity to the Government while sojourning in the hills.

Insurrection at The Nepal war closed on the 5th March, 1816, Bareilly, 1816. and the Pindaree war commenced on the 16th October in the following year. The intermediate period was not, however, a season of tranquillity. Two military operations were forced on Government in the north-west provinces, which, though of comparatively minor importance, enabled Lord Hastings to assure the Court of Directors, who were importunate for the reduction of the army, that " our own possessions were not precisely as secure as an estate in Yorkshire." To relieve the pressure on the finances, it was resolved to impose a house-tax for the support of the municipal police on certain of the great towns, and, among others, on Bareilly, the capital of Rohilcund. The rate was to be assessed by each ward, and the expenditure controlled by the townsmen. It was by no means oppressive in amount, the highest sum being only four rupees a-year, and the lowest class being altogether exempted from it. But a house-tax was an innovation not sanctioned by custom or tradition, and a spirit of opposition was roused against it among those who willingly submitted to the anomalous but ancient system of town duties. The Rohillas, the most turbulent of the Afghan colonists in India, determined to resist it. The magistrate, on entering Bareilly to arrange the details of the assessment with the principal inhabitants, was assailed by a mob excited by the moofty, or chief priest, and obliged to order his guard to clear the way, when three of their number, together with six or seven of the inhabitants, were killed and wounded. They

302

HATRAS.

[CHAP, were regarded as martyrs by the populace, and the exasperation became intense. Messengers were despatched to the neighbouring town of Rampoora, which was the general resort of large bodies of Afghan adventurers, who streamed down annually from their own barren mountains to seek military service among the various princes of India. From Rampoora and other towns reinforcements were drawn to Bareilly during the night, and in the morning five or six thousand fanatics were found to be assembled under the green flag of the prophet. Happily the military force of Government had also been augmented at the same time, and in the severe conflict which ensued no fewer than four hundred of the insurgents were killed and a greater number wounded, but the whole body was dispersed. Had the result been different the whole province of Rohilcund would have immediately risen in rebellion, and Ameer Khan, a Rohilla by birth, who was encamped at the time within a few marches of Agra with 12,000 Rohillas under his standard, would not have allowed the opportunity Hatras, 1817. to slip. This event evinced the impolicy of allowing the great landholders in the adjacent Dooab, or country lying between the Jumna and the Ganges, to continue to garrison their castles with a large body of military retainers, as they had done when the province belonged to Sindia. One of these zemindars, Dyaram, a Jaut, and a relative of the raja of Bhurtpore, had been permitted to retain his estates and his fortress of Hatras, on the borders of Rohilcund. He had already presumed to levy contributions on the country, and to give shelter to thieves and robbers; and he now proceeded to exclude every servant of the Government from his town, and to interrupt the process of the courts. His fort, which was considered one of the strongest in the country, was surrounded by a ditch a hundred and twenty-five feet broad and eightyfive feet deep. It had been placed in a state of complete repair, and strengthened by the adoption of all the improvements made by the Government engineers in the adjacent fort of Allyghur. He and a neighbouring zemindar, equally

XXVII.]

PATANS AND PINDAREES.

303

refractory, were able at any time to assemble a force of 10,000 men. Lord Hastings deemed it important that this baronial castle should no longer bid us defiance, and ordered up an overwhelming force, together with such an array of mortars -his favourite weapon-as nothing could possibly withstand. On the 1st March, 1817, forty-five mortars and three breaching batteries began to play on the fort, but the garrison gallantly stood this storm of shot and shell for fifteen hours. At length, however, the great magazine blew up with a concussion which was felt at Agra, thirty miles distant, and which destroyed half the garrison and nearly all the buildings. Dyaram made his escape with a few horsemen. The complete reduction of one of the strongest fortresses in Hindostan in a few hours, not only secured the ready submission of the contumacious zemindars in the Dooab, but created a salutary impression throughout India, and doubtless contributed to the success of the ensuing campaign. now a peaceful railway station.

Hatras is

CHAPTER XXVII.

TRANSACTIONS WITH NATIVE PRINCES, 1814-1817. PINDAREE AND MAHRATTA WAR, 1817.

Patans and Pin

1817.

THE policy of Lord Wellesley had been steaddarees, 1814 fastly repudiated by the Court of Directors, but the wisdom of it was amply vindicated by the desolation which followed its abandonment. It was under the operation of their principle of non-intervention that the power of the Patans and the Pindarees grew up to maturity, and became the scourge of Central India. Ameer Khan, the Patan freebooter, had gradually established a substantive power, but the predatory element was always predominant in it. His army was more efficient than that of any native

304

CORRESPONDENCE WITH THE DIRECTORS.

[CHAP. prince of the time, and received a fixed rate of pay, which, however, was seldom disbursed with regularity. It was estimated at not less than 10,000 foot and 15,000 horse, with a powerful artillery. It was his game to levy contributions from princes and states, and he moved about with all the appliances for the siege of the towns which resisted his demands. The object of the Pindarees was universal and indiscriminate plunder, and they swept through the country with such rapidity as to make it impossible to calculate their movements, or to overtake their detachments. While a force, for example, was assembled in haste to protect Mirzapore and the towns on the Ganges from their approach, they had already effected their object, and turned off to Guzerat, and were ravaging the western coast. While preparations were made to expel them from Guzerat, they had crossed the peninsula and were laying waste the opposite coast. The selfish argument employed by Sir George Barlow in defence of his neutral policy, that the disorders it might engender would prove a safeguard for the Company's dominions, had proved utterly fallacious. It was found that when the cauldron, seething with the elements of anarchy, was ready to boil over, it was those who had the greatest stake in India who were exposed to the greatest risk.

to the Court of

Directors, 1813

Representations One of the latest acts of Lord Minto's administration, as already stated, was to impress on the -1815. Court of Directors the necessity of adopting an extensive and vigorous system of measures for the suppression of the Pindaree hordes. Lord Hastings, on his arrival in India, found 50,000 Pindarees and Patans in the heart of India, subsisting entirely by plunder, and extending their ravages over an area as large as England, and one of his earliest acts was to point out to the Court, in language stronger than that of his predecessor, the increasing danger of this predatory power. He even went so far as to advance the opinion that the affairs of the Company could not prosper until their Government became the head of a league embracing

XXVII.]

THEIR NON-INTERVENTION POLICY.

305

every power in India, and was placed in a position to direct its entire strength against the disturbers of the public peace. But such a course of policy was systematically opposed by the two members of his Council. The senior, Mr. Edmonstone, was one of the most eminent of the Company's servants, and combined talent of a very high order with an affluence of official experience, but he lacked the higher endowments of the statesman. He had filled the office of political secretary during the administration of Lord Wellesley with great distinction, and was generally understood to have given a cordial support to his comprehensive views. During the government of Lord Minto he was the oracle of the Council chamber; but, having now taken his seat at the Board, and become responsible for the measures of Government, his habitual caution induced him to incline to the policy of Sir George Barlow, when he perceived the intention of Lord Hastings to subvert it, and he reprobated the extension of our political alliances and relations. His colleague, Mr. Dowdeswell, had all the narrow-minded prejudices of Sir George Barlow, without a tithe of his abilities. The Court of Directors still clung to their cherished policy of non-intervention, and in reply to the despatch of Lord Hastings of the 29th September, prohibited him "from engaging in plans of general confederacy, and of offensive operations against the Pindarees, either with a view to their utter extirpation, or in anticipation of expected danger." They enjoined him to undertake nothing which might embroil them with Sindia; they forbade any change in the existing system of political relations, and directed him to maintain, with as little deviation as possible, the course of policy prescribed at the close of the Mahratta war. They directed him, moreover, to reduce the strength of the army, and make every measure conducive to the promotion of economy. This communication was more than six months on the way, and did not reach India before April, 1816.

Proposed alliance with

To prevent the irruption of the Pindarees into the Deccan, Lord Hastings endeavoured to form a