Alexander John Arbuthnot

“ Lord Ellenborough had studied Indian questions as president of the board of control, and had formed an exaggerated view of the weakness and defects of the company's government. Arriving in India at a juncture when the Indian administration seemed stunned and paralysed by the loss of the greater portion of the army in Afghanistan, he found himself in hopeless discord with many a time-honoured institution and recognised principle of Indian administration. Sir George Arthur had before his appointment to Bombay won the confidence of Lord Ellenborough, which he never afterwards lost. ”

“ The stock of provisions had fallen very low some time before the siege was raised. When it became apparent that famine might compel the garrison to surrender, the sepoys offered to give up the grain to the Europeans, contenting themselves with the water in which the rice was boiled. 'It is,' they said, 'sufficient for our support. The Europeans require the grain.' The defence of Arcot produced an immense effect upon the minds of the natives of Southern India. They had hitherto entertained but little respect for the English, ranking the French as greatly their superiors in military capacity ”

“ Writing on this subject little more than a month before his death, he said : 'I have frequently laid down what I believe to be the cardinal points of Anglo-Indian policy. They may be summed up in a few words. We should establish with our frontier states of Khelat, Afghanistan, Yárkand, Nipál, and Burma, intimate relations of friendship; we should make them feel that though we are all-powerful, we desire to support their nationality; that when necessity arises, we might assist them with money, arms, and even perhaps, in certain eventualities, with men. ”

“ The rivalry between the army and the navy, and the antagonism between the troops of the crown and those of the company, were then, as in later times, a source of difficulty. When Clive first reached Calcutta the committee of civilians which formed the so-called government of the factory, unmindful of the terrible calamity by which they had been so recently overwhelmed, resented the authority with which Clive had been invested by the Madras government, and called upon him to place himself under their orders. ”

“ Incidents very similar have frequently occurred in war. At the same time it is right to bear in mind that if Clive and the same may be said of other commanders in more recent times had not carried daring to, and sometimes beyond, the verge of rashness, the conquest of India would never have been achieved. Had British Indian strategy been always governed by ordinary rules, neither Assaye nor Plassey would have been fought, nor would the strong position of the Afghans on the Peiwar Kotal have been taken by General Roberts with his small force of three thousand men in the last Afghan war. ”

“ Brooke's administrative reforms were very simple, but thoroughly well suited to the people. One of the causes of the rebellion had been a system of forced trade, under which the inhabitants were compelled to buy at a fixed, and often an exorbitant, price, commodities sold to them by the chiefs. In default of payment their sons and daughters, and often their parents as well, were carried off as slaves. Brooke substituted for the forced trade a simple system of taxation in kind, and did what he could to abolish interference with the personal liberty of the people. ”

“ Sir Robert Arbuthnot was an officer of conspicuous gallantry, and was remarkable for his quickness of eye and readiness of resource. At Albuera he distinguished himself by galloping between two regiments, the British 57th and a Spanish regiment, and stopping the fire which by mistake they were exchanging—a feat which he performed without receiving a single wound. ”

“ Still, to avoid friction with the government of India under such circumstances was not easy, and it is much to Sir George Arthur's credit that during that brief but eventful period he succeeded in retaining the esteem of the court of directors and of his own colleagues in the government of Bombay, as well as that of Lord Ellenborough, who recorded the name of Sir George Arthur upon a monument which he erected in England to those who had best seconded his efforts for the maintenance and extension of the British empire in India. ”

“ General Anson was a man of unquestionable talent, and although he had never seen war except at Waterloo, where he served as a mere youth, those who knew him best had very high expectations that he would distinguish himself in his profession if an opportunity offered. It has been alleged that he showed vacillation and want of promptitude when preparing for the march upon Delhi; but the allegation has been amply refuted by a distinguished officer (Sir Henry Norman) who held an important position on the staff of the army at the time, and had the best means of forming a judgment. ”

“ When, however, the peace of Paris was about to be concluded, Clive offered to Lord Bute, and procured the adoption of, various suggestions regarding those provisions of the treaty which related to India ; the chief one being that the French should be required to keep no troops in Bengal or in the northern sirkars. India, indeed, was the sphere to which Olive's attention was almost wholly devoted. At the India House he exercised considerable influence, having invested a large sum in East India stock, and being able thereby to command a large number of votes. ”

“ The evil continued to grow till every mess-room became the seat of conspiracy and cabal, and till the sepoys could be kept in order only by wholesale executions' (Macaulay, Essay on Clive) . It was in these circumstances that a general cry arose, urged by the proprietors of East India stock, but at first resisted by the court, that Clive, as the only man qualified to deal with the crisis, should be induced to return to Bengal. Clive responded to the call, and, leaving England in the autumn of 1764, resumed the government on 3 May in the following year. ”

“ The career of Sir George Arthur is at once remarkable and instructive. Entering the army as a young man with little or no interest to push him on, he speedily established a reputation for bravery and sound judgment, which led to his being selected at a comparatively early age for civil employment. ”

“ One proposal was to the effect that the Bengal legislative council should be abolished, that the lieutenant-governorship should cease to be a separate and distinct office, and that the duty should be discharged by one of the members of the governor-general's council, who, subject to the control of the governor-general in council, should be empowered to make laws for what are known as the non-regulation districts, and that for the districts of Bengal proper and of Behar all legislation should be entrusted to the governor-general in council. ”

“ A strong, erect, and hardy frame, a clear head and vigorous understanding, fixed principles, unshaken courage, contempt for pomp and pleasure, entire devotion to the public service, formed the character of Sir Barry Close a character one would rather think imagined in ancient Rome, than met with in our own age and nation.' Close appears to have been an accomplished Arabic and Persian scholar. ”

“ Colonel Arthur's administration of Van Diemen's Land lasted for twelve years, and was marked throughout by a rare combination of humanity with firmness and courage, and, above all, by a shrewd common sense and practical judgment, which secured for him alike the respect of the colonists abroad and the confidence of statesmen at home. ”

“ The scheme by which Cotton sought to avert this danger was the immediate establishment on the hills of a school or schools imparting an education physically and intellectually vigorous, suited to the requirements of commercial life or the army or the Calcutta University, with religious teaching in conformity with the church of England, modified by a conscience clause for dissenters, and the eventual establishment in the great towns in the plains of cheaper schools on the plan of day schools for those whose means did not admit of their sending their children to boarding schools on the hills. ”

“ In those days the superintendence of the police was vested in the district or zillá judge, and Anderson's exertions for its improvement, especially at Surat, were attended with marked success. He was employed by Mr. Elphinstone in framing the systematic code of laws attempted in British India, known as the ‘Bombay Code of 1827,’ which was a great advance upon anything previously attempted in India, and served to prove by thirty years' experience of its working that there was no difficulty in applying a general code, founded upon European principles, to the mixed populations of India. ”

“ Macaulay's statement that 'Clive, like most men who are born with strong passions and tried by strong temptations, committed great faults,' but that 'our island has scarcely ever produced a man more truly great either in arms or in council,' is not only more generous but more true. The transactions upon which Clive has been chiefly attacked are the fraud upon Omichand and the pecuniary transactions with Mír Jaffier. For the fraud upon Omichand it is impossible to offer any defence. ”

“ London conferred upon him the freedom of the city, and Oxford the honorary degree of D.C.L. In connection with his visit to Windsor, it is related that the queen, having inquired how he found it so easy to manage so many thousands of wild Borneans, Brooke replied: 'I find it easier to govern thirty thousand Malays and Dayáks than to manage a dozen of your majesty's subjects.' On his return to Borneo he was appointed British commissioner and consul-general in that island, as well as governor of Labuan, which the sultan of Brunei had ceded to the British crown. ”

“ Trade has expanded, agriculture is advancing, piracy and head-hunting have been rooted out, education is in demand, and, as a result of the efforts of Christian missionaries, Saráwak now numbers nearly three thousand native Christians. When this state of things is compared with that which existed on the north coast of Borneo less than half a century ago, it will readily be admitted that among the benefactors of humanity a high place must be accorded to Sir James Brooke. ”

“ Elgin found this party in power, but before he had been a year in office another general election gave a majority to the other side, and during the remainder of his stay in Canada his ministry was composed of persons belonging to what may be called the liberal party, the chief element in that ministry being French Canadian. From the first Elgin had very serious difficulties to contend with. The famine in Ireland, which commenced in the first year of his government, flooded Canada with diseased and starving emigrants, whose support had in the first instance to be borne by the Canadians ”

“ The city of Calcutta presented Cautley with a memorial and placed his bust in the town hall, and the engineers who had been employed under him on the canal gave him a piece of plate. On reaching England he was created a K.C.B., and in 1858 he was selected to fill one of the seats in the new council of India, which he retained until 1868. In the latter part of his life Cautley became involved in a professional controversy with General Sir Arthur Cotton, the eminent hydraulic engineer, to whose genius the south of India is indebted for some of its most important irrigation works. ”