The Mysore reversion, "an exceptional case":

Front matter

Ses pesres

Saesegss askpeiees

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Preface

I ruink that» any one who candidly and carefully peruses the following pages, ‘will find that they are not open to certain plausible and obvious objections—that they are not written to represent a mere isolated grievance—that no claim is set forth here of despotic power for an Indian Rajah, on “divine right” principles, and at the expense of an industrious population, contented and prosperous under British management. It will be seen that I do not ask for the toleration of old abuses in the face of accomplished facts and altered circumstances, or insist upon an over-scrupulous devotion to letter and precedent in favour of a Prince, without regard to the spirit of engagements, without protecting the interests of the people.

This book is not written merely to propose the reconsideration of this case of Mysore, but to suggest a reconsideration of all the relations of the Imperial

_ Power to the minor States of India; to show how, in Mysore, we neglected our earliest duties of instruction and guidance—how, grasping at patronage, we have

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hitherto thrown away the opportunity of establishing a limited monarchy asa model and exemplar—and how, by abolishing that Principality, we should, in all probability, throw away the opportunity for ever, and retard, or finally obstruct, the progress of Indian reform, ard the relief of our scattered military strength.

I shall endeavour to prove, that although the expected Mysore Reversion is not by any means “an Exceptional Case,” in the sense of the official document which I quote, it is so far exceptional that the approx priation of this State would be exceptionally unjust, - injurious, imprudent, and unprofitable.

And while I argue that statements disparaging a Prince’s personal conduct or mental qualifications—unless asserting crime or idiocy—are as irrelevant to a question of his sovereignty and his regal position in India, as they would be in Europe, I shall show that this Prince’s derelictions have been much exaggerated, and that their origin in British neglect has been completely overlooked; that his conduct was never so blameable, and that his abilities are not so deficient, as to warrant his permanent exclusion from power, or to offer the slightest excuse or pretext for extinguishing the tributary State.

But I have not written the following pages as an apologist or an advocate for the Rajah of Mysore. I do not plead for the Rajah’s personal advantage and dignity, I plead for the advantage and elevation of his people, and of the people of India, and for the general good of the British Empire.

PREFACE. Vv

For Lord Canning’s public character I have the _profoundest respect ; no one can estimate more highly than I do the great services he rendered to the Empire by the matchless courage, the sagacity, self-control, and self-contained steadfastness of purpose which he so signally manifested throughout the perils and horrors of 1857 and 1858. In the pacification of Oude, and the maintenance, modified by law, of its ancient baronial institutions, the extension of similar privileges to the ezreat landholders of other Provinces, and in the resto- » Yative operations on the Punjaub settlement, I recognise the statesman of large heart and broad intellect. But Lord Canning lived and died a public man; his _acts are public property, and so long as they entail important consequences on the nation, they form a legitimate subject for comment and discussion, until, in the course of time, they become matters for history.

With great reluctance and regret, therefore, but without hesitation or reserve, I shall have to call attention to that part in the treatment of this exceptional case of Mysore, in which Lord Canning, misled: by its superficial temptations, appears to me to have deviated from the direct path of justice and good faith, to have raised unfounded claims by the novel process of an eternal right of conquest, and a latent Supreme Sovereignty, and to have launched our Government upon an aggressive course, which cannot be justified or defended, but from which it is difficult to recede.

The truth is that Lord Canning, in his treatment of the Mysore case, was not pursuing a_ policy of vi PREFACE, ~ his own choosing, but dealing with the practical results of his predecessors’ policy, results which were decidedly - good, so far as they went, and the permanence of which seemed to him, and was declared by his professional advisers—erroneously as I maintain—to depend on a strict persistence in the administrative sequestration of the Mysore Principality. That his mind was not clear or composed on this subject is, I think, manifest, not only from his declaring it was “an exceptional case,’’ but from the slight aberrations of logic and of temper into which he was betrayed in his correspondence both with the Rajah and with the Secretary of State. But on these points my readers will be able to judge for themselves,

I will yield to no one in the admiration I feel for those eminent men in the Indian Services, whose achievements in days of war and convulsion, and whose earnest labours in the time of peaceful organisation, have conferred so many blessings upon India. Let the fullest meed of honour and gratitude be awarded to our great Indian administrators—but let them be confined to their own sphere. The field of Indian administration is the very worst training-ground for Indian government. I do not say that it is absolutely impossible for a Collector or a Resident to rise above the small successes of his official career to broad views of Imperial policy; but I certainly think it is highly | improbable. The exceptions, though brilliant, have been very few. I think, moreover, that in the present day, the work and,associations of an Indian administra-

PREFACE. vil tor are even less likely to inspire him with enlarged and

tolerant principles, and more likely to fill his mind with» narrow technicalities and contemptuous prejudices, than

they were forty or fifty years ago. Native States were

then substantive Powers in India; native Princes and

Ministers were looked upon as worthy opponents or

coadjutors.

I must confess to considerable distrust and dread of a purely professional Government,—composed of members of a close official guild,—untempered by a well-defined, Imperial policy, unmitigated by the presence of a British statesman as Viceroy, unwatched by Parliament, unmindful of popular feelings. The professional ruler must magnify his office; to him it always appears an incontrovertible position, that “whate’er is best administered is best,’”—an opinion which is probably entertained by a great many people in Great Britain, with reference to India, but which seems to me to be opposed to the first principles of modern politics, and to be fraught with infinite mischief. However strong, however well administered, the Government of India may be, it is not, and never will be so strong, and so well administered, as to be able to trust to physical force and organised establishments, and to dispense with moral superiority. ,

But, it may be said, there are certain facts that cannot be denied—they speak for themselves; the results of British administration are beneficial, the revenue and trade of India are increasing, the people are contented and prosperous. Noone can assert more strongly than

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I do that British rule has conferred and is conferring othe greatest benefits upon India. I object to the progress of annexation and uniformity, because it neutralises and debases those benefits, and endangers the stability of our reforming operations. I admit that in most provinces of India the people are in a thriving and improving condition. But that the population in general, or the reflecting and influential classes in particular, are politically contented, indifferent or apathetic, I must distinctly deny. c

It does not follow as a matter of course, that a period of material prosperity is always a period of political tranquillity.. Jeshurun waxed fat and kicked.

Nor does it follow as a matter of course, that a period of material prosperity is to last for ever. Because we dare not predict disaster, do not you presumptuously prophesy smooth things. Twenty years, thirty years, fill up a small space in history, form but a brief term in the life of a nation. Can we not look forward so far? We may have goods laid up in store for many years; we may eat, drink, and be merry, but the day may come —a day of reckoning for our stewardship—when a soul shall be required of us; and it may then be found that there is no soul in our Indian Empire, but that it is possessed of a.devil.

Contents

I, The Revival of Annexation

11. Mysore from 1799 to 1856 b 5 iI. 1856 to 1862 Iv. 1862 and 1863 v. Treaty Rights of the Nizam vi. Rights of the Rajah and his Heirs vir. Imperial Rights and Duties

VIII.

Appendix

The Adoption Despatch .

The Partition and Subsidiary Treaties The Oude Treaty of 1837 Government Education Native Promotions Public Works and Police “ Christmas in Bombay”

Letter from a Friend 3 &

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115 150

THE MYSORE REVERSION,

AN ‘ EXCEPTIONAL CASE.”

Chapter I. The Revival Of Annexation

“ We hereby announce to the Native Princes of India that all Treaties and Engagements made with them by or under the authority of the Honourable East India Company, are by Us accepted, and will be scrupulously maintained ; and We look for the like observance on their part.

“We desire no extension of Our present territorial possessions; and, while we will permit no aggression upon Our dominions or Our rights to be attempted with impunity, We shall sanction no encroachment on those of others. We shall respect the rights, dignity, and honour of Native Princes as Our own; and we desire that they, as well as Our subjects, should enjoy that prosperity and that social advancement which can only be secured by internal peace and good government.” —PROCLAMATION BY THE QupEN IN CouNoIL To THE Princas, CHIEFS, AND Puopzs or Inpra, lst November, 1858.

Four years ago, about the time when Lord Canning’s important despatch of the 30th April, 1860, on the right of Adoption by native Princes, was published, it did really seem as if the era of annexation in India was closed. The unequivocal and weighty assurances of Her Majesty’s Proclamation were hailed as the Magna Charta of the minor States. And even those unconverted and unrepentant officials—some of them men of great merit and ability, such as the late General Sir Mark Cubbon—who deplored that solemn and public statement of principles, declared that its pledges must be scrupulously respected, that its Royal origin forbade all tampering with its terms, and that it constituted an absolute bar to any further territorial acquisitions, except by open war.

During the perilous crisis of 1857, the most serviceable and timely aid in men and money was furnished by every class of native rulers, by independent allies, by protected tributaries,

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3 CHAPTER I.

and by feudatory chieftains ; but the value of this material aid wes far exceeded by the moral effect of their firm and loyal adherence. Lord Canning then learned to admit—to make use of his own words—that “ the safety of our rule is increased, not diminished, by the maintenance of Native Chiefs well affected to us. Setting aside,” he continues, “ the well-known services rendered by Scindia, and subsequently by the Maharajahs of Rewa, Chirkaree, and others, over the wide tract. of Central India, where our authority is most broken in upon by Native States, I venture to say that there is no man who remembers the condition of Upper India in 1857 and 1858, and who is not thankful that in the centre of the large and compact British province of Rohileund there remained the solitary little State of Rampoor, still administered by its own Mahomedan Prince, and that on the borders of the Punjaub and of the districts above Delhi, the Chief of Puttiala and his kinsmen still retained their hereditary authority unimpaired. In the time of which I speak, these patches of Native Goyernment served as breakwaters to the storm which would otherwise have swept over us in oné great wave. *

The natural result of this conspicuous and practical refutation of all Lord Dalhousie’s doctrines as to the impotence, hostility, and uselessness to the Empire. of the Native States, was a salutary reaction in their favour. Cessions in full sovereignty, not only of confiscated estates but of British territory, which two years before would have been looked on as an impossible contingency, were made to several Native Princes as rewards for their inestimable aid. ‘Two successive Secretaries of State, Lord Stanley and Sir Charles Wood, evinced the most liberal intentions towards our dependent allies and tributaries ; both of them insisted on the restoration of Dhar, contrary to the advice of the “experienced political officer,” Colonel Durand, who had unfortunately been allowed by Lord Canning to lead him astray on this point, and who, as Foreign Secretary at Calcutta, still contrives to resist the restoration ; and both of » them, in reviewing some of the worst political cases, took some imperfect steps towards restitution and compensation. |

* Despatch to the Secretary of State, No. 43a, dated Simla, the 30th April, 1860, paragraph 34, Appendix A.

THE REVIVAL OF ANNEXATION. 3

Sir Charles Wood, in his reply of the 26th of July, 1860, cordially agrees with Lord Canning’s despatch from whick I have just quoted, and says:*—“ In the sentiments expressed in your Excellency’s letter of the 30th of April I entirely concur. It-is not by the extension of our Empire that its permanence is to be secured, but by the character of British rule in the territories already committed to our care, and by practically demonstrating that we are as willing to respect the rights of others as we are capable of maintaining our own.”

I shall have to show that if the declared intentions of the present Calcutta authorities with regard to Mysore are allowed to be realised, it will be a practical demonstration that we are not willing to respect the rights of others, that we are resolved to treat with contempt the rights of the Rajah of Mysore, the rights of our Ally the Nizam, the feelings and interests of the people of Mysore, and of the Princes and people of all India.

In short, the grand and terrible events of 1857 did rouse the nation, the statesmen of Great Britain, the rulers of India, ® something like enthusiasm, and under its influence—and in spite of the irresistible exasperation of the hour—many noble principles were avowed, some of which were embodied in the Royal Proclamation, and in other official documents. But the excitement soon died away, upon the restoration of order. When none but financial difficulties remained, and when even these were surmounted, the season of self-complacent apathy set in once more. And now, in this time of our wealth, security and pride, there is a manifest tendency to depreciate our obligations to the native Princes, and to renew pretensions which, it may be said, have never been abandoned except by way of grace and favour.

Almost every statesman of eminence, of all parties and in both Houses of Parliament, sought for occasions during the Sessions of 1857 and 1858, to condemn emphatically the policy of annexation; one and all concurred in attributing the rebellion i a great measure to the bad spirit which that policy had created. Even so late as the 4th of August last, Lord Stanley made use of the following words in a speech before the Liverpool Chamber of Commerce :—“ This he might say, they had never had an abler Governor-General, or an administration at

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4. ’ CHAPTER I.

Calcutta more thoroughly peaceable in its intentions, or with a more fixed determination not to carry on that policy of annexation of which so much was heard fifteen years ago.” *

But it will be my painful task to show that the present Governor General and the present administration at Calcutta are actually engaged in carrying on that same policy of annexation, that they are carrying it on by the discarded and discredited process of ignoring an adoption, that was so cruelly exercised in Lord Dalhousie’s time, and that this process now menaces the most friendly, the most tractable, the most orderly, and to us the most profitable native State that still exists in India.

Lord Canning recommended his measures in 1860, for securing to every Chief above the rank of a Jaghiredar the right of adopting a successor, according to the Hindoo law, because, said he, it will ‘‘show at once, and for ever, that we are not lying in wait for opportunities of absorbing territory, and that we do deliberately desire to keep alive a feudal aristocracy where one still exists.” “And,” he added, in that same despatch, “should the day come when India shall be threatened by an external enemy, or when the interests of England elsewhere may require that her Eastern Empire shall incur more than ordinary risk, one of our best main-stays will be found in these native States. But to make them so, we must treat their Chiefs and influential families with consideration and generosity, teaching them that,-inl spite of all suspicions to the contrary, their independence is safe, that we are not waiting for plausible opportunities to convert their country into British territory, and convincing them that they have nothing to gain by helping to displace us in favour of any new rulers from within or from without.”

But I shall prove that we are.now “ lying in wait” for “fa plausible opportunity” to absorb territory to which we have no manner of claim or title whatever; that when Lord Canning penned those lines he was, with strange inconsistency and instability of purpose, himself “lying in wait” for that same territory, and was preparing a lurking-place for himself or his successor by an inexplicit reservation in that very despatch ;

* Paragraph 26. Appendix A.

e ; THE REVIVAL OF ANNEXATION. 5 that, through his ill-advised contrivance, the British Government is now visibly “lying in wait” until the death of she Rajah of Mysore, who has passed the age of three score years and ten, to pounce upon that Principality without a shadow of right or justice.

Among the distinguished officers who, under the Governor General’s instructions, negotiated the Treaties of 1799 with the representatives of the Rajah of Mysore and the Nizam, there was one great man, then known as Colonel Arthur Wellesley, who foresaw that a measure of resumption might be planned at some future period, and warned his brother, Lord Mornington, in the following emphatic terms, to provide against the possibility of such a breach of faith:—

“Colonel Kirkpatrick will have written to you yesterday respecting the 6th Article of the Subsidiary Treaty. We all agreed that that ought to be modified in some manner. As it now stands, it will give ground for the belief that we give the Rajah the country at the present moment with the intention of taking it away again when it will suit our convenience. Supposing that the candid and generous policy of the present Government should weaken that belief as far as it regards them, it must be allowed that the conduct of the British Government in India has not at all times been such as to induce the natives to believe that at some time or other improper advantage will not be taken of that Article. They know as well as we do that there may be a change of government immediately, and that there certainly will be one in the course of a few years, and the person then appointed Governor General may not have such enlarged systems of policy as those by which we are regulated at the present moment. This induces me to believe, that they will object strongly to that Article, and I don’t think that it will be very creditable to us to insist upon it,’’*

The Governor General did insist upon that Article; an improper advantage was takefi of that Article; in the course . of years the candid and generous policy of Government did become weakened ; and in the present day the intention is too

* Wellington’s Supplementary Despatches, vol. i, p. 244, This letter was written before the Treaty was concluded; and the Article which is here called “the 6th” can only be Article iv. The discrepancy may be due to a subsequent alteration of the draft, or perhaps to some clerical or typographical confusion between “1v” and “v1”.

6 CHAPTER I.

clearly manifested of taking away the country of Mysore, begause it is supposed to suit our convenience.

The ultimate disposal of the Mysore territories at the demise of the reigning Rajah, will probably, and may very reasonably be made to depend upon the answers that are finally given to the following three questions :—

1. Has tHE British GovVERNMENT ANY RIGHT TO ANNEX THOSE TERRITORIES ¢

2. WouLD THE ANNEXATION BE BENEFICIAL TO THE PEOPLE or Mysore ?,

3. WouLD THE ANNEXATION BE ADVANTAGEOUS. TO THE British Empire?

I presume that our Government would at present answer these questions in the affirmative. I shall endeaveur to show. that all three questions ought to be met with an absolute negative. I hope to produce a conviction so decided of the injustice, impolicy, and imprudence of the meditated annexation, as may lead to some decided action in the Cabinet or in Parliament, and may once more place the Home authorities in distinct antagonism to that policy of bad faith and disguised rapacity by which, during the last twenty years, the officials of Calcutta have destroyed the fair fame of Great Britain in the East, and undermined the foundations of our Indian Empire.

Chapter II. Mysore From 1799 To 1856

Axovt four centuries ago two brothers of that tribe of Yedava Rajpoots, to which Krishna, the deified hero of Dwarka in Guzerat, is said to have belonged, left the great Hindoo capital of Beejanuggur, and travelled South in search of adventures. One of them,is said to have married, under very romantic circumstances, the daughter of a wealthy landholder in the neighbourhood of Scringapatam, whose Canarese title of Wadiyar, or Lord, adopted by his son-in-law, when he succeeded to the estate, became the hereditary distinction of their descendants. Such is the origin of the Rajahs of Mysore, according to the annals of their court poets and genealogists.

For many years the Wadiyars extended their possessions by subduing the neighbouring chieftains ; they assumed the title of Rajah, but paid tribute and homage to Beejanugegur. But from the subversion of that last great Hindoo State, in 1564, by the four Mahomedan Kings of Dowlutabad, Beejapoor, Golconda, and Beder, the Mysore Rajahs may be considered as independent Princes. One of them commenced to coin money in his own name in the year 1654; and another, during the reign of the Mogul Emperor Aurungzeb, claimed and established the right of sitting on an ivory throne. The Mysore State, though sometimes reduced to. ceremonial homage, and to the payment of ransom or tribute, always maintained its autonomy against the successive pretensions of the Mahomedan Kings of Beejapoor, the Mahrattas, and the Nizam ; and enlarged its boundaries during the political convulsions attending the fall of the Mogul Empire, which altered the whole political aspect of the Deccan.

On the death of the Rajah ‘Chick Deo Raj in 1731, his successor, a minor, became a mere puppet in the hands of the

Dalway, or hereditary Minister, a veritable Maire du Palais. A guccession of military and financial exigencies, with which no one else was capable of dealing, at length threw all the power of the State into the hands of the celebrated Hyder Ali, who had commenced his career as a simple trooper. Hyder Ali always kept up the form of annually presenting the captive . Rajah, as their Sovercign, to the assembled people at the . Dusserah festival, while he took the place himself of Commander-in-chief and Minister; but after the first few years of his son’s reign this custom was discontinued by Tippoo, who himself assumed all the style and emblems of royalty, to which his father had never pretended.

Counting from the final ruin of Hyder’s patron and rival, the Hindoo minister, Nunjeraj, in 1761, to the, death of Tippoo Sultan in the storm of his-great stronghold, in 1799, the Mussulman’ ascendancy in Mysore only lasted for thirty-eight years.

Lord Wellesley’s first plan after Seringapatam was taken, was that of recognising one of Tippoo’s sons; but he was deterred from this settlement chiefly by considerations of British interests, and a dread of French influence, and partly, also, by a regard for the “antiquity” of the Hindoo royal family’s “legitimate title.” He writes to Dundas, the 7th of June, 1799 :—“ It would certainly have been desirable that the power should have been placed in the hands of one of Tippoo’s sons; but the hereditary and intimate connection established between Tippoo and the French, the probability that the French may be enabled to maintain themselves in Egypt, and the perpetual interest which Tippoo’s family must feel to undermine and subvert a system which had so much reduced their patrimony and power, precluded the possibility of restoring any branch of the family of the late Sultan to the throne, without exposing us to the constant hazard of internal commotion, and even of foreign war.’”*

Sound policy thus forbidding the maintenance of the House of 'Tippoo, the Governor General naturally turned to the representative of the royal family of Mysore, whose rights had been usurped by Hyder Ali. ‘ “Between the British Govern-

* Wellesley’s Despatches, vol. ii, p. 36.

ment and this family,” writes Lord Wellesley to the Court of Directors on the 3rd of August, 1799, “an intercourse of friendship and kindness had subsisted in the most desperate crisis of their adverse fortunes.” Lord Wellesley here alludes to the negotiations carried on in 1782 with the agents of Sham Raj, father of the present Rajah, which resulted in a Treaty of alliance, ratified by the Government of Madras on the 27th of November in that year; in consequence of which the Hindoo Prince’s flag was hoisted on the walls of Caroor, when that fort was taken, on the 2nd of April, 1783, by Colonel Lang. The conspiracy of the Rajah’s adherents in Mysore, which led to these negotiations, was, however, discovered and crushed by Tippoo; and in 1783 the Honourable Company made peace with the Syltan, and in the next year concluded a Treaty with him.* “They had formed,” continues Lord Wellesley, “no connection with your enemies. ‘heir elevation would be the spontaneous act of your generosity, and from your support alone could they ever hope to be maintained upon the throne, either against the family of Tippoo Sultan, or against any other claimant. They must naturally view with an eye of jealousy all the friends of the usurping family, and consequently be adverse to the French, or to any other State connected with that family in its hereditary hatred of the British Government.” “In addition to these motives of policy, moral considerations and sentiments of generosity and humanity, favoured the restoration of the ancient family of Mysore. Their high birth, the antiquity of their legitimate title, and their long and unmerited sufferings, rendered them peculiar objects of com- “passion and respect; nor could it be doubted that their government would be both more acceptable and more indulgent than that of the Mahomedan usurpers, to the mass of the inhabitants of the country, composed almost entirely of Hindoos.”+ And his instructions to the Commissioners appointed by him for the settlement of Mysore affairs were to the same effect :— “The restoration of the representative of the ancient family of the Rajahs of Mysore, accompanied by a partition of ter-

* Historical Sketches of Southern India and Mysore, by Colonel Mark Wilks, 1817, vol. ii, p. 488-500.

T Wellesley’s Despatches, vol. ii, p. 81-82.

ritory between the Allies, in which the interests of the Mahrattas should be conciliated, appearing to me, under all the circumstances of the case, to be the most advisable basis on which any new settlement of the country can be vested, I have resolved to frame without delay a plan founded on these principles.””* a

I have already quoted a passage in which Lord Wellesley describes the recognition of the Hindoo Prince as “an act of spontaneous generosity.” This was the fundamental principle upon which that great statesman, most justly and judiciously, based the whole transaction as between the allied powers and the Mysore family :—

“From the justice and success of the late war with Tippoo Sultan,” he writes to the Court of Directors, “the Company and the Nizam derived an undoubted right to the disposal of - the dominions conquered by their united arms. The right of conguest entitled the Company and the Nizam to retain the whole territory in their own hands; the cession of it to any other party might be a consideration of policy or humanity, but could not be claimed on any ground of justice or right.”

«A lineal descendant of the ancient House of the Rajahs of Mysore still remained at Seringapatam ; but whatever might be the hopes of his family from the moderation and humanity of the conquerors, this young Prince could assert no wght to any share of the conquered territory.”

The investiture of the Rajah with the character of a Sovereigh was deliberately treated by Lord Wellesley, not as the restoration of an old Government and dynasty, but as the creation of a new one. It appears from his letter of the 7th of June, 1799, that according to the original draft of the Treaty the whole of the conquered territories were to be considered as the Rajah’s dominions, and the provinces to be retained by the Allies were to be accepted by them as if they were ceded by the Hindoo Sovereign. To this process the Governor General objected. “I think,” said he, ‘ the whole transaction would be more conveniently thrown into a different form from that which you have given to it. I do not see any necessity for . ceding the whole country, in the first instance, to the Rajah of