XLIX. 1805. so fortunate as to come up with, utterly rout, and disperse CHAP. them with the loss of a thousand slain, and return to his camp the same day, after a march in twelve hours of fifty miles. A few days after, four thousand of the enemy, April 8. with a few guns, were attacked by a detachment under Captain Royle, in a strong position under the walls of Adaulutnaghur, and totally defeated, with the loss of 1 Lord Wel. their artillery and baggage. By these repeated defeats, to Secret the whole of this formidable predatory cavalry was dis- May 13, persed or destroyed, with the exception of the small body 155, 159. which accompanied Holkar into Scindiah's camp.1 1805, v. 93. and against Feb. 1805. Nor had the incursion of Meer Khan into Rohilcund and the Doab, or the detached efforts of the Mahrattas Operations in other quarters, been more successful. The Rajahs of tack, BunKhoordah and Kunkha, in the Cuttack, instigated by the decund Rajah of Berar, prepared to make an incursion into the Meer Khan. British dominions; but they were anticipated, attacked in their own territories, and Khoordah carried by assault, by a force under the command of Colonel Harcourt. Bundelcund was for some weeks agitated by the intrigues of Scindiah, who instigated its chiefs to revolt, in order to give more weight to his intervention in favour of Holkar; but though this movement, in the outset, had some success, in consequence of the absence of the British cavalry Jan. and at the siege of Bhurtpore, yet that success was of short 1 duration. The approach of a considerable British force speedily reduced them to submission. More difficulty was experienced from the incursion of Meer Khan, who, after traversing the Doab, crossed the Ganges, and broke into Rohilcund at the head of fifteen thousand horse; and in the middle of February occupied Moradabad. Three regiments of British, and three of native horse, were immediately despatched by Lord Lake, from the army before Feb. 15. Bhurtpore, and marched with extraordinary expedition to arrest the enemy. They arrived in time to rescue a little Feb. 18, garrison of three hundred sepoys, which still held good the house of Mr Leycester, the collector for the district, VOL. VIII. G XLIX. 1805. CHAP. and compelled the enemy to retire. Meer Khan fled to the hills, closely pursued by the British horse under General Smith, who, after a variety of painful marches, came March 2. up with him in the beginning of March, and completely March 10. destroyed the flower of his army: and, on the 10th of the same month, they sustained a second defeat from Colonel Burn, at the head of thirteen hundred irregular horse, and lost all their baggage. Disheartened by these disasters, and finding no disposition to join him in the inhabitants of 1 Lord Wel. Rohilcund, Meer Khan retired across the Ganges by the same ford by which he had crossed it, and after traversMarch 1805. ing the Doab, repassed the Jumna in the end of March, v. 142, 155. having, in the course of his expedition, lost half his to Secret Committee, Wel. Desp. 94. against who sues for peace. Wellesley returns to forces.1 No sooner was the treaty with the Rajah of BhurtOperations pore signed, than Lord Lake marched with his whole Scindiah, force to watch Scindiah's movements, whom Holkar had joined, and effected a junction with a detachment under And Lord the command of Colonel Martindell. This wily rajah, England. finding the whole weight of the contest likely to fall upon him, and that he derived no solid support from Holkar's force, immediately retired from his advanced position on the Chumbul river, and expressed an anxious and now sincere desire for an accommodation. A long negotiation ensued, in the outset of which his demands were so extravagant as to be utterly inadmissible; and Lord Wellesley bequeathed it as his last advice to the East India Directors and Board of Control, to make no peace with him, or any of the Mahratta chiefs, but on such terms as might 1 Lord Wel. maintain the power and reputation of the British governCommittee, ment, and deprive them of the means of continuing the v. 269, 270. system of plunder and devastation by which their confederacy had hitherto been upheld; 1* and Lord Corn July 30. to Secret July 1805, * " Adverting to the restless disposition and predatory habits of Holkar, it is not probable that he will be induced to consent to any arrangement which shall deprive him of the means of ranging the territories of Hindostan at the head of a body of plunderers, except only in the last extremity of ruined XLIX. 1805. wallis, his successor, having arrived, this great statesman CHAP. was relieved from the cares of sovereignty, and embarked at Calcutta on his return to England, amidst the deep regrets of all classes of the people, leaving a name imperishable in the rolls alike of European and Asiatic fame.* ministra. death of rival of Sir These principles, however, were not equally impressed 95. by personal experience upon his successors. The East Second adIndia Company and the Board of Control-the former tion, and intent only on the price of their stock, and the prospect Lord Cornof augmenting their dividends; the latter far removed wallis. Arfrom the scene of action, mainly solicitous about the hus- G. Barlow. banding of the national resources for the desperate contest with Napoleon in Europe, and unaware that a similar necessity existed to uphold the British supremacy in the East—had concurred in directing the succeeding governorgeneral to use his utmost efforts to bring the costly and distressing contest with the Mahratta powers to an early termination. Lord Cornwallis, however, did not live to carry these instructions into effect. The health of this distinguished nobleman, which had been declining before he left England, rapidly sank under the heat and labours of India; and he expired at Benares on the 5th October, fortune. Whatever might be the expedience, under other circumstances than those which at present exist, of offering to Holkar terms of accommodation, without previous submission and solicitation on his part, at present the offer of terms such as Holkar would accept would be manifestly injurious to the reputation, and ultimately hazardous to the security of the British government."-LORD WELLESLEY to Secret Committee, 25th June 1805-Well. Desp. v. 269, 270. As the author is now to bid a final adieu to Marquess Wellesley's administration in the East, he trusts he will not be accused of unbecoming feeling, but rather of a regard for historic truth, when he quotes, in corroboration of the facts stated in the preceding chapters, the following passage in a letter with which, after perusing this work, that great man honoured him :-" Lord Wellesley had not the interview with Fouché of which you speak [this is now corrected.] But in all other respects he is ready to bear full testimony to the accuracy of your history, and to the impartial and beautiful spirit in which it is conceived and written."-MARQUIS WELLESLEY to MR ALISON, 20th Nov. 1840. -The imprimatur of such a man is indeed a testimony in relation to his own transactions, of which a historian may justly feel proud, the more especially as he had not the happiness of enjoying his private acquaintance. XLIX. 1805. Nov. 23. Jan. 7, 1806. CHAP. without having brought the negotiations to a termination. They were resumed in the same pacific spirit by his successor, Sir George Barlow: treaties were in November concluded with Scindiah, and with Holkar in the beginning of January. These treaties were indeed honourable to the British arms; they provided an effectual barrier against the Mahratta invasions, and secured the peace of India for twelve years. But Lord Wellesley's principles proved in the end to be well founded. Pacific habits were found to be inconsistent with even a nominal independence on the part of these restless chieftains; conciliation impossible, with men who had been inured to rapine by centuries of violence. The necessity of thorough subjugation was at last experienced; and it was then accomplished in the most effectual manner. It was reserved for the nobleman who had been most fierce in his invectives against Lord Cornwallis's first war with Tippoo, to complete the conquest of the Mahratta powers; for a 361, 461. companion in arms of Wellington to plant the British standard on the walls of Bhurtpore. 1 * 1 Malcolm, 388, 427. Auber, ii. 96. of peace Scindiah and Holkar. The principal articles in the pacification with Scindiah Terme with were, that all the conditions of the former treaty, except in so far as expressly altered, were to continue in full force; that the claim of the Company to Gwalior and Gohud should be abandoned by the British government, and the river Chumbul form the boundary of the two states, from Kotah on the west to Gohud on the east ; and that Scindiah was to relinquish all claim to the countries to the northward of that river, and the British to the south. Various money payments, undertaken by the Company in the former treaty, were by this one remitted; and the British agreed not to restore to Holkar any of his possessions in the province of Malwa. Holkar, driven to the banks of the Hyphasis, and in extreme distress, sent to sue for peace, which was granted to him on * Lord Hastings, who subdued the Mahrattas in 1817; and Lord Combermere, who took Bhurtpore in 1825. CHAP. XLIX. 1805. the following conditions: That he should renounce all right to the districts of Rampoora and Boondee, on the north of the Chumbul, as well as Koonah and Bundelcund; that he was to entertain no European in his employment without the consent of the British government, and never to admit Surajee Ghautka into his counsels or service. Contrary to the earnest advice of Lord Lake, Sir George Barlow, the new governor-general, so far gratuitously modified these conditions, to which the Mahratta chiefs had consented, as to restore the provinces of Rampoora and Boondee to Holkar, and to abandon the defensive alliance which had been concluded with the Rajah of Jypore. This last measure was not adopted without the warmest remonstrances on the part both of Lord Lake and the abandoned rajah, who observed to the British resident with truth, "That this was the first time, since the English government had been established in India, that it had been known to make its faith subservient to its convenience." But everything announced that the master-spirit had fled from the helm, when Lord Wellesley embarked for England. Advantages conceded by our enemies were gratuitously abandoned in the vain idea of conciliation; and, in the illusory hope of advantages to be gained by an undecided policy, a treaty was signed, to which the illustrious statesman, who had conquered the means of dictating it, would never have consented; and future burdensome and hazardous wars were Malcolm, entailed upon the empire to avoid the necessity of a suit- 416, 439. able assertion of the British supremacy at the present 395, 409. moment.1 Auber, ii. Lord Wel The administration of Marquess Wellesley exceeds, in 97. the brilliancy and importance of the events by which it Review of was distinguished, any recorded in British history. In lesley's adthe space of seven years, triumphs were then accumulated ministra which would have given lustre to an ordinary century of success. Within that short period, a formidable French force, fourteen thousand strong, which had wellnigh sub tion. |