"During the famine of 1833, as on all similar occasions, grain of every kind, attracted by high prices, flowed up in large streams from this favoured province (Malwa) toward Bundelcund; and the population of Bundelcund, as usual in such times of dearth and scarcity, flowed off toward Malwa against the stream of supply, under the assurance that the nearer they got to the source the greater would be their chance of employment and subsistence. Every village had its numbers of the dead and the dying; and the roads were all strewed with them; but they were mostly concentrated upon the great towns, and civil and military stations, where subscriptions were open for their support by both the European and native communities. The funds arising from these subscriptions lasted till the rain had fairly set in, when all able-bodied persons could easily find employment in tillage among the agriculturalcommunities of the villages around. After the rains have fairly set in, thesickandhelplessonly should be kept concentrated upon large towns and stations, where little or no employment is to be found; for the oldest and youngest of those who are able to work can then easily find employment in weeding the cotton, rice, sugar-cane, and other fields under autumn crops, and in preparing the land for the reception of the wheat, grain, and other spring seeds; and get advances from the farmers, agricultural capitalists, and other members of the village communities, who are all glad to share their superfluities with the distressed, and to pay liberally for the little service they are able to give in return."At large places, where the greater numbers are concentrated, the scene becomes exceedingly distressing, for in spite of the best dispositions and greatest efforts on the part of government and its officers, and the European and native communities, thousands commonly die of starvation. At Saugor, mothers, as they lay in the streets unable to walk, were seen holding up their infants, and imploring the passing stranger to take them in slavery, that they might at least live—hundreds were seen creeping into gardens, courtyards, and old ruins, concealing themselves under shrubs, grass, mats, or straw, where they might die quietly, without having their bodies torn by birds and beasts before the breath had left them! Respectable families, who left home in search of the favoured land of Malwa, while yet a little property remained, finding all exhausted, took opium rather than beg, and husband, wife, and children died in each other's arms! Still more of such families lingered on in hope until all had been expended; then shut their doors, took poison, and died all together, rather than expose their misery, and submit to the degradation of begging. All these things I have myself known and seen; and in the midst of these and a hundred other harrowing scenes which present themselves on such occasions, the European cannot fail to remark the patient resignation with which the poor people submit to their fate; and the absence of almost all those revolting acts which have characterized the famines of which he has read in other countries—such as the living feeding on the dead, and mothers devouring their own children. No such things are witnessed in Indian famines;here all who suffer attribute the disaster to its real cause, the want of rain in due season; and indulge in no feelings of hatred against their rulers, superiors, or more fortunate equals in society, who happen to live beyond the influence of such calamities. They gratefully receive the superfluities which the more favoured are always found ready to share with the afflicted in India; and though their sufferings often subdue the strongest of all pride—the pride of caste, they rarely ever drive people to acts of violence. The stream of emigration, guided as it always is by that of the agricultural produce flowing in from the more favoured countries, must necessarily concentrate upon the communities along the line it takes a greater number of people than they have the means of relieving, however benevolent their dispositions; and I must say, that I have never either seen or read of a nobler spirit than seems to animate all classes of these communities in India on such distressing occasions."
"During the famine of 1833, as on all similar occasions, grain of every kind, attracted by high prices, flowed up in large streams from this favoured province (Malwa) toward Bundelcund; and the population of Bundelcund, as usual in such times of dearth and scarcity, flowed off toward Malwa against the stream of supply, under the assurance that the nearer they got to the source the greater would be their chance of employment and subsistence. Every village had its numbers of the dead and the dying; and the roads were all strewed with them; but they were mostly concentrated upon the great towns, and civil and military stations, where subscriptions were open for their support by both the European and native communities. The funds arising from these subscriptions lasted till the rain had fairly set in, when all able-bodied persons could easily find employment in tillage among the agriculturalcommunities of the villages around. After the rains have fairly set in, thesickandhelplessonly should be kept concentrated upon large towns and stations, where little or no employment is to be found; for the oldest and youngest of those who are able to work can then easily find employment in weeding the cotton, rice, sugar-cane, and other fields under autumn crops, and in preparing the land for the reception of the wheat, grain, and other spring seeds; and get advances from the farmers, agricultural capitalists, and other members of the village communities, who are all glad to share their superfluities with the distressed, and to pay liberally for the little service they are able to give in return.
"At large places, where the greater numbers are concentrated, the scene becomes exceedingly distressing, for in spite of the best dispositions and greatest efforts on the part of government and its officers, and the European and native communities, thousands commonly die of starvation. At Saugor, mothers, as they lay in the streets unable to walk, were seen holding up their infants, and imploring the passing stranger to take them in slavery, that they might at least live—hundreds were seen creeping into gardens, courtyards, and old ruins, concealing themselves under shrubs, grass, mats, or straw, where they might die quietly, without having their bodies torn by birds and beasts before the breath had left them! Respectable families, who left home in search of the favoured land of Malwa, while yet a little property remained, finding all exhausted, took opium rather than beg, and husband, wife, and children died in each other's arms! Still more of such families lingered on in hope until all had been expended; then shut their doors, took poison, and died all together, rather than expose their misery, and submit to the degradation of begging. All these things I have myself known and seen; and in the midst of these and a hundred other harrowing scenes which present themselves on such occasions, the European cannot fail to remark the patient resignation with which the poor people submit to their fate; and the absence of almost all those revolting acts which have characterized the famines of which he has read in other countries—such as the living feeding on the dead, and mothers devouring their own children. No such things are witnessed in Indian famines;here all who suffer attribute the disaster to its real cause, the want of rain in due season; and indulge in no feelings of hatred against their rulers, superiors, or more fortunate equals in society, who happen to live beyond the influence of such calamities. They gratefully receive the superfluities which the more favoured are always found ready to share with the afflicted in India; and though their sufferings often subdue the strongest of all pride—the pride of caste, they rarely ever drive people to acts of violence. The stream of emigration, guided as it always is by that of the agricultural produce flowing in from the more favoured countries, must necessarily concentrate upon the communities along the line it takes a greater number of people than they have the means of relieving, however benevolent their dispositions; and I must say, that I have never either seen or read of a nobler spirit than seems to animate all classes of these communities in India on such distressing occasions."
The same writer has some judicious general remarks upon the causes of famine in India, which are worthy of quotation. We have only to add, that whatever may be found in the climate and character of the country that expose the people to the frequency of want, the conquerors have done their best to aggravate natural evils:—
"In India, unfavourable seasons produce much more disastrous consequences than in Europe. In England, not more than one-fourth of the population derive their incomes from the cultivation of the land around them. Three-fourths of the people have incomes, independent of the annual returns from those lands; and with these incomes they can purchase agricultural produce from other lands when the crops upon them fail. The farmers, who form so large a portion of the fourth class, have stock equal in value tofour times the amount of the annual rent of their lands. They have also a great variety of crops; and it is very rare that more thanone or two of them fail, or are considerably affected, the same season. If they fail in one district or province, the deficiency is very easily supplied to people who have equivalents to give for the produce of another. The sea, navigable rivers, fine roads, all are open and ready at all times for the transport of the super-abundance of one quarter to supply the deficiencies of another. In India the reverse of all this is unhappily everywhere to be found; more than three-fourths of the whole population are engaged in the cultivation of the land, and depend upon its annual returns for subsistence. The farmers and cultivators have none of them stock equal in value to more thanhalf the amount of the annual rents of their lands. They have a great variety of crops; but all are exposed to the same accidents, and commonly fail at the same time. The autumn crops are sown in June and July, and ripen in October and November; and if seasonable showers do not fall in July, August, and September, all fail. The spring crops are sown in October and November, and ripen in March; and if seasonable showers do not happen to fall during December or January, all, save what are artificially irrigated, fail. If they fail in one district or province, the people have few equivalents to offer for a supply of land produce from any other. Their roads are scarcely anywhere passable for wheeled carriages atany season, and nowhereat all seasons—they have nowhere a navigable canal, and only in one line a navigable river. Their land produce is conveyed upon the backs of bullocks, that move at the rate of six or eight miles a day, and add one hundred per cent. to the cost for every hundred miles they carry it in the best seasons, and more than two hundred in the worst. What in Europe is felt merely as adearth, becomes in India, under all these disadvantages, ascarcity; and what is there ascarcitybecomes here a famine."
"In India, unfavourable seasons produce much more disastrous consequences than in Europe. In England, not more than one-fourth of the population derive their incomes from the cultivation of the land around them. Three-fourths of the people have incomes, independent of the annual returns from those lands; and with these incomes they can purchase agricultural produce from other lands when the crops upon them fail. The farmers, who form so large a portion of the fourth class, have stock equal in value tofour times the amount of the annual rent of their lands. They have also a great variety of crops; and it is very rare that more thanone or two of them fail, or are considerably affected, the same season. If they fail in one district or province, the deficiency is very easily supplied to people who have equivalents to give for the produce of another. The sea, navigable rivers, fine roads, all are open and ready at all times for the transport of the super-abundance of one quarter to supply the deficiencies of another. In India the reverse of all this is unhappily everywhere to be found; more than three-fourths of the whole population are engaged in the cultivation of the land, and depend upon its annual returns for subsistence. The farmers and cultivators have none of them stock equal in value to more thanhalf the amount of the annual rents of their lands. They have a great variety of crops; but all are exposed to the same accidents, and commonly fail at the same time. The autumn crops are sown in June and July, and ripen in October and November; and if seasonable showers do not fall in July, August, and September, all fail. The spring crops are sown in October and November, and ripen in March; and if seasonable showers do not happen to fall during December or January, all, save what are artificially irrigated, fail. If they fail in one district or province, the people have few equivalents to offer for a supply of land produce from any other. Their roads are scarcely anywhere passable for wheeled carriages atany season, and nowhereat all seasons—they have nowhere a navigable canal, and only in one line a navigable river. Their land produce is conveyed upon the backs of bullocks, that move at the rate of six or eight miles a day, and add one hundred per cent. to the cost for every hundred miles they carry it in the best seasons, and more than two hundred in the worst. What in Europe is felt merely as adearth, becomes in India, under all these disadvantages, ascarcity; and what is there ascarcitybecomes here a famine."
Another illustration of the truth that poverty is the source of crime and depravity is found in India. Statistics and the evidence of recent travellers show that the amount of vice in the different provinces is just inproportion to the length of time they have been under British rule. No stronger proof of the iniquity of the government—of its poisonous tendencies as well as positive injustice—could be adduced.
The cultivation and exportation of the pernicious drug, opium, which destroys hundreds of thousands of lives annually, have latterly been prominent objects of the East Indian government. The best tracts of land in India were chosen for the cultivation of the poppy. The people were told that they must either raise this plant, make opium, or give up their land. Furthermore, those who produced the drug were compelled to sell it to the Company. In the Bengal Presidency, the monopoly of the government is complete. It has its establishment for the manufacture of the drug. There are two great agencies at Ghazeepore and Patna, for the Benares and Bahar provinces. Each opium agent has several deputies in different districts, and a native establishment. They enter into contracts with the cultivator for the supply of opium at a rate fixed to suit the demand. The land-revenue authorities do not interfere, except to prevent cultivation without permission. The land cultivated is measured, and all the produce must be sold to the government. At the head agency the opium is packed in chests and sealed with the Company's seal.[112]
The imperial government of China, seeing that the traffic in opium was sowing misery and death among its subjects, prohibited the introduction of the drug within the empire in 1839. But the British had a vast amount of capital at stake, and the profits of the trade were too great to be relinquished for any considerations of humanity. War was declared; thousands of Chinese were slaughtered, and the imperial government forced to permit the destructive traffic on a more extensive scale than ever, and to pay $2,000,000 besides for daring to protest against it!
The annual revenue now realized from the opium traffic amounts to £3,500,000. It is estimated that about 400,000 Chinese perish every year in consequence of using the destructive drug, while the amount of individual and social misery proceeding from the same cause is appalling to every humane heart. Among the people of India who have been forced into the cultivation and manufacture of opium, the use of it has greatly increased under the fostering care of the government. The Company seems to be aware that a people enervated by excessive indulgence will make little effort to throw off the chains of slavery. Keep the Hindoo drunk with opium and he will not rebel.
The effects of this drug upon the consumer are thus described by a distinguished Chinese scholar:—"It exhausts the animal spirits, impedes the regular performance of business, wastes the flesh and blood,dissipates every kind of property, renders the person ill-favoured, promotes obscenity, discloses secrets, violates the laws, attacks the vitals, and destroys life." This statement is confirmed by other natives, and also by foreign residents; and it is asserted that, as a general rule, a person does not live more than ten years after becoming addicted to the use of this drug.
The recent Burmese war had for one of its objects the opening of a road to the interior of China, for the purpose of extending the opium trade. And for such an object thousands of brave Burmese were slaughtered, fertile and beautiful regions desolated, and others subjected to the peculiar slave-system of the East India Company. The extension of British dominion and the accumulation of wealth in British hands, instead of the spread of Christianity and the development of civilization, mark all the measures of the Company.
William Howitt, one of the ablest as well as the most democratic writers of England, thus confirms the statements made above:—
"The East India Company exists by monopolies of the land, of opium, and of salt. By their narrow, greedy, and purblind management of these resources, they have contrived to reduce that once affluent country to the uttermost depths of poverty and pauperism. The people starve and perish in famine every now and then by half a million at a time. One-third of that superb peninsula is reduced to waste and jungle. While other colonies pay from twenty to thirty shillings per head of revenue, India yields only four shillings per head. The income of the governmentat the last renewal of the charter wastwenty millions; it is now reduced to aboutseventeen millions; and even to raise this, they have been obliged to double the tax on salt. The debt wasforty millions; it is now said to be augmented by constant war, and the payment of the dividends, which, whatever the real proceeds, are always kept up to the usual height, toseventy millions. This is a state of things which cannot last. It is a grand march toward financial inanition. It threatens, if not arrested by the voice of the British people, the certain and no very distant loss of India."We have some glimpses of the treatment of the people in the collection of the land-tax, as it is called, but really the rent. The government claims not the mere right of governing, but, as conquerors, the fee-simple of the land. Over the greater part of India there are no real freeholders. The land is the Company's, and they collect, not a tax, but a rent. They have their collectors all over India, who go and say as the crops stand, 'We shall take so much of this.' It is seldom less than one-half—it is more commonly sixty, seventy, and eighty per cent! This is killing the goose to come at the golden egg. It drives the people to despair; they run away and leave the land to become jungle; they perish by famine in thousands and tens of thousands."This is why no capitalists dare to settle and grow for us cotton, or manufacture for us sugar. There is no security—no fixity of taxation. It is one wholesale system of arbitrary plunder, such as none but a conquered country in the first violence of victorious license ever was subjected to. But this system has here continued more than a generation; the country is reduced by it to a fatal condition—the only wonder is that we yet retain it at all."The same system is pursued in the opium monopoly. The finest lands are taken for the cultivation of the poppy; the government give the natives what they please for the opium, often about as many shillings as they get paid for it guineas per pound, and ship it off to curse China with it. 'In India,' says a writer in the Chinese Repository, 'the extent of territory occupied with the poppy, and the amount of population engaged in its cultivationand the preparation of opium, are far greater than in any other part of the world.'"Turkey is said to produce only 2000 chests of opium annually; India produces 40,000 of 134 lbs. each, and yielding a revenue of about £4,000,000 sterling."But perhaps worse than all is the salt monopoly. It is well known that the people of India are a vegetable diet people. Boiled rice is their chief food, and salt is an absolute necessary of life. With a vegetable diet in that hot climate, without plenty of salt, putrid diseases and rapid mortality are inevitable. Nature, or Providence, has therefore given salt in abundance. The sea throws it up already crystallized in many places; in others it is prepared by evaporation; but the Company steps in and imposestwo hundred per cent.on this indispensable article, and guards it by such penalties that the native dare not stoop to gather it when it lies at his feet. The consequence is that mortality prevails, to a terrific extent often, among the population. Officers of government are employed to destroy the salt naturally formed; and government determines how much salt shall be annually consumed."Now, let the people of England mark one thing.The cholera originates in the East.It has visited us once, and is on its march once more toward us. We have heard through the newspapers of its arrival in Syria, in Turkey, in Russia, at Vienna. In a few months it will probably be again among us."Has any one yet imagined that this scourge may possibly be the instrument of Divine retribution for our crimes and cruelties?Has any one imagined that we have any thing to do with the creation of this terrible pestilence? Yet there is little, there is scarcely the least doubt, that this awful instrument of death is occasioned by this very monopoly of salt—that it is the direct work of the four-and-twenty men in Leadenhall-street. The cholera is found to arise in the very centre of India. It commences in the midst of this swarming population, which subsists on vegetables, and which is deprived by the British government of the necessary salt! In that hot climate it acquires a deadly strength—thousands perish by it as by the stroke of lightning, and it henceradiates over the globe, travelling at the speed of a horse in full gallop. Thus it is that God visits our deeds upon our heads."Such is a brief glance at the mal-administration, the abuse, and the murderous treatment of India, permitted by great and Christian England to a knot of mere money-making traders. We commit the lives and happiness of one hundred and fifty millions of souls—the well-being, and probably the chance of retention, of one of the finest countries in the world, and the comfort and prosperity of every human creature in Great Britain, to the hands of those who are only, from day to day, grasping at the vitals of this glorious Eastern region to increase their dividends. This is bad enough, but this is not all. As if we had given them a charter in the most effectual manner to damage our dominions and blast all our prospects of trade, we have allowed these four-and-twenty men of Leadenhall-street not only to cripple India, but to exasperate and, as far as possible, close China against us. Two millions of people in India and three millions of people in China—all waiting for our manufactures, all capable of sending us the comforts and necessaries that we need—it would seem that to us, a nation especially devoted to trade, as if Providence had opened all the gorgeous and populous East to employ and to enrich us. One would have thought that every care and anxiety would have been aroused to put ourselves on the best footing with this swarming region. It has been the last thing thought of."The men of Leadenhall-street have been permitted, after having paralyzed India, to send to China not the articles that the Chinese wanted, but the very thing of all others that its authorities abhorred—that is, opium."It is well known with what assiduity these traders for years thrust this deadly drug into the ports of China; or it may be known from 'Medhurst's China,' from 'Thelwall's Iniquities of the Opium Trade,' from 'Montgomery Martin's Opium in China,' and various other works. It is well known what horrors, crimes, ruin of families, and destruction of individuals the rage of opium-smoking introduced among the millions of the Celestial Empire. Every horror, every species of reckless desperation, social depravity, and sensual crime, spread from the practice andoverran China as a plague. The rulers attempted to stop the evil by every means in their power. They enacted the severest punishments for the sale of it. These did not avail. They augmented the punishment to death. Without a stop to it the whole framework of society threatened to go to pieces. 'Opium,' says the Imperial edict itself, 'coming from the distant regions of barbarians, has pervaded the country with its baneful influence.' The opium-smoker would steal, sell his property, his children, the mother of his children, and finally commit murder for it. The most ghastly spectacles were everywhere seen; instead of healthy and happy men, the most repulsive scenes. 'I visited one of the opium-houses,' said an individual quoted by Sir Robert Inglis, in the House of Commons, in 1843, 'and shall I tell you what I saw in this antechamber of hell? I thought it impossible to find anything worse than the results of drinking ardent spirits; but I have succeeded in finding something far worse. I saw Malays, Chinese, men and women, old and young, in one mass, in one common herd, wallowing in their filth, beastly, sensual, devilish, and this under the eyes of a Christian government.'"They were these abominations and horrors that the Emperor of China determined to arrest. They were these which our East India Company determined to perpetuate for this base gain. When the emperor was asked to license the sale of opium, as he could not effect its exclusion, and thus make a profit of it, what was his reply? 'It is true I cannot prevent the introduction of the flowing poison. Gain-seeking and corrupt men will, for profit and sensuality, defeat my wishes, but nothing will induce me to derive a benefit from the vice and misery of my people.'"These were the sentiments of the Chinese monarch; what was the conduct of the so-called Christian Englishmen? They determined to go on poisoning and demoralizing China, till they provoked the government to war, and then massacred the people to compel the continuance of the sale of opium."
"The East India Company exists by monopolies of the land, of opium, and of salt. By their narrow, greedy, and purblind management of these resources, they have contrived to reduce that once affluent country to the uttermost depths of poverty and pauperism. The people starve and perish in famine every now and then by half a million at a time. One-third of that superb peninsula is reduced to waste and jungle. While other colonies pay from twenty to thirty shillings per head of revenue, India yields only four shillings per head. The income of the governmentat the last renewal of the charter wastwenty millions; it is now reduced to aboutseventeen millions; and even to raise this, they have been obliged to double the tax on salt. The debt wasforty millions; it is now said to be augmented by constant war, and the payment of the dividends, which, whatever the real proceeds, are always kept up to the usual height, toseventy millions. This is a state of things which cannot last. It is a grand march toward financial inanition. It threatens, if not arrested by the voice of the British people, the certain and no very distant loss of India.
"We have some glimpses of the treatment of the people in the collection of the land-tax, as it is called, but really the rent. The government claims not the mere right of governing, but, as conquerors, the fee-simple of the land. Over the greater part of India there are no real freeholders. The land is the Company's, and they collect, not a tax, but a rent. They have their collectors all over India, who go and say as the crops stand, 'We shall take so much of this.' It is seldom less than one-half—it is more commonly sixty, seventy, and eighty per cent! This is killing the goose to come at the golden egg. It drives the people to despair; they run away and leave the land to become jungle; they perish by famine in thousands and tens of thousands.
"This is why no capitalists dare to settle and grow for us cotton, or manufacture for us sugar. There is no security—no fixity of taxation. It is one wholesale system of arbitrary plunder, such as none but a conquered country in the first violence of victorious license ever was subjected to. But this system has here continued more than a generation; the country is reduced by it to a fatal condition—the only wonder is that we yet retain it at all.
"The same system is pursued in the opium monopoly. The finest lands are taken for the cultivation of the poppy; the government give the natives what they please for the opium, often about as many shillings as they get paid for it guineas per pound, and ship it off to curse China with it. 'In India,' says a writer in the Chinese Repository, 'the extent of territory occupied with the poppy, and the amount of population engaged in its cultivationand the preparation of opium, are far greater than in any other part of the world.'
"Turkey is said to produce only 2000 chests of opium annually; India produces 40,000 of 134 lbs. each, and yielding a revenue of about £4,000,000 sterling.
"But perhaps worse than all is the salt monopoly. It is well known that the people of India are a vegetable diet people. Boiled rice is their chief food, and salt is an absolute necessary of life. With a vegetable diet in that hot climate, without plenty of salt, putrid diseases and rapid mortality are inevitable. Nature, or Providence, has therefore given salt in abundance. The sea throws it up already crystallized in many places; in others it is prepared by evaporation; but the Company steps in and imposestwo hundred per cent.on this indispensable article, and guards it by such penalties that the native dare not stoop to gather it when it lies at his feet. The consequence is that mortality prevails, to a terrific extent often, among the population. Officers of government are employed to destroy the salt naturally formed; and government determines how much salt shall be annually consumed.
"Now, let the people of England mark one thing.The cholera originates in the East.It has visited us once, and is on its march once more toward us. We have heard through the newspapers of its arrival in Syria, in Turkey, in Russia, at Vienna. In a few months it will probably be again among us.
"Has any one yet imagined that this scourge may possibly be the instrument of Divine retribution for our crimes and cruelties?Has any one imagined that we have any thing to do with the creation of this terrible pestilence? Yet there is little, there is scarcely the least doubt, that this awful instrument of death is occasioned by this very monopoly of salt—that it is the direct work of the four-and-twenty men in Leadenhall-street. The cholera is found to arise in the very centre of India. It commences in the midst of this swarming population, which subsists on vegetables, and which is deprived by the British government of the necessary salt! In that hot climate it acquires a deadly strength—thousands perish by it as by the stroke of lightning, and it henceradiates over the globe, travelling at the speed of a horse in full gallop. Thus it is that God visits our deeds upon our heads.
"Such is a brief glance at the mal-administration, the abuse, and the murderous treatment of India, permitted by great and Christian England to a knot of mere money-making traders. We commit the lives and happiness of one hundred and fifty millions of souls—the well-being, and probably the chance of retention, of one of the finest countries in the world, and the comfort and prosperity of every human creature in Great Britain, to the hands of those who are only, from day to day, grasping at the vitals of this glorious Eastern region to increase their dividends. This is bad enough, but this is not all. As if we had given them a charter in the most effectual manner to damage our dominions and blast all our prospects of trade, we have allowed these four-and-twenty men of Leadenhall-street not only to cripple India, but to exasperate and, as far as possible, close China against us. Two millions of people in India and three millions of people in China—all waiting for our manufactures, all capable of sending us the comforts and necessaries that we need—it would seem that to us, a nation especially devoted to trade, as if Providence had opened all the gorgeous and populous East to employ and to enrich us. One would have thought that every care and anxiety would have been aroused to put ourselves on the best footing with this swarming region. It has been the last thing thought of.
"The men of Leadenhall-street have been permitted, after having paralyzed India, to send to China not the articles that the Chinese wanted, but the very thing of all others that its authorities abhorred—that is, opium.
"It is well known with what assiduity these traders for years thrust this deadly drug into the ports of China; or it may be known from 'Medhurst's China,' from 'Thelwall's Iniquities of the Opium Trade,' from 'Montgomery Martin's Opium in China,' and various other works. It is well known what horrors, crimes, ruin of families, and destruction of individuals the rage of opium-smoking introduced among the millions of the Celestial Empire. Every horror, every species of reckless desperation, social depravity, and sensual crime, spread from the practice andoverran China as a plague. The rulers attempted to stop the evil by every means in their power. They enacted the severest punishments for the sale of it. These did not avail. They augmented the punishment to death. Without a stop to it the whole framework of society threatened to go to pieces. 'Opium,' says the Imperial edict itself, 'coming from the distant regions of barbarians, has pervaded the country with its baneful influence.' The opium-smoker would steal, sell his property, his children, the mother of his children, and finally commit murder for it. The most ghastly spectacles were everywhere seen; instead of healthy and happy men, the most repulsive scenes. 'I visited one of the opium-houses,' said an individual quoted by Sir Robert Inglis, in the House of Commons, in 1843, 'and shall I tell you what I saw in this antechamber of hell? I thought it impossible to find anything worse than the results of drinking ardent spirits; but I have succeeded in finding something far worse. I saw Malays, Chinese, men and women, old and young, in one mass, in one common herd, wallowing in their filth, beastly, sensual, devilish, and this under the eyes of a Christian government.'
"They were these abominations and horrors that the Emperor of China determined to arrest. They were these which our East India Company determined to perpetuate for this base gain. When the emperor was asked to license the sale of opium, as he could not effect its exclusion, and thus make a profit of it, what was his reply? 'It is true I cannot prevent the introduction of the flowing poison. Gain-seeking and corrupt men will, for profit and sensuality, defeat my wishes, but nothing will induce me to derive a benefit from the vice and misery of my people.'
"These were the sentiments of the Chinese monarch; what was the conduct of the so-called Christian Englishmen? They determined to go on poisoning and demoralizing China, till they provoked the government to war, and then massacred the people to compel the continuance of the sale of opium."
Howitt evidently has as ardent a sympathy for those who have suffered from the tyranny of British rule asEdmund Burke himself. The wholesale degradation of the Hindoos, which has resulted from the measures of the East India Company, calls loudly indeed for the denunciations of indignant humanity. The crime must have its punishment. The ill-gotten gains of the Company should be seized to carry out an ameliorating policy, and all concerned in enforcing the system of oppression should be taught that justice is not to be wounded with impunity.
The burdens imposed upon the Hindoos are precisely of the character and extent of those that have reduced Ireland to poverty and her people to slavery. Besides the enormous rents, which are sufficient of themselves to dishearten the tillers of the soil, the British authorities seem to have exhausted invention in devising taxes. So dear a price to live was never paid by any people except the Irish. What remains to the cultivator when the rent of the land and almost forty different taxes are paid?
Those Hindoos who wish to employ capital or labour in any other way than in cultivation of land are deterred by the formidable array of taxation. The chief taxes are styled the Veesabuddy, or tax on merchants, traders, and shopkeepers; the Mohturfa, or tax on weavers, carpenters, stonecutters, and other mechanical trades; and the Bazeebab, consisting of smaller taxes annually rented out to the highest bidder. The proprietor of the Bazeebab is thus constituted a petty chieftain,with power to exact fees at marriages and religious ceremonies; to inquire into and fine the misconduct of females in families, and other misdemeanours—in fact, petty tyrants, who can at all times allege engagements to the government to justify extortion.[113]These proprietors are the worst kind of slaveholders.
The mode of settling the Mohturfa on looms is remarkable for the precision of its exaction. Every circumstance of the weaver's family is considered; the number of days which he devotes to his loom, the number of his children, the assistance which he receives from them, and the number and quality of the pieces which he can produce in a year; so that, let him exert himself as he will, his industry will always be taxed to the highest degree.[114]This method is so detailed that the servants of the government cannot enter into it, and the assessment of the tax is therefore left to the heads of the villages. It is impossible for a weaver to know what he is to pay to the government for being allowed to carry on his business till the yearly demand is made. If he has worked hard, and turned out one or two pieces of cloth more than he did the year before, his tax is increased. The more industrious he is the more he is forced to pay.
The tax-gatherers are thorough inquisitors. According to Rikards, upward of seventy different kinds ofbuildings—the houses, shops, or warehouses of different castes and professions—were ordered to be entered into the survey accounts; besides the following implements of professions, which were usually assessed to the public revenue, viz.: "Oil-mills, iron manufactory, toddy-drawer's stills, potter's kiln, washerman's stone, goldsmith's tools, sawyer's saw, toddy-drawer's knives, fishing-nets, barber's hones, blacksmith's anvils, pack-bullocks, cocoa-nut safe, small fishing-boats, cotton-beater's bow, carpenter's tools, large fishing-boats, looms, salt-storehouses. If a landlord objects to the assessment on trees, as old and past bearing, they are, one and all, ordered to be cut down—a measure as ridiculous as unjust—as it not only inflicts injury upon the landlord, but takes away the chance of future profit for the government. Mr. Rikards bears witness, as a collector of Malabar, that lands and produce were sometimes inserted in the survey account which absolutely did not exist, while other lands were assessed to the revenue at more than their actual produce. From all this, it is obvious that the Hindoo labourer or artisan is the slave of the tax-collector, who, moreover, has no interest in the life of his victim.
Labour being almost "dirt cheap" in India, whenever speculating companies of Englishmen wish to carry out any particular scheme for which labourers are required, they hire a number of Hindoo Coolies, induce them to visit any port of the country, and treat them abominably,knowing that the poor wretches have no protection. The operations of the Assam Tea Company illustrate this practice:—
"An inconsiderate expenditure of capital placed the Assam Tea Company in great jeopardy, and at one time it was feared the scheme would be abandoned. The number of managers and assistants appointed by the Assam Company to carry on their affairs and superintend their tea gardens, on large salaries, was quite unnecessary; one or two experienced European superintendents to direct the native establishment would have answered every purpose. A vast number of Coolies (or labourers) were induced to proceed to Upper Assam to cultivate the gardens; but bad arrangements having been made to supply them with proper, wholesome food, many were seized with sickness. On their arrival at the tea-plantations, in the midst of high and dense tree jungle, numbers absconded, and others met an untimely end. The rice served out to the Coolies from the Assam Tea Company's store-rooms, was so bad as not to be fit to be given to elephants, much less to human beings. The loss of these labourers, who had been conveyed to Upper Assam at a great expense, deprived the company of the means of cultivating so great an extent of country as would otherwise have been insured; for the scanty population of Upper Assam offered no means of replacing the deficiency of hands. Nor was the improvidence of the company in respect to labourers the only instance of their mismanagement. Although the company must have known that they had no real use or necessity for a steamer, a huge vessel was nevertheless purchased, and frequently sent up and down the Burrampooter river from Calcutta; carrying little else than a few thousand rupees for the payment of their establishment in Upper Assam, which might have been transmitted through native bankers, and have saved the company a most lavish and unprofitable expenditure of capital."[115]
"An inconsiderate expenditure of capital placed the Assam Tea Company in great jeopardy, and at one time it was feared the scheme would be abandoned. The number of managers and assistants appointed by the Assam Company to carry on their affairs and superintend their tea gardens, on large salaries, was quite unnecessary; one or two experienced European superintendents to direct the native establishment would have answered every purpose. A vast number of Coolies (or labourers) were induced to proceed to Upper Assam to cultivate the gardens; but bad arrangements having been made to supply them with proper, wholesome food, many were seized with sickness. On their arrival at the tea-plantations, in the midst of high and dense tree jungle, numbers absconded, and others met an untimely end. The rice served out to the Coolies from the Assam Tea Company's store-rooms, was so bad as not to be fit to be given to elephants, much less to human beings. The loss of these labourers, who had been conveyed to Upper Assam at a great expense, deprived the company of the means of cultivating so great an extent of country as would otherwise have been insured; for the scanty population of Upper Assam offered no means of replacing the deficiency of hands. Nor was the improvidence of the company in respect to labourers the only instance of their mismanagement. Although the company must have known that they had no real use or necessity for a steamer, a huge vessel was nevertheless purchased, and frequently sent up and down the Burrampooter river from Calcutta; carrying little else than a few thousand rupees for the payment of their establishment in Upper Assam, which might have been transmitted through native bankers, and have saved the company a most lavish and unprofitable expenditure of capital."[115]
Ay, and the expense is all that is thought worthy of consideration. The miserable victims to the measures of the company might perish like brutes without being even pitied.
On the verge of starvation, as so many of the Hindoo labourers generally are, it does not excite surprise that they are very ready to listen to the offers of those who are engaged in the "Cooley slave-trade." In addition to the astounding facts given by us in the previous chapter, in regard to this traffic in men, we quote the following from the London Spectator of October, 1838:—
"Under Lord Glenelg's patronage, the Eastern slave-trade prospers exceedingly. The traffic in Hill Coolies promises to become one of the most extensive under the British flag. A cargo arrived in Berbice about the beginning of May, in prime condition: and the Berbice Advertiser, one of the most respectable of the West India journals, states, that out of 289, conveyed in the Whitby, only eight died on the passage, and very few were ill. Only one circumstance was wanting to make them the happiest of human(?) beings—only eight women were sent as companions for the 280 men; and the deficiency of females was the more to be regretted because it was 'probable they would be shunned by the negroes from jealousy and speaking a different language.'"The same newspaper contains a very curious document respecting the Hill Cooley traffic. It is a circular letter, dated the 8th January, 1838, from Henley, Dowson, and Bethel, of Calcutta, the agents most extensively engaged in the shipment of labourers from India to the Mauritius and British Guiana. These gentlemen thus state their claims to preference over other houses in the same business:—"'We have within the last two years procured and shipped upward of 5000 free agricultural labourers for our friends at Mauritius;and, from the circumstance of nearly 500 of the number being employed on estates in which we possess a direct interest, we can assure you that a happier and more contented labouring population is seldom to be met with in any part of the world, than the Dhargas or mountain tribes sent from this vast country.'"Five thousand within two years to the Mauritius alone! This is pretty well, considering that the trade is in its infancy. As to the statement of the happiness and contentment of the labourers, rather more impartial evidence than the good word of the exporters of the commodity advertised would be desirable. If Englishmen could fancy themselves Hill Coolies for an instant—landed in Berbice, in the proportion of 280 men to 8 of the gentler sex, 'speaking a different language,' and shunned by the very negroes—we are inclined to think they would not, even in that imaginary and momentary view, conceit themselves to be among the happiest of mankind."We proceed with the Calcutta circular:—"'The labourers hitherto procured by us have cost their employers,landed at the Mauritius, about one hundred rupees (or 10l.sterling) per man; which sum comprises six months' advance of wages, provisions and water for the voyage, clothing, commission, passage, insurance, and all incidental charges.'"'The expense attending the shipment of Indian labourers to the West India Colonies would be necessarily augmented—firstly, by the higher rate of passage-money, and the increased quantity of provisions and water; and, secondly, from the necessity of making arrangements, indispensable to the health and comfort of native passengers, on a voyage of so long a duration, in the course of which they would be exposed to great vicissitude of climate."'On making ample allowance for these charges, we do not apprehend that a labourer, sent direct from this country to Demerara, and engaged to work on your estates for a period of five consecutive years, would cost, landed there, above two hundred and ten rupees, or 21l.sterling.'"This sum of 210 rupees includessix months' wages—at what rate does the reader suppose? Why, five rupees, or ten shillingssterling a month—half-a-crown a week—in Demerara! The passage is 10l., and the insurance 12s.; for they are insured at so much a head, like pigs or sheep."It is manifest that after their arrival in Demerara, the Indians will not, unless on compulsion, work for five years at the rate of 10s.a month, while the negroes receive much higher wages. They are therefore placed under strict control, and are just as much slaves as the Redemptioners, whom the virtuous Quakers inveigled into Pennsylvania a century or more ago. The Indians bind themselves to work in town or country, wherever their consignee or master may choose to employ them. One of the articles of their agreement is this:—"'In order that the undersigned natives of India may be fully aware of the engagement they undertake, it is hereby notified, that they will be required to doall such work as the object for which they are engaged necessitates; and that, as labourers attached to an estate, they will be required to clear forest and extract timber, carry manure, dig and prepare land for planting, also to take charge of horses, mules, and cattle of every description;in short, to do all such work as an estate for the cultivation of sugar-cane and the manufacture of sugar demands, or any branch of agriculture to which they may be destined.'"In case of disobedience or misconduct—that is, at the caprice of the master—they may be 'degraded,' and sent back at their own charge to Calcutta. They are to receive no wages during illness; and a rupee a month is to be deducted from their wages—thereby reducing them to 2s.a week—as an indemnity-fund for the cost of sending them back. What security there is for the kind treatment of the labourers does not appear: there is nothing in the contract but a promise to act equitably."Now, in what respect do these men differ in condition from negro slaves, except very much for the worse? They must be more helpless than the negroes—if for no other reason, because of their ignorance of the language their masters use. They will not, for a long period certainly, be formidable from their numbers. How easily may even the miserable terms of the contract with their employers be evaded! Suppose the Indian works steadilyfor four years, it may suit his master to describe him as refractory and idle during the fifth, and then he will be sent back at his own cost; and the whole of his earnings may be expended in paying for his passage to Calcutta, where, after all, he is a long way from home."It is impossible to contemplate without pain the inevitable lot of these helpless beings; but the conduct of the government, which could sanction the infamous commerce of which the Hill Cooley will be the victims, while professing all the while such a holy horror of dealing in negroes, should rouse general indignation.Is it only a certain shade of black, and a peculiar physical conformation, which excites the compassion of the Anti-Slavery people? If it is cruelty, oppression, and fraud which they abhor and desire to prevent, then let them renew their agitation in behalf of the kidnapped natives of India, now suffering, probably more acutely, all that made the lot of the negro a theme for eloquence and a field for Christian philanthropy."
"Under Lord Glenelg's patronage, the Eastern slave-trade prospers exceedingly. The traffic in Hill Coolies promises to become one of the most extensive under the British flag. A cargo arrived in Berbice about the beginning of May, in prime condition: and the Berbice Advertiser, one of the most respectable of the West India journals, states, that out of 289, conveyed in the Whitby, only eight died on the passage, and very few were ill. Only one circumstance was wanting to make them the happiest of human(?) beings—only eight women were sent as companions for the 280 men; and the deficiency of females was the more to be regretted because it was 'probable they would be shunned by the negroes from jealousy and speaking a different language.'
"The same newspaper contains a very curious document respecting the Hill Cooley traffic. It is a circular letter, dated the 8th January, 1838, from Henley, Dowson, and Bethel, of Calcutta, the agents most extensively engaged in the shipment of labourers from India to the Mauritius and British Guiana. These gentlemen thus state their claims to preference over other houses in the same business:—
"'We have within the last two years procured and shipped upward of 5000 free agricultural labourers for our friends at Mauritius;and, from the circumstance of nearly 500 of the number being employed on estates in which we possess a direct interest, we can assure you that a happier and more contented labouring population is seldom to be met with in any part of the world, than the Dhargas or mountain tribes sent from this vast country.'
"Five thousand within two years to the Mauritius alone! This is pretty well, considering that the trade is in its infancy. As to the statement of the happiness and contentment of the labourers, rather more impartial evidence than the good word of the exporters of the commodity advertised would be desirable. If Englishmen could fancy themselves Hill Coolies for an instant—landed in Berbice, in the proportion of 280 men to 8 of the gentler sex, 'speaking a different language,' and shunned by the very negroes—we are inclined to think they would not, even in that imaginary and momentary view, conceit themselves to be among the happiest of mankind.
"We proceed with the Calcutta circular:—
"'The labourers hitherto procured by us have cost their employers,landed at the Mauritius, about one hundred rupees (or 10l.sterling) per man; which sum comprises six months' advance of wages, provisions and water for the voyage, clothing, commission, passage, insurance, and all incidental charges.'
"'The expense attending the shipment of Indian labourers to the West India Colonies would be necessarily augmented—firstly, by the higher rate of passage-money, and the increased quantity of provisions and water; and, secondly, from the necessity of making arrangements, indispensable to the health and comfort of native passengers, on a voyage of so long a duration, in the course of which they would be exposed to great vicissitude of climate.
"'On making ample allowance for these charges, we do not apprehend that a labourer, sent direct from this country to Demerara, and engaged to work on your estates for a period of five consecutive years, would cost, landed there, above two hundred and ten rupees, or 21l.sterling.'
"This sum of 210 rupees includessix months' wages—at what rate does the reader suppose? Why, five rupees, or ten shillingssterling a month—half-a-crown a week—in Demerara! The passage is 10l., and the insurance 12s.; for they are insured at so much a head, like pigs or sheep.
"It is manifest that after their arrival in Demerara, the Indians will not, unless on compulsion, work for five years at the rate of 10s.a month, while the negroes receive much higher wages. They are therefore placed under strict control, and are just as much slaves as the Redemptioners, whom the virtuous Quakers inveigled into Pennsylvania a century or more ago. The Indians bind themselves to work in town or country, wherever their consignee or master may choose to employ them. One of the articles of their agreement is this:—
"'In order that the undersigned natives of India may be fully aware of the engagement they undertake, it is hereby notified, that they will be required to doall such work as the object for which they are engaged necessitates; and that, as labourers attached to an estate, they will be required to clear forest and extract timber, carry manure, dig and prepare land for planting, also to take charge of horses, mules, and cattle of every description;in short, to do all such work as an estate for the cultivation of sugar-cane and the manufacture of sugar demands, or any branch of agriculture to which they may be destined.'
"In case of disobedience or misconduct—that is, at the caprice of the master—they may be 'degraded,' and sent back at their own charge to Calcutta. They are to receive no wages during illness; and a rupee a month is to be deducted from their wages—thereby reducing them to 2s.a week—as an indemnity-fund for the cost of sending them back. What security there is for the kind treatment of the labourers does not appear: there is nothing in the contract but a promise to act equitably.
"Now, in what respect do these men differ in condition from negro slaves, except very much for the worse? They must be more helpless than the negroes—if for no other reason, because of their ignorance of the language their masters use. They will not, for a long period certainly, be formidable from their numbers. How easily may even the miserable terms of the contract with their employers be evaded! Suppose the Indian works steadilyfor four years, it may suit his master to describe him as refractory and idle during the fifth, and then he will be sent back at his own cost; and the whole of his earnings may be expended in paying for his passage to Calcutta, where, after all, he is a long way from home.
"It is impossible to contemplate without pain the inevitable lot of these helpless beings; but the conduct of the government, which could sanction the infamous commerce of which the Hill Cooley will be the victims, while professing all the while such a holy horror of dealing in negroes, should rouse general indignation.
Is it only a certain shade of black, and a peculiar physical conformation, which excites the compassion of the Anti-Slavery people? If it is cruelty, oppression, and fraud which they abhor and desire to prevent, then let them renew their agitation in behalf of the kidnapped natives of India, now suffering, probably more acutely, all that made the lot of the negro a theme for eloquence and a field for Christian philanthropy."
This is written in the right spirit. The trade described has increased to an extent which calls for the interference of some humane power. Should the British government continue to sanction the traffic, it must stand responsible for a national crime.
Oppressive and violent as the British dominion in India undoubtedly is, the means devised to extend it are even more worthy of strong condemnation. The government fixes its eyes upon a certain province, where the people are enjoying peace and plenty, and determines to get possession of it. The Romans themselves were not more fertile in pretences for forcible seizure of territory than these British plunderers. They quickly hunt up a pretender to the throne, support his claimswith a powerful army, make him their complete tool, dethrone the lawful sovereign, and extend their authority over the country. The course pursued toward Afghanistan in 1838 illustrates this outrageous violation of national rights.
The following account of the origin and progress of the Afghanistan war is given by an English writer in the Penny Magazine:—
"In 1747, Ahmeed Shah, an officer of an Afghan troop in the service of Persia, refounded the Afghan monarchy, which was maintained until the death of his successor in 1793. Ahmeed was of the Douranee tribe, and the limits over which his sway extended is spoken of as the Douranee empire. Four of the sons of Ahmeed's successor disputed, and in turn possessed, the throne; and during this civil war several of the principal chiefs threw off their allegiance, and the Douranee empire ceased to exist, but was split up into the chiefships of Candahar, Herat, Caboul, and Peshawur. Herat afterward became a dependency of Persia, and Shah Shooja ool Moolook, the chief of Peshawur, lost his power after having enjoyed it for about six years. Dost Mohammed Kahn, the chief of Caboul, according to the testimony of the late Sir Alexander Burnes, writing in 1832, governed his territory with great judgment, improved its internal administration and resources, and became the most powerful chief in Afghanistan. Shah Shooja was for many years a fugitive and a pensioner of the British government. He made one unsuccessful attempt to regain his territory, but Peshawur eventually became a tributary to the ruler of the Punjab. Such was the state of Afghanistan in 1836."In the above year the Anglo-Indian government complained that Dost Mohammed Khan, chief of Caboul, had engaged in schemes of aggrandizement which threatened the stability of the British frontier in India; and Sir Alexander Burnes, who wassent with authority to represent to him the light in which his proceedings were viewed, was compelled to leave Caboul without having effected any change in his conduct. The siege of Herat, and the support which both Dost Mohammed and his brother, the chief of Candahar, gave to the designs of Persia in Afghanistan, the latter chief especially openly assisting the operations against Herat, created fresh alarm in the Anglo-Indian government as to the security of our frontier. Several minor chiefs also avowed their attachment to the Persians. As our policy, instead of hostility, required an ally capable of resisting aggression on the western frontier of India, the Governor-general, from whose official papers we take these statements, 'was satisfied,' after serious and mature deliberation, 'that a pressing necessity, as well as every consideration of policy and justice, warranted us in espousing the cause of Shah Shooja ool Moolk;' and it was determined to place him on the throne. According to the Governor-general, speaking from the best authority, the testimony as to Shah Shooja's popularity was unanimous. In June, 1838, the late Sir William Macnaghten formed a tripartite treaty with the ruler of the Punjab and Shah Shooja; the object of which was to restore the latter to the throne of his ancestors. This policy it was conceived would conduce to the general freedom and security of commerce, the restoration of tranquillity upon the most important frontier of India, and the erection of a lasting barrier against hostile intrigue and encroachment; and, while British influence would thus gain its proper footing among the nations of Central Asia, the prosperity of the Afghan people would be promoted."Troops were despatched from the Presidencies of Bengal and Bombay to co-operate with the contingents raised by the Shah and our other ally, the united force being intended to act together under the name of the 'Army of the Indus.' After a march of extraordinary length, through countries which had never before been traversed by British troops, and defiles which are the most difficult passes in the world, where no wheeled carriage had ever been, and where it was necessary for the engineers in many places to construct roads before the baggage could proceed, the combined forces from Bengal and Bombay reached Candahar in May,1839. According to the official accounts, the population were enthusiastic in welcoming the return of Shah Shooja. The next step was to advance toward Ghiznee and Caboul. On the 23d July, the strong and important fortress and citadel of Ghiznee, regarded throughout Asia as impregnable, was taken in two hours by blowing up the Caboul gate. The army had only been forty-eight hours before the place. An 'explosion party' carried three hundred pounds of gunpowder in twelve sand-bags, with a hose seventy-two feet long, the train was laid and fired, the party having just time to reach a tolerable shelter from the effects of the concussion, though one of the officers was injured by its force. On the 7th of August the army entered Caboul. Dost Mohammed had recalled his son Mohammed Akhbar from Jellalabad with the troops guarding the Khyber Pass, and their united forces amounted to thirteen thousand men; but these troops refused to advance, and Dost Mohammed was obliged to take precipitate fight, accompanied only by a small number of horsemen. Shah Shooja made a triumphant entry into Caboul, and the troops of Dost Mohammed tendered their allegiance to him. The official accounts state that in his progress toward Caboul he was joined by every person of rank and influence in the country. As the tribes in the Bolan Pass committed many outrages and murders on the followers of the army of the Indus, at the instigation of their chief, the Khan of Khelat, his principal town (Khelat) was taken on the 13th of November, 1839. The political objects of the expedition had now apparently been obtained. The hostile chiefs of Caboul and Candahar were replaced by a friendly monarch. On the side of Scinde and Herat, British alliance and protection were courted. All this had been accomplished in a few months, but at an expense said to exceed three millions sterling."
"In 1747, Ahmeed Shah, an officer of an Afghan troop in the service of Persia, refounded the Afghan monarchy, which was maintained until the death of his successor in 1793. Ahmeed was of the Douranee tribe, and the limits over which his sway extended is spoken of as the Douranee empire. Four of the sons of Ahmeed's successor disputed, and in turn possessed, the throne; and during this civil war several of the principal chiefs threw off their allegiance, and the Douranee empire ceased to exist, but was split up into the chiefships of Candahar, Herat, Caboul, and Peshawur. Herat afterward became a dependency of Persia, and Shah Shooja ool Moolook, the chief of Peshawur, lost his power after having enjoyed it for about six years. Dost Mohammed Kahn, the chief of Caboul, according to the testimony of the late Sir Alexander Burnes, writing in 1832, governed his territory with great judgment, improved its internal administration and resources, and became the most powerful chief in Afghanistan. Shah Shooja was for many years a fugitive and a pensioner of the British government. He made one unsuccessful attempt to regain his territory, but Peshawur eventually became a tributary to the ruler of the Punjab. Such was the state of Afghanistan in 1836.
"In the above year the Anglo-Indian government complained that Dost Mohammed Khan, chief of Caboul, had engaged in schemes of aggrandizement which threatened the stability of the British frontier in India; and Sir Alexander Burnes, who wassent with authority to represent to him the light in which his proceedings were viewed, was compelled to leave Caboul without having effected any change in his conduct. The siege of Herat, and the support which both Dost Mohammed and his brother, the chief of Candahar, gave to the designs of Persia in Afghanistan, the latter chief especially openly assisting the operations against Herat, created fresh alarm in the Anglo-Indian government as to the security of our frontier. Several minor chiefs also avowed their attachment to the Persians. As our policy, instead of hostility, required an ally capable of resisting aggression on the western frontier of India, the Governor-general, from whose official papers we take these statements, 'was satisfied,' after serious and mature deliberation, 'that a pressing necessity, as well as every consideration of policy and justice, warranted us in espousing the cause of Shah Shooja ool Moolk;' and it was determined to place him on the throne. According to the Governor-general, speaking from the best authority, the testimony as to Shah Shooja's popularity was unanimous. In June, 1838, the late Sir William Macnaghten formed a tripartite treaty with the ruler of the Punjab and Shah Shooja; the object of which was to restore the latter to the throne of his ancestors. This policy it was conceived would conduce to the general freedom and security of commerce, the restoration of tranquillity upon the most important frontier of India, and the erection of a lasting barrier against hostile intrigue and encroachment; and, while British influence would thus gain its proper footing among the nations of Central Asia, the prosperity of the Afghan people would be promoted.
"Troops were despatched from the Presidencies of Bengal and Bombay to co-operate with the contingents raised by the Shah and our other ally, the united force being intended to act together under the name of the 'Army of the Indus.' After a march of extraordinary length, through countries which had never before been traversed by British troops, and defiles which are the most difficult passes in the world, where no wheeled carriage had ever been, and where it was necessary for the engineers in many places to construct roads before the baggage could proceed, the combined forces from Bengal and Bombay reached Candahar in May,1839. According to the official accounts, the population were enthusiastic in welcoming the return of Shah Shooja. The next step was to advance toward Ghiznee and Caboul. On the 23d July, the strong and important fortress and citadel of Ghiznee, regarded throughout Asia as impregnable, was taken in two hours by blowing up the Caboul gate. The army had only been forty-eight hours before the place. An 'explosion party' carried three hundred pounds of gunpowder in twelve sand-bags, with a hose seventy-two feet long, the train was laid and fired, the party having just time to reach a tolerable shelter from the effects of the concussion, though one of the officers was injured by its force. On the 7th of August the army entered Caboul. Dost Mohammed had recalled his son Mohammed Akhbar from Jellalabad with the troops guarding the Khyber Pass, and their united forces amounted to thirteen thousand men; but these troops refused to advance, and Dost Mohammed was obliged to take precipitate fight, accompanied only by a small number of horsemen. Shah Shooja made a triumphant entry into Caboul, and the troops of Dost Mohammed tendered their allegiance to him. The official accounts state that in his progress toward Caboul he was joined by every person of rank and influence in the country. As the tribes in the Bolan Pass committed many outrages and murders on the followers of the army of the Indus, at the instigation of their chief, the Khan of Khelat, his principal town (Khelat) was taken on the 13th of November, 1839. The political objects of the expedition had now apparently been obtained. The hostile chiefs of Caboul and Candahar were replaced by a friendly monarch. On the side of Scinde and Herat, British alliance and protection were courted. All this had been accomplished in a few months, but at an expense said to exceed three millions sterling."
Theexpenseof national outrage is only of importance to the sordid and unprincipled men who conceived and superintended the Afghanistan expedition. In the first part of the above extract, the writer places the British government in the position of one who strikes in self-defence.It was informed that Dost Mohammed entertained schemes of invasion dangerous to the British supremacy—informed by the exiled enemy of the chief of Caboul. The information was seasonable and exceedingly useful. Straightway a treaty was formed, by which the British agreed to place their tool for the enslavement of the Afghans upon the throne from which he had been driven. Further on, it is said, that when Shah Sooja appeared in Afghanistan he was joined by every person of rank and influence in the country. Just so; and the followers and supporters of Dost Mohammed nearly all submitted to the superior army of the British general. But two years afterward, the strength of the patriotic party was seen, when Caboul rose against Shah Sooja, drove him again from the throne, and defeated and massacred a considerable British garrison. Shah Sooja was murdered soon afterward. But the British continued the war against the Afghans, with the object of reducing them to the same slavery under which the remainder of Hindostan was groaning. The violation of national rights, the massacre of thousands, and the enslavement of millions were the glorious aims of British policy in the Afghan expedition. The policy then carried out has been more fully illustrated since that period. Whenever a territory was thought desirable by the government, neither national rights, the principles of justice and humanity, nor even the common right of property in individualshas been respected. Wealth has been an object for the attainment of which plunder and massacre were not considered unworthy means.
Said Mr. John Bright, the radical reformer of Manchester, in a speech delivered in the House of Commons:—"It cannot be too universally known that the cultivators of the soil (in India) are in a very unsatisfactory condition; that they are, in truth, in a condition of almost extreme and universal poverty. All testimony concurred upon that point. He would call the attention of the House to the statement of a celebrated native of India, the Rajah Rammohun Roy, who, about twenty years ago, published a pamphlet in London, in which he pointed out the ruinous effects of the Zemindaree system, and the oppressions experienced by the ryots in the Presidencies of Bombay and Madras. After describing the state of affairs generally, he added, 'Such was the melancholy condition of the agricultural labourers, that it always gave him the greatest pain to allude to it.' Three years afterward, Mr. Shore, who was a judge in India, published a work which was considered as a standard work till now, and he stated 'that the British government was not regarded in a favourable light by the native population of India—that a system of taxation and extortion was carried on unparalleled in the annals of any country.'"
From all quarters we receive unimpeachable evidence that the locust system has performed its devouring workon the broadest scale in India; and that the Hindoos are the victims of conquerors, slower, indeed, in their movements, than Tamerlane or Genghis Khan, but more destructive and more criminal than either of those great barbarian invaders.