Hindustan Under Free Lances, 1770-1820: Sketches of Military Adventure in Hindustan During the ...

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SKETCHES OF MILITARY ADVENTURE IN HINDUSTAN DURING THE PERIOD IMMEDI- ATELY PRECEDING BRITISH OCCUPATION

H. G. KEENE, CLE,, Hon. M.A., Oxon.

rSLLOW OF CALCUTTA UNIVSRSITT, AUTHOR OP ''SIMDHIA" III "RULBSS OF INDIA," "BISTOST OF IKDIA,'* "THB FALL OF THB MOOBAL SUPISB," AND OTBXR WORKS

WITH A PRBFACB BY THB LATB

Rt. Hon. SIR RICHARD TEMPLE, Bart., etc, etc

WllH ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAP

LONDON

78 NEW BOND STREET W.

FIELD-MARSHAL THE EARL ROBERTS, V.C.,

Etc., Etc.

Mt Lord,

The opinion on the first draft of this work which you were good enough to express has emboldened me to ask permission to inscribe this page with your honoured name.

I am, respectfully yours,

THE AUTHOR.

I.

*

PUBLISHERS' NOTE

The chapters in this book originally appeared in the Calcutta Review, and at the request of many readers the work was published in t)Ook form in Calcutta in 1901 (on account of the author) under the title of The Great Anarchy. The author, dissatisfied with the form in which the volume was issued, cancelled the publication after the subscribers' copies had been distributed. This new and revised edition has been prepared for circulation in this country, and the title has been changed to one more indicative of the contents of the volume.

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Preface

I HAVE been asked by Mr. Henry George Keene, with whom I have an ahnost lifelong friendship, to write a brief preface to this work of his. The title of the book is The Great Anarchy ^ and the narrative depicts the situation of India just before the British acquired power. The words ** Darkness before Dawn " have been applied to heathenism before the rise of Christianity. They may also have a political significance, and in that sense they possess a wondrous applicability to the condition of India during the course of the eighteenth century before the Imperial control introduced by the British soon after its close. Never in the chequered history of all the ages had India known such an anarchy as that which then prevailed. When I landed in India about the middle of the nineteenth century, no witnesses survived to attest the horrors and miseries of that time, but the children or at least the grandchildren of the sufferers were still present to recount the testimony handed down to them by their parents.' Thus an immense volume of tradition remained in the fullest force. Mr. Keene himself resided and exercised authority for many years in the tracts and regions most severely afrected by the calamities and visitations. I also had a similar experience, and perhaps had even wider opportunities for measuring the enormous dimensions of this widespread destruction. The Moghal

* The writer of the following chapters twice conversed with actual survivors : a jemadar of Geo. Thomas's service and a man who had been in the " Gosatn *' brigade of Himmat Bahadur in 1785.— H. G. K.

is

X HINDUSTAN

invasion of Central Asia in the Middle Ages has been likened to a shipwreck of the nations. A similar catastrophe overtook some of the noblest nationalities of India 150 years ago. Nothing but the strong arm of British power could have raised them from this ''slough of despond." The area thus submerged by this inundation of misfortune comprised the Northern, the Central, and the Western parts of India. It was not much less than a million of square miles, and must have contained over one hundred millions of people, all unhappy and troubled in a greater or lesser degree. With the whole of this area I have been in one way or another officially connected, and have met the immediate descendants of those who were concerned in the afiFairs of that troublous era. Thus having personal knowledge of these regions and their several nationalities, I am qualified to explain the merits of Mr. Keene's present work.

He is himself extraordinarily capable of unravelling the skeins of this complex subject, in which personalities and nationalities, diversities and contrarieties are combined and confused. Yet out of all this confusion he evolves a narrative, lucid and succinct, so that the reader who may desire to follow the romantic fortunes of any individual, or family, or political party, can do so with ease. Indeed, when undertaking to deal with this subject he approached it with a mass of preparatory and collateral information gathered through many years of study — a study, too, conducted often on the very scenes of the events. His first considerable work was entitled The Fall of the Moghal Empite, z theme demanding the powers of an epic poet, had such a one arisen in Asia. This event, vitally affecting what was then, next after China, the finest part of Asia, began to come about in the days when the crown of England descended from King William to Queen Anne and when the star of Marlborough was in the ascendant. The descent once set in motion proceeded with the rapidity with which a mass of rock

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rolls down a precipice to the abyss beneath. So the story of this series of events, tending under the direction of Providence to one and the same fatal result, was graphically told by Mr. Keene in his first book. This was followed by his other work, entitled A Sketch of the History of Hindustan^ relating to a region which formed an important section in the vast theatre of disturbance, though it did not comprise the whole. Then came his monograph on Sindhia, the only one of the Maratha rulers who tried to educe order out of the chaos of anarchy. Thus armed with learning and with something more than that, namely, the knowledge gained by residence on the spot or by contact with the descendants of the very actors in the historic tragedies, Mr. Keene essays his task in a manner that no other living writer could display.

Such a narrative will naturally embrace the movements of Native Indian princes, rulers, rebels, upstarts, and brigands whenever their brigandage was on a scale large enough to require mention, which it but too often was. But in the narrative there is another element, and that a most peculiar one, which will perhaps have more interest for the English reader than the purely Native Indian parts of the story ; and the element is in this wise. An English reader, who though possessing general culture might not have followed the details of Asiatic warfare and disturbance, would probably be surprised to hear that, in the anarchy which followed the downfall of ''The Great Moghal" and prepared the way for British rule, European adventurers outside the control of any European Government, British or other, were among the main factors. These Europeans, more of continental than of British stock, were like stormy petrels hovering over the sea of trouble, or like mariners in their barques riding on the crests of the waves, often nearing the breakers, yet rarely striking on them and but seldom engulfed. Often they directed the political storms, and m HINDUSTAN

sometimes they even guided the whirlwinds. Their origin was as various as their employments : Italians, Savoyards, French, Flemish, Dutch, and occasionally even British ; some were of gentle, almost noble birth, some were soldiers from the ranks, some were from the forecastle, some were deserters, some were mere swashbucklers, some were gentlemen and administrators, some were honourable though rough soldiers, some were mere money-makers, and some were adventurers of the meanest type. Many, perhaps most of them were French. Before the French Revolution, say 1790, they were of good birth ; after that they were of a very inferior class. Asiatic rulers have always been glad to obtain the services of Europeans so long as these continued to be servants, and it is only when such a servant begins to be masterful that jealousy arises, either on the part of the ruler or his Asiatic servants. Besides this general motive, there was a special motive for employing Europeans when political existence was always a struggle for life and death on the part of all Native Indians who had to keep their heads above the seething surface of political whirlpools. Then it was that they must have at any cost men who could drill troops in camp and lead them in the field. Doubtless when such men rose to high commands, having organised their Asiatic battalions for victory, and then were entrusted with high civil authority, then, no doubt, their Asiatic fellow-servants must have been jealous, and such jealousy must have been dangerous, involving among other risks the chances of assassination. Still, in the main they were so useful as to be quite the necessary men to their employers under the stress of emergency. But there was yet another reason for their employment. The infant Colossus of British power was already showing itself in several quarters. Its growth was precarious; still, growth there always was, often depressed, but never stamped out, ever springing forward again after temporary retrocession. There was

UNDER FREE LANCES ziii

about it a vitality, a spring, a verve, a motive force, a steadiness and stability which simply struck terror into the minds and hearts of every Asiatic, high and low. Its qualities were so alien to anything known in Oriental experience, that all India lay under the dread, like that of a nightmare, that the British, if so minded, might attain to universal mastery. Of this masterful ambition and of this persevering temper the signs were everywhere apparent. It immediately occurred to every Indian who cut his path to power, or waded through blood to the seat of temporary authority, that his best chance of saving himself from the advancing British was to employ some man or men of the fateful European races. A man of British nationality would not be suitable, because presumably he could not be trusted to oppose his own people. Moreover, he would not be obtainable, because, if really an able man, he could find employment under his own Government. Thus the men available would be of continental origin. It was thought that even if they were not as efiFective as the English, they were at all events white men with a good share of the capacity which always distinguishes Europeans. Some were chosen either in reference to credentials or to known antecedents; others, again, were employed first in some humble capacity and then raised themselves higher by sheer prowess. Several of them won victories or otiier military advantages for their chiefs. All of them without exception were rewarded with a richness astonishing even to Anglo-Indians. Some of them amassed really immense fortunes in reference to the nature of their work and to the circumstances of their epoch. Indeed, the amounts and sums of wealth would at first sight seem unaccountable when it is remembered that at this time India was agitated from end to end, her social life being shaken to its very foundations. It is, however, to be remembered that, despite all superficial appearances to the contrary, the accumulated wealth of xiv HINDUSTAN

India has at all times been enormous. Casual observers may be tempted to suppose otherwise, but those whose gaze can penetrate to the bottom well know that with an abounding population of thrifty habits, addicted generally if not universally to save and spare, to accumulate and to secrete, there will always be resources amassed in a smaller or greater degree according to the ability of the individual. Consequently at this dark era — ^that is to say, in the second half of the eighteenth century — ^there were incalculable quantities of stored and hoarded possessions. Therefore it is that in a brief time these European soldiers of fortune acquired that wealth that would have appeared to them fabulous before they entered the Oriental service, and must have transcended any visions that may have haunted their ambitious dreams. Some of them were not content with Native Indian subordinates, but employed Europeans in lesser, even humble, capacities. Such men, of course, merged into obscurity, while the names of their leaders remained conspicuous. Thus the number of Europeans great and small in Native Indian service was at certain times and in certain places quite appreciable. On the whole it may be said that in the contests which were going on at this era, running sometimes crosswise, at other times parallel, to one another, and oftentimes overlapping each other, the Europeans in native employ did in some degree mould events and almost directed the stategy of conflicting forces. Their system of drill and discipline was generally adopted, especially in the artillery and infantry, and where it was not adopted, particularly in the cavalry which was usually irregular, the results were disastrous. One of the great authorities of the time is understood to have pronounced that the Native Indian princes would have fared better had they never made use of the alien aid of the Europeans. It is difficult to say whether any such dictum could be affirmed or not, inasmuch as the Native States, which then comprised three-fourths of

UNDER FREE LANCES xv

India, were foredoomed to subjugation by the British power, whatever they might do or not do. But this much may be affirmed, that owing to the European officers in the Native States the rising floods and streams of anarchy were diverted in directions where they would not otherwise have flowed. Moreover, when at the beginning of the nineteenth century the British came to close quarters with the Native States, the influence of these European officers had abated and their numbers had decreased. Nevertheless the drill and discipline which they had introduced still remained and caused the native resistance to the British forces to be stiffer than it would otherwise have been on several wellfought fields.

It may be well for a moment to dwell on the character of the area, the field and theatre of action, in which these European adventurers, under their Native Indian chiefs and sovereigns, fought, conquered, conducted or endured sieges, and managed provinces during the eighteenth century. These lands are indeed some of the most classic and historic in the East, and upon each one of them these white soldiers of fortune had left the mark of European handiwork, although serving under Native Indian rigime^ before British authority came to comprehend the whole country with its all-embracing control. Such a summary survey of this historical geography can be immediately had from a glance at the map.

Let a beginning be made from about midway in the north of India, midway also in the southern base of the long Himalayan mountain range; that is to say in Hindustan, or the upper basin of the Ganges and its affluent the Jumna ; ever the principal seat of Empire in India, a uniquely Imperial province; politically the most important part of the whole country. In it are the twin capitals of Dehli and Agra ; and around Dehli in particular are laid some of the most striking scenes in Mr. Keene's drama of the Great Anarchy. Then let us, xvi HINDUSTAN

advancing due south, in imagination cross first the Ganges, then the Jumna. So we pass by Ujain, with its ruins of hoar antiquity, then by Gwalior, the rock-citadel destined to become the seat of the one power that stayed the course of the Great Anarchy, and by Rajputana, bordering the Western Desert of India, that after severe struggles barely escaped submergence under the flood of almost universal revolution. Next let us, still proceeding southwards, march into the very heart of Central India, crossing the Vindhya range and the broad uplands and undulations connected therewith, right down to the north bank of the Narbada, point after point in which is signalised by some event in Mr. Keene's story. Crossing this, the queen of beauty among Indian rivers, we must on our historic tour, ever advancing southwards, ascend the Sautpura range, the true backbone of the Indian continent, descend into the valley of the Tapti river, and so reach the northern uplands of the Deccan, marked by the remains of nationalities many centuries old and by the comparatively modern associations of the Great Anarchy. So we arrive at the Deccan, the southern plateau of the Indian continent, second only to Hindustan in importance amidst the mediaeval revolutions and in the more recent politics of India. For Mr. Keene's story the Deccan must be divided into two distinct spheres of action, one the Deccan of the Hindu Marathas, with its capital at Poona, the other the Deccan of the Moghals, or the Moslem Nizams, with its capital at Haidarabad. Now this line of imaginative march has extended over full a thousand miles. Outside the regions thus compassed there are no doubt provinces in the north-west, the east, the south. Still within it are most of the dominant places in India, most of the localities best deserving the attention of the student who desires to understand the miserable condition of the heritage which fell into the hands of the British at the beginning of the nineteenth century; the vineyard which, having

UNDER FREE LANCES xvii

been broken down, torn up and trampled under the iron heel, had to be restored to order by British conquest, and set up again by Western administration. Indeed, a practical apprehension of the geography above sketched is most desirable, if not absolutely essential, to the appreciation of Mr. Keene's narrative.

In a preface like this it is impossible even to mention these numerous European adventurers. The reader who may be curious to follow their careers will gladly refer to Mr. Keene's pages. The life of each one among them is strange and peculiar ; indeed, very uncommon even for a land like India, which is ever fertile in wonders. Each career is full of instruction to every student who wishes to observe human capacity and individual possibilities under abnormal conditions. Among the most remarkable of these cases will be found that of M. Boigne, a Savoyard by birth, education, and experience, who rose to be the right-hand man of Sindhia, the most potent native chief then in India, and ultimately retired to his native Savoy, dying there in wealth and honour ; that of Perron, a deserter from the French Navy, a common man, who, by his mother-wit, became the military successor of Boigne, was taken prisoner of war by the British General, Lord Lake, and after release, died obscurely in France ; that of George Thomas, a deserter from the British Navy, an unlettered man with some genius, who contrived to establish an almost independent dominion in parts of Northern India, but had ultimately to surrender himself to British authorities in whose custody he died on his way to Calcutta. The effect of these and all the other careers can be gathered only by a perusal of Mr. Keene's book.

In this brief summary justice cannot be done to Mr. Keene's historical style, which has a masterly grasp of details and arrays them with truly pictorial effect. To the general reader just a few passages may be specially commended as examples illustrating the romance of xviii HINDUSTAN

Indian life during the eighteenth century; though, indeed, the whole history is like an epic poem, save that the composition has the living force derivable only from reality and truth. For facility of reference the numbers of the chapters are given from which the examples are taken. The passages may be designated as the capture by the British of Law (nephew of the notorious speculator), the Franco-Scot who was fighting on the Native Indian side against his own countrymen (Chap. II.) ; the narrow escape of Boigne from assassination (Chap. IV.) ; the headlong charge of Rajput chivalry, and their return through a Valley of Death, four thousand saddles emptied by the fire of regular infantry (Chap. IV.) ; the rescue of the Emperor of Dehli from imminent death by the Sardhana troops (Chap. VIII.); the superb charge of the heavy-armed cavalry of Raj pu tana upon Du Drenec's regulars (Chap. VII.) ; the Muslim defeat at Kardla, and the memory of Raymond, to this day cherished at Haidarabad as that of the preux chevalier (Chap. VII.); the fateful flight of the princess Begum Sombre, her attempted suicide with an ineffectual stiletto, and the simultaneous self-destruction of her husband by a pistol-shot ; the last struggles and final surrender of George Thomas (Chap. VIII.) ; the capture of Perron by Lord Lake (Chap. XL); the bloody and hard-fought battle between the Maratha chiefs when the troops on both sides were led by European officers, and when indeed Greek did meet Greek (Chap. XL); Skinner and his " yellow " regiment of horse at the siege of Bhurtpur, the dam being seized by the besiegers in the nick of time, preventing the besieged from flooding their moat (Chap. XII.) ; Gardner drawing his sword upon his Native Indian sovereign when provoked by insult in open Durbar or Levee (Chap. XIV.).

These striking scenes are but specimens of the great repertoire of historic scenery which Mr. Keene's narrative comprises, and of the picture-gallery it contains.

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Near the end of the book, in Chapter XV., doubts are apparently expressed regarding the internal policy of Dalhousie and Lawrence, though their politiod virtues are acknowledged. As they are statesmen of a school to which I have been proud to belong, these doubts naturally are not shared by me. Some questions, too, are raised regarding some branches of recent British administration, such as education, sanitation, and the like ; here also I am unable to concur, while I admit, on the other hand, that these subjects are all the better for free discussion.

This, however, in nowise hinders me from giving the most cordial adhesion to the historic truths and the political principles most ably and effectively set forth in the main and the essential portions of this work.

RICHARD TEMPLE.

Introduction

Thbrb is some danger of the Indian Empire being too much taken for granted in the daily cares of our national life. It is easy to forget what a mighty task we have undertaken there ; and that the introduction of British power was an essential stage in the social evolution of the various races who people that vast and varied region. At the dawn of the nineteenth century all seemed dark ; the stars were paling and it was not by any means plain what the day was likely to be. None the less, because quite unconsciously, was it preceded and prepared by the labours of individual Europeans, who served competing native chieftains, and set up a standard of order, preparing men's minds for some vague ideas of discipline and duty. [See Colonel Malleson's opinion ; also citation from Bengal Journal of 1790, ap. the present writer's Sindhia, p. 180.]

Some notion of these men and of their work is helpful in recognising the need for intelligent leading in such conditions. It is here o£Fered, as found in contemporary records; including letters from General de Boigne and others. The chapters appeared originally in the Calcutta Review, and the author has to thank the Editor and Proprietors of that serial for permission to reproduce them in the present form. The letters of which mention is made above have never before been published : for the use of them thanks are due to Mr. S. Sutherland. Information as to Perron has been courteously comxxii HINDUSTAN

municated by one of his descendants, Colonel the Marquis de Brantes.

This little book was not undertaken in any spirit of controversy. But there are mistakes made about British India ; and the writer will not deny that he would gladly think that it was in his power to give them any correction. Many, both in India and in England, believe in a splendid past to which the people are debarred the return by an alien dominion. Any knowledge of the facts will be beneficial by which such persons can be disabused. The Moghal Empire of India fell in pieces in the eighteenth century A.D., the first blow being given in 1757, wheix Clive beat the Moghal Viceroy at Plassy and placed a vassal of the East India Company on the seat of administration — ^the musnud of Bengal. The Great Anarchy deepened while Afghan and Maratha contended for power in Hindustan; a beginning was made of its extinction when Lake took Dehli in 1803. There are, therefore, exactly fifty years of almost unrecorded darkness to be dealt with ; and some attempt to deal with it will be found in works mentioned on the title-page, and in the pages which follow.

The scope of the present work imposes strict limitations ; and the general history of the Moghal Empire in India stands on record in easily accessible works. It will suffice here that the reader should be reminded of the close resemblance of the case to that of the Roman Empire in the time of Septimius Severus. Like that monarch, the celebrated Alamgir — better known by his title of Aurangzeb— had obtained the throne by treachery and murder, and was compelled to dependence on extensive military action for his maintenance in power. After an administration of indefatigable ability, energy and industry, Aurangzeb died on a remote and difficult enterprise, and the decline of the Empire almost instantly began. The intrigues of politicians, the growth of insubordination, the rapid succession of incompetent sovereigns, precipitated the

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disintegration of the Empire, until foreign invasion from various quarters rendered recovery impossible. After a period of some twelve years, during which there was not even a titular Emperor at Dehli, the wandering heir obtained a sort of restoration in 1771. But he was a complete dependent, at first of the Marathas, afterwards of a Persian Minister, until 1788, when he was blinded by a Muslim adventurer, and aiterwards held in honourable confinement by Sindhia and his European subordinates until they were driven out by the British in 1803. It is during this miserable "reign" that the Great Anarchy became complete in Hindustan.

In the transliteration of native names the system originated by Sir William Jones has been generally followed, vowels having the same value as in Italian. Exception, however, has been made in respect of a few words like Calcutta and Lucknow, which have become naturalised in our language.

The state of Hindustan and parts of the Deccan during the latter years of the eighteenth centiu-y was one of the most terrible ever beheld in a country with any claim to civilisation. Every province had fallen away from the Imperial throne; some to become independent under usurping satraps, others to pass, like Bengal and the Carnatic, into the power of intrusive aliens. Into these latter peace and a sort of awkward administration were entering; elsewhere the land was full of the smoke of burning homesteads, and the reek of innocent blood. Every man, wrote an eye-witness, lived as in a forest of wild beasts, and owed his safety only to the strength of his own heart and arm. Over and above the miserable villagers by whom, in spite of all, the earth continued to be a little cultivated, there were, in each great denomination, two classes of ruling men possessed of what, by comparison, might be called education. Among the Hindus were the Brahmans, remotely descended from Aryan forefathers and still retaining some signs of superiority in body and mind; while the leaders of Muslim opinion were the Moulvis, claiming descent from Arabian Shaikhs and Sa3ryids. The military members of either creed were twofold.: the Rajputs and Marathas on one side, the Moghals and Pathans on the other. Among these six raged a deadly enmity, each apparently aiming at the extirpation of the other.

In such a state of things a ^great prize appeared before the minds of able and ambitious leaders : and any advantage that would enable a man to overthrow all opposition was eagerly sought for. Such an advantage seemed within the reach of Sindhia when he first observed ** with what majesty the British soldier fights." If he could obtain the services of a few good European officers, his soldiers, drilled and disciplined like white troops, would be as a lance with a steel point. The supply was not plentiful ; but it was not wholly wanting. Younger sons of French families were more ready to wander than they have been since the Revolution ; and, sooner or later, a few British, or Indo-British,> officers became available. These men cut loopholes in the jungle with their swords, admitting a little air and light.

But the general e£Fect, down to the time when the servants of the Company appeared in Hindustan, is that of hardly-mitigated anarchy; and much the same would even now arise if anything should occur to cause the disappearance of the employees of the British Government.

The story to be told involves details bearing on the insecurity of order, property and life, the absence of police, the great prevalence of all sorts of crime, the inability of the different persons who professed themselves rulers to collect revenue by ordinary methods, or with any attempt at r^ularity. Hence the agriculturists, besides the general uncertainty of their lives.

UNDER FREE LANCES xxv

had to su£Fer from this further annoyance, that their a£Fairs wavered between times when no revenue was demanded from them, so that they could waste their profits upon fakirs and fireworks, and other times when the Government sent troops to the villages who took everything on which they could lay hands.