BRITISH AND HIS TOR Y For the Year 1787. CHAPTER I. Affairs of Bengal. Situation of Oude. Negociations at Debli. O:conomic cal Reform." Mr. Haftings refigns. Affairs of the Carnatic. Surrender of the Revenues. Lord Macartney refigns. WE E intended to commence the prefent volume of our Regiller with a review of fome of thofe tranfactions at Madras and Bengal, which fucceeded the pacification with Tippoo Sultan in March 1784. But, before we at tend to the facts subsequent to that period, it may perhaps be expected from us, that we fhould take fome notice of a charge of partiality, which has been repeatedly brought against us, in our narrative of the conquest of Canara, and which has at length been embodied in a pamphlet, entitled, a Vindication of the Conduct of the English Forces, employed in that Expedition, pub lifhed by the order of the Eaft India company, and figned by one major, and fifty-two fubalterns of the Bombay establishment. The point chiefly laboured in this pamphlet, relates to the capture of Annanpore by major Campbel. Refpecting this action we mentioned three circumstances, which undoubtedly were not confidered by us as topics of applause. "No quarter was given by the army, and every man in the place was put to the fword, except one horfeman, who made his efcape, after being wounded in three different places. The women, unwilling to be feparated from their relations, or expofed to the brutal licentioufnefs of the foldiery, threw themfelves in multitudes into the moats, with which the fort was furroanded. Four hundred beautiful women, pierced with the bayonet, and expiring in each other's arms, were in this fituation treated by the British with every kind of outrage." The fe facts were related, partly on the authority of a printed letter of lieutenant John Charles Sheen, an officer on this fervice, and the last of them only is controverted in the Bombay pamphlet. Mr. Sheen was called up. on by one of thefe officers to difavow the facts flated in his letter; and in his reply he observed, that the bufinefs of Annanpore, was greatly exaggerated, and contrary to what he wrote home, together with the whole of that publication (the printed letter)." We are forry that this gentleman has not been more explicit, as a difavowal, couched in terms fe extremely inA 4 T definite, those who served in the expedition, did not forget the calls of humanity, and lamented that the horrors of war fhould have involved the innocent with the guilty:" but add, definite, throws a general fhade of obfcurity over his teftimony, while it cannot take away a certain degree of authority from his original letter. We are left to fufpect, that he would have been more peremp-"the foldier must pay implicit obetory in his contradiction if he could; dience to the voice that commands and we are entirely in the dark, as him, however the feelings of the to the perfon who interpolated his man may be affected." The two narrative, and the motives that firtt of thefe apologies we shall leave could have inftigated fo extraordi- to be estimated by the reader: in nary a proceeding. The letter, it the last we acknowlege a degree of feems, was addreffed to his father weight, but we had not then, nor in London, and we hope, if that have we now materials, to enable gentleman be ftill living, that he us to afcertain in the cafe of each will communicate to the public the individual, what is to be afcribed real circumstances of the cafe. But to the deliberation of choice, and this is not all. Mr. Sheen adds, what to the paffiveness of submisthat he never commented upon fion. the bufinefs of Annanpore himself :" an obfervation particularly unfortunate, as facts, not comments, compofe the matter in queftion. In the mean time we must obferve, that the story of the four hundred women is explicitly contradicted in the pamphlet of the officers, and we therefore cheerfully declare our conviction that it is founded in mifreprefentation. There are only two circumftances befide these, that receive any diftinct notice from the Bombay officers. At Onore, and again at Annanpore, the places were taken by form, and orders were iffued that no quarter fhould be given. This account is admitted in their pamphlet, and three apologies are offered. In the first place, the proceeding was "according to the rules of war." In the next, "that the garrifon of Annanpore was treated with particular feverity, was entirely owing to their having been guilty of a breach of the law of nations, in detaining a flag of truce that was fent in by major Campbel to fummon them to furrender:" and lastly, they obferve, "that It is already fufficiently evident, how little has been effected by the vindication of the Bombay officers. The great outlines and character of the expedition remain unaltered. It is ftill true, that a remarkable degree of feverity was employed in the field; that in the capture of the fortreffes of Canara the principle of a ftorm and no quarter, was very frequently applied; and that the acquifition of money was too much the governing object in every stage of the undertaking. The vindication of the officers has therefore done them little fervice; and it happens here, as it generally does in the cafe of an imperfect reply, that the majority of the facts are rather ftrengthened and demonftrated by the attempt to refute them. With refpect to the conclufion of the fto. ry; the treafures of Hydernagur; and the charge brought against them by Tippoo, that they had broken the terms of capitulation, and that when the fort was furrendered not a rupee was to be found in it; these circumftances are paffed over by the officers in the profoundeft filence. It was this, that roufed the fultan to to vengeance, and it is to this, that he appeals for his juflification in difregarding a capitulation which had first been diffolved by the van quifhed English. The reader will naturally imagine, that the authors of the New Annual Register were inftigated by no perfonal malevolence against their countrymen in India, and that they were actuated folely by a regard for justice and humanity, That the furviving officers would be mortified by the refult of the picture, was a circumstance which was originally in our view, though we did not permit either an unwilling nefs to offend, or a dread of reféntment, to deter us from the execu tion of our duty. Whether or not what are called the rules of war, juftified the moft fanguinary proceedings in India, we never flaid to enquire. We were not ignorant, that they were fuccefsfully applied to the juftification of thofe actions in ancient or modern times, which truth and humanity contemplate with horror. It has been faid, that we treated the petty bloodshed of Canara with reprobation, while the greater ravages of Hyder did not equally excite our indignation. Suppofing this to be true, it may be accounted for by a very obvious reafon. In inveighing against Hy der, we should only have been gratifying national predilection, and inviting a spirit of retaliation and cat nage. In condemning the improper proceedings of our own forces, we were animated by a fuitable zeal for the British character; we were contributing what was in our power to the termination of thofe fcenes in India, which have so long difgraced us; we were roufing the voice of equity in the breasts of the delinquents; and convincing them, that the hardships they might fuffer, could not annihilate the remembrance of the blame they might incur. To return to the fubject of our history. In the New Annual Register for the year 1784, we brought down. the tranfactions, both of Madras and Bengal, to the clofe of the year 1783. The remaining tranfactions, which are neceflary to complete our furvey of the adminiftration of Mr. Haftings and of lord Macartney, belong to a period of tranquillity, and are therefore unlike those which have preceded them, uncon nected and defultory. One of them, which has formed an object of fome difquifition, carries us back beyond the period we have affigned. So early as the month of August 1782, major Browne was commiffioned by the fupreme council, which then confifted of Mr. Haftings, Mr. Wheler, and Mr. Macpherson, upon an embaffy to the Great Mogul at his capital of Delhi; and his inftructions were drawn up by the governor general, and approved by the board. We were at that time engaged in war with the Marattas, Hyder Ali Khan, the French, and the Dutch; and it appears to have been conceived, that in this fituation, we were bound to look out on all fides for confederates and allies. Of all the powers in India indeed, the Great Mogul was the leaft formidable in refpect of apparent ftrength. His immediate dominions has been alternately the prey of the Marattas and the Seiks, and in 1765, he had taken refuge in the feat of the English government at Calcutta. From the period at which he had quitted our territories in 1771, his condition had not meliorated; and accordingly the overtures, which major Browne was impowered to make, were not for any reinforcement on A A 3 his his part, but on the contrary to encourage any propofal, that fhould be fuggefted by the Mogul or his minitter, for military afliftance from Bengal. One of the causes of major Browne's being fent at this time, was the death of Nuzeph Khan, the Mogul minister, in the preceding April, who had been in long habits of connection with the government of Calcutta. This connection it was deemed highly proper to maintain; and it was conceived, that, however weak were the actual power of the Mogul, the fanction of his name, and the stamp of his authority, would have no inconfiderable influence in inclining the balance of war. and the period of a general peace We have mentioned Mr. Haftings's intention of proceeding, in It happened to major Browne, the beginning of the year 1784, as it had done in feveral other of upon a journey to Lucknow, the our Indian tranfactions, that, in-capital of Oude. The fituation of ftead of proceeding immediately to the nabob of this province, the moft the place of his deftination, he was important and powerful of our dedetained first in Oude, and after-pendencies in this quarter of India, wards in other places in the courfe of his route, fo that he did not reach Delhi till December 1783. Upon his arrival however he loft no time, and immediately arranged with Affrafiab Khan, the then ininister of the Mogul, the articles of an agreement, drawn up in the fpirit of his inftructions. According ly in the fame month, he addreffed a letter to the governor general, informing him of the state of the tranfaction, and reprefenting in an emphatical style the urgency of the bulinefs. "We have offered to treat," fays the refident; "the Mogul has accepted: we have annexed conditions; he has approved of them." But, in the interval between the preparation of the inftructions and their execution, the fituation of affairs in India was entirely changed; the treaty with the Marattas was already concluded; the French war was terminated; has long been extremely undefirable, and his complaints and expoftulations had been loud and unintermitted. He was impoverished, by the magnitude of the fubfidy levied upon him by the British go'vernment, which had gradually been increafed from 36,000l. to 312,000l. per annum, and by the number of troops that was stationed in his territories from the fame quarter. The remedies, which from time to time had been applied by the government general, confifted in temporary expedients, and not in the application of great principles of policy. We continually interfered even in the detail of his government; his first minifter was merely the tool of the British, and the moft opulent of his fubjects were frequently the object of our complaint and perfecution. Occafionally we withdrew a confiderable part of the troops that were quar tered tered upon him, and they were almoft immediately restored to their former fituation: the nabob complained of our refident Mr. Middleton, and Mr. Briftow was fubftituted in his room; he again complained of Mr. Bristow, and Mr. Haftings fet out for Lucknow to examine the accufation. The wounds of this great and fertile province were skinned over, and were never probed to the bottom. From the defolate and impoverished state of his dominions, the nabob ran in our debt for his annual fubfidy; and he was prompted to confifcate the jaghires, or fettlements, of his mother and grandmother, and to affefs a difproportionate fine upon Fizulla Khan, one of his de pendents, in order to difcharge the arrears. These arrears were condidered by many perfons in this country, as the abfurd claim of a nominal debt, fince the ruin and defolation of the foil, were, in all countries and in common reafon, a difcharge in full for the rent: but it was fuppofed not to accord with the fituation of the East India company, to confider them in that light. The mifgovernment of Oude is not to be attributed folely to the measures of Mr. Haftings. The Auctuating fituation of our prefidency, in which the governor general was at one time all powerful, and then for a longer time was left in a contemptible minority, the ftruggles to which he was reduced, in order to retain his authority and his influence, were undoubtedly the very natural fource of a temporifing conduct. The fubfidy paid by the nabob to the English, occafioned a confiderable drain of Specie from his dominions, and he had no trade by which that fpecie could be replaced. Of confequence, as Mr. Haltings jaftly obferves, our fubfidy is a fource of impover ifhment to the province, and the prefent advantages we derive from it must fooner or later ceafe to exift. In his prefent journey to Lucknow, the governor general reliev ed the nabob from a confiderable part of the British troops, agreed ultimately to withdraw our refident from his capital, and our interference from his government, and appears to have put his fuppofed debt in a reasonable train of liquidation. Thefe meafures he obliged the fupreme council to engage to maintain, before he quitted Bengal, and the good or ill effects that fhal refult from them remain to be feen. While Mr. Haftings was at Lucknow, an extraordinary event occurred, which excited confiderable fpeculation. This was the flight of the prince Jehander Shah, the eldest fon of the Mogul, about thir ty-fix years of age, from the capital} of Delhi; and his refolution to throw himself upon the protection of the nabob and the governor ge neral at Lucknow. We have feen in various instances how common an event it is in India, for the minifters of the different princes to ufurp their entire authority, and to hold their mafters in a kind of honourable imprisonment." This was now the fituation of the Mogul. The minifter that fucceeded, upon the death of Nuzeph Khan, who had for feveral years held the reins of government, was Mirza Shuffeh; but he did not long retain this en viable fituation. Towards the end of September 1783, when he had held his office about eighteen months, he was treacheroully af fatlinated in a public proceffion by Affrafiab Khan, a discontented fub. jest of the Mogul, with whom he A 4 had |