Various
Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846
It is, however, a curious instance of personal zeal, to find the biographer applauding as the sentiments of his hero, the opinions which he deprecates as the policy of England; and admitting that the war was wise, righteous, and inevitable; that it raised the name of England to the highest rank: and that it preserved us from "the pest of a godless, levelling democracy."
It has been the habit of writers like the present, to conceive that the French Revolution was hailed with general joy by England. Even before the death of the king, the contrary is the fact: the rabble, the factions, and the more bustling and bitter portion of the sectaries, unquestionably exulted in the popular insurrection, and the general weakening of the monarchy. But all the genuinely religious portion of the people, all the honest and high-minded, all the travelled and well-informed, adopted a just conception of the whole event from the beginning. The religious pronounced it atheistic, the honest illegal, and the travelled as the mere furious outburst of a populace mad for plunder and incapable of freedom. But the death of the king excited a unanimous burst of horror; and there never was a public act received with more universal approbation than the dismissal of the French ambassador, M. Chauvelin, by a royal order to quit the country within eight days. The note was officially sent by Lord Grenville, but was stamped with the energy of Pitt. It was as follows: —
"I am charged to notify to you, sir, that the character with which you have been vested at this court, and the functions of which have been so long suspended, being now utterly terminated by the fatal death of his most Christian Majesty, you have no more any public character here, the King can no longer, after such an event, permit your residence here; his Majesty has thought fit to order that you should retire from this kingdom within the term of eight days. And I herewith transmit to you a copy of the order, which his Majesty, in his Privy Council, has given to this effect. I send you a passport for yourself and your suite, and I shall not fail to take all the necessary steps, in order that you may return to France with all the attentions which are due to the character of minister-plenipotentiary, which you have exercised at this court. I have the honour to be, &c.
"Grenville.
"Dated Whitehall, Jan. 4, 1793."
On the opening of Parliament, in January 1794, a debate of great importance commenced on the policy of the war. On this occasion, Lord Mornington and Sheridan took the lead in the debate, and both made speeches of great effect. Lord Mornington's speech was published under his own inspection immediately after, and it still remains among the most striking records of the republican opinions, and the mingled follies and blasphemies of a populace suddenly affecting the powers of a legislature. Every thing in France, at this period, was robbery; but even the robbery exhibited the national taste for "sentiment." Their confiscation of property was pronounced to be, "not for the sake of its possession," but for their abhorrence of the precious metals. Lord Mornington, in the course of his speech, read extracts of a letter from Fouché, afterwards so well known as the minister of imperial police, but then commissioner in the central and western departments. In this sublime display of hypocrisy, Fouché pronounces gold and silver to have been the causes of all the calamities of the republic. "I know not," says he, "by what weak compliance those metals are suffered to remain in the hands of suspected persons. Let us degrade and vilify gold and silver, let us fling those deities of monarchy in the dirt, and establish the worship of the austere virtues of the republic," adding, by way of exemplification of his virtuous abhorrence, "I send you seventeen chests filled with gold, silver, and plate of all sorts, the spoil of churches and castles. You will see with peculiar pleasure, two beautiful crosiers and a ducal coronet of silver, gilt." But the portion of his speech which attracted, and justly, the deepest attention, was that in which he gave the proofs of the dreadful spirit of infidelity, so long fostered in the bosom of the Gallican church. An address, dated 30th of October, from the Rector of Villos de Luchon, thus expatiates in blasphemy: – "For my part, I believe that no religion in any country in the world is founded on truth. I believe that all the various religions in the world are descended from the same parents, and are the daughters of pride and ignorance." This worthy ecclesiastic finished by declaring, that thenceforth "he would preach in no other cause than that of liberty and his country." The Convention decreed, that this and all similar addresses of renunciation should be lodged with the Committee of Public instruction, evidently as materials for training the rising generation. A motion then followed, that all those renunciations of religion should be "translated into the languages of all foreign countries."
Then followed a scene, which gave reality to all those hideous declarations. The Archbishop of Paris entered the hall of the Convention, accompanied by a formal procession of his vicars, and several of the rectors of the city parishes. He there addressed the Assembly in a speech, in which he renounced the priesthood in his own name, and that of all who accompanied him, declaring that he acted thus in consequence of his conviction, that no national worship should be tolerated except the worship of Liberty and Equality! The records of the Convention state, that the archbishop and his rectors were received with universal transport, and that the archbishop was solemnly presented with a red cap, the day concluding with the worthy sequel, the declaration of one Julien, who told the Assembly that he had been a Protestant minister of Toulouse for twenty years, and that he then renounced his functions for ever. "It is glorious," said this apostate, "to make this declaration, under the auspices of reason, philosophy, and that sublime constitution which has already overturned the errors of superstition and monarchy in France, and which now prepares a similar fate for all foreign tyrannies. I declare that I will no longer enter into any other temple than the sanctuary of the laws. Thus I will acknowledge no other God than liberty, no other worship than that of my country, no other gospel than the republican constitution."
Then followed a succession of addresses and letters from the various commissioners in the departments, blaspheming in the same atrocious strain. The municipality of Paris, which was one of the chief governing powers, if not the actual ruler of France, followed this declamation by an order, that all the churches should be shut, let their denomination of worship be what it might, and that any attempt to reopen one should be punished by arrest. The decree was put into immediate effect. The church of Notre Dame and all the other churches of the capital were closed. The popular measures were now carried on in a kind of rivalry of destruction. The "Section of the Museum," a portion of the populace, announced that they had done execution on all Prayer-books, and burnt the Old and New Testaments. The Council-General of Paris decreed that a civic feast should be held in the cathedral of Notre Dame, and that a patriotic hymn should be chanted before the statue of liberty. The Goddess of Reason was personated by a Madame Momarro, a handsome woman of profligate character, who was introduced into the hall of the Convention, received with "the fraternal embrace" by the president and secretaries, and was then installed by the whole legislature in the cathedral, which was called the "Regenerated Temple of Reason." In this monstrous profanation, the apostate archbishop officiated as the high priest of Reason, with a red cap on his head, and a pike in his hand; with this weapon he struck down some of the old religious emblems of the church, and finished his performance by placing a bust of Marat on the altar. A colossal statue was then ordered to be placed "on the ruins of monarchy and religion."
This desperate profanation was emulated in the provinces. Fouché, in Lyons, ordered a civic festival in honour of one Chalier. An ass, with a mitre on its head, and dragging a Bible at its tail, formed a characteristic portion of the ceremony; the Bible was finally burnt, and its ashes scattered to the winds.
"Thus Christianity," said the noble speaker, "was stigmatized, through the president of the Convention, amid the applauses of the whole audience, as a system of murder and massacre, incapable of being tolerated by the humanity of a republican government. The Old and New Testaments were publicly burnt, as prohibited books. Nor was it to Christianity that their hatred was confined; the Jews were involved in this comprehensive plan. Their ornaments of public worship were plundered, and their vows of irreligion were recorded with enthusiasm. The existence of a future state was openly denied, and modes of burial were devised, for the express purpose of representing to the popular mind, that death was nothing more than an everlasting sleep; and, to complete the whole project, doctrines were circulated under the eye of the government, declaring that 'the existence of a Supreme God was an idea inconsistent with the liberty of man.'"
In England, we are verging on democracy from year to year. We have begun by unhinging the national respect for the religion of the Scriptures, in our zeal to introduce the religion of the Council of Trent into the constitution. The malecontents in the Established Church are contributing their efforts to bring Protestantism into contempt, by their adoption of every error and every absurdity of the Papist. The bolder portion of these malecontents have already apostatized. The Church once shaken, every great and salutary support of the constitution will follow, and we shall have a government impelled solely by faction. When that time arrives, the minister will be the mere tool of the multitude; the faction in the streets will have its mouthpiece in the faction of the legislature. Property will be at the mercy of the idle, the desperate, and the rapacious – Law will be a dead letter – Religion a mockery – Right superseded by violence – and the only title to possession will be the ruffian heart and the sanguinary hand.
We are perfectly aware, that a large portion of the country cannot be persuaded that it is necessary for them to disturb their own comfort, quiet, and apathy, for any possible reason – that they believe all change to be of too little moment to demand any resistance on their part; and that, at all events, they trust that the world will go on smoothly for their time, whatever may be the consequence of their scandalous and contemptible apathy hereafter. But, such thinkers do not deserve to have a country, nor to be protected, nor to be regarded as any thing but as the cumberers of the earth. On such men no power of persuasion can act; for no argument would convince. They wrap themselves up in their snug incredulity, leave it to others to fight for them, and will not hazard a shilling, nor give a thought, for the salvation of their country! Yet even they are no more secure than the rest. The noble, the priest, and the man of landed wealth, are not those alone on whom the heavy hand of rabble robbery will fall. We give them, on this head, a fragment from the report of the well-known Barrère, from the "Committee of Public Welfare," constituting, in fact, the rule of conduct to the Republic. It begins by declaring the "necessity of abandoning the idea of mercy in republican government." It pronounces the necessity of the law to act, for the "arrest of suspected persons." It declares every "remnant of the gentry of France to be an object of suspicion." It declares the "business of bankers to render them objects of suspicion." It declares "their reluctance to receive assignats, and their sordid attachment to their own interests," to make all merchants objects of suspicion. It declares "all the relatives of emigrants" to be objects of suspicion. It declares "all the clergy who have refused the constitutional oath, and all the former magistracy," to be objects of suspicion. All those classes of society are to be sentenced at once, "without being heard." Let us strike at once, says this desperate document, "without trial and without mercy. Let us banish all compassion from our bosoms. Oh! what innumerable mischiefs may be produced by a false sentiment of pity?"
This decree, which made every man a victim who had any thing to lose, instantly crowded the French prisons with the merchants, the bankers, and the whole monied class in France. Those who could be plundered no longer, were sent to execution. In Paris alone, within six months, a thousand persons of the various professions had been murdered by the guillotine. During the three years of the democracy, no less than eighteen thousand individuals, chiefly of the middle order, perished by the guillotine.
This frightful catalogue closed with a remark on the belligerent propensities which such a state of society must produce. "It must be the immediate interest of a government, founded on principles wholly contradictory to the received maxims of all surrounding nations, to propagate the doctrines abroad by which it subsists at home; to assimilate every neighbouring state to its own system; and to subvert every constitution which even forms an advantageous contrast to its own absurdities. Such a government must, from its nature, be hostile to all governments of whatever form; but, above all, to those which are most strongly contrasted with its own vicious structure, and which afford to their subjects the best security for the maintenance of order, liberty, justice, and religion."
Sheridan made a speech, of great beauty and animation, in reply. But his whole argument consisted in the sophism, that the French had been rendered savage by the long sense of oppression, and that the blame of their atrocities, (which he fully admitted,) should be visited on the monarchy, not on the people.
Lord Mornington's was acknowledged to be the ablest speech on the ministerial side; and though eclipsed by the richness and power of Sheridan – and what speaker in the records of English eloquence ever excelled him in either? – it yet maintained a distinguished superiority in the force of its reasoning, and the fulness of its statements. Sheridan, in his peroration, had thrown out some bitter pleasantries on the ministerial favours, whose prospect he regarded as the only motive of those abandonments which had left the Whig party suddenly so feeble. "Is this a time," exclaimed the orator, "for selfish intrigues and the little traffic of lucre? Is it intended to confirm the pernicious doctrine, that all public men are impostors, and that every politician has his price? Nay, even for those who have no direct object, what is the language which their actions speak? 'The throne is in danger' – 'we will support the throne; but let us share the smiles of royalty.' 'The order of nobility is in danger' – 'I will fight for nobility,' says the viscount. 'But my zeal would be much greater, if I were made an earl.' 'Rouse all the marquess within me!' exclaims the earl, 'and the peerage never turned out a more undaunted champion in the cause.' 'Stain my green riband blue,' cries out the gallant knight, 'and the fountain of honour will have a fast and faithful servant.' But, what are the people to think of our sincerity? What credit are they to give to our professions? It there nothing which whispers to that right honourable gentleman, that the crisis is too big, that the times are too gigantic, to be ruled by the hackneyed means of ordinary corruption?"
Wyndham pronounced, that the speech of the noble lord had recapitulated the conduct of France in a manner so true, so masterly, and so alarming, "as to fix the attention of the House and the nation." Pitt spoke in terms still more expressive. "The speech of my noble friend," said he, "has been styled declamatory; on what principle I know not, unless that every effort of eloquence, in which the most forcible reasoning was adorned and supported by all the powers of language, was to be branded with the epithet declamatory." This debate was decisive; two hundred and seventy-seven voted for the vigorous prosecution of the war: for Fox's amendment, only fifty-seven. We have now to follow the career of the noble lord to another quarter of the globe, where his presence was more essential, and where his capabilities had a still wider field.
The resignation of Sir John Shore had left the government of India vacant; and the conspicuous exertions of Lord Mornington in the late debates had placed him in a high position before the ministerial eye. He was now fixed on for the Governor-generalship. His connexion with Indian affairs as a member of the Board of Control, had given him official knowledge; his education had given him the accomplishment suited to diplomatic distinction; and his abilities, his ardour, and his time of life, rendered him the fittest man for the arduous government of India. The period demanded all the qualities of government. France was notoriously intriguing to enlist the native princes in a general attack on the British power; a large French force was already organized in the territories of the Nizam, and Tippoo Saib had drawn together an army with seventy guns in the Mysore. The Indian princes, always jealous of the British authority, which had checked their old savage depredations on each other, and had presented in its own dominions a noble contrast to the ravaged and wretched condition of their kingdoms were all preparing to join the alliance of the French; and the first shock of a war, now almost inevitable, would probably involve all India. At this period Lord Mornington, who had been raised to an English barony, was appointed governor-general in October 1797; and such was his promptitude that he sailed on the 7th of the month following. In the April of 1798, he arrived on the coast of Coromandel, and landed at Madras, accompanied by his brother, the Hon. Henry Wellesley, as private secretary, (now Lord Cowley.) On the 17th of May he arrived at Calcutta, where he found his brother, since so memorable, Colonel Arthur Wellesley, and Sir Alured Clarke, the commander-in-chief.
Lord Mornington had been sent to India in anticipation of French attempts on the British dominions, and there could be no doubt of the intentions of the French Directory. But the blow came sooner, and was more openly struck than an European public man could have surmised. It exhibited all that arrogant contempt of an enemy which once characterised Eastern supremacy; and would have been worthy of Gengis, proclaiming his sovereign will. It was a proclamation from the French governor of the Mauritius, on the 30th of June; announcing, without any attempt at disguise, that two ambassadors from Tippoo Sultaun had arrived there with letters for the governor, and despatches for the government of France; and that the object of the embassy was, to form an alliance, offensive and defensive, with France, and to demand a subsidiary force, for the purpose of expelling the English from India. The proclamation further invited all Frenchmen, in the isles of France and Bourbon, to volunteer for the sultaun's service, and promised to secure them pay under the protection of the Republic.
The daring insolence of this proclamation, and the palpable rashness of making the designs of Tippoo public, before any direct preparation for attack, were so unlike the usual forms of diplomacy, that the governor-general, in the first instance, was inclined to doubt its authenticity. But it awoke his vigilance, and he wrote without delay to General Harris, then commanding at Madras, and governor for the time, to be on his guard. "If Tippoo," said his letter, "should choose to avow the objects of his embassy to be such as are described in this proclamation, the consequences may be very serious, and may ultimately involve us in the calamity of war. I wish you to be apprised of my apprehensions on the subject, and to prepare your mind for the possible event. You will, therefore, turn your attention to the means of collecting a force, if necessity should unfortunately require it. But it is not my desire that you should proceed to take any public steps towards the assembling of the army, before you receive some further information from me."
The governor-general has been charged with precipitancy in making war on Tippoo. But the charge is refuted by dates. The French proclamation was dated 10th Pluviose, sixth year of the Republic, (30th January 1798.) Its truth or falsehood was carefully enquired into, until the evidence was completed by despatches from the British governors of the Cape and Bombay, the admiral at the Cape, the testimony of prisoners, and finally by the actual landing of a corps of French volunteers from the Mauritius. It was not till six months after the date of the proclamation, that the governor-general wrote thus (20th of June) to General Harris: – "I now take the earliest opportunity of acquainting you with my final determination. I mean to call upon the allies without delay, and to assemble the army upon the coast with all possible expedition. You will receive my public instructions in the course of a few days. Until you have received them, it will not be proper to take any public steps for the assembling of the army. But whatever can be done without a disclosure of the ultimate object, I authorize you to do immediately; intending to apprise you, by this letter, that it is my positive resolution to assemble the army upon the coast."
The Mysore dynasty was one of the natural productions of Indian sovereignty. They had each been founded by a successful soldier, had made conquests of prodigious extent, had devastated the land with frightful rapidity; and then, after a generation or two of opulent possession, had seen their provinces divided by rebellious viceroys; until some slave, bolder than the rest, sprang up, broke down the tottering viceroyalties, and seized the supreme throne. Hyder Ali, the father of Tippoo, had been a common trooper in the service of the Rajah of Mysore – by his intrepidity he became the captain of one of those bands, half soldier and half robber, which form the irregulars of an Asiatic army. By his address as a courtier, he rose into favour with the rajah, who gave him the command of his army. By the treachery which always surrounds and subverts an Asiatic throne, he finally took the sovereign power to himself. Disputes of the new rajah with the Company's agents produced a war, and the cavalry of this daring adventurer rode up to the gates of Madras. Peace was at length proclaimed, and Hyder acquired a vast reputation among the natives as the champion of India. In 1770, an invasion of the Mahrattas, a robber nation, but the most renowned of Indian plunderers, determined to crush the new power, and poured down upon Mysore. Hyder now applied for assistance to Madras; but the settlement had no assistance to give, and Hyder was forced to make a disadvantageous treaty. He now loudly protested against the failure of the English contingent, which he declared to have been the subject of a treaty, and resolved on revenge. The plunder of the merchants' stores at Madras was the more probable motive to his next desperate attack. The half military, half commercial government of the Company, at that period, paralyzed all measures of effective resistance; and while the garrison urged vigorous proceedings, and the inhabitants dreaded mercantile loss, the plains surrounding Madras were deluged by an invasion from the Mysore. Hyder ranged in line seventy thousand horse and twenty thousand regular infantry! with all the marauders of India in his train, and all the Indian sovereigns ready to rise. At Madras all was confusion. Some detachments of Europeans and Sepoys, scattered through the country, were surrounded, fought gallantly, and were cut to pieces. Warren Hastings, the most indefatigable of Indian governors, now came in person to the seat of war; but such was the feebleness of the British means, that he could bring with him but five hundred Europeans and five hundred Sepoys. But he brought the more effectual aid of an officer of decision and sagacity, the celebrated Sir Eyre Coote. This brave man, struggling with difficulties of every kind, was, in almost all instances, victorious, and the last hours of Hyder's daring career were embittered by defeat at Arriee. In a few months after, at the age of eighty-two, this great chieftain, but barbarous and bloody warrior, died; leaving his son Tippoo, who had commenced his warfare at eighteen, and had followed him in all his battles, the possessor of his throne.
Tippoo was the heir of his father's bravery, but not of his intelligence. Hyder had a mean opinion of his understanding, and evidently regarded him as little better than a royal tiger. "That boy," said he, "will overthrow all that it has cost me a life to raise, and will ruin himself."
The war continued, carried on by detachments on the part of the English, and by marauding expeditions on the part of Tippoo; time, life, and treasure were thus thrown away on both sides. But at length the news of peace between England and France reached India, and peace was concluded between the Company and the Mysore on the 11th of March 1784.
Some conception of the resources of India may be formed from the military means which the single state of Mysore was able to accumulate, under all the pressure of a long war. At the peace, the treasure of Tippoo was calculated at eighty millions sterling; he had six hundred thousand stand of arms, two thousand cannons, with a regular force of artillery, cavalry, and infantry, of little less than one hundred thousand men!
The history of the Mysore dynasty would form a brilliant poem; and, if India shall ever have a poet again, he could not choose a more varied, animating, and splendid theme. Tippoo, in peace, turned saint, and, following the example of his prophet, forced one hundred thousand Hindoos, at the sword's point, to swear by the Koran. We pass over the remaining features of his fierce history. Restless with ambition, and plethoric with power, in 1790 he invaded Travancore. The rajah called upon his English allies for protection. The war began by the appearance of Tippoo in the field at the head of another deluge of cavalry. But the genius of Hyder was in the tomb; and the English army, under Cornwallis, forced its way to the ramparts of Seringapatam. A peace stripped the Mysore of half its territory, of three millions and a half for the expenses of the war, and of the two sons of Tippoo as hostages. But the rajah constantly looked for revenge; and the successes of the French Republic urged him to a contest, in which every thing was to be lost to him but his daring name.
The first step of the governor-general exhibited singular decision, and was attended with singular success. The Nizam had raised a regular corps of eleven thousand men, disciplined by French officers. It was ascertained that those officers held a correspondence with Tippoo, and there was every probability of their either forcing the Nizam into his alliance, or of their marching to join him. A British force was now ordered to move towards the capital of the Nizam, without any intimation of its object or its approach. On its arrival, a distinct demand was made for the dismissal of the French. The Nizam hesitated; but the officer commanding the British declared, that if there was any further delay, he would attack the battalions in their camp. The Nizam then gave his consent, and the battalions were informed that hesitation would expose them to the penalties of treason. A negotiation then began, in the presence of the British troops and the Nizam's horse. The French officers were promised protection, the possession of their personal property, their arrears, and a passage to France; the battalions were promised pay and future employment. The terms were accepted, and the British officer had the satisfaction to see the eleven thousand lay down their arms! This event struck all India with surprise. The measure had been conducted so noiselessly, that the result was wholly unexpected. It gave a prodigious prestige to the character of the governor-general throughout the "golden peninsula."
The war began. The seizure of Egypt by Bonaparte had inflamed Tippoo with the hope of conquest; and, on the 13th of February 1799, he crossed his own frontier at the head of 12,000 horse, and attacked the Bombay force, of six thousand men, under General Stuart. He was repulsed after some charges, and recrossed his frontier. This battle occurred five days before General Harris's invasion of Mysore. But another eminent soldier was here to acquire his first distinction. Tippoo, manœuvring to prevent the junction of Generals Harris and Stuart, fell upon the British at the lines of Malavelly. "Colonel Arthur Wellesley" there commanded the 33d regiment, and the Nizam's force. A strong body of horse charged the 33d. The soldiers were ordered to reserve their fire till within pistol-shot; they then fired, and charged with the bayonet. A general charge of the British dragoons took place, and the Mysore troops were routed, with the loss of two thousand men.
On the 30th of April the breaching battery opened against Seringapatam. Terms had been offered to Tippoo, by which he was to cede half his territories, to pay two millions sterling, to renounce the French alliance, and to give up four of his sons, and four of his generals, as hostages. Those terms were merciful, for he was now reduced to his last extremity, and it was palpable that there could be no hope of peace while he retained the power of making war. His conduct, at this period, seems to have been the work of infatuation. It was said that he had some superstitious belief, that as the English had before retired from the walls, the city was destined never to be taken. It had provisions for a long defence, and a garrison of twenty-two thousand regular troops. But, by shutting himself up in the fortress, he transgressed one of the first rules of national war – that the monarch should never be compelled to stand a siege. Tippoo, in the field, might have escaped, to wait a change of fortune; but within walls he must conquer, or be undone.