XLIX. 1806. 101. confirmation Monson's retreat, the first unsuccessful Goorkah invasion, CHAP. the protracted contest amidst the jungles of Arracan, the two undecided campaigns against China, the unparalleled disaster of the Coord-Cabul Pass, were all mainly owing Subsequent to the fatal oblivion, in the pride of continued victory, or of the same to the not less fatal neglect, from the prevalence of a false principles. system of economy, of the great truth which experience had impressed upon Alexander and Lake. On the other hand, all these reverses were repaired when misfortune had tamed this pride or overruled this economy; and necessity, though then at an enormous expense, brought the European troops in a fair proportion to Asiatics into the field.* It is not going too far to say, that on the due observance, at whatever cost, of Alexander's and Lake's proportion of one European to three or four Asiatics, the existence of our Indian empire depends. Nor need the cost of such an augmentation of the native British forces deter a prudent and paternal government. The wisest economy is that which averts calamity by foresight no expenses are so ruinous as those which, incurred in a moment of consternation, fall with tenfold severity on the unprepared. Let justice and equity distinguish our Eastern rule let the vast markets of England be freely opened to Indian industry: let British capital and enterprise restore the long-neglected canals of Hindostan, and British energy repress the predatory habits of its native powers; in a word, let us treat India as a distant province of our own island, and exact nothing from its inhabitants for which we do not give a full equivalent, and there will be no difficulty in maintaining the fidelity of our native armies, the loyalty of our native subjects; and sixty thousand native British, joined to a hundred and eighty thousand Hindoo troops, will secure to us the permanent empire of the East. * Previous to the campaign which terminated so gloriously under the walls of Nankin in 1842, the native British military and naval forces were tripled, and the former were doubled before the last triumphant march to Cabul. CHAP. 1806. 102. Analogy between empire in in Europe. The progress of the British empire in India bears, ir many respects, a close resemblance to that of Napoleon in Europe; and the "necessity of conquest to existence," which was so strongly felt and forcibly expressed by the British Lord Clive, Lord Cornwallis, Lord Wellesley, and Lord India, and Hastings, should make us view with a charitable eye Napoleon's the corresponding invincible impulse under which the European conqueror continually acted. Both empires were founded on opinion, and supported by military force; both brought a race of conquerors to supreme dominion, in opposition to the established rights and vested interests of the higher classes; both had to contend with physical force superior to their own, and prevailed chiefly by espousing the cause of one part of the native powers against the other; both were compelled at first to supply inferiority of numbers by superiority in energy and rapidity of movement; both felt that the charm of invincibility once broken was for ever lost, and that the first step in serious retreat was the commencement of ruin. Both had gained their chief increase of power during periods of peace; the strength of both appeared more terrible on the first renewal of hostilities than it had been when they last terminated; and it is hard to say whether the open hostility or withering alliance of either was most fatal to the independence of the adjoining states. 103. But while, in these respects, these two empires were Their essen- remarkably analogous to each other, in one vital partitial point of cular their principles of action and rules of administration difference. were directly at variance; and it is to this difference that the different duration of their existence is to be ascribed. The French in Europe conquered only to oppress. Seducing words, indeed, preceded their approach, but cruel exactions accompanied their footsteps, desolation and suffering followed their columns; the vanquished states experienced only increased severity of rule under the sway of the tricolor flag. The English in XLIX. 1806. India, on the contrary, conquered, but this led, perhaps CHAP. unintentionally on their part, to blessings. The oppression of Asiatic rule, the ferocity of authorised plunder, disappeared before their banners; multitudes flocked from the adjoining states to enjoy the security of their protection; the advance of their frontier was marked by the smiling aspect of villages rebuilt, fields recultivated, the jungle and the forest receding before human improvement. And the difference in the practical result of the two governments has been decisively established, by the difference of the strength which they have exhibited in resisting the shocks of adverse fortune. For while the empire of Napoleon sank as rapidly as it rose, and was prostrated on the first serious reverse before the aroused indignation of mankind, the British dominion in Asia, like the Roman in Europe, has stood secure in the affections of its innumerable inhabitants, and, though separated by half the globe from the parent state, has risen superior during almost a century to the accumulated force of all its enemies. 104. on the rise tish is power in India. After the most attentive consideration of the circumstances attending the rise and establishment of this extra- Reflections ordinary dominion, under Lord Clive, Warren Hastings, of the BriLord Cornwallis, and Marquess Wellesley, it seems almost inexplicable to what cause its marvellous progress has been owing. It was not to the magnitude of the forces sent out by the mother country, for they were few, and furnished in the most parsimonious spirit; it was not to the weakness of the conquered states, for they were vast and opulent empires, wellnigh equalling in numbers and resources all those of Europe put together; it was not to their want of courage or discipline, for they had all the resources of European military art, and fought with a courage which sometimes rivalled even the far-famed prowess of British soldiers. The means of combating with resources at first slender, and always dependent for their existence on the capacity and energy of the Indian XLIX. 1806. CHAP. government, were found in the moral courage and farseeing sagacity of our Eastern administration; in the incorruptible integrity and public spirit of its officers, both civil and military; in the undaunted courage of the small band of native English, and the unconquerable valour of our British officers, who brought an inferior race into the field, and taught them, by their spirit and example, to emulate the heroic deeds of their European brethren in arms. The history of the world can hardly exhibit a parallel to the vigour and intrepidity of that political administration, the courage and daring of those military exploits. And perhaps, on reviewing their achievements, the British, like the Roman annalist, may be induced to conclude that it is to the extraordinary virtue and talent of a few leading men that these wonderful successes have been owing:-" Mihi multa legenti, multa audienti, quæ populus Romanus domi militiæque, mari atque terrâ, præclara facinora fecit, forte lubuit attendere, quæ res maxime tanta negotia sustinuisset. Sciebam, sæpenumero parvâ manu cum magnis legionibus hostium contendisse ; cognoveram, parvis copiis bella gesta cum opulentis regibus; ad hoc sæpe fortunæ violentiam tolerasse; facundia Græcis, gloria belli Gallis, ante Romanos fuisse. Ac mihi, multa agitanti, constabat paucorum civium egregiam Cat. sec. 53. virtutem cuncta patravisse; eoque factum, ut divitias paupertas, multitudinem paucitas superaret.' 1 Sall. Bel. Much, however, as the strenuous virtue of a few individuals may have contributed to the greatness of the British empire in Asia, as it did of the Roman dominion * "After reading and hearing much of what the Roman people at home and abroad, by land and sea, had achieved of glorious deeds, the question occurred, What has produced such wonderful results? I know that often, with slender power, they had contended with vast armies, with inconsiderable resources waged war with opulent monarchs; that they had often felt the mutations of war; that they were inferior to the Greeks in eloquence, to the Gauls in the passion for military glory. And after weighing everything, I have arrived at the conclusion, that the extraordinary energy of a few citizens worked all these wonders, and that thence it was that poverty conquered riches, the few the many."--SALLUST, Bell. Cat. § 53. XLIX. 1806. this extra in Europe, it will not of itself explain the phenomenon. CHAP. This strenuous virtue itself is the wonder which requires solution. How did it happen that Great Britain, during 105. the course of eighty years, should have been able to Causes of furnish a race of statesmen adequate to the conception of ordinary such mighty projects; of warriors equal to the execution progress, of such glorious deeds; men capable of seizing with unflinching courage the moment of action, of combining with profound sagacity the means of conquest, of executing with undaunted resolution the directions of genius? Still more, how was this constellation of talent exhibited when the state was involved in bloody and arduous conflicts in the western hemisphere; and how did it shine with the brightest lustre at the very moment when all its resources seemed concentrated for the defence of the heart of the empire? It was the boast of the Romans that their republican constitution, by training all the citizens to civil or military duties, either as leaders or followers, provided an inexhaustible fund of virtue and ability for the service of the commonwealth; and that the loss even of the largest army or the most skilful commanders could without difficulty be supplied by the multitudes in every rank whom the avocations of freedom had trained to every pacific or warlike duty. Yet even the ancient Romans made it a fundamental rule of their policy never to engage in two serious wars at the same time; whereas the British empire in India has shone forth with most splendour when the parent state was engaged in vast foreign contests, which embraced the whole world in their operations. It first rose to greatness under the guidance of Clive, in the midst of the Seven Years' War in Europe; it was preserved by Hastings during the darkest season of the American conflict; it was elevated to the highest point by Wellesley, in the heat of the struggle for life and death with Napoleon. In British India, equally as in ancient Rome, the influence of the undying energy and widespread capacity springing from free institutions may be |