chequer. Dealing with the present state of affairs I may say at once that I am not going to recommend any change in that policy. I know well the alarm which any such proposition would create, and I know the refusal which it would inevitably receive. But this is a question which will recur again and again, and which will have to be considered in the future as well as in the present." "I would likewise ask the House to bear in mind that if ever the time should come when the established policy in this respect should undergo a change, and when a national guarantee should be given for these liabilities, that guarantee would operate to reduce the interest paid upon the Indian Debt by no less than £750,000, or even £1,000,000, which, formed into a sinking fund, would go far to pay off the whole."1 Six months after it was John Bright himself who opposed the idea of giving an Imperial guarantee to the Indian Debt. And his reasons were characteristic. "I do not oppose an Imperial guarantee because I particularly sympathise with the English tax-payers in this matter. I think the English tax-payers have generally neglected all the affairs of India, and might be left to pay for it. . . . But I object to an Imperial guarantee on this ground-if we left the Services of India, after exhausting the resources of India, to put their hands into the pockets of the English people, the people of England having no control over Indian expenditure, it is impossible to say to what lengths of unimagined extravagance they would not go; and in endeavouring to save India inay we not go far towards ruining England?" 2 Even John Bright did not see that the people of England would have very soon ceased to neglect the affairs of India, and would have obtained a real control over Indian expenditure, if some share of the liability of the Indian Debt had been thrown on them. 1 Lord Stanley's speech on East India Loan, February 1859. CHAPTER XIV END OF THE COMPANY'S RULE "My parting hope and prayer for India is, that, in all time to come, these reports from the Presidencies and Provinces under our rule may form, in each successive year, a happy record of peace, prosperity, and progress." With this pious wish Lord Dalhousie had concluded the memorable review of his eight years' administration of India before he sailed for England. We must not forget that in the sky of India, serene as it is, a small cloud may arise, at first no bigger than a man's hand, but which, growing bigger and bigger, may at last threaten to overwhelm us with ruin." With these almost prophetic words Lord Canning had replied to the Court of Directors at a parting banquet in London, before he sailed for India. Lord Dalhousie's bright picture of peace, prosperity, and progress was destined to be obscured for a time; Lord Canning's fears of a dark cloud threatening to overwhelm the Empire were destined to prove a true prophecy. The causes of the Indian Mutiny of 1857 are no longer hidden in obscurity. "As a body," wrote John Lawrence, “the native army did really believe that the universal introduction of cartridges destructive to their caste was only a matter of time . . . such truly was the origin of the Mutiny.1 And we know now from the equally high authority of Lord Roberts that the belief of the native army was not altogether unfounded, and 2 1 Letter on the trial of the King of Delhi, dated April 29, 1858. that the cartridges introduced were greased with the fat of the pig and the cow. It is also beyond a doubt that political reasons helped a mere mutiny of soldiers to spread among large classes of the people in Northern and Central India, and converted it into a political insurrection. Lord Dalhousie's vast and rapid annexations had created an impression in India that the East India Company aimed at universal conquest; that they disregarded treaties and the laws of the country in order to compass their object. The minds of the people were unsettled; and leaders of the insurrection issued Proclamations dwelling on the bad-faith and the earth-hunger of the alien rulers. In Jhansi State, which had been annexed by Lord Dalhousie, the Dowager. Rani was the life and soul of the insurrection, fought in male attire against British troops, and died on the field of battle. In Oudh, which had also been annexed by the same ruler, vast masses of the population gathered round the mutinous soldiers, and made their deposed king's cause their own. It is not within the scope of the present work to narrate the thrilling incidents of that eventful war, which have been told by Sir John Kaye and Malleson in their great work, and have also been described in more recent and smaller works of great merit. The heroism of the small band of Englishmen who stood at Lucknow against surging masses of insurgents, and the tragic death of that truest and best of English soldiers, Henry Lawrence, "who tried to do his duty"; the unflinching courage with which a handful of warriors held their ground through weary months on the historic ridge of Delhi, until the master hand of John Lawrence denuded the Punjab to deal that memorable blow which decided the fate of the Empire; the rapid and successful march through Central India, and the prolonged and arduous operations in Rohilkhand and Oudh; all these are portions of English history and have been woven into English literature. The Poet Laureate of the Victorian Age has sung of Lucknow in lines which will never be forgotten; and popular writers of the present day tell the heroic story of John Nicholson and the capture of Delhi. Still less is it within the scope of this book to dwell on the darker incidents of the Mutiny; and Englishmen as well as Indians sincerely wish that those incidents could be expunged altogether from history, at least as recorded in school books meant for boys. Wars there have been in India since the days of Clive and Wellington; but never has there been a war stained, on one side as on the other, by such wanton cruelty and crime as in 1857. The mutineers, rising as they believed in defence of their caste and religion, disgraced and blackened their cause by the inhuman, brutal, and barbarous massacre of defenceless women and children. On the other hand, British troops burnt down villages along their route of many hundreds of miles, turning the country into a "desert"; British conquerors massacred the inhabitants of Delhi after the mutineers had escaped; and British Special Commissioners executed thousands of citizens in Northern India, guiltless of the Mutiny. In the words of a living historian, "the contest seemed to lie between two savage races, capable of no thought but that, regardless of all justice or mercy, their enemies should be exterminated. Deeds of cruelty on one side and on the other were perpetrated, over which it is necessary to draw a veil." 1 None felt the horror of these proceedings in India more than Lord Canning; none deplored them in England more than the Queen. "There is a rabid and indiscriminate vindictiveness abroad," wrote Lord Canning to the Queen, " even amongst many who ought to set a 1 Rev. Dr. Frank Bright's History of England, period IV. (1893), p. 328. See also Return ordered by the House of Commons to be printed, February 4, 1858; Montgomery Martin's History of the Mutiny of the Sepoy Troops in 1857; Bosworth Smith's Life of Lord Lawrence (1885), vol. ii., chapters iv. and v.; Sir Charles Aitchison's Lord Lawrence, and other works dealing specially with the Mutiny transactions. better example, which it is impossible to contemplate without a feeling of shame for one's countrymen." "Lord Canning will easily believe," replied the Queen, “how entirely the Queen shares his feelings of sorrow and indignation at the unchristian spirit shown also to a great extent here by the public towards India in general." " 1 The rule of the East India Company was doomed. The British nation had already made up their minds on the subject, and the Indian Mutiny gave them a suitable occasion. Lord Palmerston had become Prime Minister in 1855, and had concluded the Crimean War with his accustomed vigour. His Government had returned with a larger majority after the general election of 1857; and in the same year he intimated to the Chairman of the East India Company that it was the intention of the Government to propose to Parliament a Bill for placing the Government of India under the direct authority of the Crown. Ross Mangles, then Chairman of the East India Company, and the Deputy Chairman, Sir Frederick Currie, replied on December 31, 1857. They expressed the surprise of the Court that her Majesty's Government, without imputing to the Company any blame in connection with the Mutiny, and without instituting any inquiry by Parliament, intended to propose the immediate suppression of the Company. They held that " an intermediate, non-political, and perfectly independent body," like the Company, was an indispensable necessity for good government in India. And they could not see how it was possible to form such a body if the Members of the new Government were to be nominated by the Crown.2 The Company also submitted a formal petition, drawn up by the clear-sighted John Stuart Mill, to the House of Commons and the House of Lords. The document, pro 1 Life of the Prince Consort, vol. iv. page 146. 2 Return to an order of the House of Lords, ordered to be printed February 22, 1858. P |