1857] THE CHINESE WAR 291 ing among the more advanced Liberals that Lord Palmerston was here playing that part which they so often erroneously attri- Debates on buted to him, and bullying a weak country. Mr. Cobden the Chinese made himself the spokesman of this party, and moved War. a resolution in the House to the effect that the papers laid on the table failed to establish satisfactory grounds for the violent measures resorted to. A long and able discussion followed, and besides many of the Liberals, with Lord John Russell at their head, Gladstone and the Peelites, Disraeli and the Conservatives, combined in supporting the resolution. It became evident that if it was carried it would be a vote of want of confidence in the Ministry. As such Lord Palmerston regarded it. But he did not believe that the verdict of the House, construed in this broad manner, was the verdict of the people; and when upon a division the Government appeared in Palmerston Country successfully. March 1857. a minority of 16 (March 3), instead of resigning he dis- appeals to the solved Parliament and appealed to the Constituencies. The question placed before them was really a personal one;—had they, or had they not, confidence in the Prime Minister. The answer was for the time conclusive. The Crimean war had roused the aggressive feelings of the nation. The man who, in the midst of its disasters, had taken upon himself the duty of carrying it to a successful conclusion, whose firmness had secured a peace at that time considered honourable, and whose administration had since been crowned with success in Persia, was a general favourite. In all directions his party was successful. Several of the leading Peelites lost their seats, Bright, Milner Gibson, and Cobden, were all defeated. It was with a triumphant majority that Lord Palmerston met the new Parliament on the 30th of April. Peace with June 1858. Meanwhile the war in China went on. The first effort at negotiation failed. Yeh's answers were all of an evasive character. Late in December Canton was bombarded China. and the walls occupied. At the beginning of January 1858 the town itself was entered, and Yeh captured and sent off to Calcutta. The demands of the English and French Commissioners were forwarded to the Court of Pekin, and when no answer was received, the Commissioners went with the fleets to the Piho river to insist upon a reply. The forts which covered the river were taken or destroyed, and the fleets pushed up as far as Tientsin. Then in June, after some delay, negotiations were resumed, and brought to a successful conclusion by a treaty securing the permanent establishment of a British Minister at Pekin, the opening of more ports, the establishment of Consuls, and the clear definition of the rights, in judicial matters, to be exercised by the respective countries over their subjects. The Indian While the tidings from the seat of war in the East continued to be in the highest degree satisfactory, they began to be mingled with rumours of disaffection in the Indian army; and the triumphs of the British troops in Persia, and the less glorious successes in China, passed out of public sight, hidden by the terrible scenes of the Indian Mutiny. India held by military occupation. The English Empire in India is practically a military occupation. The resources of England alone in men and money have never proved sufficient to carry it out; from the time of Clive, when the English trading company began to acquire dominions in India, it has been found necessary to have recourse to native assistance to supply troops. Every addition to the constantly growing territory in English possession, or under English influence, necessitated a corresponding increase in the native army, till in 1857 the extraordinary spectacle was presented of a vast alien country kept in subjection by a mercenary army of nearly 300,000 of its own inhabitants. The principles of cohesion which held this mass together, and kept it under discipline, could have been no other than the advantage of their pay, the esprit de corps engendered by successes in the field, the personal influence of the European officers who organised and commanded them, and a fidelity of very great but unknown strength to their salt, as it was called-that is, to those whose bread they had eaten. When it is remembered that the Sepoy brought with him to the camp his civil life, his family, his religious rites, and his caste, and that he was thus alive to every movement, social or religious, which was disturbing the rest of the population of India, it is plain that an army thus constituted must have been an instrument requiring most judicious handling. Since the time when it was first constituted, the Indian army had been considerably changed, and in some respects for the worse. It had become more Europeanised. The possibility of rising to high military rank had been taken from the natives. No coloured man was allowed under any circumstances to command Europeans. The most ignorant lad Changes in the who joined the regiment was at once superior to every native officer, however great his worth and experience. The large number of European officers in each regiment, which had been increased in accordance with the custom obtaining in the army at home, tended, by supplying the Europeans with a society native army. 1857] THE INDIAN MUTINY 293 of their own, to separate them from that close intercourse with their men which had at first been one great source of their strength. Improved means of communication with England, and the large introduction of English society, had acted still more in the same direction. The same cause had taught the English officer but too frequently to regard his Indian service as temporary, and to look forward to closing his life upon his pension in England. It had thus happened that even the free use of the native languages had become a somewhat rare accomplishment. At the same time the large increase of the English dominions, and the consequent demand for efficient agents, had introduced the custom of employing as civil or political officers military men. It was naturally to the abler among them that these appointments fell, and thus the standard of those who remained with their regiments tended to be lowered. It appears certain that, although the officers had an almost blind love for the regiments to which they belonged, and implicit confidence in their men, the close tie between European and native in the army had been much loosened, the intimate acquaintance of the officers with the wants and feelings of their men had in a large degree disappeared, and room had thus been afforded for the growth of deep-seated discontent wholly unknown to the officers. mutinies. The process of change had not gone on without repeated indications of the danger it was causing. Mutiny after mutiny, though partial and speedily suppressed, had broken out in different Warnings given parts of India. Of these the apparent causes had been by former various, but always illustrated the strange credulity of the Sepoy, and the extreme sensitiveness of his feelings when either his religious prejudices or the advantages derived from his service were assaulted. Thus in the case of the two most dangerous demonstrations of disaffection, the Velore mutiny in 1806, and the refusal of the Sepoy troops to serve in Sindh in 1843, the first was caused largely by religious panic. The defiling leather stock, the round hat, and the belt which formed a cross upon the Sepoy's breast, were regarded as so many insidious attempts to break down the caste and religion of Hindoo and Mahomedan. It was even believed that for the same purpose the blood of hogs and kine had been mingled with the salt they were called upon to use. On the second occasion it was the demand made upon the native regiments to occupy the newly annexed country, without the additional payment which had hitherto attended service beyond the Indus, which aroused the spirit of rebellion. While on a third occasion, at Barrackpore, in 1824, it was the dread of being required to serve in Burmah, which the Bengal Sepoy regarded as beyond the service for which he had contracted, and which implied either much privation on the voyage or loss of caste, which drove the 47th to an outbreak, suppressed only by the fire of European artillery and the breaking up of the regiment. Again, the Sepoy was not only a soldier but a member of a nation, and liable to be influenced by the social and political feelings of those around him. And the native army being recognised as the instrument by which English supremacy was upheld, it was the natural desire of all those who for any cause wished ill to that empire to undermine the fidelity of the army, to turn if possible against them the instrument the English had themselves created. Astute men were always ready, therefore, to play upon the credulous and sensitive character of the native soldier, and disaffection in the army rose or fell according as the sway of political events roused the enemies of England to hopeful activity, or condemned them for the time to passive submission. Thus the intrigues of the sons of Tippoo may be regarded as the exciting cause of the mutiny of 1806; the disasters in Cabul encouraged the mutineers of 1843; the final destruction of the Sikh power at the battle of Goojerat for a time set discontent at rest. But the conduct pursued by the Government of late years had tended to increase largely those classes who disliked the English rule. The administration of Lord Dalhousie from 1848 to 1856 was one of The Mahrattas unusual brilliancy. The second Sikh war had been alienated by Dalhousie's policy. brought to a triumphant conclusion; at the other side of India Pegu had been conquered; and the territory under the direct rule of the English Government had been largely increased. But these apparently brilliant results had been purchased by the pursuit of a policy which was not adapted to conciliate the friendship of the natives. Keenly alive to the advantages of direct English rule, as contrasted with the administration of native princes, Lord Dalhousie lost no opportunity of asserting to its full the paramount power which the English claimed. Whenever a princely family became extinct he regarded its dominions as having lapsed, and took possession of them; and in defiance of Indian custom disregarded the process of adoption by which those families had been perpetuated. As it happened it was the Mahrattas, the last of the great conquering Hindoo people, who suffered chiefly by this policy. No less than four great divisions of their empire underwent the process of annexation. In 1849 the possessions of the Rajah of Sattarah, the nominal head of the whole confederation, were appro 1853] CAUSES OF DISCONTENT 295 priated upon the death of the chief. Under similar circumstances, in 1853, Nagpore, the dominion of the Bonslar, passed under English rule; and the same fate befell the smaller State of Jhansee, in spite of the strenuous opposition of the widow of the late Rajah, and her assertion, which was true, of the unbroken fidelity of her house. The case of the Peishwa was a little different, for the last holder of that title had already withdrawn from his dominions and lived as an English pensioner at Bithoor. But on his death Lord Dalhousie refused to recognise Nana Sahib, his adopted son, as his political heir, and thus deprived him of his title, and the advantages which accrued to him from it. The history of the mutiny tells only too plainly, in the massacres of Cawnpore and Jhansee, the hostility thus excited in the minds of the Mahrattas. The Annexation of Oude carried out. There were two other annexations which, in different ways, exercised an even more important influence upon the coming struggle. These were the annexation of Oude and of the Punjab. If the appropriation of the Mahratta principalities touched the feelings of the Hindoos, it was the Mohamedans who were irritated by the annexation of Oude. The wretched government and profligate extravagance of the Oude Court had early attracted the attention of the Government of Calcutta ; and Lord Wellesley at the beginning of the century, not only in the interests of good government, but also with a view to utilise Oude as a bulwark to the English power, had obliged the Nabob to disband his disorderly native troops, and to take into his pay a certain amount of British soldiers, surrendering districts yielding a large revenue in order to secure punctual payment of the subsidy. At the same time Lord Wellesley did not apparently believe in the lengthened duration of this sort of double government. He thought that no effective security could be provided until both the civil and military management of the Government was transferred to the Company. But Lord Wellesley's successors had held their hand. The sovereign of Oude, whatever the faults of his administration, had proved faithful, and had even been raised to the dignity of king. Meanwhile the civil government had become simply monstrous. Attempts were made to bring the king to reason; they all proved vain, and in the opinion not only of such Governor-Generals as Bentinck and Lord Hardinge, but of men so averse to any general system of annexation as Sir Henry Lawrence, Low, Outram, and Sleeman, it appeared an absolute duty laid upon the English Government to step in and put an end to the miserable condition of the country. It is to be observed, however, that these officers all recom |