Letters on India : to John Tremayne

Chapter I. Page

Introductory . . . . .1

Chapter II

Want of general knowledge on Indian subjects — Objects of present inquiry — Absolute necessity of acquiring the sympathy of the Natives — Anomalous nature of our Indian Empire — Necessity and great difficulty of colonization — Value of India . . 16

CHAFPER III.

The amount of cant that pervades Indian discussions — Nature of our patent of right to India — The cruelties of the Sepoys partly dictated by their religion — Not new in History . .31

Chapter IV

Prestige — Near is my shirt, but nearer is my skin — Our Indian Empire too large — Grievous want of Educated Europeans — Blighting effects of inefficient rule — State of Madras — Districts of Tanjore and Guntoor . . 39

Chapter V

Composition of the Indian services — Necessity of India to the existing condition of the upper middling classes — Rewards of educated labour — Indian wealth diverted from its former channel — Flourishing condition of matrimony amongst Anglo-Indians — Continued drain on the capital of India . . . 4'J

VI CONTENTS.

Chapter VI. Page

Good government more difficult to define than bad — Absurdity of a double government — Composition of Court of Directors — Their remaining power very limited — Their distribution of patronage honest and just — Danger of intrusting Indian patronage to the Queen's Government . . . .58

Chapter VII

Ordinary qualifications of a President of the Board of Control — His Secretaries — His Duties and Power — Difficulty of arriving at the truth on Indian matters — Entente cordiale between President and Chairman . . . . .69

Chapter XI

Native army — Causes of the Mutiny — High-caste Sepoys — Devotion to their caste — Impossibility of exterminating Sepoys — Real Cause of the Mutiny — Cruel betrayal of Horse Guards' patronage— Want of Justice to Indian officers . .117

CONTENTS. Vll

Chapter XII. Page

Constitution of Anglo-Indian Army — Average number during ten years — Expense — Qualities of Native troops — Irregular Cavalry — Force requisite — Iniquity of Native Police — Their number, power, and oppression . . . .134

Chapter XIII

Public works — Native and British territory — British injustice — Value of irrigation — Necessity of Mercantile element to good government of India — Profit attending judicious investments . 149

Chapter XIV

Mistaken views of Caste and Religion — Difficulty of arriving at truth of Missionary labour — Nature of the Conversions — Immense Missionary agency — Abbe Dubois — Archbishop of Agra — Difficulties of language — Critical taste of Hindoos . .165

Chapter I. Introductory

WHEN these letters were originally printed, I had no intention whatever of submitting them to the tender mercies of a critical public: they were intended for private circulation only, and on that account possibly contain freer remarks on men and matters, than is advisable in a work that courts publicity. Be that as it may, for some reason or another, probably because everything on India goes down now-a-days, they have attracted more attention than I expected, and consequently, to use the stereotyped phraseology of modest authors under similar circumstances, "I have consented to give them to the world."

The multitude of books of all sorts, sizes, shapes, and prices, on every imaginable subject, is one of the inflictions of the age. The number of those who write, is quite out of all proportion to those who read, and till these numbers are more fairly balanced, I question whether we should not display more real zeal for knowledge, and more regard for our own limited intellects, by increasing the existing taxes on knowledge, than by repealing those we have. Nobody gams by the present multiplicity of books; those who read a little of what is written on any one subject, get confused before they can arrive at a fair conclusion about it ; whilst truth herself, overwhelmed by diverse opinions, runs the chance of sharing the fate of that young man at Athens, who was actually smothered under the cloaks of the enthusiastic spectators in the Odeon, who fancied they detected in him a likeness to the statues of Hector.

In these days, when the liberty, if not the ability, to write, is common to all, no apology is expected from an author who sees fit to impart an idea to his friends or acquaintances ; but " he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow, "and when he undertakes to multiply ad infinitum, " this same unmeaning thing he calls a thought," the case is altered, and he is justly expected to give his reasons in writing, for thus adding to the already overstocked world of letters.

My reason for publishing at the present time is very simple; it is merely to induce every man who has time and inclination to think for himself on this great Indian question. The following letters are suggestive, not didactic, and I wish rather to point out possible alleviations, than to advocate specific remedies.

On all matters, great and small, the world is most unequally divided between those who do form their own judgments, and those who do not; of course I do not expect to influence any of the former.

"'Tis with our judgments as our watches; none Go just alike, and each prefers his own."

A man will tell you what o'clock it is by his watch, and when and where he set it, and why he must be right; but I never yet met one who was willing to alter his time to suit that of another; whilst those who take their time from their neighbours, will sec so much in these letters contrary to their immemorial tradition of Indian Government, that their ideas are not likely to be much influenced by them ; but there are always a certain number in the transition state, whose judgments are undergoing the process of solidification, and it is quite possible that a stray thought or two sown broadcast, may attract the attention of some of them, and under more favourable auspices, and in a better soil, assume a form of practical utility.

No man ever intends to be convinced by an argument, written or spoken, if lie can possibly help it; he enters on the subject armed with his own ideas, which he believes to be the best in the world. If he is convinced, he is defeated, and naturally disgusted; he may be obliged to desert his own stronghold, but it is very improbable that he will immediately take refuge in that of his opponents. Of course argument will occasionally triumph, as in the case of those two brothers, a Roman Catholic and a Protestant, who meeting to discuss their adverse faith, found each other so convincing, that they actually converted each other, and parted the very reverse of what they came; but this was a remarkable exception, and does not affect the general rule, that no man is convinced by argument. But although you cannot convince a man, you may occasionally induce him to consider, and that is a process far more conducive to real truth than rapid conversion ; let a man once convince himself, and his energy in defence of his new principles will only be eclipsed by the determination with which he will attack his old.

The question of Indian Government is not like the thousand and one that yearly agitate our political world; it is the greatest question that has affected this country since she has attained her present lofty place amongst nations; directly or indirectly, India has been one of the chief stepping stones to England's greatness ; the question, therefore, of the permanence of our rule in that country, affects every individual in this; and those who seek to make party capital out of their country's difficulties, are no true men ; it is a question that should unite in earnest thought every politician of the day; the paltry gratification of party triumph, should in this case yield to the far grander motive, the glory and permanence of the British empire. For once, at least, hereditary animosities and party feuds, should disappear before the great emergency of the State.

It is not many weeks since these letters were first printed, but during that short period most important and unforeseen events have agitated the political world. A cloud that when first seen on the horizon, appeared no bigger than a man's hand, suddenly increased to the proportion of a thunder-storm, and broke over the heads of a secure and confident Cabinet, with a force as irresistible as it was unexpected. The most popular Minister since the days of Pitt, backed by a Cabinet remarkable for high rank and territorial possessions, was defeated by an incongruous majority of friends and foes, and forced to resign office without confession and without shrift, to the excessive astonishment of all parties in the State.

Count Walewski accused England, in the face of Europe, of harbouring traitors and encouraging assassination, and Lord Paluierston pleaded guilty to the charge ; but the Commons of England repudiated the accusation, and by a small majority declared they did not consider their country's honour safe at that particular moment, in the hands of those who were so little inclined to defend her institutions. I believe the general feeling of the country fully supports this expression of mistrust.

Although John Bull has of late years been cruelly tried in his pocket, he has always paid ; but in this case his little pride is hurt, and even though he may feel his laws are not quite perfect, he cannot bring himself to alter them at what appears to him very like dictation. Moreover, it does appear strange, that the ill-worded despatch of a foreign minister should be necessary to instruct a veteran statesman, who has been a member of almost every government during the last forty years, that our laws are inefficient, and must be amended. And if they are really as bad as the late Ministry acknowledges them to be, surely some one must have known it, and the country may justly complain they were not advised sooner, and an opportunity taken to legislate on the subject with more dignity and deliberation.

Probably in no period of English history has the country been so inert and supine, and so blindly subservient to the dictation of her Ministers, as during the last few years. The useless and costly wars, and the still more senseless truces we have made of late, imply that our boasted common-sense has lamentably decreased in quality, or is buried away somewhere in a napkin.

Our Ministers have treated us much as falconers of olden days did their birds ; they keep us carefully hooded during their good pleasure, and then fly in at any quarry that suits their purpose ; always throwing up the lure of flattery and promises, when they wish to draw us back to our thraldom. I consider it quite refreshing to see the thinking classes of the country rouse themselves from their dormouse condition to undertake some of the responsibilities of a self-governing people. John Bull redivivus, although he may occasionally be rude and hasty, is a much more interesting animal than the British Lion half asleep, having his nose tickled with a straw. We are told by the Press of the country that we (the public) are serious losers by the change of Ministry; but I confess I can't see it: individually, the late Cabinet are no great loss, and their laissez allez policy and off-hand legislation on many important questions, cannot have added much to our national power or reputation ; whilst on the Indian, which immediately concerns us all, I consider we are actual gainers by the change.

I cannot understand how those who have dragged us into expensive wars with Rangoon, Persia, and China, without our consent, almost without our knowledge, deserve our particular gratitude or affection: we are a great maritime power, and can, at will, send fleets and armies against enemies who are very indifferently furnished with those articles; we can talk bombastically and even nobly, about avenging the national flag, and repressing barbaric incivility, &c., &c., &c., and

" Call fire, sword, and desolation, A godly thorough reformation,"

when administered to those who incur our displea- , sure. But, after all, there is neither glory nor profit in such war: the victor suffers quite as much as the conquered ; we may send thousands of troops in big ships thousands of miles to occupy a few mud forts and destroy a few half-armed soldiers, to occupy a pestilential territory, when we already have twice as much as we know what to do with, or even to storm a populous city, and capture an Imperial Commissioner; but all this costs us quite as much money as it does our opponents, and the only permanent effect on this country is to increase our taxation and lessen our chance of doing good at home.

Another reason why I think the late change of Ministry is beneficial to the country is, that it has put an end to the unparalleled unanimity with which all the leading journals supported the late Government ; for the first time during the present generation, the Leviathan of the Press was a Ministerial organ; and so immense is its influence on public opinion, that I consider the liberties of England can never be quite safe when the policy of a minister, possessing a majority in Parliament, is supported to the very letter by counsel so overpowering as " The Times." The country has literally no time to think : a particular policy is proposed in an easy, off-hand way; a subservient majority quashes discussion and hurries it through the House, when the Leviathan takes it up out of doors, and, in half a dozen leaders of surpassing talent, convinces a man against his reason, or at any rate convinces him that he has no chance of opposing the rush ; this is the way we were hurried pell-mell into the war with China and Persia, and but for the present suspension of united power, should have hastily passed both Indian and Alien Bills. The late Government was delighted to be called liberal, but it would be difficult to show how it could have been more exclusive ; it did not boast half the self-raised men the present Tory Government can. There is an immense deal of nonsense talked in political circles about hereditary policy; the only policy that is really hereditary is that which enjoins a suitable provision for hereditary Dowbs, and this is an article of faith that even antiquity cannot endear to the public : hereditary policy is not one of the requirements of a Constitutional Government; we have a Constitution strong and well-defined, and all we want is, that it should be kept in order, and gradually moulded to meet increasing requirements or inevitable change.

It does not signify to us one twopence whether Lord or Commoner, Whig or Tory, hold the reins of Government, so long as they possess average common-sense, strict honour, and integrity : if, in fact, they govern for the country and not for themselves or friends. To suppose that certain old families supply the only stock from which statesmen are made, is an antiquated doctrine suited only to those families themselves, it has no weight whatever with the country ; any party that governs in strict accordance with the Constitution, is as good as another, and nothing can be more fatal to the doctrine of Constitutional Government than to suppose its existence depends upon the predominance of any one party in the State. If the principle of Constitutional Government is worth anything, it ought, by this time, and I believe it has, if men would only follow them, laid down such broad highways of foreign and domestic policy, that the State can travel by herself, and requires only the careful assistance of men of ordinary talent, and sterling honour and integrity, to check her, or move ahead, as circumstances may dictate ; if all the vaunted advantages of Constitutional Government has not done this for us, in what way is it better than the other hundred-aud-one systems at work in the world?

It is curious that this late freak of political fortune should have brought to the direction of Indian affairs the very statesman I pointed out to you some weeks before as most fitted to handle them. Whatever may be the current opinion respecting the comparative merits of past and present Ministers of War, Chancellors of the Exchequer, and First Lords of the Treasury, there can, I suppose, be no doubt whatever, that the country is an immense gainer by the change of dynasty in Cannon Row. In the place of an official who did not profess to know much about India, we have a great statesman who has made Indian politics and legislation a study. We cannot see into the future, but at any rate we may fairly expect better things of the present than of the late President of the Board of Control. The late President was on bad terms with the powers in Leadenhall Street; and, to use his own words, was satisfied with laying the reins on the necks of the Directors, and liberally applying the spurs — a cockney mode of equitation that generally ensures a fall at the first obstacle.

Under the late regime, Leadenhall Street and Cannon Row resembled a remarkable temple of red tape, sacred to the Goddess of Misrule, that stood some winters ago on the snow-clad heights of Sebastopol, in which certain heads of departments, although living under the same roof, were not on speaking terms, and only condescended to communicate from adjoining rooms by written correspondence, properly copied and docketted. This original conception for increasing the complication of business and multiplying the immediate wants of a destitute and perishing army, appears to have been considered applicable to the present urgent requirements of India ; but already determination and energy have broken through the absurd trammels of custom and routine, and effected one of the great objects of the India Bill of the late government. Everybody knows that the present President of the Board of Control has no particular reason to love the Directors ; they cut him short in the proudest career open to a subject of this country, that of Governor General of India, and have only recognized his rule by striving to efface every vestige of his policy ; but he does not take the opportunity presented by the cry of unpopularity to display irritation and triumph in his turn : on the contrary, now that India requires anxious thought and unity of action, the past is entirely forgotten, and instead of adopting the independent policy of his predecessors, he is down constantly at Leadenhall Street, consulting personally with the Directors, and taking council with them, on the great Indian questions. This is niy idea of administrative capacity, and these are the sort of men, whether nobles or commoners, Whig or Tory, that the country wants to do her work.

The advent of Lord Ellenborough to the direction of Indian affairs at this moment, appears to me almost providential; and should circumstances favour the elevation of Sir John Lawrence to supreme rule in India, we may fairly hope that with energy and experience in our councils at home, and executive abroad, we may yet firmly re-establish our rule, and for the future enlist the sympathies as well as ensure the obedience of the people of India.

Since printing the following letters, I have been told that much that I have written about missionary labour will give serious offence to the great body of those good and earnest persons who judge of the things of this world more by what they should be, than by what they really are. I should be excessively grieved if such were the case ; but as it is impossible to write on Indian matters without some allusion to the religion of the country, and the prospects of Christianity, so having certain opinions on the subject I am of course bound to state them : but they are convictions, not evidence, and can probably be most effectually disposed of by printed reports and statistical returns. Independently of my conviction that very few real Christians, not nominal ones, have rewarded missionary labour in India, there is another more important reason why I do not regard with so much admiration our missionary institutions in the far country; it is the urgent and yearly increasing necessity that exists in this country for the labour of every earnest man, who is willing to devote himself to the great cause of Christianity. There are communities in this very city amongst whom infidelity is elevated to a doctrine, and whose open vaunt is of their strength and increasing numbers. Should we not strive to sweep our own house before we undertake to clean that of our neighbour? Our enemies are active, and unwearied, and powerful at our very threshold : how, then, can we afford to send on foreign service a single soldier of the Cross? Is it really our duty to hurry away to distant lands in search of heathens, when we have hundreds of thousands far worse, sapping the very foundations of our faith at home? I believe not. To my mind, home missions are our appointed task ; and I believe it is better to bring back to the pure precepts of our faith one amongst the hundreds of thousands of professed infidels in our crowded communities, who have fallen away from the faith of their fathers, than to convert to a nominal Christianity thousands of Hindoos, who confound then- Trinity with ours, and believe everything the Sahib teaches them without thought and without understanding. I firmly believe that one earnest energetic man would do more for the cause of Christianity in one month in the dens of vice and misery in the metropolis and elsewhere, than fifty men, equally earnest and laborious, would in the cities and plains of India in a year. Every shilling spent in the name of Christ amongst these starving, perishing thousands, would do more for the good cause, than the hundreds of pounds spent on costly establishments in unheard-of places. This is my firm belief; but, as I said before, what are individual convictions to the facts and eloquence of Exeter Hall?

Chapter II

Want of general knowledge on Indian subjects — Objects of present inquiry — Absolute necessity of acquiring the sympathy of the Natives — Anomalous nature of our Indian Empire — Necessity and great difficulty of colonization — Value of India.

A FEW months ago, India was no more a subject of general conversation than Kamskatka or Siam are at present; it was not the fashion — and anybody who broached the subject was almost certain to be put down as a bore, or shunned as the hero of a tiger story. Now it is just the reverse : wherever you go, and whoever you meet, you hear of nothing else — the conversation of all classes, high and low, is of Brahmins, and Rajpoots, and sepoys continually. Everybody has now something to say on the subject of India; and free and enlightened constituencies, and mechanics' institutes, are daily and nightly mystified, by amateur statesmen and orators, on subjects that a year ago were scarcely tolerated by the hardy men of business to whom they were unavoidable inflictions. Such being the case, why should not you and I join the rank of "drivellers," as you would call them, and exchange a few ideas about

India? We do not often spoil a good argument by too speedy an assent in each other's opinions; and happily this is a subject on which we can disagree till doomsday.

The reason why everybody has hitherto avoided the subject of India is, that no general information existed in this country regarding it; either a man had been there and knew a great deal (or, what came to the same thing, thought he did), or he had not, and knew nothing at all. When such men met, the subject was mutually tabooed; the one did not care to throw his pearls before swine, and the other was naturally unwilling to expose his profound ignorance. I have never seen two such men meet in society, and mutually turn away their heads from the subject of India, but I have been reminded of an old story in Plutarch : The courtiers of Queen Berenice remarked with surprise that their mistress and a woman of Lacedasmon meeting out walking, both turned away their heads at one and the same instant ; on inquiry, they discovered that the queen could not bear the smell of butter, or the peasant endure scents and perfumes.

Thus it is not only on the subject of India, that opposite causes produce the same result.

But, as I said before, the events of the last few months have changed all that; and the narrations of sufferings and atrocities we may hope are exag-

c gerated, and of heroism and devotion it is impossible to exaggerate, have swept aside the indifference of fifty years, and caused one and all of us, with anxious eye, to

" Look to the East, where Ganges' swarthy race

Shall shake your tyrant empire to its base;

Lo ! there rebellion rears her ghastly head,

And gleams the Nemesis of native dead :

And claim her long arrears of northern blood."

Of course the allusion to " tyrant empire " and " northern blood " is a poetical fiction ; but it proves that in Byron's time party feeling must have been quite as much divided on Indian matters as at present.

At first sight the increased interest taken in all Indian subjects would promise the best results; but, unfortunately, the cacoethes loquendi frequently does more to confuse than to convince, and tends rather to the spread of theory than of truth ; and if we are to judge of the average amount of information existing in this country on Indian matters by the speeches and suggestions that find their way into the public press, I fear we must come to the conclusion, that in the countless numbers of present counsellors there is anything but wisdom. Most of the public speeches have been confined to senseless abuse of the natives : and the letters that crowded the papers with impossible theories and suggestions for launching the Leviathan, were not a whit more ridiculous in their way than many that have lately appeared regarding the subject of Indian government.

A man of your logical habit of thought (though, by the bye, I remember an occasion when you experienced some difficulty in defining a syllogism right off) will know as well as any one how necessary it is to all sound conclusions to avoid the " a non causa pro causa " form of reasoning in argument. If a wrong cause is once assigned in any argument, and its truth admitted, there is an end of all chance of arriving at the truth : and there are now so many false causes assigned and credited for the present state of India, that it is quite an open question in my mind, whether the future progress of the country does not run a greater chance of being swamped by the busy interference and hasty legislation of the many headed, than it formerly did from their undisguised indifference.

There appears to be a very strong desire in many quarters to step quietly over the causes of the mutiny, and to let bygones be bygones, as the expression is: this delicacy for national or individual shortcomings is simply absurd. If we do not know exactly what have been our errors of commission and omission during the past, how can we possibly guard against like ones for the future? When a merchant

c2 lias lost largely in any transaction, he naturally tries to discover whether the misfortune was owing to the rascality or inefficiency of his clerks, or to his own mistaken ideas of commerce; he does not blindly rush into a similar operation without some kind of inquiry.

You and I are not revengeful folk ; and if we hold a private inquest over the prostrate empire of India, it is not for the purpose of bringing in verdicts of " wilful murder " right and left, and hanging and gibbeting writh insane severity; a verdict of manslaughter, justifiable homicide, or even accidental death, will quite satisfy us. There is no desire whatever in this country to split hairs on Indian matters, or to pick out the identical feather that broke the camel's back. We don't want victims at all, but we want the truth ; we want to see whether the load was really too heavy — not with the object of punishing those who placed it there, but, if possible, to guard against a like accident for the future.

Throughout this Indian excitement, the desire to visit our misfortunes on individuals has not been onetenth part so great as it was during the Crimean war.

The reason is simple. In the Crimea, interest was felt to be at the root of every appointment and every misfortune. In India it has not ; there, our misfortunes have been more owing to age than interest:

some of those \vlio somewhat disappointed public expectation were too old; and it was naturally felt that it was very hard to blame men because nature had inconveniently prolonged their existence, or had not broken her universal laws in their favour, by endowing them with energy beyond their years.

But, indeed, when one looks at the deeds of those who have come prominently forward during this Indian campaign, there are not many, old or young, that we can dare to censure.