CHAP. VIII. 1797. of Lord Mornington to be neral of India. Lord Mornington Governor-General.-Agents of Tippoo at the Isle of France.-Governor-General resolves on immediate War.-Import of the Circumstances.-Opinions in India.-Nizam Ali receives more English Troops, and dismisses the French.-Unfruitful Negotiations at Poonah.— Progression of Governor-General's Demands.-War begins.-Plan of the Campaign.-March of the Army-Siege of Seringapatam.—Alarming Situation of the British Army in regard to Food.-Seringapatam taken, and the Sultan killed.-Division and Settlement of the conquered Country. WHEN the operation of private interests, in the conduct of great affairs, is CHAP. VIII. neither instructive by the inferences which may be drawn from it; nor important by the consequences to which it leads, it escapes the curiosity of the historian; Appointment whose inquiries utility ought rigidly to circumscribe. Disregarding, then, whatever share ministerial intrigues may have had, in the fluctuations of counsel Governor-Ge which attended the choice of a new Governor-General, it is sufficient for us to state, that after Lord Hobart was appointed, on the 23d of October, 1793, to the government of Madras, he was nominated, on the 24th of December, in the same year, to succeed the Marquis Cornwallis, as Governor-General of India. That Lord Hobart, who enjoyed honourable and affluent prospects at home, and at that time filled an office of great dignity and trust, would not consent to leave his country for less than the assurance of the highest place, was well understood. Ministerial volition was, of course, the origin of both appointments. The administration, however, of Sir John Shore, who, as senior member of the council, succeeded immediately upon the resignation of Lord Cornwallis, was not interrupted till the month of March, in the year 1797, when Lord Cornwallis was nominated a second time to fill the offices of Governor-General and Commander-in-Chief; and the appointment was announced to the different Presidencies in India. A measure so extraordinary seemed to declare that there was something extraordinary in the cause of it. Extraordinary, however, as was the appearance of such an appointment, it remained without effect. In the month of October, of the same year, it was notified to the different Presidencies, that the Earl of Mornington was appointed to be 1798. BOOK VI. Governor-General, in lieu of Marquis Cornwallis. He was appointed, it was said, "under circumstances, and for reasons, of a peculiar nature." The Directors added, that "various circumstances had induced the Marquis to resign his appointments." * Such were the mysterious terms to which the actors thought fit to confine themselves. Arrival of cutta. The Earl of Mornington had recently distinguished himself by a brilliant speech, in the House of Lords, against Jacobinism, which recommended him to the ministry, as a personage both of good principles, and of good abilities. The breach of faith to Lord Hobart it was proposed to compensate, by money; money out of the Company's purse. A proposition was brought forward for bestowing upon him a pension of 1,500l. per annum, and after being once rejected in the General Court, was, nevertheless, by the due application of influence, finally confirmed. The Directors, when pushed for their reasons, hinted, that the attempt of Lord Hobart to transfer to the Company the civil, as well as the military government of the Carnatic, was, in some way, which they said it was delicate to explain, the cause which rendered it inexpedient that he should continue longer in India. "That attempt," they observed, "whether owing to the ardour of Lord Hobart, or some other cause, unfortunately failed. This failure involved his Lordship in an altercation with the Supreme Government; upon which the Court of Directors thought it right to support their Government-General and to recall Lord Hobart." † Lord Mornington arrived at Calcutta on the 17th of May, 1798, carrying ington at Cal- out with him a mind more than usually inflamed with the ministerial passions then burning hot in England; and in a state peculiarly apt to be seized both with dread and with hatred at the idea of any power that was French. He had possessed but little time for acquainting himself with the complicated affairs Proclamation of India, when all his attention was attracted to a particular point. On the Sultan of My- 8th of June, about three weeks after his arrival, a paper was received at Calsore, published cutta, which purported to be a proclamation issued by the Governor at the Isle for aid to the France. of France. The paper bore that two ambassadors had arrived from Tippoo Sultan, with letters addressed to the constituted authorities of the island, and dispatches to be forwarded to the government of France; that the object of the communication was to propose an alliance offensive and defensive with the Public Letter to Fort St. George, 18th Oct. 1797. Papers relating to the Affairs of the Carnatic, ordered by the House of Commons to be printed 10th August 1803, i. 244. + Speech of the Chairman in the General Court, 6th Feb. 1798. See the Report of the Debate, in the Asiatic Annual Register, vol. i. 1798. French; and to request a supply of troops for the purpose of a war against the CHAP. VIII. English, which, with an earnest desire to expel them from India, he was ready to commence, as soon as the French should arrive to assist him. The proclamation then invited the citizens to offer their services, on the liberal terms, which the ambassadors of the Sultan were authorized to bestow. the mind of This paper, which the Governor-General calls truly an "extraordinary pub- Impression on lication," he was at first inclined to regard as a forgery; because, if a scheme the Governorof the nature here described were really entertained, it was so much the interest General. both of Tippoo and the French, to conceal, and an act of such contemptible folly, to divulge it, that such a total want of all capacity for business was scarcely credible, on the part either of a man entrusted with the government of the Isle of France, or of men whom Tippoo would choose for a delicate and important commission. The Governor-General was, nevertheless, so much affected with its contents, as to dispatch a copy of it, even on the following day, to General Harris, the Commander-in-Chief on the coast of Coromandel, and at that time occupying temporarily the station of Governor of Fort St. George. His doubts respecting the authenticity of the document were declared; but the General was commanded" to consider without delay the means of assembling the army on the coast of Coromandel, if necessity should unfortunately require such a precaution." On the 18th of June a letter was received, written by the Earl of Macartney at the Cape of Good Hope, for the purpose of conveying to the Indian government intelligence that such a proclamation had in fact been issued at the Isle of France. And about the same time, several persons arrived at Calcutta, who had been present on the island, when the incident occurred. "A strict examination" of those, whom the Governor-General calls "the most respectable of those persons," was performed. If their information was relied upon, it appeared, that toward the close of the month of January, 1798, two persons arrived at the Isle of France, by a ship from Mangalore; that they were received with great demonstrations of respect, treated as ambassadors from Tippoo, and during their stay on the island, entertained at the public expense; that, without any previous rumour or notion on the island that aid was about to be given to that prince, or a war about to commence between him and the English, the proclamation in question, two days after their arrival, was fixed up, and circulated; that the persons, thus treated as ambassadors, were so far from disowning the publication, that they ostentatiously held the same language, saw it publicly 1798. BOOK VI. distributed by their agents at the place of their residence, and made promises, in the name of the Sultaun, according to its terms; and that on the 7th of March they embarked on board the French frigate La Preneuse, accompanied by the men on whom the inducements held out by them had prevailed, to the amount of about two hundred, including some officers.* From other sources the Governor-General was informed, that the French frigate arrived at Mangalore on the 26th of April; that the Frenchmen landed, that both they, and the persons by whom they had been brought, were received with great marks of satisfaction by the Sultan, and that the principal part of the Frenchmen were admitted into his service. Effects which such an incident might have pro duced. That the Governor-General should have regarded these incidents as tokens of the hostile mind in Tippoo, was natural. The only material question relates to the nature of the impression on the mind of a wise man, which that inference was calculated to produce. That the mind of Tippoo, in regard to the English, was full of hatred, and the spirit of revenge, it needed no new incident to disclose, or to confirm. In fact, the peace of Seringapatam was concluded with him, under a perfect conviction that his mind was breathing all the rage of disappointed ambition and humiliated pride; and if the hostility of his sentiments had constituted a reason for war, in the opinion of the persons in India and Europe, who at that time composed the compound government of India, that peace would never have been made, as it was made, abroad; nor applauded, as it was applauded, at home. The basis on which the wisdom of that agreement rested was the supposed soundness of the conclusion, that the power of Tippoo, far from able to resist the British when entire, was so little formidable when diminished to one half, that the hostility of his sentiments, however intense, and however certainly known, was a matter unworthy of particular regard, to a people who declared all increase of territory unfavourable to their interests, and who, in the opposition of interest between Tippoo and the Mahrattas, could not This is the account which is given in the Governor-General's Letter to the Court of Directors, dated 20th March, 1799. In his minute, in the secret department, 12th of August, 1798, the following is the account. "The ambassadors aided and assisted in the levy of 150 officers and privates, for the service of Tippoo, under the terms, and for the purposes, stated in the proclamation. Few of the officers are of any experience, and the privates are the refuse of the democratic rabble of the island. Some of them are volunteers; others were taken from the prisons, and compelled to embark. Several of them are Caffrees, and people of half cast. With such of these troops as were volunteers, the ambassadors entered into several stipulations and engagements, in the name of Tippoo." In Tippoo's own letter to the French Directory, under date the 30th of August, 1798, he says he received only sixty soldiers. fail to behold a security against the most formidable of the enemies whom India CHAP. VIII. could raise them up. 1798. General resolves upon war. The impression made upon the mind of the Governor-General, by the inci- The Governordents of which the above is the account, appears to have been strong and agitating in the highest degree. "Under all these circumstances, an immediate immediate attack," says he, "upon Tippoo Sultan, for the purpose of frustrating the execution of his unprovoked and unwarrantable projects of ambition and revenge, appeared to me to be demanded by the soundest maxims both of justice and policy. Such was the tenor of my opinions as early as the 20th of June, 1798;" that is, only two days after any authentic information of the facts had been received. "I therefore," continues he, "recorded my decided judgment, that it was necessary to assemble the armies on the coasts of Coromandel and Malabar without delay, and I issued my final orders for this purpose on that day. I have no hesitation in declaring, that my original intention was-if circumstances would have admitted to have attacked the Sultaun instantly, and on both sides of his dominions, for the purpose of defeating his hostile preparations, and of anticipating their declared object. I was concerned, however, to learn, from persons most conversant in military details at Fort St. George, that the dispersed state of the army on the coast of Coromandel, and certain radical defects in its establishments, would render the assembling a force equal to offensive movements against Tippoo, a much more tedious and difficult operation than I had apprehended.” * on which deci Either the Governor-General condemned the policy of the treaty which was Circumstances concluded by Lord Cornwallis, and highly applauded by the ministers, the par- sion was to be liament, and people of England; Or such was the change in circumstances, that grounded. the enmity of Tippoo, which was neither formidable, nor offered any reasonable prospect of being formidable, in 1792, had become intensely formidable in 1798; Or, lastly, the mind of the Governor-General was in a state of inflammation, * Letter from Lord Mornington to the Court of Directors, dated 20th March, 1799. Papers presented to the House of Commons relating to the late War in the East Indies with Tippoo Sultaun; ordered to be printed 26th Sept. 1799. "The necessarily dispersed state of the troops," (says Col. Beatson, View of the Origin and Conduct of the War with Tippoo Sultaun, i. 15), "would have been of less importance but for those radical defects, which have in a certain degree at all times existed. These proceed from a system of economy, which precludes the expense of establishing depots of grain in different parts of our possessions, and of maintaining a fixed establishment of draught and carriage cattle; without which no portion of the Madras army, however amply it might have been supplied with every other requisite for field operations, was in a condition to act with promptitude and effect." |