Indian Wars and Territorial Acquisitions.

No external dominion in the East can endanger the security of the Anglo-Indian empire. All the native princes have either been absolutely conquered, reduced to a state of dependence, or have been so completely humiliated and divested of offensive power, as to render entirely hopeless every chance of successful opposition to the British government. In 1815 the Ghorkas, who possess the kingdom of Nepaul, on the northern frontier of Hindustan, made a show of contesting the sovereignty of the Company, but they were completely defeated by Lord Hastings, and compelled to purchase peace by the cession of a large tract of territory. The Burmese were the last nation who gave us any uneasiness. They have been represented as a warlike people, and at one time meditated nothing less than an eruption into the province of Bengal. Rangoon, their capital, was occupied by a British force; and in 1826, after a teasing warfare, they submitted to the terms imposed by the invading army, by which the Company has become possessed of the provinces of Arracan and Tenasserim, including nearly the whole line of coast which previously belonged to the Burman empire.

Of the Mahratta chiefs, Scindia alone retains the full military as well as civil government of his territory. The courts of Holkar and of Guicowar, the rajah of Berar and of the smaller principalities, exercise the civil functions of royalty, but are not tolerated in the possession of an armed force. They have each, by the cession or conquest of a part of their territories, purchased military protection from the Company. The Rajpoot chiefs, who occupy the north-west frontier of Hindustan, are tributary either to the Company or to the states of Scindia and Holkar. Of the Mahometan governments, the king of Oude, the Nizam, the rajahs of Mysore and Travancore, and the nabob of Bhopaul, are the principal states whose civil independence is recognized, and these are in such a defenceless condition as to be entirely dependent on the forbearance of the Company for the continuance of their sovereignty.

From foreign rivalry and interference the English have no cause of apprehension. The only colonies which now belong to other European nations are Pondicherry and Chandernagore, to the French; Goa, to Portugal: Tranquebar and Serampore, to the Danish government; and Chinsurah, to the Dutch.

The population of the territories directly subject to Great Britain has been estimated at 80,000,000 of souls; while the population of those states which enjoy civil independence, but have been deprived of a military force, has been computed to amount to 40,000,000. The territory extends over an area of 585,000 square miles; and the total territory dependent, directly or indirectly, upon the Company, amounts to about 1,180,000 square miles. Such is the mighty empire, for the government and interests of which parliament will be shortly called upon to legislate.

We have not yet adverted to the means by which this vast dominion has been acquired. In our narrative of the commercial progress of the Company we forbore to enter into the black page of Indian wars and politics. Unparalleled crimes, violated treaties, blood, treachery, and devastation, form the chief materials of Indian history:—crimes, abhorrent even to a nation of barbarians, disgraceful to a civilized state, and horrible when perpetrated by the agents of a Christian country. There was not a single state, we are assured by Burke, prince, or potentate, with whom the Company had come in contact, that they had not sold; not a single treaty they had ever made, that they had not broken; not a single prince or state, who ever put any trust in the Company, who was not utterly ruined; and that none were, in any degree, secure or flourishing, but in the exact proportion to their settled distrust and irreconcilable enmity to this nation.

Indian delinquency is of no grovelling kind; it soars far above all precedent of ancient or European turpitude. Faith, justice, and humanity, were mere pretexts for rapine and violence. When these would not serve for the spoliation of the native powers, imaginary crimes were laid to their charge. Plots and rebellion, which, in England, have often been the pretexts for destroying the liberties of the people, in India were the pretexts for plunder and devastation. These, when no other offered, were the standing resources of the Company. When money had been thought to be heaped up any where, its owners were invariably accused of treason, and the only security for their allegiance was sought in reducing them to indigence. In England poverty is considered symptomatic of a traitorous disposition, in India it was riches; and the native prince had no chance of living free from the endless accusations, exactions, and even torture, of his oppressors, till he had stripped himself of the sordid wealth which excited their cupidity.

The most profitable merchandize of the Company was the nabobs and subahdars or viceroys. These princes, the rightful sovereigns of Hindustan, were sold and re-sold like cattle in a fair; even the Great Mogul himself, the descendant of Tamerlane, was included in the general traffic. This potentate, venerable for his years, and accomplished in all the oriental literature, was sold to his own minister. He was knocked down for the revenue of two provinces. Some princes were sold to their own children; the Company, exciting the children to a parricidal war against their parents, put them in possession of their dominions, on condition of hereafter being tributary and dependent on the Company. We could mention several instances of this mode of carrying on the royal slave-trade, but we will pass them by, in order to relate a more sweeping sale of Governor Hastings.

This man, who on one occasion received a present of £100,000 from the nabob of Oude, was the great salesman of Indian territory. We have seen that all the expenses of his prosecution were paid, and he was rewarded with an annuity of £5000 per annum for his faithful services in India. The province of Bengal, over which he presided, and the territory annexed to it, is larger and more populous than France, and formerly contained a landed interest, composed of a numerous nobility and gentry, of freeholders, lower tenants, religious communities, and public foundations. Under the English administration, these provinces had fallen into great decay, and a strong representation was made of its causes. Mr. Hastings, instead of administering any remedy to the disorders, determined, at one blow, to dispossess all the ancient proprietors. The incredible fact is, he set up the whole landed interest of a kingdom larger than France to public auction. He set up, says Burke, the whole nobility, gentry, and freeholders to the highest bidder. No preference was given to the zemindars, the ancient proprietors. They were compelled to bid for their own property against every usurer, jobber, speculator, or European servant; or they were obliged to content themselves, in lieu of their extensive domains, with their house and such a pension as the state auctioneer thought fit to assign. Several of them, in lieu of their hereditary lands, contented themselves with a pension, of which, under a new stretch of rapacity, they were subsequently deprived.

For the calamities inflicted on this devoted region by avarice and ambition, few compensatory advantages have been rendered. Scarcely a single trace is to be found of the superiority of our civil administration, nor a record of usefulness and generosity. Almost every village in England attests the former sovereignty of the Romans by the ruins of some work of power or utility; but the future Hindoo will in vain seek for mementos of our sway, in the bridges we have built, the navigations we have opened, or the highways we have constructed. All former conquerors of Hindustan—the Arab, the Tartar, and the Persian, left behind them some monument of either state or beneficence; but were we to be driven out of India this day, nothing would remain to tell that it had been possessed, during the inglorious period of our dominion, by any thing “better than the ourang-outang or the tiger.” Our only principle of government has been a system of imposture, and our countrymen have visited India not to benefit the natives, but themselves. Their object is to amass fortunes, and they resort thither in endless flights, like birds of prey and passage. All discussion, all enquiry, all familiar intercourse with the people they prey upon is discouraged, lest it should betray the secret of our strength, and the delusion upon which the Indian empire is established.

Our military triumphs have been as void of true glory as our civil administration. The feeble and indolent Hindoos were an unequal match for the energy, artillery, and tactic combinations of Europeans: the greatest obstacles they could oppose to their invaders were the fatigue of long marches and a destructive climate. To meet them in the field was synonymous with defeat, dispersion, or capture. Hence our most signal victories, in the East, have been little more than so many battus—the “slaughter of some hundred deer.”

In the “Life and Correspondence of Sir Thomas Munro,” recently published, we have striking illustrations of Indian warfare. The Mahrattas were always reckoned among our most formidable opponents, and the battle of Assaye, the most brilliant of the eastern triumphs of the Duke of Wellington. Yet it appears these warriors, in this famous conflict, kept so far aloof from close collision with our troops, as to inflict no wound either with bayonet or bullet. Speaking of this battle, in a letter to Colonel Read, Sir T. Munro says, “At the battle of Assaye, the severest that took place in the course of the war, I do not recollect, among all our killed and wounded officers, one that suffered from a musket-ball or a bayonet, a convincing proof that the Mahratta infantry made very little serious opposition. Its discipline, its arms, and uniform clothing I regard merely as the means of dressing if out for the sacrifice.”

In the “Correspondence” are several letters from the Duke of Wellington, then Colonel Wellesley, which throw an instructive light on the reckless, plundering, and destroying system which marked our Asiatic triumphs. In one letter Colonel Wellesley recommends, in dashing style, the “cutting up” and “hunting out” the natives. To be sure these were thieves, and it might be quite in keeping with Indian justice to do execution upon them without trial, judge, or jury.

In another letter Colonel Wellesley signalizes the exploits of a brother officer, by the following graphic description:—

“Colonel Montresor has been very successful in Bulum; has beat, burnt, plundered, and destroyed in all parts of the country. But I am still of opinion that nothing has been done which can tend effectually to put an end to the rebellion in Bulum, and that the near approach of the rains renders it impossible to do that, which alone, in my opinion, will ever get the better of Kistnapah Naig.”

We may recognize, in these military sketches, the same fierce and determined spirit which so promptly turned Huskisson to the right about, and dismissed from the Irish viceroyship that gallant soldier the Marquis of Anglesey. Bonaparte was certainly as regardless of human life as any pestilent conqueror that ever desolated the face of the earth; but there is one letter of Colonel Wellesley, which, it must be allowed, evinces as much barbarous indifference to the common feelings of humanity as ever Napoleon did in the worst of his Egyptian slaughterings. We shall give the letter entire. The colonel was at the time pursuing his operations against Dhoondee.

I have received your letters of the 22d and 23d; I have sent orders to the commanding officers at Hullihall and at Nuggar to furnish ammunition in moderate quantities, on the requisition of your amildars; in any quantities you please, on your own. Don’t press Hullihall too much, as I know they are not very well supplied there. Take what you please from Nuggar. I have taken and destroyed Doondiah’s baggage and six guns, and driven into the Malpurba (where they were drowned) about five thousand people: I stormed Dummull on the 26th July. Doondiah’s followers are quitting him apace, as they do not think the amusement very gratifying at the present moment. The war, therefore, is nearly at an end; and another blow, which I am meditating upon him and his bunjarries, in the Kentoor country, will most probably bring it to a close. I must halt here to-morrow, to refresh a little, having marched every day since the 22d July; and on the 30th, the day on which I took his baggage, I marched twenty-six miles; which, let me tell you, is no small affair in this country.

“My troops are in high health and spirits, and their pockets full of money, the produce of plunder. I still think, however, that a store of rice at Hullihall will do us no harm, and, if I should not want it, the expense incurred will not signify.”

The man who could write this deserves that his name should be inscribed on the same roll with Attila and Zinghis Khan. It is only, however, a proof of the brutalizing tendency of war; for we never heard that Colonel Wellesley had either less or more humanity than the usual run of conquering heroes. But how horrible to boast of having driven five thousand people into a river, where they were drowned! Then with what gusto the future Prince of Waterloo talks of plunder, and of burning, and destroying. These excerpts are enough to illustrate Asiatic triumphs.