India-Attacks in Parliament upon Marquis Wellesley-The Subsidiary system-The Mahratta Chiefs The Mahratta War-General Lake-General Wellesley-The Battle of AssyeEnd of the Campaign-Holkar-Famine in India-Mutiny at Vellore-Administration of Grenville and Fox-Financial Measures-Volunteers-Acquittal of Lord Melville--The Princess of Wales-Mr. Fox and the King-Declining health of Mr. Fox-Slave TradeProgress of the cause of Abolition-Thomas Clarkson-Negotiations for Peace-End of the Negotiations-Death of Mr. Fox-Confederation of the Rhine-Prussia-Aggressions of Napoleon-Murder of Palm-Joseph Bonaparte, king of Naples-British Army in Calabria-Battle of Maida-Capture of Buenos Ayres by Sir Home Popham-Its recapture. TWELVE days after the marquis Wellesley had seen his great friend for the last time, and had felt that the voice would soon be mute which could best defend him from the enemies that were gathering around, Mr. James Paull, who had aspired to sit for Westminster, moved for papers, upon which he purposed to ground grave charges against the late governor-general of India. He had to lament, he said, in common with every man who had turned his thoughts to India, and in common with all the nations of Hindustan, that lord Wellesley's spirit of aggrandizement, his love of power, and insatiable ambition, had led him into errors and mistakes that had shook to their base 454 THE SUBSIDIARY SYSTEM. [1799-1806. our very existence in India, and to consequent acts of great injustice and oppression. The Indian policy of Wellesley had been somewhat too bold for the timid expediency of the Addington government. The prime minister told Mr. Henry Wellesley that the administration "could not support the Governor-General against the Court of Directors," and that as a private friend he could not advise him to stay beyond the year 1803.+ Before that year had closed, the statesmanship of lord Wellesley, and the military exploits of his brother Arthur and of general Lake, had established the supremacy of the British in India, "under a combination of circumstances in the highest degree critical and difficult." Such were the terms addressed to Wellesley by the Directors of the East India Company in 1837. In 1805, no Indian administrator was ever more the object of their jealousy and suspicion. Arthur Wellesley returned to England in September of that year. He thus writes to his brother after an interview with lord Castlereagh : "He lamented in strong terms your differences with the Court of Directors, and entered with some detail upon the causes of them. These were principally the old story-disobedience of their orders, contempt of their authority, neglect to write to them to inform them of the most important events, and declared dislike of their persons." They feared that he would endeavour to overturn their authority when he returned home.‡ After the fall of Tippoo, and the partition of the Mysore territory in 1799, § lord Wellesley steadily pursued the policy which is distinguished as the Subsidiary System. Its principle was to form treaties with native rulers; in compliance with which, a military force, under our own command, was to be maintained at the expense of the native prince; and the control of state affairs was to be vested in the British Resident, with the exception of all that related to the domestic arrangements of the sovereign, who preserved the regal pomp without the regal power. This subsidiary system was warmly opposed in the British Parliament, as unjust and tyrannical. Its defence is succinctly stated by one who has been a constant enemy of all injustice and tyranny: "We had been compelled to interfere in their affairs, and to regulate the succession to their thrones, upon each successive discovery of designs hostile to us, nay, threatening our very existence, the subversion of all the fabric of useful and humane and enlightened polity which we had erected on the ruins of their own barbarous system, and particularly the restriction of the cruel despotism under which the native millions had formerly groaned." || In 1800, a subsidiary treaty was formed with the Nizam, who ceded all his Mysorean territories in exchange for aid and protection. In 1801 the nephew of the deceased nabob of Arcot was raised to the nominal throne, renouncing in favour of the British all the powers of government. The Subahdar of Oude, and the Peishwa, came also under subordination to the British authority. After the rupture of the peace of Amiens, a new danger had arisen, in a confederacy of Mahratta chiefs, assisted by French arms and French influence. The war of England against * Hansard, vol. v. col. 564. + Wellington's "Supplementary Despatches," vol. iv. p. 339. Lord Brougham-"Sketches of Statesmen," vol. iii. p. 308. 1799-1806.] THE MAHRATTA CHIEFS. 455 Napoleon was in effect to be carried on in a war with the Mahrattas. In the districts watered by the Godavery and the Poorna, were the qualities of a great captain to be displayed, which, a few years later, were to drive the legions of Napoleon from the Tagus to the Garonne. The warlike race of the Mahrattas were the lords of a population of forty millions, who occupied the fertile provinces extending in length from Delhi to the Toombuddra, and in breadth from the bay of Bengal to the gulf of Cambay. There were five Mahratta chieftains, whose collective military force amounted to 300,000, of which 100,000 were cavalry. The authority of the nominal sovereign, the Rajah of Sattara, was in the hands of the Peishwa, or prime minister, whose office was hereditary. He held his court at Poonah. The ostensible but feeble head of the Mahratta chiefs, be generally looked for aid to the British to defend him from his ambitious rivals, but he had sometimes intrigued to throw off the British connexion and form an alliance with the French. At the beginning of the century, the great chief Holkar was at war with the equally valorous chief Scindia. Holkar, to strengthen his own power and destroy an ally of his rival, attacked the Peishwa, who fled from Poonah after a signal defeat. It was then that he called the British to his aid, with whom he concluded the treaty of Bassein, on the last day of December, 1802. General Wellesley marched six hundred miles, from Seringapatam to Poonah, in the worst season of the year; drove out the Mahrattas; and reinstated the Peishwa in his capital. Holkar now turned to his old rival Scindia, to coalesce with him against the Peishwa, the Nizam, and the British. Directing the military operations of Scindia was a clever Frenchman, M. Perron, who had under him a large army of infantry disciplined in the European manner, many thousand cavalry, and a well appointed train of artillery. Bhoonsla, the Rajah of Berar (or Rajah of Nagpoor), joined the alliance of Scindia and Holkar. The fifth Mahratta chieftain was Guickwar, and his territory was Guzerat, where Scindia had some possessions and great power and influence. Guickwar took no part in the approaching contest. For some time after the Peishwa had been restored, negotiations were going on between the British government and Scindia and the Rajah of Berar. They professed friendship, but it soon became clear that they were confederates with Holkar, and were depending for assistance upon Perron. The Nizam was known to be dying; and it was one of the objects of these chieftains to arrange the succession so as to aggrandize their own power. It was thus necessary to make war upon this confederacy, which threatened the security of the British dominion in India as much, if not more, than the hostility of Tippoo. There was the same danger, as in his case, of an alliance with France on the part of the Mahrattas. Pondicherry had been given up to France by the Treaty of Amiens. When the Mahratta war broke out, the rupture of that treaty was not known. The vicinity of Pondicherry to the Mahratta country required the greatest vigilance. Whilst negotiations with the Mahratta chiefs were still in progress, the news came of the renewal of the war. A French force attempted to land at Pondicherry, and were made prisoners. Providing against hostilities upon a great scale, the GovernorGeneral decided upon the plan of a campaign, in which the rare faculty of organizing the co-operating movements of troops acting upon different points ensured the same success as had attended the campaigns of Napoleon. One 456 THE MAHRATTA WAR-GENERAL LAKE. [1799-1806. element of success was the unshackled power of an able commander in the Deccan, the most important portion of the field of war. On the 26th of June Arthur Wellesley was appointed to the command of all the British and allied troops in the territories of the Peishwa and the Nizam, and to the direction of the political affairs of this district, which was surrounded by the dominions of the confederate chiefs. In Hindustan the same complete authority was given to general Lake. General Wellesley was at Poonah, with 17,000 men, when the negotiation with Seindia was at an end. General Lake was upon the Jumna, watching the movements of Perron, who was in a part of the Douab which had been bestowed upon him by Scindia. In Guzerat, colonel Murray commanded the Bombay army, a force of seven thousand men, and he was afterwards reinforced by colonel Woodington. In the province of Cuttack, colonel Harcourt was at the head of the Madras army, a small body of troops, who were able to render efficient service. All these armies, not great in numerical amount, but most formidable in their discipline, were all in motion, at one and the same time, to close round the enemy from the south and the north, from the east and the west; "from the sea, the mountains, and the forests, over the salt sands of Cuttack, and the high plains of the Dekkan, and through the passes of the Ghauts, and over the rivers of Hindustan, and out of the rank swamps of the basin of the Ganges." * It was the 3rd of August when the British Resident quitted Scindia's camp. His departure was the signal for immediate hostilities. On the 6th of August general Wellesley wrote a letter to Scindia, characterized by his usual decisive language:-"I offered you peace on terms of equality, and honourable to all parties; you have chosen war, and are responsible for all consequences." On the 12th of August, he had advanced through roads rendered almost impassable by violent rains, and had taken the strong fort of Ahmednuggur. General Lake was equally prompt in his movements. The French force under Perron fled before him, retreating from Coel, which Lake then occupied. Perron, in a few days, put himself under British protection, and was received with kindness. He complained of the treachery of his officers, and is supposed not to have been insensible to the attractions of drafts upon the treasury of Calcutta. On the 4th of September, the strong fortress of Ali-Ghur was taken by a storming party of the army of Lake. The Bombay and the Madras armies were equally successful in their advances. On the 6th of August, general Wellesley had sent orders to the officer in command of the Bombay army to attack Baroach. In a little more than three weeks Baroach had surrendered. On the 12th of September, Lake obtained a great victory over the troops of Scindia, and over the French army which Perron had formed. They were commanded by another Frenchman, Bourquien. On the following day the British were in possession of Delhi. Lake restored the Mogul emperor, Shah Allum, who had been deposed, and thus propitiated the Mohammedan population of Hindustan. The triumphant career of Lake was followed up in the battles of Mutira and Agra, and was completed in the great victory of Laswarree on the 1st of November. He was worthy of all honour. The thanks of Parliament and a peerage were * Miss Martineau-"Introduction to the History of the Peace," p. cxxxv. 1799-1806.] GENERAL WELLESLEY. 457 never more properly bestowed than upon the senior general in this astonishing campaign. Splendid and decisive as was the career of the northern army-important as were the successes of the Bombay army and the Madras army-the chief interest of this Mahratta war nevertheless consists in following the military operations, in tracing the evidence of the qualifications for a great captain, of one whom Napoleon, with his characteristic want of honesty, to say nothing of magnanimity, pronounced to be "un homme borné "-a general fit only to command Sepoys. Colonel Stevenson was to the east of general Wellesley, after the capture of Ahmednuggur. It was necessary to effect a junction of their two armies. Wellesley directed Stevenson to take a bold course.: "Move forward yourself with the Company's cavalry, and all the Nizam's, and a battalion, and dash at the first party that comes into your neighbourhood. . A long defensive war will ruin us. By any other plan we shall lose our supplies." On the 21st of August Wellesley's cavalry was passing the wide Godavery. They passed in wicker boats covered with bullock skins. General Wellesley-who did not disdain to make himself thoroughly acquainted with what some would have considered matters out of a commander's vocationwhen he first entered the Mahratta territory sent the most minute directions to an officer how such boats were to be made, in the construction of which "well cured skins" were most essential articles. † During a month, Wellesley and Stevenson were pursuing Scindia's forces, united with those of the Rajah of Berar, each of the British commanders never allowing the enemy to rest, and marching always with the rapidity which could alone keep pace with the Mahratta cavalry. On the 21st of September Wellesley and Stevenson were a little to the east of Aurungabad. They were sufficiently near to each other to concert a plan of joint operations against the Mahratta armies, which had been reinforced with sixteen battalions of infantry, commanded by French VOL. VII. * "Despatches," vol. ii. p. 210. "Supplementary Despatches," vol. iv. p. 54. HH |