India Under British Rule. Wheeler James Talboys
was unquestionably a better man than the deposed Mir Jafir; but the transfer of a throne by a Governor and Council of British merchants was somewhat startling. There was, however, no one to resist the Calcutta traders, and Mir Jafir yielded to his kismet, retired from his post as Nawab, and removed to Calcutta, as a safer residence than Murshedabad.
Mastery of the British.
Mir Kasim agreed to all the British demands. He was bound over to pay half a million sterling for the maintenance of the British army; but he averted money disputes with the Company's servants by ceding three districts in the immediate neighbourhood of Calcutta, which yielded the same amount of revenue, and the British could collect the money for themselves. Above all, the new Nawab agreed, as Mir Jafir had done before him, to free the Company's servants from the payment of all inland transit duties within the Bengal provinces.
Dealings with the Padishahs.
Mir Kasim, accompanied by a British force, took the field against the young Padishah and the Nawab Vizier. The invaders were soon defeated; the Nawab Vizier fled back to Oudh, but the young Padishah remained at Patna. Accordingly, the British determined to get his sanction to their proceedings, and thus to justify their appointment of a new Nawab in the eyes of the people of India and the European nations trading with Bengal. He was without territory or revenue. His throne and capital at Delhi were in the hands of the Afghans. Yet he had been proclaimed Padishah in India, and was legally the Great Mogul. Accordingly, the British determined to recognize his sovereignty, and arrange for the appointment of Mir Kasim as Nawab of Bengal, Behar and Orissa, under his imperial seal and commission.
British set up a Great Mogul.
It was somewhat audacious for a handful of British traders to set up a Great Mogul for themselves as lord paramount of India. It was still more audacious to carry out the ceremony of installation in a building sacred to silk and saltpetre. Nevertheless, the work was done. The Company's factory at Patna was converted into a Mogul palace; the centre room into a hall of audience; the dining-tables into an imperial throne. The Padishah was carried in procession to the factory, and enthroned on the dining-tables as the Great Mogul. Mir Kasim paid homage to the sovereign, and was invested with the post of Nawab of the Bengal provinces. In return, the Nawab was bound over to pay a yearly tribute to the Great Mogul of a quarter of a million sterling.
Enthronement at Patna.
The installation of the Great Mogul, and the formal appointment of the Nawab of Bengal, were established facts, but no party was satisfied. The Padishah was disgusted, because the British would not conduct him to Delhi and place him on the throne of Aurangzeb. The Nawab was disgusted at paying a heavy tribute when the Padishah might have been forced by a little pressure to sell the appointment for a bag of rupees. He was apparently bent on breaking off all relations with the British, and there was no objection to his doing so. He moved his court from Murshedabad, which was only a hundred miles from Calcutta, to Monghyr, which was more than three hundred miles. Here he formed an army of picked men, and employed a European deserter, known as Sombre or Sumru, to drill the troops in British fashion, and began to manufacture muskets and cast guns.
No one satisfied.
The quarrel began about the right of the British servants of the Company, under the treaty with Mir Kasim, to carry their commodities through the Bengal provinces free from the payment of all transit duties. The British at Calcutta twisted the privilege of non-payment into a right to carry such native commodities as salt, tobacco, opium, betel, sugar, and oil, without payment; whilst all Bengali dealers were compelled to pay a duty at every station. The British were thus able to undersell native dealers, and monopolise the whole trade of the country. The Nawab protested against this interpretation, and insisted on collecting the duties, unless the goods were bought for exportation by sea. Then ensued quarrels, misunderstandings, frays and reprisals; the Nawab complaining of the loss of duties, whilst the British set him at defiance, and resisted all attempts to collect the duties by force of arms.
Quarrel with Mir Kasim.
Mir Kasim cut away the British monopoly by abolishing all inland transit duties. The Bengali dealers were thus placed on the same footing as the Company's servants. The Company's servants were blind with wrath at this measure. They insisted that they enjoyed a certain privilege under the treaty with Mir Kasim, and that this privilege was rendered valueless, by the general abolition of duties. Accordingly, they proposed sending two of their number to Monghyr to argue the matter with the Nawab.
Fresh exasperations.
The city of Monghyr is situated on the river Ganges, three hundred miles above Calcutta and a hundred miles below Patna. The two British envoys were received and entertained by the Nawab, but told there was nothing to settle; he had ceased to collect duties from his own subjects and the British had nothing to do with the matter. At this very moment a boat arrived at Monghyr on its way to Patna with a cargo of firelocks from Calcutta for the garrison at the British factory. The Nawab at once suspected that the British were preparing for war. He confiscated the firelocks, and kept one of the envoys as a hostage, but permitted the other to return to Calcutta. The latter man was doomed. On his way down the river he was fired upon by the troops of the Nawab, and brutally murdered.
Mir Jafir restored.
When the news of this catastrophe reached Calcutta, the Company's servants seem to have lost their heads. In vain they were told that the British at Patna, and those at another factory, were at the mercy of the Nawab. They swore that they would be avenged although every Briton up country was slaughtered; and they wrote out a declaration to that effect, and each man signed it. The Governor and Council of Calcutta then went in a body to the house of Mir Jafir, and restored him to his post as Nawab of Bengal, Behar, and Orissa, on the condition that he once again levied the duties from Bengali traders. Mir Jafir readily promised, and indeed would have promised anything to recover his lost throne.
Perils at Patna.
Meanwhile, the British at Patna were in extreme danger. They had a European garrison at the factory, but the factory was untenable. They made a desperate effort to seize the town of Patna, and for a few hours were successful. The Mogul commandant was taken by surprise and fled with most of his troops; but the Mogul fortress still held out. The British ought to have stormed the fortress, but delayed on account of the heat. The result was fatal. The European soldiers went to the bazaar for drink, whilst the sepoys plundered the shops and houses, and within a very short time the whole force was utterly demoralised.
British prisoners.
Suddenly, the Mogul commandant met with reinforcements, and returned and recovered the town. The British fled back to the factory, but saw that they were being environed by the Nawab's troops. They hurriedly embarked in boats, in the hope of escaping up the stream into Oudh, but the enemy closed around them. Had they resisted to the last, some might have escaped. As it was they surrendered as prisoners, and were taken to Monghyr, where they found that the British inmates of another factory had been arrested and imprisoned in like manner.
British advance: massacre at Patna, 1763.
An avenging army was soon on its way from Calcutta. Murshedabad was captured, but not without a stout resistance, for the drilled troops of the Nawab were vastly superior to the rabble hosts that had fought at Calcutta and Plassy. The British force, however, overcame every obstacle, and pushed on to Monghyr, whilst the Nawab fled to Patna, carrying his prisoners with him to the number of a hundred and fifty souls. At Patna the Nawab heard that Monghyr was taken by the British, and resolved on exacting a terrible revenge. His prisoners were shut up in a large square building with a courtyard in the centre. He ordered Sombre to slaughter the whole, and the miscreant environed the building with sepoys. The British assembled in the courtyard, bent on fighting for their lives. The sepoys climbed to the roof, but were assailed with a storm of brickbats and bottles from the courtyard. Sombre ordered them to fire on the prisoners, but they hung back, declaring that they were sepoys and not executioners, and would not fire on men without arms in their hands. Then Sombre grew furious and violent; struck down the nearest sepoys with his own hands, and threatened and bullied the rest into obedience. The sepoys yielded to their European master. Successive volleys were fired