Burt A. The Evolution of the British Empire and Commonwealth From the American Revolution
Подождите немного. Документ загружается.
How
Ireland
Nearly
Became
the First Dominion
115
mad
schemers. Defenderism
also
helped
the
latter
by
providing
a
ready-
made
organization
for
them
to take
over and
expand.
This
they
did,
not
by preaching
democracy
and
republicanism,
neither
of
which
meant
anything
to the
peasants,
but
by
promising
them
the abolition
of
the
tithe and
by
playing
on their
fears of
what
was
in store
for
them.
The
fighting
in
Ulster
was
growing
in
intensity.
Protestants,
now
organized
in
Orange
Lodges,
were
expelling
Catholics;
the
fugitives
spread
the rumor that
Orangemen
were
preparing
to exterminate
all
Catholics;
and
United
Irishmen
fanned
the rumor
into
a
burning
flame.
Ireland
was
fast
ripening
for rebellion. It
nearly
came
at the
end
of
1796,
when
only
the winds of
heaven
prevented
the
landing
of
the
French
army
that the French
fleet
had
brought
to
Bantry
Bay.
In
the
following
year,
when
mutiny paralyzed
the
Royal
Navy,
two
hundred
thousand
prospective
insurgents
were
drilling
in Ireland
and
a
greater
French
expedition
to that
unhappy
land
was
projected.
To cut
the
claws
of the
impending
insurrection,
the
Irish
govern-
ment
decided to
disarm
the
population, commencing
in
Ulster.
There
the
United
Irish
leaders,
by
deserting
the
cause of
religious
brother-
hood
for that of
religious
hatred,
had
frightened
away
all their
Pres-
byterian
supporters
except
the
few
who were
fanatical believers
in
the
new
French
political gospel.
The result
was that the
government,
though
lacking
sufficient
regular
soldiers to
carry
out
the
disarmament,
could
recruit
local
Protestant
yeomen
for
much
of
the
work;
and
they,
inspired
by
fear
and
hatred,
did
it
in
such
savage
fashion
as to
create
the
impression
on
many
other
Irish
minds
that
this
was
the
beginning
of
the
Orange fury.
The
government
also
gathered
up
enough
United
Irish
leaders
to
hamstring
their
organization,
but
not
enough
to
destroy
it;
and
measures
designed
to
prevent
a rebellion
actually precipitated
it.
The
rebellion
of 1798
was
big
only
in its
consequences.
It
was
pretty
well confined
to
Wexford,
in the southeast
corner of
Ireland;
and
there
the
rising
had
no more
than
a
momentary
success,
when
a
mob
of
distraught
peasants
wandered
about,
burning
and
slaying,
until
troops
from
England
and
yeomanry
from
Ulster were rushed
to
the
camp
of
the
rebels
and cut
them down
on
Vinegar
Hill.
The
rising
occurred
in
May.
This
miserable battle
was
fought
in
June,
and
all
resistance
was over
by August,
without
any
French
landing.
After-
ward,
when
too
late
to
be of
any
avail,
two
little French forces
did
invade Ireland
and were
quickly
disposed
of.
With
the
second came
Wolfe
Tone,
who was
captured,
tried,
and condemned
to
death.
He
cheated
the
gallows
by
committing
suicide
in
prison.
116
CHAPTER
SEVEN:
The
Irish
parliament
was now doomed.
Such
fierce
passions
had
been
aroused
as
Ireland
had not known for
a whole
century
passions
that
made
it
impossible
for
the
Irish
parliament
to
grant
any
concession
to
Catholics
and also
impossible
for
England
to leave
the
Catholics
of
Ireland
at
the
mercy
of the
enraged
Protestants
who
formed
the
Irish
parliament.
Pitt's
government,
which
had been
coming
to
the
con-
clusion
that
legislative
union with
Great
Britain was
necessary,
could
now
see
no alternative. Some
of
his
wisest advisers
believed
that
such
a
union
would be
neither
justifiable
nor even
possible
unless
accom-
panied
by
a
provision
for
the
complete political
emancipation
of
Roman
Catholics,
that
this
emancipation
was
essential
for
the
healing
of
Ire-
land,
and that it
could
be
adopted only
with
union.
The
prime
minister
refused to make
emancipation
a condition of
union,
but he let
it be
understood that
it
would be
one of the
first
measures
of
the new
united
parliament.
A
definite
promise,
far from
facilitating
union,
would
have
made
it more
difficult. The Irish
parliament
had
to be
persuaded
to vote
itself
out of
existence,
and
its
members would
not do
this
for
the benefit
of
Catholics.
Of
course
they
hated
union,
but
a
majority
of
them
voted
for
it
because
they
were
beaten
at
their
own
game
of
parlia-
mentary
corruption.
They
sold
out
to the British
government
in
return
for twelve
hundred
thousand
pounds,
spent
in
buying
up
pocket
bor-
oughs,
and for a
lavish distribution
of
peerages,
offices,
and
pensions.
The Act of
Union,
passed by
both
parliaments
in
1800,
combined
them
by adding
one
hundred Irish members
to the
British
House
of
Commons
and
thirty-two
Irish
peers
to the
British
House of
Lords.
The
proportion
of
representation
was
not
unjust
to
Ireland.
Neither
were
the
financial
terms,
which
made allowance
for
the
lower
level
of
the
national
debt and of
wealth in
Ireland. The
sacrifice
imposed
on
Ire-
land
was the
loss of a
parliament
dominated
by
men
who
would
keep
the
great
majority
of the
Irish
people
in
perpetual
subjugation,
a
parlia-
ment
that
might
stand as
the
symbol
of Irish
nationhood but
could
never make
the
adjustment
necessary
to
represent
it.
The
Union
might
well
have
been
a
blessing
to
both
partners
in
the
new
United
Kingdom
of
Great
Britain
and
Ireland
if
Pitt
had
then
carried
out
the
implied
promise
of
admitting
Roman
Catholics
to
sit in
the
united
parliament.
What
stopped
him was
the
bigotry
and
the
mental
instability
of
George
III. Some of
Pitt's enemies
easily persuaded
the
king
that
his
corona-
tion oath
bound him
to
veto
any
such
concession,
and the
prime
min-
ister
resigned
rather
than
attempt
to force
it at
the
risk
of
driving
the
obstinate
monarch
out of his
mind
again.
The
Act
of
Union
thus
came
How
Ireland
Nearly
Became
the First
Dominion
117
to
be
associated
in
Irish
minds with
a
British breach
of faith
such
as
neither
Wales
nor
Scotland
ever
experienced.
The French Revolution
had
undone
what
the
American Revolution had
previously
done
for
Ireland.
CHAPTER VIII
The
Establishment
of
the
British
Empire
in
India
THE BRITISH
EMPIRE
gained
immeasurably by
the
long
war
against
Revolutionary
France and
Napoleon,
when
it
reaped
a
harvest
of
colonies
from France
and
her satellites.
It
was
then too
that
the
Brit-
ish
Empire
was
definitely
established
in
India,
but
this was not
part
of
that
harvest.
The British
conquest
of
India had
begun
before
the
Revolution.
The
French
had
already
lost
their
chance of
winning
an
empire
there,
and
what
the British won
in
that
ancient
land,
they
took
neither from
Europeans
nor
from
the
people
of
India.
Nor did either
the British
government
or the
directors of
the
East
India
Company
seek
an
empire
there.
They
actually
sought
to avoid
it.
Against
their
will
it
was
conquered
for
them
by
native Indian
troops, sepoys,
under
British
officers*/:
It was
a
strange process
that
becomes
intelligible only
when
we
look
at
conditions
in
India,
which was
a
world
apart.
Ever
since their
first
conquests
in the eleventh
century,
Moham-
medans
had ruled
India,
though
they
were
only
a
small
minority
of the
population.
The
Hindus,
the
great
majority,
were
easily
subjugated
because
they
had no
unity.
There were
greater
differences
between
them
than
between
the
peoples
of
Europe.
They
spoke
a
Babel
of
tongues;
they
were divided into
many
races;
they
belonged
to
different
stages
of
civilization,
from the
highly
cultivated to
the
most
primitive;
and
they
were
split
into
a
multitude
of
hereditary
castes.
As
invasion
after
invasion
swept
down over them
from the
Afghan passes,
there
was
a
dreary
succession of
bloody
wars
between the
conquerors,
em-
pires
rose
and
fell,
and
smaller states
appeared
and
disappeared.
Never
was
the land united
politically.
The
nearest it
came to
that
was
when
the
Mogul
Empire
was at its
height*
which was
a
generation
before
the
120
CHAPTER
EIGHT:
first
English colony
was
planted
in
America.
From
his
splendid
court
at
Delhi,
the
emperor
ruled,
an
oriental
despot,
over
most of
India
except
the
south. A
hundred
years
afterward his
successor tried to
conquer
the
south,
but in
doing
so
he
overreached
himself
and
wrecked
his
empire.
India
disintegrated
into
a
mass of
warring
states,
and
anarchy
was
rampant.
Then the first
Hindu
power
to arise
for
many
centuries
appeared
in the
west.
This was
the
confederacy
of
Mahratta
tribes,
whose
fierce horsemen subdued much of
central India
and
threatened to dominate
the
whole
country.
In
the middle of
the
eight-
eenth
century
it
looked
as if
they
might
create
a new
empire
until a
new
horde
of
invaders from
Afghanistan
smashed
the Mahratta
host
in
the
mighty
battle of
Panipat
near Delhi in 176 1.
Instead
of
gather-
ing
up
the
heritage
of
the
Moguls,
the victors
gathered
up
their
loot
and withdrew to their
home across the
mountains,
leaving
India
in
worse
chaos.
Compared
with
these titanic
struggles,
the
fighting
between
Euro-
pean
trading
companies
at
a
few
points
around the
coast
was
petty
squabbling,
but
the
outcome
of these
greater
struggles
was
that
it
cleared the
way
for the
winning
trading company
to
establish a
Euro-
pean empire
in
India. The
Portuguese,
Dutch,
French,
and
British
all
had
trading
stations,
but
already
the
last
two stood
out
as
the
great
rivals. Both
had found
it
necessary,
in
the
disordered state
of
the
country,
to
protect
themselves
by
organizing
small
bodies
of
native
troops
and
by
gaining
influence over the
native
states
adjacent
to
their
stations. The
French
began
this
game
of
native
politics,
but
the
British
won
it.
In
the
very
year
of
Panipat,
they
chased
the
French
from
India.
By
the
Peace
of
Paris in
1763,
the British
restored the
French
posts
on
the
condition that
they
were never
to be
fortified;
and
every
subsequent
war
between
Britain
and
France has
seen the
conquest
and
restoration
of the
latter's
little
bits of
territory
on the
coast of
India.
At
the
close of
the
Seven
Years'
War,
the
English
East
India
Com-
pany,
a
private
trading
concern,
possessed
more
than
its main
"facto-
ries"
of
Bombay,
Madras,
and
Calcutta. In
self-defense
against
the
French
company
and native
princes
who
aided
the
French,
it
had
acquired
a
shadowy
political
control over
the
Carnatic,
which
lay
around
Madras,
a firmer
hand on the
native
ruler
of
the
Circars,
a
coastal
strip
farther
north,
and
complete
power
over
the
nawab
of
Bengal^,
Immediately
afterward the
nawab of
neighboring
Oudh,
accompanied by
the
refugee
Mogul
emperor,
invaded
Bengal
and met
crushing
defeat,
which
delivered
Oudh and
the
emperor
to
the
Com-
The
Establishment
of
the
British
Empire
in
India 1
2 1
pany.
Thereupon,
in
1765,
the
Company
took the homeless
emperor
under
its
protection,
established
him
at Allahabad in
territory
severed
from
Oudh
for
this
purpose,
and
promised
this
penniless
potentate
an
annual
tribute of
260,000
out
of the
taxes to be
collected
in
Bengal;
while
he,
the
only
shadow
of
legitimate
authority,
formally
invested
the
Company
with the
right
to
collect
this
revenue. The
Company
also
restored
the nawab
of
Oudh,
with
whom
it
formed
an alliance
that
lasted
for
nearly
a
century.
But the
Company
was soon
threatened
with
the loss
of
all
that
it
had
just
gained.
Though
the
taxes
wrung
from the
people
of
Bengal,
thus
burdened
by
the
tribute
to the
Mogul,
were
all
really
needed
to
provide
for
the
government
of
Bengal,
greedy eyes
in
England
saw
an enormous
surplus flowing
into the
coffers
of
the
Company.
This
golden
vision
inspired
the
shareholders to
insist
on
an increase
of
their
dividends.
It so
tempted
the
Chancellor of the
Exchequer,
Charles
Townshend
of
evil
American
fame,
that
in
1767 he
procured
an
act
of
parliament
exacting
from
the
Company
an
annual
payment
of
400,000
to
the
British
Treasury.
This was the
first interference
of
parliament
in the
affairs
of
India,
and it was
nothing
less
than
a demand
for
a
share of
the
plunder.
It
was
not
long
before the
Company
found
that
it was
worse
off,
instead
of
better
off.
The
tax
income in
Bengal
shrank under
the native
administration to which the
Company
left
this
business. In
a
desperate
effort
to retrieve the
situation,
the
Company
in 1769
ap-
pointed
English
district
supervisors
over
the
zemindars,
the
hereditary
officials
who
gathered
the land revenues.
These
appointments
were the
origin
of
the office
of
collector,
which
in
later
generations
grew
to
great
importance,
and the
first
direct
English
interference
with
local
admini-
stration
in India. The result
was
disappointing.
The
golden
eggs
were
not
forthcoming;
and
on
top
of
financial
pressure
from
England,
which
would
have killed
the
goose,
came hot
attacks from
native
states,
which
nearly
cooked
it
alive.
Down
in the
south the
Nizam
of
Hyderabad,
who had
deserted
the
French
for the
English,
dragged
the
Company's governor
and
council
of
Madras
into
a disastrous
war
against
his
powerful
foe,
Hyder
Ali,
who had
usurped
the throne
of
Mysore.
Up
in
the
north,
the
Mah-
rattas,
having
recovered
much
of their
strength,
were
again
on
the
rampage.
They
seized
Delhi,
persuaded
the
Mogul
to
return
there,
made
him their
puppet,
and
used
him to order
the
payment
of the
Bengal
tribute to
them
and to demand
the
surrender of
Allahabad to
them
also. At
the
same time
they
threatened
to
gobble up
Rohilcund,
122
CHAPTER EIGHT:
the
northwestern
neighbor
of
Oudh
which
they
also
menaced
from
the
south;
the
Rohillas
sought
aid
from
Oudh,
which
was
obviously
next
on
the
list;
and Oudh
turned
to
the
Company
in
Bengal,
which
stood
ready
to
honor its
alliance.
In
1772,
when
the
dreaded
Mahratta
attack
still
hung
fire,
the
Company
was
facing
ruin.
The
war
with
Hyder
Ali had
so
exhausted its
finances
that,
instead
of
meeting
its
payment
to
the
British
government,
it
had to borrow
1,000,000
from
that
government
to
avoid
bankruptcy.
The
British were
facing
a
great
crisis
in India
as
well
as in
America.
But while
they
were
losing
an
empire
in
America,
one
man saved
the
East
India
Company
and solidified its small
beginning
of
the
British
Empire
in
India.
He was
Warren
Hastings,
an
old servant
of
the
Com-
pany,
who
landed in
Bengal
as
governor
in
1772, His
first
task
was
to
introduce order and
justice
into
the
government
of
that
native
state,
a
typical
oriental
despotism
that
was
crumbling
to
pieces
because
power
had
passed
from the native
despot
to
the
English
Company
and
the
latter
had
recoiled
from the
responsibility
of
exercising
it.
Native
tradition favored the worst
corruption,
which
the
Company
had
done
nothing
to check and
many
of
its
irresponsible
servants had
done
much
to
preserve
for their
own
private
advantage.
Hastings
radically
re-
formed
the
tax
system,
curbing
the abuses and
the
profits
of
the
zemindars,
primarily
to increase the
revenue but
also
with
an
eye
to
prevent
oppression
of
the
poor
peasants.
He
established an
efficient
administration of
justice
with
entirely
new
courts manned
by
British
magistrates,
for whose
guidance
he
had
learned
Hindus
and
Moslems
prepare
manuals
of their
respective
laws.
Though
Hastings'
work
was
far from
perfect,
within
two
years
of his arrival in
Calcutta
he had
given Bengal
a
government
vastly
superior
to that
of
any
other
state
in India.
For
the
next
two
years
Hastings'
intelligent
reforming
zeal was
balked
by
the
unintelligent
reforming
zeal
of others.
Tales of
real
and
imaginary
iniquities
of the
Company
had
wrought
a
change
of heart
in
the
British
government
toward
India. Lord
North's
Regulating
Act
of 1773
was
the
second
interference of
parliament
in
the
affairs
of this
unhappy
land,
and there
was little
good
in this
measure
except
its
intention.
By
this
act,
1
the
Company
had
to
submit
to
the
British
gov-
ernment
all
dispatches
dealing
with
political
matters;
the
governor
of
1
Another
act
of
the
same time
suspended
the
400,000
annual
tribute to
the
British
government.
The
Establishment
of
the
British
Empire
in
India
123
Bengal
became
governor
general
with
authority
over
the
presidencies
of
Madras
and
Bombay,
and he
could do
nothing
without
the consent
of
a council
of
five,
including
himself.
Three members of this
new
and
powerful
council
had no
Indian
experience,
and from
their
arrival
in
1774
they
set
out to tie
his
hands
and undo
his
work.
Two
years
later
one
of them
died
and
Hastings
recovered
his
authority
by
means
of
his
casting
vote.
This was
fortunate,
for
the
hostility
of the
great
native
powers
was
growing
and
war
with them was liable
to
break
out
at
any
time.
Hastings
neither
sought
nor
made
a
single
conquest;
2
but from
1779,
when the
Nizam of
Hyderabad
engineered
a
confederacy
with
the
Mahrattas and with
Hyder
Ali of
Mysore,
he
had
to
fight
a terrific
war for five
years.
As
the
American
war
precluded
any possibility
of
his
getting
aid from
England,
he
had
to
rely
wholly
upon
the resources
of
the
Company
in
India,
including
its
single
ally
Oudh;
and the odds
against
him were tremendous.
It was
only
the
strength given
by
his
earlier
work
that
made resistance
possible,
and
it was
only
his
superb
leadership
that
pulled
the
Company
through
the
fiery
ordeal
without
any
loss.
But if British rule in
India
was still
confined
to
Bengal
and
the factories of Madras and
Bombay,
it had
gained
enormously
in
prestige,
not
only
in its
own
territory
but also
among
the native
princes
and
their
peoples.
The
reward meted out to the
man
who thus rescued British
rule in
India
from
corruption
and then saved
it from
military
destruction is
the
greatest
personal tragedy
in the
history
of
the
empire. Philip
Francis,
the
chief
of
the hostile triumvirate that had dominated
the
council,
was
a clever snake in the
grass.
He was determined to ruin
Warren
Hastings
and
was most
ambitious to become
governor
general
himself.
During
the
war
he returned to
England,
and there he
spread
his
venom,
persuading
Burke
and Fox
and most of the other
Whigs
that
Hastings
was a
poisonous
monster.
They
demanded
his
recall
but
the
Company
refused
it.
Then,
in
1783,
they
introduced
into
parlia-
ment
a bill
that
would
have forced
it. This was
a substitute
for
North's
Regulating
Act,
which had
become
recognized
as
impossible;
but
the
measure
proposed
by
the
Whigs
was
in some
respects
worse,
and
the
only thing
that
prevented
its
passage
was
an
unconstitutional
action
of
the
king,
who
privately
intimidated
the House
of
Lords
into
rejecting
the bill.
2
Except
the
French
posts
which
he
promptly
seized
when
France
declared war and
which the
British
restored
on
the
return
of
peace.
124
CHAPTER
EIGHT:
In
the
following
year,
1784,
Pitt
passed
an India
Act
that
provided
the main
framework of
British
government
in
India
during
the
next
three
quarters
of
a
century
until
the
Company
ceased
to
exist.
This
act
made the British
government
responsible
for
the
direction
of
Indian
policy.
It created
a
Board
of
Control,
a branch
of
this
government,
whose
function
was
to control
the
political,
military,
and
financial
affairs of the
Company;
and
it
greatly
enlarged
the
powers
of
the
governor
general
and his
council
who,
with
the
presidents
of
Madras
and
Bombay
and
the members
of
their
councils,
were all
to
be
ap-
pointed
and removable
by
the
Crown.
The act
also
prescribed
two
doctrines
that
emanated
from
Francis and
were to
cause
much mis-
chief.
One
was
that
there should be
no
mingling
in
native
politics,
no
treaty
relations with
native
princes.
The
other
was
that
the
zemindars
should
be
accepted
as the
owners of
the
land
from
which
they
and
their
forbears
for
many generations
had
gathered
the income.
The
tide
of
opinion
in
England
was
rising
so
high
against
Hastings,
even
in
government
circles,
that
Pitt
was
about
to recall
him
when
the
governor general, realizing
that his
day
in
India
was
done,
resigned
and
returned
home. He
was
impeached
by
the
House of
Commons,
and his trial
by
the House of
Lords,
which
began
in
1788,
dragged
on
for seven
long
years.
No
one could
impugn
his
private
life,
for
it
was
above
reproach;
but
in
his
public capacity
he
had
done
many
things
that,
to
people
unfamiliar
with the
facts
of life in
India,
could
be
made
to
appear
as
heinous
crimes
by
the heated
imagination
and
withering
invective of such
powerful
orators
as Burke and
Fox and
Sheridan,
to
say
nothing
of the
many
others who hurled
torrents of abuse
at
him.
In
the end
he
was
acquitted
of
every
charge.
Even
though
he
left
the
bar with
his
reputation
cleared,
he was ruined in
fortune,
all
of
it
having
been
swallowed
up
by
the
costs
of the defense.
This
most
pro-
tracted
and
famous
of
all
impeachments
was
a
shameful
business,
yet
not
entirely.
There was
a
noble motive behind
the vindictive
prosecu-
tion of this
great
man.
It
was
a
high
resolve
to
preserve
the
name
of
Britain
from
being
contaminated
by
deeds
of
injustice
or
oppression
in
the
government
of
subject peoples.
This trial
marked
the
vigorous
awakening
in the
British
public
of a sense of
imperial
responsibility
to
match
imperial
power.
It was an
object
lesson
for
all time
that
even
the
greatest
Briton
would
be
held
strictly
to account for
the
way
he
exercised
British
authority
in
any
land,
however distant.
Meanwhile Lord
Cornwallis,
whom
Pitt
picked
in
1786
as the
suc-
cessor
of
Hastings
in
India,
had
there
won much
more
honor
than he