Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

from whom the half yearly payments are to be received by the treasurer; and should a cadet leave the college before the expiration of any half year, he will be accounted with for the six months in advance.

Each cadet to come provided with seven shirts, seven pocket handkerchiefs, seven pair of short stockings, five towels, three nightcaps, two black velvet stocks, four pair of drawers two pair of shoes, a looking glass, a prayer book, a large comb, a small-tooth comb, a comb-brush, a clothesbrush, a tooth-brush, and Paley's Evidence of Christianity, two volumes; all deficiencies in which are to be made good at his charge, at the yearly vacation.

No cadet is to join the junior department, with a greater sum of money in his possession than one guinea, and this regulation is considered to be so indispensable that any deviations therefrom will subject the cadet to be sent away from college. The parents may, however, if they think proper, make an arrangement for the cadets receiving an allowance not exceeding half-a-crown a week for pocket money. All repairs of clothing, linen, shoes, and other articles, belonging to the cadets, will be made at the expence of the college.

No perquisites or presents of any kind, are allowed to be received by masters, or any other persons, from the cadets.

As a certain number of cadets for the royal military college, in that class for which the sum of 90 guineas each, per annum, is to be paid, are to be remunerated by the East India Company, the court of directors of the said Company have agreed, that one half of such expence, or 45 guineas per annum, for each cadet, and no more, shall be paid by the Company, on an engagement in writing being entered into, by the friends or parents of the cadet being responsible persons, on his appointment to the college, to refund the amount of the Company's expences on his account, provided he shall enter into any other service or line whatsoever, after his being received into the college; or if he shall not proceed to India, in the Company's military service, on receiving an appointment for that purpose.

The above-mentioned annual payment of 90 guineas to be regulated in the following manner, viz.

The friends or parents, of the cadet, to advance, to the army agent, to be named by him, the first half-yearly payment of forty four guineas; and the Company to advance the second half-yearly payment, in like manner, and the subsequent half yearly payments to be made alternately, by the friends of the cadet, and the Company, during the time he shall continue at college.

Oriental College, Hertford.

Of the institution of this seminary, which our readers will see announced in our report of the proceeding at the India House, we cannot, in this volume, give any account, as we have not yet been

furnished with the official documents requisite for that purpose; but in our next Register we shall lay before the public the whole detail of its plan and internal regula tions.

(1)

STATE PAPERS

FOR 1804.

[The following important Documents, exhibit, in a connected Series, the whole Substance of the official Information, relative to the Causes of the War in 1803, between the British Government and the confederated Mahratta Chiefs, Dowlut Rao Scindia, and the Rajah of Berar.]

FROM THE GOVERNOR GENERAL

TO

THE SECRET COMMITTEE:

Dated 24th December 1802; with Inclosures (A) to (F).
Received overland, 9th May, 1803.

Fo the Honourable the Secret Committee of the Honourable the Court of Directors, &c. &c. &c. HONOURABLE SIRS,

YOU

OUR Honourable Committee will receive by the ships which remain to be dispatched to England from Bengal, in the course of the present season, a detailed narrative of the events and transactions in the Mahratta empire, which have terminated in a crisis of affairs among the Mahratta powers, highly interesting to the political relations of the British power in India. The same conveyance will furnish you with a detail of the negotiations conducted by the resident at Poona under my authority, with a view to the accomplishment of the important object of comprehending

* See an Account of this interesting gister, Account of Books, page 21, VOL. 6.

the Mahratta states in the general system of defensive alliance with the Honourable Company and its allies, on the basis of the Treaty concluded with his Highness the Nizam in the month of October 1800. Your Honourable Com mittee will also receive, by the same channel, every document relative to the system of measures which I have deemed it necessary to adopt for the security and promotion of the British interests, in the present crisis of the affairs of the Mahratta empire.

2. I am anxious, however, to submit to your Honourable Committee, at the earliest practicable period of time, a summary view of these important occurrences, of the principles by which I have been governed in the course of policy which I have pusued; and

narrative in the fifth volume of our ReI A

of

of my expectations with regard to the final result of the actual crisis of affairs in India.

3. The annexed copy of the Instructions of the Governor General in Council to the Resident at Poona, under date the 23d June 1802, contains a review of the conduct and disposition of the state of Poona towards the British government, since the commencement of my administration, down to that period of time.

4. Under those instructions, the Resident at Poona renewed the negotiations for the conclusion of an improved system of alliance with that court. The increased distractions in the Mahratta state, the rebellion of Jeswunt Rao Holkar, (illegitimate son of the late Trickogee Holkar,) and the successors of Jeswunt Rao, against the combined forces of the Peishwa and Scindia, appeared to constitute a crisis of affairs favourable to the success of our negotiations at Poona.

5. In the course of the discussions which ensued between the Resident and the court of Poona, the Peishwa manifested a solicitude to contract defensive engagements with the Honourable Company, under circumstances of more apparent sincerity than had marked his conduct on any former occasion. The Feishwa, however, continued to withhold his consent to any admissible modifications of the Governor General's propositions, until Jeswunt Rao Holkar, at the head of a formidable army, actually arrived in the vicinity of Poona. The superiority of Jeswunt RaoHolkar's troops in number and discipline to those of the Peishwa and Dowlut Rao Scindia, rendered the issue of any contest nearly certain. The Peishwa, however,

anticipated equal difficulty and hazard, and equal disgrace to his authority, in the success of either party; nor was the menaced usurpation of Jeswunt Rao Holkar more formidable to the Peishwa than the alternative of the revival and confirmation of the ascendancy of Scindia, whose troops composed the greater proportion of the army destined to oppose the progress of Jeswunt Rao Holkar.

6. Under these circumstances the Peishwa, on the 11th of October, dispatched his principal minister to the British Resident, charged with definitive proposals for the conclusion of defensive and subsidiary engagements with the British government. Those proposals are detailed in the annexed memorial marked (B). During the discussion which ensued on the basis of those propositions, the evasive conduct of the Peishwa excited considerable doubts of his sincerity, even at that stage of the negotiation; and on the 24th of October, when the army of Jeswunt Rao Holkar had arrived within a few miles of Poona, the Peishwa dispatched a deputation to that chieftain, with distinct proposals for an accommodation, which Jeswunt Rao Holkar rejected. At the instance of the Peishwa Suddashee Bhow, the commander of the combined forces of the Peishwa and Scindia, had previously marched with the army under his command from Poona, and had occupied a position in the vicinity of Jeswunt Rao Holkar's camp. On the morning of the 25th, the two armies engaged; and the Peishwa, on the same day, with a view to be prepared for every event, moved from Poona at the head of his remaining troops, and, at the moment of

marching,

marching, sent his minister to the British Resident with a paper, of which a translation is annexed to this dispatch. The minister, Ragonaut Rao, offered to the Briish Resident the fullest assurances of the Peishwa's intention and meaning, that a general defensive alliance should be concluded and carried into effect, at the earliest practicable period of time, between his Highness and the Honourable Company, on the fundamental principles, and in conformity to the system of operation detailed in the memorial to which the 6th paragraph of this dispatch reíers.

7. In consequence of this transaction, the British,Resident judged it to be expedient to suggest to the Right Honourable the Governor of Fort St. George, and to the Honourable the Governor of Bombay, the necessity of preparing a body of troops, under the authority of those Presidencies respectively, for the eventual support of the Peishwa's government, and for the protection of his person. The Resident at Poona transmitted a similar application to the Resident at Hydrabad, for the eventual services of a considerable detachment from the subsidiary force stationed with his Highness the Nizam.

8. The engagement between the combined army of the Peshwa and Scindia, and that commanded by Jeswunt Rao Holkar, terminated in the total defeat of the combined army with great loss. At the close of the action the Peishwa retired with a small body of cavalry to a fortress in the vicinity of Poona, whence he prosecuted his march towards the Concan. The city of Poona remained in charge of an officer

in the service of the Peishwa, while Jeswunt Holkar continued to occupy a camp at the distance of four miles from Poona. The primary object of Jeswunt Rao Holkar was to obtain possession of the Peishwa's person, and to com pel his Highness to establish such an administration, as might secure Jeswunt Rao Holkar's ascendancy in the state to the exclusion of Dowlut Rao Scindia's influence. If this plan should fail, the next project of Jeswunt Rao Holkar was to invite to Poona, Amrut Rao (son of the late Ragonaut Rao, or Ragoobah) to place the son of Amrut Rao on the Musnud, and to invest Amrut Rao himself with the office of prime minister, while Jeswunt Rao Holkar should assume the general command of the troops of the state.

9. This crisis of affairs appear ed to me to afford the most fa vourable opportunity for the complete establishment of the interests of the British power in the Mahratta empire, without the hazard of involving us in a contest with any party. The power of Jeswunt Rao Holkar possessed no solid foundation in the justice of his cause, in popular opinion, or in the extent of political or military. resource. It could not be doubted that Scindia would employ every effort to retrieve the disgrace, and to avert the danger, of his defeat. The continuation of the contest between those chieftains would probably weaken the power, and impair the resources, of both; and would afford to the British government an opportunity of interposing its influence and mediation for the restoration of the Peishwa's just authority,under terms calculated to secure our relutions with the Mahratta empire

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »