XXXIX. 51. ings, and termination of the war. 1817. 1817. 21, whelming force, and destitute of any strongholds or forti- CHAP. fications, were unable to make any effectual resistance. 1817. They were pursued in all directions, and all cut down or dispersed, with the exception of a small body, which took Victory of refuge in the camp of Holkar, near Mahidpoor. The Lord Hastgovernment of the Holkar principality was at this time w in the hands of Toolsa Bye, the favourite in the sera- Dec. glio, and she had in her turn confided it to the Dewan, Gumput Rao. The troops, however, doubting their ability to withstand the forces of Sir Thomas Hislop, which were advancing against them, mutinied, threw Gumput Rao into prison, carried off Toolsa Bye to the banks of the Supon, where she was beheaded in the night while uttering piercing shrieks, and got possession of Mulhar Rao, now the acknowledged heir of the Holkar dominions. Next day a decisive battle was fought with such Dec. 21, of Holkar's forces as still held out, and the remnant of the Pindarrees, which ended, after an arduous struggle in which the British lost 800 men, in the entire defeat of the enemy, who were weakened by the loss of 3000. The mother of Mulhar Rao, who was the regent, upon this immediately made submission to the British; and, in return for the cession of a considerable tract of territory to the south of the Sautpoora range, was confirmed in the possession of her remaining territories. Some of the rajahs in her dominions repudiated this arrangement, and tried to renew the war, but they were pursued, and dispersed or taken. These successes were fatal to the Pindarrees, by depriving them of any support among the native powers. They retreated into the jungles and woody fastnesses, where they were actively pursued by the peasantry, who, in revenge for their former cruelties, massacred them without mercy. The last chief of these formidable bands was Chutoo, and at the head of 200 followers he long remained at large. At length his horse was found grazing near the ii. 427; jungles of Asurghur, saddled and bridled, and at a little 420. distance a heap of torn and blood-stained garments, and 1 Malcolm, Martin, CHAP. XXXIX. 1817. 52. war, and of tion. a half-eaten human head, the remains of a tiger's feast— "the fitting death," as M. Martin well observes, "of the last of the Pindarrees." The Pindarree war was now at an end, and nothing End of the more was heard of these audacious marauders. Without Lord Hast- a home, without leaders, without strongholds, they never ings' administraagain attempted to make head against the British power. They were gradually merged in the ordinary population, and resumed the habits of pacific life. Many of them settled in the Deccan and Malwa as cultivators, and, employing their energies in the right direction, became active and industrious farmers, as old soldiers often do. The Mahratta war was now practically ended; but the flight of Appa Sahib, one of their most active leaders, caused some anxiety, which was only terminated in April 1819 by the capture of the important fortress of Asurghur, from which he escaped in the disguise of a fakir, and sunk into insignificance, from which he never afterwards emerged. The war lingered still longer in the valley of Candeish, where there were various Arab garrisons, which June 1818. were not finally expelled till June 1818, when Malligum, the strongest fort in the valley in their possession, was taken. The remaining years of Lord Hastings' administration were devoted to pacific duties, and the consolidation of the vast empire which he had brought under the British rule. Mr, afterwards SIR THOMAS MUNRO, here gave token of the great civil and military abilities he possessed, in taking possession of and regulating the country ceded by the treaty of Poonah; abilities so great as to justify the eulogium of Mr Canning, who said "that Europe could not boast a more distinguished statesman, or Asia a braver warrior." Lord Hastings resigned his office in January 540, 566; Martin, 420, 421; 1 Auber, ii. 1823, and returned to this country, where he was rewarded for his glorious and successful government of India by Kay's Life the gift of £60,000 to purchase an estate in the United Kingdom, in addition to those he had inherited from his Plantagenet ancestors.1 After his return he was appointed of Metcalfe, ii. 132. Governor of Malta, where he died in 1826, in conse- CHAP. quence of a fall from his horse. XXXIX. 1817. 53. on Lord government His administration of India, during the nine years he held that arduous office, must be regarded as a model of Reflections vigour and ability. Clearly discerning the nature of the Hastings' tenure by which, and which alone, our Indian empire was of India. held, he as clearly perceived the only mode by which it could be preserved. Constantly threatened by a coalition of the native powers, whose united forces, if brought together, would much exceed what he could assemble at any one point, he saw that the only mode of combating it was by anticipating the attack, and opposing to the unwieldy strength of an alliance the vigour of single direction. His policy in attacking the coalition of the Pindarrees and Mahrattas in 1817, before they had time to unite their forces, was precisely that which Napoleon pursued against the coalition of the Continental powers in 1805, 1806, and 1809, and which was rewarded by the victories of Ulm, Jena, and Echmuhl. It met, accordingly, with similar and equally deserved success. He brought the Indian government, by his vigour and capacity, through one of the most dangerous crises of its modern history, augmented its territory, enhanced its renown, and finally broke the power of the Mahrattas, the most formidable and daring of its enemies. Under his administration the revenues of the State rose from £17,228,000 in 1813, to £23,120,000 in 1823. It is true, the military expenditure increased in a still greater proportion, being, on an average of five years from 1817 to 1822, £9,770,000; and the debt was enlarged by £2,800,000. But this arose entirely from the necessities of his situation, and the tolerance so long extended to the ferocious Pindarrees and the encroaching Mahrattas by the timorous and economising policy of the Court of Directors during the adminis- 421, 422; tration of his predecessors. If ever a Governor-gene- History of India, ad ral deserved a statue of gold, it was the Marquess of fin. Hastings.1 1 Martin, Conder's CHAP. XXXIX. 1823. 54. Amherst Adminis war with Burmah. Sept. 1823. Upon the retirement of Lord Hastings, the place he had so ably filled was at first destined for Mr Canning; but the changes in the Cabinet consequent on the death of the Marquess of Londonderry in 1822, led, as already tration, and mentioned, to his being placed at the head of the Foreign Office, and LORD AMHERST was selected for the direction of Indian affairs, and arrived at Calcutta in August 1823; the provisional government, since the departure of the Marquess of Hastings, having been in the hands of Mr. John Adam, an able and honest man. The first subject which forced itself upon Lord Amherst's attention was the approaching war with the BURMESE on the eastern frontier of the empire, which it was evident could not be much longer averted, and which was the more formidable from the unknown nature of the country in which it was to be conducted, and the vague reports received of the boundless power of the potentate by whom it was to be maintained. The Burmese, originally subject to the neighbouring kingdom of Pegu, had revolted in 1753, and established a separate dominion, which progressively increased for seventy years, until it was brought into serious collision with the British power. The first cause of difference between them arose from the immigration into the British province of Arracan of some thousand peasants from the Burmese territory, who sought refuge in the Company's territories from the intolerable tyranny of their Burmese oppressors. In 1798, nearly ten thousand of these persecuted wretches rushed over the frontier in a state of frenzied desperation. They arrived in the English territories almost naked and starving-men, women, and children at the breast-but all declaring that they would prefer taking refuge in the jungles, and living, as they had done for months, on "reptiles and leaves," amidst tigers and lions, to placing themselves again under the odious tyranny of the Burmese.1 1 Martin, 422, 423; Thornton, iv. 100, 112; Havelock, 154, 245. The British Government, though alarmed at such a formidable irruption, even when only of starving suppli XXXIX. 1823. 55. of discord ants, taking compassion on their sufferings, assigned them CHAP. some waste lands for their subsistence, and they were soon settled there to the number of forty thousand. The expulsion of these settlers from the British territories was Irruption of the Mughs, repeatedly demanded by the Burmese authorities; but and causes Lord Wellesley and Lord Hastings refused to do so, as with the contrary to the laws of hospitality, though they offered to Burmese. surrender any malefactor who might have injured the Burmese, and even to permit the latter to seek for them in the British territories. This concession the government of Ava, which ruled the Burmese empire, ascribed, according to the usual custom of Asiatics, to weakness and fear on the part of the British Government; and an alliance was attempted to be formed between the King of Ava and Runjeet Singh, and other Indian potentates, for the expulsion of the English from India. Hostilities were thus evidently impending, but they were for some years averted by the conciliatory conduct of the British Government, which, engaged in the Ghoorka and Pindarree wars, had no wish to be involved in fresh hostilities. This conduct the Court of Ava deemed decisive proof of conscious weakness; and with a view to bring on hostilities, a descent of Burmese took place in September 1823, attended with the slaughter of the British guard on the island of Shahpoori, at the entrance of the arm of the sea dividing Chittagong from Arracan, and within the British territories. An explanation of this aggression was demanded, but the only answer returned was, that Shahpoori "rightfully belonged to the fortunate king of the white elephant, lord of the earth and seas; and that the non-admission of the claim of the 'golden foot' would be followed by the immediate invasion of the British territories." The Burmese government were as good as their word, for a force immediately advanced to within five miles of the Martin, town of Sylhet, which is only two hundred and twenty-six Thornton, miles from Calcutta. This brought matters to a crisis; 119. and Lord Amherst, though with the utmost reluctance, 1 422, 423; iv. 119, |