four districts. Mahommed Ali tried in return PART II. to obtain a guarantee of protection. It was History. refused. He was told he had no right to make LECT. VII. conditions. "The Company," wrote Mr. Pigot, "do not take anything from you; but they are the givers, and you are a receiver." Pleasant allies and protectors!

He

But the Company's government in the East was, by this time, one scene of misrule and oppression. What was worst, its servants came home rich, while the treasury was empty. Clive had been turned to,-as the only man to restore matters to order. His last act before leaving India had been an insult to his masters. was, nevertheless, sent out as Commander-inchief, President, and Governor of Bengal, and with power, together with a committee of four, to act without consulting the Council. He was rich; he could afford to be virtuous: perhaps his second stay in England had given him some sense of right and wrong. He appears to have been shocked at the state of tyranny in which he found Bengal. He required all the servants, civil and military, to enter into covenants, stipulating that they should not accept presents under any pretence from the native princes. General Carnac delayed signing till he had received 200,000l. from the emperor. To place

the employés above the reach of corruption, the trade in salt, betel nut, and tobacco was made a monopoly, for the exclusive benefit of the superior servants of the Company, who were to be entitled to the produce in certain shares, according to their rank. The Nawab was required to resign the dewannee,-in other words,

PART II. the whole revenues and management of his History. country,-to the Company, on payment of a LECT. VII. pension of fifty lacs of rupees, under the management of three nominees of the Company.

Meanwhile, the war in Oude, in the emperor's name, was carried on, until the Nawab-Vizier threw himself upon the generosity of the English. The arrangement for conquering this state had been disapproved of at home. A sort of compromise was effected after this manner :-The Nawab-Vizier was restored to all his dominions, except Allahabad and Korah, which were to be reserved for the emperor. He engaged not to disturb his vassal, Bulwant Sing, of Benares, who had aided the English. Thirty lacs of rupees were due to the emperor for the tribute of Bengal, Behar, and Orissa. He was told not to expect them. He had to give up certain jagheers in those provinces. Finally, in consideration of twenty lacs a year, he conferred upon the Company the dewannee for the three provinces, and confirmed all their acquisitions within the Mogul Empire (12th Aug., 1765).

The only other event of Clive's second government was the so-called double batta mutiny, caused by a suppression of the double field allowance to officers, originally granted by Meer Jaffier, and continued since then. A number of the conspirators, including Gen. Sir R. Fletcher, were tried, and dismissed the service.

Clive had made himself intensely unpopular through his later reforms. He was harassed by attacks on his return to England (1767), and finally committed suicide, 1774, aged 49.

Twenty-three years and a man had made a

ALTERED POSITION OF THE ENGLISH. 167

great change in the relations of England to PART II. India. Trade was now subordinate to conquest. History. Instead of being a mere set of timid merchants, LECT. VII. chaffering in factories and sheltering themselves in forts, the English were now a host of warlike adventurers, who set up and pulled down princes, had worsted all European rivals, and possessed themselves of the richest viceroyalty of the Mogul Empire, though still nominally exercising its functions in the emperor's name; besides extending their acquisitions on numberless other points. Almost utterly unscrupulous, insatiably grasping, they might well be hated; but they were brave, brave almost beyond the conception of the degenerate Moguls, and they were feared accordingly. Their leading seemed to animate even natives of India with irresistible courage: the Indian prince saw himself overthrown by his own countrymen, whom he was accustomed to see cringe as abject slaves before his feet.

What was to be the end of it? Clive, like other self-wrapped men, placed it in his own work. It was folly, he said, to look beyond the dominion of Bengal, Behar, and Orissa. Perhaps, since he recorded this opinion, the year 1857 has been the first in which it did not seem wholly impossible that he might have been right.

LECTURE VIII.

RISE OF THE BRITISH POWER IN INDIA.

PART II.-WARREN HASTINGS (1767-1785).

Hyder Ali of Mysore the next great Name after Clive in
British Indian History-First Mysore War-The English
break faith with Hyder Ali-The Tanjore Wars-Warren
Hastings in Bengal-Arrest of Mohammed Reza Khan and
Shitab Roy-The Company openly assume the Dewannee
-Sale of Allahabad and Korah to the Nawab-Vizier of
Oude The Rohilla War-The Regulating Act and the
New Council-First Interference with the Affairs of the
Mahrattas Discussions between Francis and Hastings-
Execution of Nuncomar-Impey and the Supreme Court-
Hastings all-powerful-The Madras Feud between Lord
Pigot and his Council-Peculation of Sir T. Rumbold-
Reduction of the French Settlements-Operations against
the Mahrattas-League between Hyder Ali, the Mahrattas,
and the Nizam; Second Mysore War-Baillie's Disaster-
Coote's Victories at Porto Novo and Perambaucum-
Lord Macartney at War with Selfishness and Incapacity
at Madras-Hyder Ali's Death (1782)-Treaty of Salbye
with the Mahrattas-Peace with France: with Tippoo,
Hyder's Son and Successor-Warren Hastings' Extor-
tions, from Cheyte Sing, from the Begums of Oude-The
New Regulating Act and Hastings' Departure (1785)—His
Acquittal-Why he ought to have been acquitted-His
Opinion of the Natives-What has become of his Work in
Rohilcund.

PART II. AFTER Clive's departure, the next leading name
History. in the history of British India is not that of an
LECT.VIII. Englishman. In the field appears the first really

formidable native enemy whom the British arms had yet had to cope with-Hyder Ali, the founder of the short-lived Mussulman dynasty of Mysore. The story of the Moslem adventurer, who

LECT.VIII.

never learned to read or write, and yet lived to PART II. transmit to his son a kingdom comprising a History. large portion of southern India, though not so romantic as that of Seevajee, is by no means devoid of interest in itself. But I have no time to dwell upon it here, except so far as it bears upon the development of our own power, which was thwarted for a time by the Mysore princes, in a way in which it never was by any other enemies, from the time when it first began to unfold itself. Suffice it to say that Hyder Ali, the great-grandson of a fakeer from the Punjab, had commenced his fortunes by receiving the fort of Dindigul from Nunjeraj, one of two brothers (Hindoos) then all-powerful in Mysore. He added Bangalore to his possessions, commanded successfully against the Mahrattas, supplanted Nunjeraj, obtained the assignment of more than half the revenue of the State, then used the supplanted Nunjeraj as his tool to become master of the whole. He now engaged in a war on his own account with the Mahrattas, in which he was at first rather unsuccessful, but at last won great renown by the conquest of Malabar, never before subdued by the Moslem, over the warlike Hindoo caste of the Nyrs (1765). His first war with the English was entirely provoked by them.

For want of funds, they had made a disgraceful treaty with Nizam Ali, the new Soobahdar of the Deckan, by which they had engaged to pay him tribute for the Northern Circars, and to assist him with an auxiliary force in any of his undertakings. He called on them for aid in reducing Bangalore, which, as we have seen, was subject