East Indies, in the capacity of a writer or cadet, whose age shall be under fifteen years, or shall exceed the age of twentytwo years. (44) All His Majesty's subjects are hereby declared to be amenable to all courts of justice (both in India and Great Britain) of competent jurisdiction to try offences committed in India, for all acts done in any of the territories of any native prince in the same manner as if the same had been done within the territories directly subject to the British government in India. (The whole remainder of the Act is devoted to elaborate provisions for the prevention and punishment of corruption, misgovernment or disobedience on the part of servants of the Company. A few of the more striking clauses only are excerpted.) (45) The demanding or receiving of any sum of money, or other valuable thing as a gift by any British subject holding any office under His Majesty or the Company in the East Indies, shall be deemed to be extortion, and shall be proceeded against and punished as such. (52) And, for the remedying of the abuses which have prevailed in the collection of the revenues of the Company, be it further enacted, That every person (being a British born subject) who is authorised to collect the rents or revenues due to the Company, shall take and subscribe the following oath. . . (55) Every person in the service of the Company in India, shall, within the space of two calendar months after his returning to Great Britain, deliver in upon oath, before the Lord Chief Baron of His Majesty's Court of Exchequer in England, duplicates of an exact inventory of all real and personal property as well in Europe as in Asia, or elsewhere, which such person was possessed of, at the time of his arrival in Great Britain. ... (Clauses 56-62 relate to the stringent enforcement of this requirement, and impose severe penalties for evasion. Clauses 64-82 provide in an extraordinarily elaborate way for the prosecution of servants of the Company for misdemeanours in India, especially by the establishment of a Commission of members of both Houses of Parliament to deal with such charges. The procedure of this Quaestio Repetundarum is very minutely regulated.) (83) Provided always, That nothing herein contained shall prejudice the rights or claims of the public, or the Company, respecting the said territorial acquisitions and revenues. N (84) And be it further enacted, That this Act shall take place and have commencement, in Great Britain, immediately after the same shall have received His Majesty's royal assent; and shall take place and have commencement, in the several Presidencies aforesaid, and in the territories thereunto belonging, from the first day of January, one thousand seven hundred and eighty-five. 65. INDEPENDENT POWERS OF GOVERNORS, 1793 (33 George III. Cap. XXXII.) (The provision herein contained forms a sort of Appendix to the Act of 1784. The power of independent action which it confers on the Governor had been advocated by Warren Hastings (see above, No. 39), and demanded by Cornwallis.) (10) And whereas it will tend greatly to the strength and security of the British possessions in India, and give energy, vigour and despatch to the measures and proceedings of the executive government within the respective presidencies, if the Governor-General of Fort William in Bengal, and the several Governors of Fort Saint George and Bombay, were vested with discretionary power of acting without the concurrence of their respective councils, or forbearing to act according to their opinions in cases of high importance, thereby subjecting themselves personally to answer to their country for so acting; be it enacted, that when any measure shall be proposed whereby the interests of the Company, or the safety or tranquillity of the British possessions in India, may in the judgment of the Governor-General, or of the said Governors respectively, be essentially affected, and the Governor-General, or such Governors respectively, shall be of opinion that it will be expedient either that the measure ought to be adopted or that the same ought to be suspended or wholly rejected, and the other members of such council shall dissent from such opinion, the Governor-General or such Governor, and the other members of the Council, shall forthwith mutually communicate in Council to each other, in writing, the reasons of their respective opinions; and if, after considering the same, the Governor and the other members of the Council shall retain their opinions, it shall be lawful for the Governor-General in the Supreme Council of Fort William, or either of the said Governors in their respective Councils, to make any order for suspending or rejecting the measure in part or in the whole, or for adopting the measure; which order shall be signed as well by the Governor-General, or Governor, as by all the other members of the Council then present, and shall by virtue of this Act be as effectual as if all the other members had concurred. . . THE WAR WITH TIPU SAHIB AND THE TRIPLE ALLIANCE Absolute non-intervention in Indian politics, such as was contemplated by § 34 of the Act of 1784, proved to be impossible. Tipu Sahib of Mysore, who had been defeated with difficulty in 1781, made in 1789 an attack upon the Raja of Travancore, who was an ally of the Company. He was undoubtedly encouraged in this by the isolation of the Company, and its abstention from the exercise of that influence among the Indian powers which Hastings had so firmly wielded. Cornwallis was forced to recognise this "unavoidable inconvenience " of the "system of neutrality" (No. 66) and in order to deal with Tipu effectively, had to make an alliance with the Mahrattas and the Nizam. But in order to obtain their aid they had to be promised a guarantee against future vengeance from Tipu; and thus a Triple Alliance of the three powers, formally concluded at the end of the war (No. 70), became (in spite of § 34) a definite factor in Indian politics. Even with the aid of these allies Tipu was not easily overthrown (No. 67); and when he was beaten, Cornwallis found it necessary, as a safeguard for the future, to annex part of his territory, the two allies taking equal shares (No. 69). He hoped that the reduction of Tipu and the continued maintenance against him of the Triple Alliance would secure durable peace. But no provision had been made against the event of war between the allies. War between the Mahrattas and the Nizam broke out in the time of Cornwallis's successor, Sir John Shore.1 Faithful to the principle of non-intervention, Shore refused to protect the Nizam; with the results that he was completely defeated at Kurdla, 1795, and passed under Mahratta 1 Afterwards Lord Teignmouth. control; that the power of the Mahrattas became more formidable than that of Tipu had ever been; and that the Nizam, and Tipu, and indeed all the states of India, lost all respect for and confidence in the British power. In the state of Indian politics, non-intervention was proved to be an impossible and disastrous policy. 66. THE NECESSITY OF A COMBINATION AGAINST TIPU Earl Cornwallis to C. W. Malet, Esq.1 Feb. 28, 1790. Some considerable advantages have no doubt been experienced by the system of neutrality, which the Legislature required of the Government in this country, but it has at the same time been attended with the unavoidable inconvenience of our being constantly exposed to the necessity of commencing a war, without having previously secured the assistance of efficient Allies. The late outrageous infraction of the treaty of peace by Tipu, furnishes a case in point. We could not suffer the dominions of the Raja of Travancore, who was included by name as our Ally in that treaty, to be ravaged or insulted, without being justly charged with pusillanimity or a flagrant breach of faith, and without dishonouring ourselves by that means in the view of all the powers in India; and as we have been almost daily obliged for several years past, to declare to the Mahrattas and to the Nizam, that we were precluded from contracting any new engagements with them for affording them aid against the injustice or ambition of Tipu, I must acknowledge that we cannot claim as a right the performance of those promises which the Mahrattas have repeatedly made to co-operate with us, whenever we should be forced into a war with that Prince. My dependence upon the support of both those powers upon the present occasion is founded solely upon the expectation of their being guided by considerations of evident interest, to reduce the power of a Prince whose ambition knows no bounds, and from whom both of them have suffered numberless insults and injuries. 1 Representative of the Company at the Court of the Peshwa. Notwithstanding these inducements to engage readily with us in the war, I conceive it very possible that the Mahrattas, in particular, will endeavour to extort unreasonable stipulations from us for their co-operation. But if Tipu shall receive no European support, it will be less necessary for us to comply with demands of that description as I trust that our own force will be sufficient to exact a full reparation from him for the violation of peace. . . . I thought it right, in order to obtain the aid of the Mahrattas, to offer them a defensive alliance against Tipu, to which they would in reason and equity have a good title, if they were to take an active part with us, without having made such a previous engagement. (Cornwallis Correspondence, i. 496.) 67. SLOW PROGRESS OF THE WAR Earl Cornwallis to the Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry.1 CAMP NEAR BANGALORE, You will have heard that after beating Tipu's army, and driving him into the island of Seringapatam, I was obliged, by the famine which prevailed amongst our followers, by the sudden and astonishing mortality amongst our cattle, and by the unexpected obstacles to my forming a junction with. General Abercromby, in time to attempt the enterprise before the rising of the river, to destroy my battering guns and to relinquish the attack on Seringapatam until the conclusion of the rains. Had the numerous Mahratta army, which joined me on the 26th of May unexpectedly and without my having received the smallest previous notice, arrived a fortnight sooner, our success would have been complete and the destruction of Tipu's power would have actually taken place. It is however much crippled, and if he should not propose during the present rains such terms as the Allies can reasonably accept, I trust we shall take such precautions as will render our next movement to Seringapatam effectual. (Cornwallis Correspondence, ii. 98.) 1 His brother. |