Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 12.djvu/826

802 802 INDIA [HISTORY. Influence Frota &quot;1760 to 1765, while Olive was at home, the history of E.I.C. of the English in Bengal contains little that is creditable. Clive had left behind him no system of government, but merely the tradition that unlimited sums of money might be extracted from the natives by the mere terror of the English name. In 1761 it was found expedient and profitable to dethrone Mir Jafar, the English nawab of Murshidabad, and substitute his son-in-law, Mir Kasim, in his place. On that occasion, besides private donations, the English received a grant of the three districts of Bardwan, Midnapur, and Chittagong, estimated to yield a net revenue of half a million sterling. But Mir Kdsim proved to possess a will of his own, and to cherish dreams of independence. He retired from Murshidabad to Monghyr, a strong position on the Ganges, which commanded the only means of communication with the west. There he proceeded to organize an army, drilled and equipped after European models, and to carry on intrigues with the nawab wazir of Oudh. The actual outbreak of hostilities with the English happened on this wise. The Company s servants claimed the privilege of carrying on private trade throughout Bengal, free from inland dues and all other imposts. The assertion of this claim caused frequent affrays between the customs officers of the nawab and those traders who, whether falsely or not, represented that they were acting on behalf of the servants of the Company. The nawab alleged that his civil authority was everywhere being set at nought. The majority of the council at Calcutta would not listen to his statements. The governor, Mr Vansittart, and Warren Hastings, then a junior member of council, attempted to effect some compromise. But the controversy had become too hot. The nawab s officers fired upon an English boat, M issacre and forthwith all Bengal was in a blaze. A force of 2000 of Patna. sepoys was cut to pieces at Patna, and about 200 English men in various parts of the province fell into the hands of the Mahometans, and were subsequently massacred. But as soon as regular warfare commenced Mir Kasim met with no more successes. His trained regiments were defeated in two pitched battles by Major Adams, at Gheriah and at Udha-nala, and he himself took refuge with the nawab wazir of Oudh, who refused to deliver him up. This led to a prolongation of the war. Shah Alam, who had now suc ceeded his father as emperor, and Shuja-ud-Daula, the nawab wa zfr of Oudh, united their forces, and threatened Patnd, which the English had recovered. A more formid able danger appeared in the English camp, in the form of the first sepoy mutiny. This was quelled by Major (afterwards Sir Hector) Munro, who ordered twenty-four of the ring- leaJers to be blown from guns, an old Mughal punishment. In 1764 Major Munro won the decisive battle of Baxar, which laid Oudh at the feet of the conquerors, and brought the Mughal emperor as a suppliant to the English camp. Meanwhile the council at Calcutta had twice found the opportunity they desired of selling the government of Bengal to a new nawab. But in 1765 Clive (now Baron Clive of Plassey, in the peerage of Ireland) arrived at Calcutta, as governor of Bengal for the second time, to settle the entire system of relations with the native powers. Two objects stand out conspicuously in his policy. First, he sought to acquire the substance, though not the name, of territorial power, by using the authority of the Mughal emperor for so much as he wished, and for no more ; and, secondly, he desired to purify the Company s service by prohibiting illicit gains, and at the same time guaranteeing a reasonable remuneration from honest sources. In neither respect were the details of his plans carried out by his successors. But the beginning of our Indian administration dates from this second governor ship of Clive, just as the origin of our Indian empire dates from his victory at Plassey. Clive s first step was to hurry up from Calcutta to Allahabad, and there settle in person the fate of nearly half India. Oudh was given back to the naw4b wazir, on condition of his paying half a million sterling towards the expenses of the war. The provinces of Allahabdd and Kora, forming the greater part of the Dodb, were handed over to Shah Alam himself, who in his turn granted to the Company the diwdni or financial administration of Bengal, Behar, and Orissa, and also the territorial jurisdiction of the Northern Circars. A puppet nawab was still maintained at Murshidabad, who received an annual allowance of about half a million sterling ; and half that amount was paid to the emperor as tribute from Bengal. Thus was constituted the dual system of government, by which the English received all the revenues and undertook to maintain an army for the defence of the frontier, while the criminal jurisdiction vested in the nawab. In Indian phraseology, the Company was diwan and the nawab was nizam. As a matter of general administration, the actual collection of the revenues still remained for some years in the hands of native officials. In attempting to reorganize and purify the Company s service, Clive undertook a task yet more difficult than to partition the valley of the Ganges. The officers, civil and military alike, were all tainted with the common corruption. Their legal salaries were absolutely insignificant, but they had been permitted to augment them ten and a hundredfold by means of private trade and gifts from the native powers. Despite the united resistance of the civil servants, and an actual mutiny of two hundred military officers, Clive carried through his reforms. Both private trade and the receipt of presents were absolutely prohibited for the future, while a sub stantial increase of pay was provided out of the monopoly of salt. Lord Clive quitted India for the third and last time in Wa 1767. Between that date and the arrival of Warren ^ a Hastings in 1772 nothing of importance occurred in Bengal beyond the terrible famine of 1770, which is officially reported to have swept away one-third of the inhabitants. The dual system of government, however, established by Clive, had proved a failure. Warren Hastings, a tried servant of the Company, distinguished alike for intelligence, for probity, and for knowledge of Oriental manners, was nominated governor by the court of directors, with express instructions to carry out a predeter mined series of reforms. In their own words, the court had resolved to &quot; stand forth as diwan, and to take upon themselves, by the agency of their own servants, the entire care and administration of the revenues.&quot; In the execu tion of this plan, Hastings removed the exchequer from Murshidabad to Calcutta, and for the first time appointed European officers, under the now familiar title of collectors, to superintend the revenue collections and preside in the civil courts. The urgency of foreign affairs, and subse quently internal strife at the council table, hindered Hastings from developing further the system of civil administration, a task finally accomplished by Lord Corn- wallis. Though Hastings always prided himself specially upon that reform, as well as upon the improvements he in troduced into the collection of the revenues from salt and opium, his name will be remembered in history for the boldness and success of his foreign policy. From 1772 to 1774 he was governor of Bengal; from 1774 to 1785 he was the first titular governor-general of India, presiding over a council nominated, like himself, not by the Company, but by an Act of Parliament, known as the Regulating Act. In his domestic policy he was greatly hampered by the opposition of Francis ; but, so far as regards external relations with Oudh, with the