XVIII.]

NANA FURNUVESE SEIZED AND CONFINED.

61

that a body of 15,000 Hyderabad troops and a train of artillery should be sent to assist in establishing Bajee Rao as Peshwa, and Nana as minister, and that, in return for this assistance, the territory the Nizam had been constrained to cede to the Mahrattas should be restored, and the balance of the indemnity remitted. Balloba, the inveterate foe of Nana, having received some intimation of these schemes, determined to frustrate them by sending Bajee Rao as a prisoner into Hindostan. He was sent under the charge of Sirjee Rao Ghatkay, and on the route succeeded in corrupting him, by promising his master, Sindia, a donative of two crores if he obtained his liberty and his crown; he was liberated accordingly. The schemes of Nana were now matured. He had secured the co-operation of Roghoojee Bhonslay, and Holkar. He had gained over Sindia by the promise of Pureshram's jaygeers, worth ten lacs of rupees a year, and on the 27th of October, 1796, that chief commenced the revolution by seizing his own minister Balloba. Pureshram took to flight; Nana marched in triumph to Poona, and on the 4th of December placed Bajee Rao on the throne of his ancestors, and cancelled the adoption of Chimnajee.

Nana seized and

ber, 1797.

Bajee Rao, whose nature was to trust no one confined, Decem- and to deceive all, was no sooner in possession of power than he began to plot the destruction of the two men who had been the chief instruments of his elevation. The agency of Sindia was employed against Nana, who was induced by the representations of the infamous Sirjee Rao to pay his master a visit of ceremony, when he was seized and confined in the fort of Ahmednugur. His escort, consisting of a thousand persons, was stripped, maimed, killed, or dispersed. Troops were sent to pillage his adherents, and the capital presented a scene of confusion and bloodshed. Having thus disposed, as he thought, of Nana, Bajee Rao began to devise means of ridding himself of Sindia. who had recently espoused the beautiful daughter of Sirjee Rao Ghatkay. The wedding was celebrated with extra

62

FLUNDER OF POONA.

[CHAP.

ordinary display and expense. The monthly cost of his army at Poona, moreover, did not fall short of twenty lacs of rupees. He began to be straitened for money, and was constrained to press Bajee Rao for the two crores which had been agreed on as the price of his release and elevation. Bajee Rao pleaded the emptiness of his treasury, but advised him to constitute Ghatkay his chief minister, and instruct him to levy this sum from the wealthy inhabitants of Poona. The advice was taken; the ruffian was let loose on the capital, and, as long as it exists, his name will be remembered with horror and execration. He proceeded in the first instance to the Peshwa's palace, where he seized the ex-ministers of the party of Nana, and scourged them until they gave up their property. The rich bankers and merchants, and all who were suspected of the possession of wealth, were tortured till it was surrendered. For many days the city of Poona was given up to plunder and violence. Amrit Rao, the illegitimate son of Raghoba, who had been placed in the office of minister on the imprisonment of Nana, not knowing that the infamous Ghatkay had been set on these atrocious proceedings by the advice of his own brother, Bajee Rao, attributed them to the malevolence of Sindia, and proposed to assassinate him. Bajee Rao readily entered into a project so entirely in accordance with his own wishes, and one Abba Kally was selected to despatch him, at a public interview, in the Peshwa's palace. Sindia was summoned to the audience chamber, and Bajee Rao upbraided him with the arrogance and cruelty which he and his servants exhibited, and declared that he would no longer endure the contempt shown to his authority, ordering him at the same time peremptorily to depart from the capital. Sindia replied, with the greatest modesty, that he was anxious to obey, but could not remove his camp for want of funds, and solicited payment of the large sum which had been expended in seating Bajee Rao on the throne. At this moment Amrit Rao inquired whether he should give the signal to the executioner, but Bajee Rao's courage failed him, and

XVIII.] AMALGAMATION OF THE KING'S AND COMPANY'S ARMY. 63 Sindia was allowed to depart in peace. This was the first occasion on which the Peshwa manifested that irresolution of purpose which marked his character through life, and rendered him an object of general contempt. It was in the midst of this scene of intrigue and confusion that Lord Wellesley assumed the office of Governor-General, and speedily convinced the native princes of India that the energy of Hastings and Cornwallis was restored to the British Government.

Amalgamation of the army, 1794.

One of the two points on which Lord Cornwallis had received specific instructions before he embarked for India, had reference to the amalgamation of the King's and the Company's army. Mr. Dundas considered that India could be retained only by a large European force; and as the number of European soldiers in India, in 1788, was only 12,000, to about 58,000 native sepoys, he deemed it necessary, in order to create a feeling of perfect security, to augment it to about 17,000, so as to establish the proportion of one to three. He considered it important that the whole of this force should be under the Crown, and “act in concert with the general strength of the empire." Lord Cornwallis, during his residence in India, collected a mass of information on the subject, which he embodied in an elaborate minute on his return to England. He proposed that the whole army, European and native, should be transferred to the Crown; but he considered it indispensable that the European officers of the native army should remain an essentially distinct body; that they should go out to India early in life, and devote themselves entirely to the Indian service, in which a perfect knowledge of the language, and attention to the customs and religious prejudices of the sepoys, was absolutely necessary. This plan of amalgamation, which appears to have been drawn up in November, 1794, was rejected by the Court of Directors, who were not disposed to transfer their entire military establishment to the Crown; and it did not receive the full concurrence of the Board of Control.

64

1795-96.

MUTINY OF THE BENGAL OFFICERS.

[CHAP.

Before this plan was ready for consideration, Mutiny of the Bengal officers, the officers of the Bengal army were in a state of open mutiny. Lord Cornwallis had been employed during his administration in abolishing sinecure offices, and lessening the sources of illegitimate gain, both in the civil and military branches of the service. The civilians had been compensated for these reductions by increased salaries, but it was impossible to adopt the same rule with regard to a body of officers counted by thousands. The command of a regiment was still worth 80,000 rupees a year, but the general disproportion in the remuneration of the two services, was a source of constant envy and discontent to the military branch. This feeling was inflamed by the superior advantages of rank enjoyed by the King's officers. Sir John Shore, on assuming the government, found that he had to deal, not with the discontent, but with the actual insubordination of the Bengal army, and, in a country in which he felt that "the civil authority was at the mercy of the military." This spirit of mutiny continued to increase throughout the year 1794; but the officers refrained from any overt act of rebellion, while they waited to ascertain how far the new regulations which Mr. Dundas was drawing up in lieu of Lord Cornwallis's amalgamation scheme, proved agreeable to their wishes. The regulations, however, were delayed so long, that the patience of the officers was exhausted, and on Christmas-day, 1795, Sir John Shore convened the Council, and laid before them the alarming intelligence he had just received. Delegates had been elected from each regiment to form an executive board, and the whole army was bound by the most solemn obligations to protect their persons, and make good their losses by a general subscription. This board was authorized to treat with government on these terms:-that the Company's regiments should not be reduced; that the King's troops should be limited by law to a small number; that promotion should invariably go by seniority; and that all allowances which had at any time been granted to the army, including double batta,

XVIII.]

CONCESSIONS OF THE GOVERNMENT.

65

should be restored. If these conditions were not accepted. they were prepared to seize the Governor-General and the Commander-in-chief, and take possession of the govern

ment.

Conciliatory

measures of Government, 1795.

The Council was thunderstruck at this state of affairs. It was a crisis of the same magnitude as that which Clive had quelled thirty years before by his undaunted bearing; but there was no Clive at Calcutta. The Governor-General instantly dispatched orders for troops to the Cape and Madras, and directed the Admiral to bring up his whole squadron to Calcutta without delay; he likewise accepted an offer from De Boigne, of the services of a corps of Sindia's cavalry, commanded by European officers. The Commander-in-chief, Sir Robert Abercromby, proceceded to Cawnpore. Though he was not the man for the emergency, his official character and his courteous manner effected some good; but it was the firmness of the artillery in Calcutta, and the manly resistance of several officers at Cawnpore, that stemmed the tide of mutiny for the time. The long-expected regulations arrived at length, in May, 1796, and disgusted all parties. Sir John Shore described them as a mass of confusion, calculated neither to gratify the officers, nor to improve the discipline of the army. The spirit of revolt blazed forth afresh. Remonstrances poured in upon the bewildered government from every quarter, and on the 30th of June, Sir John Shore wrote to his superiors at home stating, that the pressure on him had been so great, as to oblige him to give way, partly, and to modify the regulations. In a minute which he promulgated in India, he expressed a hope that the general code which he had drawn up would be acceptable to the officers. The regulations were so modified, that there was little of them left. The concessions went even beyond the expectations of the army. Arrears of batta to the extent of seven lacs of rupees, were granted unasked; the arrears of brevet rank were gratuitously bestowed, and such an addition made to the allowances of the officers of all grades, as to entail a permanent