Deccan of the Bombay Presidency regarding which so much has been heard in British annals. Ultimately captured, after many arduous adventures, he was sent to reside as a state prisoner, under easy restraint and with a liberal pension, on the banks of the Ganges, in British territory, at Bithur near Cawnpore. He was devoid of the honourable sensitiveness that had characterized his ancestors, and lived to a childless and dishonoured old age, in an obscurity which made people forget the historic associations with which his life had been connected. He died in 1851, and left an adopted son, who became the Nana Sahib so infamously known during the Indian mutinies in 1857.

Thus seven Pêshwas have passed under review between 1714 and 1818, just a century. Of these sovereigns two died before really attaining manhood; three were great; one was both great and good, but he, too, died before his greatness was fully developed; and one was utterly bad. Hence we see that the line of the Pêshwas produced four great sovereigns in succession of the Brahman caste, namely, Vishwanath, reigning from 1714 to 1720; Baji Rao I., reigning from 1721 to 1739; Balaji, reigning from 1740 to 1760; and Madhu Rao, reigning from 1761 to 1772. Inasmuch as the Brahmans have preserved purity of descent more than any race on earth except the Jews, as they established several thousand years ago an intellectual superiority over their countrymen which has been transmitted through many generations, it might be expected that Brahmans attaining to sovereignty would evince a marked capacity in their imperial position. Accordingly these four Pêshwas fully realized this expectation. None of the many lines of Hindu sovereigns in India has ever shown a series of sovereigns equal to the Pêshwas. The historical student will immediately inquire whether four sovereigns equal to them can be found in any of the Muhammadan dynasties of India. It may be answered that in one only can a parallel be seen, namely the dynasty of the Great Mogul. The four Mogul emperors,

CHAP. XVII.

GREATNESS OF THE PESHWA DYNASTY. 403

Akber, Jehangir, Shah Jehan, and Aurangzeb were as great as the four Pêshwas; and of these Akber was both great and good.

In India the capacity of a sovereign is to be observed in the four main departments of state, the political or diplomatic, the military, the civil, and the ceremonial. Now, Brahman sovereigns would be sure to be adepts in political combinations and in diplomatic management. The Pêshwas were such adepts to a degree hardly to be surpassed in any age or country. The effect of their whole bringing up was to endue them with an ability to contrive or design, and with an insight into the thoughts, sentiments, passions, or foibles of others. Regarding war, whether in military administration, or in strategy, or in the command of troops in the field, it might have been anticipated that they, as Brahmans, would prove deficient. On the contrary, however, in each and all of these respects they proved themselves to possess the brain to control, the courage to execute, the fortitude to endure. In the civil administration it might have been supposed that they would evince a decided superiority to all other princes. Being essentially educated and lettered men, raised mentally much above the level of their countrymen, and endowed with all the culture known to their age, they ought to have consolidated the institutions of their country, imparted an impulse to administrative business, and promoted the education of the people. On the contrary, however, three out of the four great Pêshwas failed to do any of these things with efficiency, partly because they were preoccupied by war and politics, but partly because they wanted the philanthropic and enlightened disposition for the doing. The fourth began to do all these things nobly well, and would have done much more had his pricelessly valuable life been spared. He, too, was immersed in war and politics; and the fact that he nevertheless attended to the civil administration shows that, where the will exists, there is a way for a ruler to attend to all branches of

his work alike. In the ceremonial department, which is peculiarly important in an eastern country, it might have been foreseen that Brahmans, being gifted with beauty of appearance, dignity of mien, excellence of manner, and power of elocution, would hold their courts with becoming grandeur. Pêshwas certainly did with consummate effect.

This the

On the whole, while unsparingly indicating the misdeeds or shortcomings of these several characters, I have striven to do justice to their merits. It is essential that Englishmen, when judging the native Indian character, should be alive to its virtues as well as to its faults. If we are to improve upon the rule of preceding dynasties, whether Hindu or Muhammadan, if we are to govern the natives successfully, we must, while striving to correct their faulty side, learn to appreciate that virtuous and most interesting side of theirs which a civilized administration will develop.

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CHAPTER XVIII.

THE TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT AMONG THE BRITISH IN INDIA.

[Speech delivered before the Temperance Association at Liverpool, February, 1881.]

The liquor laws of India - Question of temperance among Europeans generally in the East-Among sailors in Indian ports-Among European soldiers in India-Sailors' homes and soldiers' recreations- Temperance movement in the capital cities of India - Order of Good Templars in the East -Statistics of temperance in India - Temperance essential for sportsmen and travellers Special danger of intemperance in the tropics - Experience derivable from military history and scientific exploration.

I HAVE been asked to speak before you on the subject of Temperance, and I will take up that portion of the subject which relates to the welfare of your countrymen in the East. Happily the matter however important it may be in some parts of Asia, for instance, China-has not greatly affected the natives of India. The excise laws in India are framed to repress the consumption of drugs and spirits, while raising the revenue. Faults sometimes occur in this, as in all other human arrangements; but wherever the excise has been found incidentally to encourage intemperance, a remedy has been applied. With the Europeans in India, however, the case is somewhat different. You can but too readily imagine that with them the same tendency to indulge in alcoholic drinks is developed there as here in Britain. A century ago this tendency was excessive; the authentic accounts of the harm and the scandal, which used thence to arise, afford encouragement in that they show how

great an improvement has been effected in recent times. We must be thankful for the change which, in this respect, has come over the manners of Europeans in the East, both in the upper and in the humbler classes. Still the memory of past intemperance clings to the European name in the East, tarnishing the brightness of an otherwise brilliant escutcheon, and lowering the grandeur of a mighty prestige. Moreover, despite all the improvement which may be justly claimed, there is unhappily enough of intemperance still perceptible to sustain the evil memory I have alluded to. Thus, intemperance is still regarded, though in a mitigated form, as the national vice of the British in the East. It is still one of the things which has to be inquired about in the character of an applicant for employment; it is still one of the points towards which the apprehensive glance of the employer is turned. After all the abatement and diminution that can be fairly estimated, there is yet very much to be lamented, and there is but too large a scope for the work of temperance advocates in the East.

Here, at Liverpool, your thoughts will naturally turn in the first place towards the sailors of that mercantile marine, which, centred in this the largest port in the world, is the very life of the Eastern seaports. Well, as regards temperance or intemperance, you know that to our sailors the well-known line is peculiarly applicable

"Cœlum non animum mutant qui trans mare currunt."

In former days there were many allurements offered to thirsty sailors coming ashore under a hot sun, by the taverns of Calcutta or Bombay, punch-houses as they were called apparently from punch the drink, with tempting maritime names like "The White Cloud," and so on. In those days as nowadays it was necessary to let the men go ashore; but whenever they went, almost all of them (doubtless with some honourable exceptions) fell more or less into mischief from intemperance. This mischief was reckoned as among the inevitable contin