[1828-1835 A.D.] rushed in at the breaches. In two hours the whole rampart, though obstinately defended, was in their possession, and early in the afternoon the citadel surrendered. The formidable works of Bhartpur were destroyed; the rightful prince was reinstated; and the people returned to their allegiance.

REFORMS OF LORD WILLIAM BENTINCK

The next governor-general was Lord William Bentinck, who had been governor of Madras twenty years earlier at the time of the mutiny of Vellore. His seven years' rule (from 1828 to 1835) is not signalised by any of those victories or extensions of territory by which chroniclers delight to measure the growth of empire. But it forms an epoch in administrative reform, and in the slow process by which the hearts of a subject population are won over to venerate as well as dread their alien rulers. The modern history of the British in India, as benevolent administrators ruling the country with a single eye to the good of the natives, may be said to begin with Lord William Bentinck. According to the inscription upon his statue at Calcutta, from the pen of Macaulay, "He abolished cruel rites; he effaced humiliating distinctions; he gave liberty to the expression of public opinion; his constant study it was to elevate the intellectual and moral character of the nations committed to his charge.' His first care on arrival in India was to restore equilibrium to the finances, which were tottering under the burden imposed upon them by the Burmese War. This he effected by reductions in permanent expenditure, amounting in the aggregate to one and one-half millions sterling, as well as by augmenting the revenue from land and from the opium of Malwa.

His two most memorable acts are the abolition of sati (suttee) and the suppression of the thags (thugs). At this distance of time it is difficult to realise the degree to which these two barbarous practices had corrupted the social system of the Hindus. European research has clearly proved that the text in the Vedas adduced to authorise the immolation of widows was a wilful mistranslation. But the practice had been ingrained in Hindu opinion by the authority of centuries, and had acquired the sanctity of a religious rite. The emperor Akbar is said to have prohibited it by law, but the early English rulers did not dare so far to violate the traditions of religious toleration. In the year 1817 no less than seven hundred widows are said to have been burned alive in the Bengal presidency alone. To this day the most holy spots of Hindu pilgrimage are thickly dotted with little white pillars, each commemorating a sati. In the teeth of strenuous opposition, both from Europeans and natives, Lord William carried the regulation in council on December 4th, 1829, by which all who abetted sati were declared guilty of "culpable homicide." The honour of suppressing thagi must be shared between Lord William and Captain Sleeman. Thagi was an abnormal excrescence upon Hinduism, in so far as the bands of secret assassins were sworn together by an oath based on the rites of the bloody goddess Kali. Between 1826 and 1835 as many as 1562 thags were apprehended in different parts of British India, and by the evidence of approvers the moral plague spot was gradually stamped out. Two other historical events are connected with the administration of Lord William Bentinck. In 1833 the charter of the East India Company was renewed for twenty years, but only upon the terms that it should abandon its trade and permit Europeans to settle freely in the country. At the same time a legal or fourth member was added to the governor-general's council, who might not be a servant of the company, and a commission was appointed to revise and codify the law. Macaulay was the first legal member of the

[1828-1835 A.D.] council, and the first president of the law commission. In 1830 it was found necessary to take the state of Mysore under British administration, where it has continued up to the present time, and in 1834 the frantic misrule of the rajah of Coorg brought on a short and sharp war. The rajah was permitted to retire to Benares, and the brave and proud inhabitants of that mountainous little territory decided to place themselves under the rule of the company; so that the only annexation effected by Lord William Bentinck was "in consideration of the unanimous wish of the people."

Sir Charles (afterwards Lord) Metcalfe succeeded Lord William as senior member of council. His short term of office is memorable for the measure which his predecessor had initiated, but which he willingly carried into execution, for giving entire liberty to the press. Public opinion in India, as well as the express wish of the court of directors at home, pointed to Metcalfe as the most fit person to carry out the policy of Bentinck, not provisionally, but as governor-general for a full term. Party exigencies, however, led to the appointment of Lord Auckland. From that date commences a new era of war and conquest, which may be said to have lasted for twenty years. All looked peaceful until Lord Auckland, prompted by his evil genius, attempted to place Shah Shuja upon the throne of Cabul, an attempt which ended in the gross mismanagement and annihilation of the garrison placed in that city. The disaster in Afghanistan was quickly followed by the conquest of Sind, the two wars in the Punjab, the second Burmese War, and last of all the Mutiny. Names like Gough and Napier and Colin Campbell take the places of Malcolm and Metcalfe and Elphinstone."

In 1835, Lord William Bentinck resigned the government of India, and Lord Auckland was appointed to succeed him, but did not arrive at Calcutta until the following year. In the meantime, the administration was conducted by Sir Charles Metcalfe, who distinguished himself by abolishing the strict censorship to which the press had till then been subjected.

Hindustan had never been in a more tranquil state than at the time when Lord Auckland arrived at Calcutta, in 1836, invested with the high functions of governor-general of the British eastern empire. All then appeared to promise a continuance of peace, and the uninterrupted progress of those improvements so steadily and effectually pursued by his predecessor; but the calm was not of long duration, and the attention of the government was soon engrossed by the affairs of Kabul, which led the British armies for the first time across the Indus.b

war.

THE AFGHAN WAR OF 1838-1842

On the 10th of September, 1838, Lord Auckland proclaimed in general orders his intention to employ a force beyond the northwest frontier. On the 1st of October he published a declaration of the causes and objects of the The ostensible object was to replace Shah Shuja on the throne of Kabul, the troubles and revolutions of Afghanistan having placed the capital and a large part of the country under the sway of Dost Muhammed Khan. Shah Shuja, driven from his dominions, had become a pensioner of the East India Company, and resided in the British cantonment of Ludhiana. Dost Muhammed had in May, 1836, addressed a letter to Lord Auckland, which conveyed his desire to secure the friendship of the British government. He was desirous

[1838 A.D.]

of obtaining the aid of the British against Persia, whose troops were besieging Herat, and to recover Peshawar from Ranjit (Runjeet) Singh, the ruler of Punjab. The governor-general in 1837 despatched Captain Alexander Burnes as an envoy to Kabul. Soon after the arrival of Burnes a Russian envoy arrived at Kabul, who was liberal in his promises, but whose authority was afterwards disavowed by his government. Captain Burnes carried back with him a belief that Russia was meditating an attack upon British India, having established her influence in Persia; that Dost Muhammed was treacherous; and that the true way to raise a barrier against the amibition of Russia was to place the dethroned Shah Shuja upon the throne of Kabul, as he had numerous friends in the country.

The alarm of the possible danger of a Russian invasion through Persia and Afghanistan led to the declaration of war against Dost Muhammed in the autumn of 1838, and to the preparation for hostilities under a governor-general whose declared policy, at the commencement of his rule, was to maintain the peace which had been scarcely interrupted since the conclusion of the Burmese War. Unquestionably there was a panic, and under such circumstances the heaviest charge against Lord Auckland would have been that he remained in supine indifference.

On the 14th of February the Bengal division of the army under Sir Willoughby Cotton crossed the Indus at Bukkur. The Indus is here divided into two channels, one of which is nearly five hundred yards in breadth. The passage of eight thousand men with a vast camp-train and sixteen thousand camels was effected without a single casualty. Sir John Cam Hobhouse, in moving the thanks of the house of commons to the Indian army, in February, 1840, read a glowing description of this passage. "It was a gallant sight to see brigade after brigade, with its martial music and its glittering arms, marching over file by file, horse, foot, and artillery, into a region as yet untrodden by British soldiers." He quoted also from a periodical publication an eloquent allusion to the grand historical contrasts of this expedition. 'For the first time since the days of Alexander the Great, a civilised army had penetrated the mighty barrier of deserts and mountains which separates Persia from Hindustan; and the prodigy has been exhibited to an astonished world of a remote island in the European seas pushing forward its mighty arms into the heart of Asia, and carrying its victorious standards into the strongholds of Mohammedan faith and the cradle of the Mughal Empire." The Bengal army was preceded by a small body of troops under the orders of Shah Shuja, and it was followed by the Bombay division under the command of Sir John Keane.

Into an almost unknown and untrodden country twenty-one thousand troops had entered through the Bolan pass. Sir Willoughby Cotton, with the Bengal column, entered this pass in the beginning of April. The passage of this formidable pass, nearly sixty miles in length, was accomplished in six days. For the first eleven and a half miles into the pass the only road is the bed of the Bolan river. The mountains on every side are precipitous and sterile; not a blade of vegetation of any kind being found, save in the bed of the stream. There was no sustenance for the camels, unless it were carried for their support during six days, and thus along the whole route their putrefying carcases added to the obstacles to the advance of the army.

The Bombay army sustained considerable loss from Baluchi freebooters in their passage through the Bolan pass, but the two columns were enabled to unite at Kandahar, and to proceed to the siege of Ghazni, under the command of Sir John Keane. On the 22nd of July the British forces were in

[1838-1841 A.D.] camp before this famous city, built upon a rock, towering proudly over the adjacent plain. The intelligent officers of the army could not have viewed without deep interest this stronghold of Mohammedism, where the tomb of Sultan Mahmud, the conqueror of Hindustan, was still preserved, and where Mohammedan priests still read the Koran over his grave. The sandalwood gates of this tomb, which in 1025 had been carried off from the Hindu temple of Somnath in Guzerat, were to acquire a new celebrity at the close of this Afghan War by an ostentatious triumph, not quite so politic as that of the Sultan Mahmud. At Ghazni, Mohammedism maintained its most fanatical aspect. On the day before the final attack, Major Outram attempted with part of the shah's contingent to force the enemy from the heights beyond the walls. He describes that over the crest of the loftiest peak floated the holy banner of green and white, surrounded by a multitude of fanatics, who believed they were safe under the sacred influence of the Moslem ensign. A shot having brought down the standard-bearer, and the banner being seized, the multitude fled panic-stricken at the proof of the fallacy of their belief. On the morning of the 23rd the fortress and citadel were stormed. There were great doubts, almost universal doubts, at home as to the policy of this Afghan War. There could be no doubt as to the brilliancy of this exploit. On the 29th of July the British army quitted Ghazni. It entered Kabul in triumph on the 7th of August. Shah Shuja, restored to his sovereignty, was once more seated in the Bala Hissar, the ancient palace of his race. Dost Muhammed had fled beyond the Indian Caucasus. The country appeared not only subjected to the new government, but tranquil and satisfied. As the spring and summer advanced insurrections began to break out in the surrounding country. Dost Muhammed had again made his appearance, and had fought a gallant battle with the British cavalry, in which he obtained a partial victory. Despairing, however, of his power effectually to resist the British arms, he wrote to Kabul, and delivered himself up to the envoy, Sir William Macnaghten, claiming the protection of his government. He was sent to India, where a place of residence was assigned to him on the northwest frontier, with three lacs of rupees (about £30,000) as a revenue. the danger of the occupation of Afghanistan was not yet overpast. The events of November and December, 1841, and of January, 1842, were of so fearful a nature as scarcely to be paralleled in some of their incidents by the disasters of the mutiny of 1857.

But

THE MASSACRE OF KABUL; THE DESTRUCTION OF THE BRITISH ARMY (1841 A.D.)

The British at Kabul were in a condition of false security. The army was in cantonments, extensive, ill-defended, overawed on every side. Within these indefensible cantonments English ladies, amongst whom were Lady Macnaghten and Lady Sale, were domesticated in comfortable houses. Sir Robert Sale had left Kabul in October, expecting his wife to follow him in a few days. The climate was suited to the English; the officers, true to their national character, had been cricket-playing, riding races, fishing, shooting, and, when winter came, astonishing the Afghans with skating on the lakes.

On the night of the 1st of November there was a meeting of Afghan chiefs, who were banded together, however conflicting might be their interests, to make common cause against the feringhees (foreigners). One of these, Abdullah Khan, who had been active in his intrigues to stir up disaffection, had an especial quarrel with Burnes, who had called him a dog, and had said that he would recommend Shah Shuja to deprive the rebel of