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Home Great Britain and India, 1763-1823 1763-1823; Part 5 |
1763-1823; Part 5It may be convenient at this stage to proceed with the history of India during the forty years after Warren Hastings' retirement from India. Lord North's Regulating Act of 1773 had proved a failure. Consequently, just previously to the retirement of Warren Hastings, the younger Pitt passed, in 1784, an Act reorganizing the government of our possessions in India. The governor-general was given greater powers, and henceforth, subject to a Board of Control sitting in London, directed the politics and the diplomacy of our Indian Empire, In future the governor-general was, as a rule, a person of high birth and connections sent out from Great Britain; and as both the governor-general and the Board of Control were appointed by the king acting on the advice of his ministers, the British Government became directly responsible for our Indian policy. In the appointment of other officials, however, and in matters of trade the East India Company was left supreme, though the Government had to confirm the higher appointments.The first governor-general under the new system was the Marquis Cornwallis (1786-93), the defender of York Town. In his administration three points deserve notice. In the first place, by his own personal example and by his measures he still further purified the administration. Secondly, he made in Bengal a permanent settlement of the land revenue, by which the tax-collectors in that province - zemindars as they were called - were practically converted into landlords paying a fixed rent to the government, a policy the expediency of which has been much debated. Thirdly, though he left Great Britain with the intention of pursuing a peaceful policy, he found himself obliged to make war on Tippoo Sahib of Mysore. After a skilful campaign he was successful, and forced his adversary to make peace and to lose half his territories. After an interval, Richard Wellesley, better known as the Marquis Wellesley, the elder brother of the great soldier who eventually became Duke of Wellington, was made governor-general. A brilliant scholar at Eton, he obtained this office at the age of thirty-five. He found on his arrival in India, in 1798, a situation which required the exercise of all his abilities. French ambitions were reviving. French officers, by drilling and organizing the troops of native rulers, had not only improved those troops immensely but had obtained very great influence for themselves - one of them was deified after his death and is still worshipped in Southern India. Tippoo Sahib, who proved himself a hardworking ruler as well as a brave and resourceful soldier, had made an alliance with the French in order to realize his supreme object - the downfall of the British. Above all, three weeks after Wellesley reached Madras, Napoleon himself started on the Egyptian expedition, and, if successful, might have proceeded to India. |
Chronology |
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