durbar at

wretch who, with a horrid mimicry of the forms of justice, had in cold blood A.D. 1859. put two European judges to death. Not only might justice now be tempered with mercy, but the time had arrived when those who had under trying circumstances proved their fidelity might fairly expect a reward. Accordingly the Grand governor-general, starting from Calcutta on the 12th of October, 1859, com- Cawnpoor menced a tour through the provinces, very much in the style of a royal progress, holding durbars or levees at the principal stations through which he passed, assembling the chiefs, and with a display of magnificence well fitted to captivate the oriental mind, bestowing dresses of honour and other ornaments on those whose services during the mutiny were deemed worthy of such an acknowledgment. It would scarcely accord with the dignity of history to follow Lord Canning throughout this tour, and detail the proceedings at the different places where his levees were held. It will suffice to call attention to the splendid scene exhibited at Cawnpoor on 3d November, 1859', where his lordship, when he had with his own hands hung a chain round the neck of the Rewah rajah,

'Extract from letter of Times correspondent, dated Cawnpoor, 4th November, 1859:-"The durbar yesterday was a sight worth seeing. The effect of the great variety of costumes and the brilliant colours ranged round the tent was very striking. The swell rajah of the day was he of Rewah. He had a chair on the right hand of the viceroy, and he fully came up in appearance to one's idea of a native rajah. He is a big, burly man, of tall stature, with a heavy, grossly sensual face and yellow complexion. His hands, fat and shapeless, were covered with dazzling rings. He wore a light yellow tunic, with a black and white scarf, that looked at a distance like a boaconstrictor's skin. On his head was a handsome towering cap, composed entirely of gold and diamonds, which evidently made an inclination of the head difficult. On his right sat Mr. Cecil Beadon, the home and foreign secretary, who at a distance is very like Mr. Edmondstone. On his right sat the Benares rajah, who was very quietly dressed, having merely a neat white shawl turban; he is a very ordinarylooking baniah-like man. On his right sat the Chikaree rajah, an elderly, but rather striking looking man, with a good face, and dressed generally in red garments. There were besides from eighty to a hundred rajahs, great and small, and their brothers or ministers, not two of whom were similarly dressed.

"The hour fixed for the durbar was two o'clock, and by that time all were in their seats; a passage tent, lined with the grenadier company of the 35th regiment as a guard of honour, led to the durbar tent, which is simply a very fine double-poled tent lined with yellow. In the centre of the farther side from the entrance was Lord Canning's chair, and on his right were all the rajahs; on his left was the chair of the commander-in-chief; on his left Sir Richmond Shakespear; then came Generals Birch and Mansfield, Colonels Becher and Stuart, and behind them the governor-general and chief's staff; then farther to the left was a flock of black coats, and on their left the military, of whom there must have been about

200. Very shortly after two o'clock the words

Attention,' 'Shoulder arms,' and then 'Present arms,' announced that the viceroy was passing through the entrance tent, and presently, preceded by his chief secretaries of state and aides-de-camp, he entered, the round of guns outside announcing it. The assembly rose on his entrance, and remained standing till he sat down. Then came the presentations of the rajahs. Mr. Beadon took the big ones, and Mr. Simpson the small fry. Each rajah had evidently been thoroughly drilled how he was to make an obeisance, which act was accompanied in every case with a nuzzur, and which was also in each case, after being touched by the vice-regal hand, taken from the officer by the people of the Tosha Khana department.

"Then came the presentation of khelats. The prin. cipal rajahs had chains fastened on their necks, but only to one, the Rewah rajah, was this done by Lord Canning personally. To give him his chain his lordship rose and passed it round his neck. The others had their collars of honour put on by the secretaries, Lord Canning merely touching each chain when presented to him for that purpose. The Rewah rajah, the Benares rajah, and the Chikaree rajah were each addressed by Lord Canning in English on their khelats being given them, but to the Chikaree rajah a great honour was paid, for, after saying a few words to him, Lord Canning, turning to the commanderin-chief, who on being addressed immediately stood up, the whole of the English officers present standing also, said, 'Lord Clyde, I wish to bring to your notice the conduct of this brave man, who showed marked devotion to the British cause by acting on the offensive against the rebels of his own accord, and when besieged in a fort, refused to give up a British officer, offering his own son as a hostage instead; and I trust,' said Lord Canning, 'that every officer of the queen now present will remember this, and should they ever come in contact with this rajah, act accordingly.""

A.D.

Wonderful rise and

specially eulogized the Chikaree rajah for his marked devotion to the British cause, in having not only borne arms against the rebels, but offered his son as a hostage in order to save the life of a British officer.

In looking back upon the whole course of events recorded in these volumes, progress of it is impossible not to be struck with wonder and admiration. At first a small Indian em body of merchant adventurers, with no higher ambition than to obtain a share

the British

pire.

Acquisition of Bombay

of policy.

in what was known to be a lucrative trade, contribute their capital and send out a few ships of moderate burden to the eastern seas by way of experiment. Some of the ships are wrecked, and others fall into the hands of enemies who plunder or destroy them. A few are more fortunate, and return laden with cargoes so valuable as to compensate for other losses and stimulate to new exertions. For a time the continent of India is in a great measure overlooked, and the main exertions are directed to the Persian Gulf and the spice islands of the Indian Archipelago. In the former direction the returns, though increased by the very discreditable practice of seizing and pillaging native ships, prove unsatisfactory; in the latter direction Dutch jealousy presents insuperable obstacles, and the long-cherished idea of a spice trade is all but abandoned. India now begins to attract more attention, and in addition to a few places on the Malabar coast, where pepper formed the staple article of export, other localities are selected, particularly on the Coromandel coast, and northwards towards the Bay of Bengal.

Hitherto all the factories established in India were held by the most and change precarious tenure. The property in the soil remained with the native princes, whose protection, though purchased by much fawning and many costly presents, was not unfrequently withdrawn, as often as the pillage of a factory promised to be more profitable than its tribute. In one quarter, however, the tenure was of a different and more satisfactory nature. The island of Bombay, possessing the best harbour in India, had passed to the British crown as part of the dowry of the Portuguese princess who became the wife of Charles II. At first there was room to doubt whether this acquisition was to promote or to damage the interests of the East India Company. Prerogative pushed to its utmost limits was then the favourite policy of government, which accordingly began to exercise its new sovereignty in the East in a manner which seemed to set the Company's chartered privileges at nought. Complaint and recrimination of course ensued, and the results threatened to be disastrous, when government made the happy discovery that the possession of Bombay, instead of being a gain, was annually entailing a heavy loss. This was one of the last evils which a court so needy and avaricious as that of Charles II. could endure, and little difficulty therefore was felt in concluding an arrangement by which the Company entered into possession of Bombay with all its burdens. This was a new and important step in advance. Previously they were only traders existing by the sufferance of the native powers; now they too were

supremacy

sovereigns, and laying aside the abject forms of address with which they had A.D. been accustomed to approach native princes, began to use a more dignified language, and act in a bolder spirit. The profits of trade had hitherto satisfied Struggles for them, but they now talked of revenue from territory, and gave their servants with France. to understand that they expected it to form an important item in their future returns. The idea was never after lost sight of, and the aims of the Company became visibly enlarged. They would no longer exist by sufferance, and began to familiarize their minds with the idea of conquest. It was not long before full scope was found for this warlike temperament. Not merely had they to repel aggression on the part of native rulers; but a great European power, which had settled on the east coast, had engaged in a vast scheme of ambition, which, if realized, would almost as a necessary consequence annihilate British interests in India. The collision with France thus rendered inevitable, led to a desperate struggle, in which, after various alternations of success, France was obliged to succumb. Meanwhile a war fraught with still more important consequences had commenced in another quarter. The atrocity of the Black Hole of Calcutta had been perpetrated, and Clive, who marched to avenge it, had, in return for dethroning one ruler and placing another upon the throne, obtained for the Company an absolute control over the revenues of the immense and populous provinces of Bengal, Behar, and Orissa, with full right to appropriate them to their own use, subject only to certain stipulated payments. This grant of the dewannee was properly, as its name implies, only one of revenue, but revenue generally suffices to make its possessor master of all the other rights of property, and accordingly the Company acted from the date of the grant as if the three provinces belonged to them in absolute sovereignty. The British Indian empire having been thus founded, continued to advance in the face of hostile combinations which interrupted its progress, and at times even threatened its existence, till every power hostile to it was overthrown, and its supremacy was completely established.

the constitu

Company.

While pursuing the remarkable career which has just been slightly sketched, Changes in the constitution of the Company had been radically changed. Its connection tion of the with trade had been entirely dissolved, and its directors had been converted into a kind of middle men, through whom, but in immediate subservience to the British ministry, the government of the country was conducted. This anomalous form of administration, which was rather dictated by circumstances than deliberately adopted, was not entitled, and was indeed never meant to be permanent. The right of sovereignty had been declared by repeated acts of the legislature to be vested exclusively in the British crown, and it seemed necessarily to follow that the crown would sooner or later exercise this right in India in the same way as in its other dependencies. It was necessary, however, owing to the magnitude of the interests involved, to proceed with the utmost caution, and though the obvious tendency of all recent legislation

VOL. III.

285

A. D.

The sepoy mutiny followed by

new changes.

Extinction

of the Company.

on the subject had been to increase the direct authority of the British government and diminish that of the directors, the final step of annexation had not been taken, and was to all appearance at some distance, when it was precipitated by the Sepoy Mutiny.

It would be unfair to lay the whole blame of this fearful catastrophe on the Indian government, as then actually administered. The causes which led to it had long been in operation, and were so deeply seated, that even some of the ablest Indian statesmen, though they saw and lamented them, failed to discover or suggest any effectual remedy. Still it must be confessed that a government, which was not ignorant of the danger, but allowed itself to slumber over it till the crisis actually arrived, must have laboured under grave defects both in substance and form, and we therefore cannot wonder, that as soon as the horror and indignation produced by the atrocities of the mutineers had subsided so far as to leave room for reflection, a general desire was felt to rid the Indian government of its most striking anomalies, and assimilate its machinery as much as possible to that which has so long stood the test of experiment at home. The desired changes have accordingly been made. The queen now rules India in her own name, like all her other dependencies. Ministers, one of whom now bears the name and office of secretary of state for India, are strictly responsible for the mode in which it is administered. The jealousies and heartburnings produced by the maintenance of two European armies, have been set at rest by their amalgamation. The best talents of this country have been employed in reforming the Indian financial system, and the question of patronage has been happily solved, by substituting qualification for family or political influence, in appointing to the more important branches of the public service. The strange policy of discouraging European settlers has been completely reversed, and liberal measures have been devised for the purpose of attracting European capital to the country, as one of the most obvious and effectual means of developing its vast resources. Nor is it out of place to mention that under the new arrangements India will never again be placed at the mercy of pampered sepoy regiments. A native army cannot be dispensed with, but it will henceforth be kept in its proper place as an auxiliary force, capable of doing good service in subordinate departments, but too few in numbers, and composed of elements too heterogeneous, to admit of such formidable combinations as were witnessed during the late mutiny.

Such are a few of the important improvements which have been, or are in course of being introduced into the administration of our Indian empire, but it ought to be remembered, that in regard to still more important improvements, government is almost powerless. In the matter of education it is much doubtless to be able to open schools and to provide them with well-qualified teachers, but in selecting the subjects to be taught, government must stop

improve

India.

short and exclude the only topics by which the Hindoo mind and heart can be A.D. effectually reached. It may be fairly calculated that the teaching of the government schools is in a great measure lost upon three-fourths of those who Measures of attend them. The knowledge communicated cannot find a resting-place in the ment in minds of persons whose previous beliefs consist of such monstrous dogmas as Hindooism inculcates, and whose religious observances, entwined with the ordinary business of life, have become to them a second nature. The case of the remaining fourth of the scholars is somewhat different. Their object probably is to obtain some of the government appointments for which the knowledge acquired in schools and colleges is an essential qualification. They Education. accordingly pass through the whole curriculum, and will in due time be found seated at the desks of government offices. They have succeeded in their object, and are become public servants. So far so good. They have procured a livelihood, and owe it to the education provided for them at the public expense. But there is unfortunately another side to the picture, and when inquiry is made into the private character of those men, it is too often found that they have paid dear for their knowledge. They have cast away their early beliefs without substituting anything better, and belong to the class of liberalized Hindoos, who ape the manners and practise the worst vices, but are utter strangers to the virtues of European society. To this class, but with all its worst qualities exaggerated, the infamous miscreant Nana Sahib belonged.

instruction.

When the question is asked, In what way can the affections of the Hindoo Religious be gained, and his fidelity to British rule placed beyond jeopardy? the answer is, By making him a Christian. A common faith will give him a common interest, and form a bond of union which not even violence will be able to sever. During the late mutiny, those of the natives who had embraced Christianity are understood to have remained true to their allegiance, and it may reasonably be expected that in all similar cases the same course will be pursued. Here, however, the interference of government is precluded, simply because the suspicion which it would produce, would in all probability more than counterbalance any benefit that could be derived from it, and hence, a work on which, more than any other, the prosperity and happiness of India depend, must be carried on by private benevolence. It is pleasing to know that Christian missionaries, distinguished alike for talents and piety, have long been devoting them to this sacred task, and that the mutiny itself, by awakening attention to the real wants of India, has given a new impulse to efforts for christianizing it. The time is in some respects singularly propitious. Under a native dynasty, the suppression of the mutiny would have been followed by general massacre and devastation, and every province in which the mutineers had mustered in strength would have been converted into a desert. We have used our triumph with moderation, and the punishments have been few compared with the number