India Under British Rule. Wheeler James Talboys
act in accordance with their suggestions. Indeed he seems to have regarded the pretensions of a Brahman to be above English law, to be as deserving of respect as the old "Benefit of Clergy," which was still in existence in England, although taken away by statute from several offences. The execution was delayed for more than a month after conviction, and Nundcomar would probably have been reprieved altogether, but for the arrogance of Philip Francis and his two allies, and the additional perjuries and forgeries which were committed in the course of the trial. Had Sir Elijah Impey submitted further to the dictation of Francis, the Supreme Court would have lost all authority in the eyes of the people of Bengal. The abstract justice in executing Nundcomar for the crime of forgery may be open to question, but Sir Elijah Impey, as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, was bound to follow English law, without making any exception in favour of a Brahman.
Collision between the Supreme Court and the Sudder.
§10. Meanwhile there was a collision between the Supreme Court and the Sudder. The Supreme Court began to exercise jurisdiction over zemindars and other Asiatics throughout the Bengal provinces, and to override the decisions of the Company's Courts. Its powers had not been clearly defined, and on one occasion it had been called upon to arbitrate in a quarrel between Warren Hastings and General Clavering, thus assuming a superior authority by deciding differences between the Governor-General and a member of his Council. Again, the judges of the Supreme Court were qualified lawyers appointed by the Crown, and they ignored the decisions of the Company's servants, who were not lawyers.
Points in dispute.
The collision, however, was entirely due to the false position which the East India Company had taken up. The servants of the Company had as yet received no authority from Parliament or the Crown to act as judges, or to make laws. They affected to treat the Nawab as a sovereign, and to act in his name; but the Nawab was a fiction set up to hide the territorial power of the East India Company from the British nation. Warren Hastings pleaded that the Bengal zemindars were servants of the Nawab, over whom the Supreme Court had no jurisdiction. The judges replied that the Nawab was a puppet, a phantom, as unsubstantial as a king of the fairies. Unfortunately, the maintenance of this phantom Nawab for the benefit of the East India Company has been for more than a century a dead weight on the revenues of Bengal.
Parliamentary settlement, 1781.
In 1781 another Act of Parliament was passed which put everything to rights. It authorised the Governor-General and Council of Bengal to make regulations which should have the force of laws, and it restricted the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court to the old bounds of the settlement between the Mahratta ditch and the river Hughly. But the state of Englishmen—that is, of British born subjects of the Crown—was exceptional. They could not be tried by any of the Company's Courts, or under any of the Bengal regulations. A British born subject who committed a criminal offence in any part of the Company's territories in Bengal could only be tried by the judges in the Supreme Court, in accordance with English law, and could only be convicted by a jury of his own countrymen.
Alleged corruption of Impey.
Whilst the struggle was going on between the Supreme Court and the Sudder, Warren Hastings appointed Sir Elijah Impey to be chief judge in the Sudder, on a salary of 7,000l. per annum, in addition to his post as chief justice in the Supreme Court. Philip Francis denounced this arrangement as a bribe to Impey; possibly it may have been so, but in itself the appointment was admirably suited to the exigencies of the time. As an experienced lawyer, Sir Elijah Impey was far better fitted than Warren Hastings to act as chief judge in the Sudder, to hear appeals from the Company's Courts up-country, and to control the judicial administration of the Company's judges, who could not pretend to any legal training. But the malice of Philip Francis was as obvious in the case of Impey as in the case of Hastings. Francis had been cast in heavy damages by the Supreme Court as a co-respondent; and he was bent on the ruin of Impey. The result was that Impey was recalled to England and impeached.13
Origin of the Mahratta power.
§11. Meanwhile the British had been drawn into a war with the Mahrattas. For a hundred years the Mahrattas had been the terror of India. Between 1660 and 1680, Sivaji, the hero of the Mahrattas, founded the Mahratta kingdom in the Western Deccan, between Surat and Goa. The head-quarters of the family of Sivaji had been at Poona, about seventy miles to the south-east of Bombay, and Sivaji's early life and exploits were associated with Poona. Subsequently, in consequence of Mogul aggressions, the Mahratta capital was removed to Satara, about seventy miles to the south of Poona.
Rise of the Peishwas, 1748.
In 1748 there was a revolution. The last descendant of Sivaji was shut up in a fortress at Satara, whilst the Brahman minister, known as the Peishwa, removed to Poona, the ancient seat of Sivaji's family, and cradle of his dynasty. The imprisonment of the sovereign at Satara, and the reign of a Brahman minister at Poona, hardened into an institution; and whenever a Peishwa died, his successor went to Satara to be invested with the office of minister by his imprisoned sovereign.14
Peishwa and his feudatories: Sindia, Holkar, &c.
The Mahratta kingdom covered the greater part of the area of the Mahratta-speaking people. But the Peishwa sent his lieutenants to collect chout, or black-mail, in Northern India; and one of these lieutenants, Mahadaji Sindia, became a greater man than his master. Sindia always professed to be the loyal servant of the Peishwa, and yet he managed to exercise a commanding influence at Poona. It was Mahadaji Sindia who carried off the Great Mogul to Delhi in 1771 and established a dominion in Hindustan, extending from the Gwalior territory northward over the valleys of the Jumna and Ganges. The other lieutenants were only beginning to play their parts in history; they included Holkar of Indore, the Gaekwar of Baroda, and the Bhonsla Raja of Berar in the Deccan, immediately to the northward of the Nizam.
British relations with Berar.
Very soon after the battle of Plassy, the British at Calcutta came into contact with the Bhonsla Raja of Berar. It was the Bhonsla Raja who compelled the later Nawabs of Bengal to pay chout, and to cede Cuttack; and when Lord Clive had concluded his settlement with the Great Mogul and the Nawab Vizier of Oudh, he advised the Court of Directors to pay chout on condition of getting back Cuttack. But the Directors did not want Cuttack and would not pay black-mail; and the Bhonsla Raja pressed his demand at convenient intervals, but wisely abstained from invading the Bengal provinces.
Bombay and the Peishwas.
Meanwhile, the British at Bombay had come into contact with the Mahrattas at Poona. For years the East India Company had been anxious to hold two important positions close to Bombay harbour, namely, the little island of Salsette and the little peninsula of Bassein. But the Mahrattas had wrested Salsette and Bassein from the Portuguese, and would not part with them on any terms. A civil war, however, had broken out in the Mahratta country. A Peishwa had been murdered. An uncle ascended the throne, but was banished on suspicion of being the murderer. He applied for help to the British at Bombay, and offered to cede the coveted positions if the British at Bombay would restore him to the Mahratta capital. The Governor and Council at Bombay closed with the offer, and the war began.
Disastrous retreat.
After some successes, the British at Bombay met with disaster. Mahadaji Sindia appeared at Poona with a large army to act against the banished Peishwa. A British force advanced from Bombay towards Poona, but took alarm at the report of Sindia's army, and suddenly halted, and beat a retreat. During the return march, the British force was environed by the Mahrattas, and finally surrendered to Sindia under what is known as the "Convention of Wurgaum."
Success of Warren Hastings.
Warren Hastings condemned the war from the outset; as, however, the Company was committed to a war, he exerted himself, in the teeth of Francis, to maintain British prestige in India. He sent an expedition, under Colonel Goddard, from Bengal to the Mahratta country, and detached another force under Captain Popham to capture Sindia's fortress at Gwalior. The success of these exploits electrified half India. The war was brought to a triumphant close, but all conquered
The defence of Sir Elijah Impey has been thoroughly investigated from a legal point of view, in the
Two centuries have passed away since the death of Sivaji, yet in June, 1885, a public meeting was held at Poona to take steps for repairing his tomb. His admirers styled him the Wallace of the Deccan.