Freda Bedi Cont'd (#3)

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Re: Freda Bedi Cont'd (#3)

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Part 1 of 4

An Address to the Proprietors of East-India stock; setting forth, the unavoidable Necessity, and real Motives, for the Revolution in Bengal
from India Tracts
by Mr. J.Z. Holwell, and Friends.
The Second Edition, Revised and Corrected, with Additions.
1767

-- The Black Hole -- The Question of Holwell's Veracity, by J. H. Little, Bengal, Past & Present, Journal of the Calcutta Historical Society, Vol. XI, Part 1, July-Sept., 1915
-- Full Proceedings of the Black Hole Debate, Bengal, Past & Present, Journal of the Calcutta Historical Society, Vol. XII. Jan – June, 1916
-- A Genuine Narrative of the deplorable Deaths of the English Gentlemen, and Others, who were suffocated in the Black Hole in Fort-William, at Calcutta, in the Kingdom of Bengal; in the Night succeeding the 20th Day of June 1756., In a Letter to a Friend, from India Tracts, by Mr. J.Z. Holwell, and Friends.
-- Interesting Historical Events, Relative to the Provinces of Bengal, and the Empire of Indostan. With a Seasonable Hint and Persuasive to the Honourable The Court of Directors of the East India Company. As Also The Mythology and Cosmogony, Facts and Festivals of the Gentoo's, followers of the Shastah. And a Dissertation on the Metempsychosis, commonly, though erroneously, called the Pythagorean Doctrine. Part II. By J.Z. Holwell, Esq.
-- Forging Indian Religion: East India Company Servants and the Construction of ‘Gentoo’/‘Hindoo’ Scripture in the 1760s, by Jessica Patterson
-- French Jesuits in India and the Lettres Edifiantes, by Jyoti Mohan
-- Claiming India: French Scholars and the Preoccupation with India During the Nineteenth Century, by Jyoti Mohan
-- Natural Theology and Natural Religion, by Andrew Chignell & Derk Pereboom
-- The Enlightenment and Orientalist Discourse on the Aryan, Excerpt from Aryans, Jews, Brahmins: Theorizing Authority through Myths of Identity, by Dorothy M. Figueira
-- Ezourvedam: A French Veda of the Eighteenth Century, Edited with an Introduction by Ludo Rocher
-- Holwell's Religion of Paradise, Excerpt from The Birth of Orientalism, by Urs App


CONTAINING:

I. An Address to the Proprietors of East-India stock; setting forth, the unavoidable Necessity, and real Motives, for the Revolution in Bengal, 1760.

II. A Refutation of a Letter from certain Gentlemen of the Council at Bengal, to the Honorable the Secret Committee.

III. Important Facts regarding the East India Company's Affairs in Bengal, from the Years 1752 to 1760, with Copies of several very interesting Letters.

IV. A Narrative of the deplorable Deaths of the English Gentlemen who were suffocated in the Black Hole in Fort William, at Calcutta, June 1756.

V. A Defense of Mr. Vansittart's Conduct.

ILLUSTRATED WITH: A FRONTISPIECE, representing the Monument erected at Calcutta, in Memory of the Sufferers in the Black Hole Prison.

Image
A View of the Monument. This Horrid Act of Violence was as Amply as deservedly revenged on Surajud Dowwla, by his Majesty's Arms, under the Conduct of Vice Admiral Watson and Col! Clive. Anno, 1757.

TO SIR WILLIAM BAKER, Knt., WILLIAM MABBOT, Esqr. and JOHN PAYNE, Esqr.

GENTLEMEN,

THE following small Tracts, in consequence of unprovoked injuries, were hastily thrown together, during the late clamorous disputes between Directors, Proprietors, and Candidates for the management of East-India affairs at home and abroad.-- How they came to be so hastily produced, and as hastily published, it seems requisite I should explain a little more at large.

At the beginning of these intestine broils, I was determined to avoid engaging on either side; and, to shun solicitation, I disposed of all the stock I stood possessed of', without retaining as much as might entitle me to a single vote; so truly desirous I was to enjoy in quiet that peaceful retirement, I had dearly purchased at the expense of so many difficulties, miseries, and heavy misfortunes as fell to my lot, while in the service of the Company.

Such, I say, were my resolutions, to which I should most strictly have adhered, if I had not found my character first indirectly, afterwards openly attacked, by the basest calumnies which were levelled against me in a manner, sudden, unmerited and unexpected.

UNDER these circumstances, there was a necessity of speaking for myself, and, which was still more unpleasing, I found myself likewise constrained to enter upon my vindication without delay. -- The pungency of these accusations -- the precipitancy of the times, and a disposition to take every thing for granted that was not immediately refuted; obliged me not only to dispatch them as quickly as was possible, but also to produce them in like hurry to the public eye.

IT was from these accidents, which I could not either foresee or avoid, that they came into the world not so well digested, and with much less accuracy, than the candid part of mankind have a right to expect in every production that claims their consideration, and is submitted to their judgment.

To the same causes I may very justly refer those errors of the press, which were in some of them so numerous as scarce to to leave the sense intelligible; to say nothing of other mistakes in orthography and diction, all arising from the utter impossibility of allowing me time requisite to revise and correct the proof sheets.

IT is from a just sense of these involuntary imperfections, that I have been led to review, to reform, and to cast into somewhat a different shape, these little pieces, that were thus exposed; and to render them still clearer and more satisfactory, I have added some other Tracts, which, however reasonable, I had not the leisure to prepare, and which, from my observing the obscurity arising from their Omission, I conceived it my duty to add as soon as opportunity would permit.

My narrative of the fatal catastrophe at Calcutta, and that unexampled scene of horror to which so many subjects of Great Britain were exposed in the prison of the Black-Hole, has so close a connection with one of the pieces that precede it, has scarce to require an apology for reprinting it in this edition; prefixing, as a frontispiece to the Volume, a Print of the Monument which I erected, at my own expense, to the memory of those unhappy sufferers.

MANY, if not most of the matters contained in these sheets, are to you, Gentlemen, very well known, as having been often the subject of your deliberations; and, therefore, to whom could I so properly address them as to yourselves? -- Two of you first incited my endeavors, and directed my labors for the Company's interest. -- Mr. Payne, with the same distinguished zeal, encouraged and supported them; a zeal truly disinterested, for I was a stranger to you all; so that you could have no motive to the favor you bestowed, and the protection you so generously afforded me, except the warm and pure regard which you ever showed, rather than professed, for that respectable body, whose concerns were then committed to your care.

You have, Gentlemen, frequently done me the honor to say, I did not disgrace your patronage, or disappoint your favorable expectations: to me this was the most ample reward -- but I could not help thinking there yet remained something due on my part; and that I ought to attempt the justifying your choice to the knowing, the ingenuous, and the judicious world.

This became more especially incumbent on me, when I found Envy and Malice arraign the character of him, whom you had espoused, and whom you had so long honored with your friendship. -- This, I thought, I could not better effect than by publishing the following Pieces.

WITH all possible submission, I lay them in their new dress before you, as thereby I am favoured with what I have long and ardently wished, an opportunity of giving this public testimony of a grateful heart, for the many and repeated proofs I have received of your respectable patronage.

I am, GENTLEMEN, Your most obliged, and most obedient humble servant,

J.Z. HOLWELL.

Mount Felix, Walton upon Thames, July 3, 1764.

***

Explanation of Certain Persian and Moorish Terms in the Following Sheets.

A.
Amdanny and Russtanny: Imports and Exports.
Arzgee: A Peitition.
Arzdasht: Idem.
Assammees: Dealers in different Branches of Trade.

B.
Banka Bazar: Formerly the Ostend Factory.
Begum: Princess, meaning without Care.
Buxey: A Paymaster of Troops.
Buckserrias: Foot-Soldiers whose common Arms are Sword and Target only.

C.
Chowkeys: Guards at the Stars, or Landing-places.
Chinam: Lime.
Cossid: A Foot-messenger, or Post.
Chubdaar: An Usher.
Cooley: A Porter.
Chout: A Fourth Part.
A Coss, or Corse: A Measure from two Miles to two Miles and Half.
A Corore of Rupees: An hundred Lack, or one Million Sterling.

D.
Dewan: King's Treasurer.
Dewanny: Superintendancy over the Royal Revenues.
Dussutary: An Impost of ten per Cent.
Durbar: Court or Council, and sometimes a Levee only.
Decoyt: A Robber.
Dummadah: A River.

F.
Fowzdar: A Military Officer.

G.
Gomastah: Factor or Agent.
Gwallers: Carriers of Palanquins.
Gunge: Grain Market.

H.
Hackeries: Carts or Coaches drawn by Oxen.
Harkarahs: Spies.

J.
John Nagore: A Village so called.
Jaggemaut: The Gentoo Pagoda.
Jemmautdaar: An Officer of the same Rank with the Roman Centurion.

M.
Mackulka: An Obligation with a Penalty annexed.
Moonskee: A Persian Secretary.
Musnud: Throne.
Moories: Writers.
Maund: A gross Weight between 70 and 80 Pounds.

N.
Negrai: A new Settlement at one of the Pegu Islands.
Nobut: A Drum, a mark of Royalty assumed by the Subahas of Bengal.

P.
Perwannah: An Order or Command, sometimes a Grant.
Purranea: In the Province of Bengal; a Nabobship subordinate to the Suba.
Phirmaund: A Royal Mandate, or Grant.
Pykes: Officers relative to the Service of the Lands.
Ponsways: Guard-Boats.
Podor or Shreff: A Money-changer.
Peons: Infantry.
Pottahs: Grants.
Pondary, Foorea: Farmers distinct Allowances on Grain at the Gunge.

R.
Rumnah: District for the Royal Game.

S.
Seer, Chetac, Maund: Forty Seer is one Maund, and sixteen Chetac one Seer.

T.
Telinga: The Carnatic Country on the Coast of Coromandel.
Tanksal: A Mint for Coinage.
Tanners and Buzbudgea: Forts on the River Ganges.
Tunkabs: Assignments upon Lands.
Tuzsaconna, Ginanah: Wardrobe and Seraglio.

V.
Vaqueel: English Agent or Resident at the Nabob's Court.
Vizerut: The Grant for the Visiership.

W.
Wazeed: A considerable Mahometan Merchant who resided at Houghley upon the Ganges.

Z.
Zemin: Ground; Zemindary; Relative to Lands.

***

An Address to the Proprietors of East-India stock; Setting Forth the Unavoidable Necessity and Real Motives for the Revolution in Bengal, 1760
by John Zephaniah Holwell, Esq;

An Address to the Proprietors of East India Stock

Gentlemen and Ladies,

I know not any body of people in the kingdom so much to be pitied, or so deservedly the object of attention, at this period, as yourselves: strangers to the secret springs and workings of the great machine you are embarked in, you must be also strangers to the nature of its defects, and incapable of applying proper remedies to its irregular, and consequently destructive motions.

Those entrusted with the conduct of your concerns at home, distracted and divided in their councils; your Agents abroad, in the same unhappy divisions and animosities; a general Court at hand, where it is to be feared, not one in a hundred of you will be able to form any clear idea of the matters to be discussed: What salutary effects then can be expected from its resolutions, in your present uninformed state?

I will not begin so endless a work as the investigating, from their original source, the various combined causes, which gave rise to these dissensions, as it would answer no one useful purpose at present: an honest indignation, and true regard for the welfare of the Company provokes my pen, to rescue you from impressions, the best and most sensible are sometimes liable to, from misrepresentation, artful invective, plausible, specious, though fallacious argument, and cruel insinuation; enough of these are, at this particular juncture, thrown out to amuse and blind you, by some no better acquainted with the subjects they write and speak on, than most of yourselves.

The productions of paltry scribblers are below mine, and every gentleman's notice, (such as appeared in a late evening paper) but when men of sense, virtue and character, and others who have possessed high and distinguished stations and emoluments in your service, join the cry, and help to keep up and increase this anarchy in your affairs, it is time to guard you, not only against the venom of their pens, but their tongues also; for, from them there may be danger.

That your affairs have been brought to the brink of ruin, is most certain, and possibly by this time (though God forbid) you may not have a foot of land, nor a rupee of property, in the three Provinces of Bengal; a dismal and alarming prospect. -- The question is, What is the real and more immediate cause of this melancholy situation? If you hearken to the present torrent of abuse, you will be told, the revolution which deposed Mhir Jaffier Aly Khan, and set up his son-in-law, Kossim Aly Khan, in the year 1760, is stained with unparalleled infamy, and is the cause of every subsequent mischief to you: you are further told, this change will be explained to you from the most undoubted authority, and unanswerable arguments: but nothing of this kind yet appears to enlighten you.

From another quarter you are informed, your Court of Directors are culpable. -- Those who shoot in the dark, may fire boldly indeed, not being immediately liable to discovery; but then they may be sometimes liable to mistake their aim -- the charge against them is couched in the following terms: "Your Court of Directors at home, pleased with the present advantages, never examined the means by which they were obtained, or whence the necessities arose that were pleaded in excuse of the revolution."-- I should be grieved you could imagine I am set down to form an apology for the whole conduct of your Court of Directors -- Far be it from me -- but as I know their judgment on, and sanction given to this revolution, were the result of mature examination, both as to the means, and necessities that produced it, it would be dishonest in me not to say so; and I will venture to pronounce, that before I close this Address to you, yourselves will acquit them of this charge, and be convinced their conduct, as to this particular transaction, was strictly consistent, not only with your interest, but honor -- nor will I doubt, but this revolution will, in the sequel, reflect honor and credit on every one of your servants who had a part in it.

To vindicate the revolution of 1760, is the task I now impose upon myself, not only for your information, (though I confess that to be a moving, and at this time a very essential consideration) but also in justification of myself, who, it is very well known, had so large a share in it, and in defense of one of the best and most capable servants you ever had abroad. Justice to his merits exacts this testimony from me, though he succeeded me in the government of your presidency of Bengal -- I conceive Mr. Vansittart's character, on this occasion, injuriously traduced; he is not here to vindicate himself; it is therefore incumbent on me (who only can) to do it; the more especially, because if any just censure lies against him, on account of this revolution, it is owing to the representations laid before him by me, touching the state of the Company's affairs at the period he came to the government.

Previous to laying proofs and vouchers before you, it will not be amiss, to say what I tend to prove. I therefore set out with these positions: First, That the distressed situation of your affairs, as well as impending ruin of the provinces, made it unavoidably necessary to divest Mhir Jaffier Aly Khan of power to do greater mischiefs, as by a series of maladministration and cruelties he had well nigh brought himself, his family, the provinces, and the Company, to destruction; so that it became a reproach to the English name and arms to support his tyrannic government any longer. Secondly, That Mhir Jaffier Aly Khan was guilty of a breach of every article of the offensive and defensive treaty made with him in the year 1757, when he was by us promoted to the Subaship of Bengal -- Thirdly, That your honor, and the honor of the nation, remain inviolate, and stand unimpeached by this revolution, though the contrary has been so industriously insinuated.

This contest is reducible to a very narrow compass. -- lf the deposing Mhir Jaffier Aly Khan was a just and necessary measure, every subsequent opposition to it must be wrong, and highly detrimental to your interest, trade, and possessions; on the contrary, if you deem the deposing Mhir Jaffier Aly Khan, an unjust and unnecessary measure, the restoring him must be right, in the eye of strict justice, provided such restoration is so circumstanced, as to be brought about without the manifest hazard of ruin to your affairs. On this we join issue, and proceed to our proofs. In order to which, a short introduction to facts will be needful.

In August 1760, Henry Vansittart, Esq; arrived at Fort William, Bengal, and received the government. Your affairs, as well as the state of the Provinces, being in a most ruinous, intricate, and disjointed situation, Mr. Holwell thought it an indispensable duty on him, to draw up such a clear representation of these matters as should afford that gentleman an immediate general idea of our political state at that period -- which he accordingly did, in the following terms, introduced by a short address to your secret Committee.

To the Honorable HENRY VANSITTART, Esq; &c. Members of the Select Committee.

Honorable Sir and Sirs,

As my health, and the consideration of other circumstances, will soon oblige me to request permission of the Board to resign the service, I beg leave, previous to that step, to accompany this short address with such remarks and memorials, as may convey to the Honorable the President, (so lately arrived among you) a knowledge of the present state and situation of the Company's affairs, as they stand connected with, or are dependent on, the country government of Bengal.

I have the Honor to be, &c.

J.Z.H.

Memorial.

To form a judgment of the present state of things at Bengal, it will be needful to have a retrospect to the late revolution of the year 1757, when necessity, and a just resentment for the most cruel injuries, obliged us to enter on a plan to deprive Surajud Dowla of his government, which was accordingly done, and Mhir Mahomet Jaffier Aly Khan, fixed by us at the head of the provinces, on certain conditions, and under a treaty of alliance, offensive and defensive.

A short space fully proved how unworthy the family thus raised to the Subaship were: the conditions of the treaty could not be obtained from the Suba, without, in a manner, being extorted from him; and by a thousand shifts and evasions, it was plain, no single article would ever have been complied with had the Suba been invested with sufficient power to prevent it, or could he have divested himself of his own fears and apprehensions from our resentment.

Tunka's on the lands were, however, granted for payment of the stipulated sums, at stated times, by which the Roy Royen, (or Collector of the Revenues) and the Dewans, Mutsoodies, &c. (dependents of that office) with every harpy employed in the Zemindary or lands, became our implacable enemies; and consequently,

A party was soon raised at the Durbar, headed by the Suba's son Mhiran, and Raja Raage Bullob, who were daily planning schemes to shake off their dependence on the English, and continually urging to the Suba, that until this was effected, his government was nominal only. The Suba, something irritated, by the protection given to Raja Doolub, and weak and irresolute in himself, fell too soon into these sentiments.

The first step taken to accomplish this scheme of independence, was, to assassinate and cut off, under one pretence or another, every minister and officer at the Durbar, whom they knew were attached to the English: to this purpose, Coju Haady, and Cossim Aly Khan, first and second Buxey, were assassinated in November and December 1758. After many attempts made on the persons of Rheim Khan and Golam Shaw, his uncle and brother, they were at last obliged to seek an asylum with the Shaw Zadda, 1759. Roy Doolub's son and four brothers were proscribed, on no other cause, but his known inviolable attachment to us; this family would have fallen a sacrifice had they not been rescued out of the Suba's hands by force of arms. Omhir Beg Khan would, from the same cause, have suffered the same fate, had he not given his solemn engagement to quit the kingdom, which he accordingly did, in a miserable state of health, and lived only to arrive at Bussorah.

The next project of the Durbar, appeared (by every subsequent concurring circumstance) to be a secret negotiation with the Dutch, for transporting troops from Batavia into these provinces, that with their united force a stop might be put to the power of the English. This scheme was conducted by Raja Raage Bullob, on the part of the Suba, and by Fookru Toojaar Khan (better known by the name of Coja Wazeed) on the part of the Dutch, about October or November 1758, the period when the Decan expedition took place under Colonel Forde, and your garrisons were much reduced.

Soon after the provinces were invaded by the Shaw Zadda, (undoubted heir to the Mogul empire) on the side of Patna, and Colonel Clive, with the English troops and Seapoys, joined the Suba and his army, and by forced marches preserved Rajah Ramnaran (Nabob of Patna) steady in his duty, and arrived just in time to save that city and province, and drive the Prince beyond the river Kurrumnassa, and brought the Budgepoore, &c. countries under subjection.

The Prince, more than once, wrote to the Colonel, offering any terms for the Company and himself, on condition the English would quit the Suba, and join his arms; but the Colonel, thinking it incompatible with our treaty of alliance, gave the Prince no encouragement.

At the end of the campaign, in June 1759, the Colonel returned to us; and about the same time, the Suba and young Nabob Mhiran arrived at Muxadabad: both, now, with full conviction of our firm attachment to his government and family, and of our religious regard to treaties. What sense they retained of these obligations, and how long, will appear by and by.

The Suba and his son, thinking themselves now better established in the government, and screened by such a powerful support as our arms, set no bounds to their cruelties, oppressions, and exactions from those who had any thing to be plundered of; and these barely received a check, from the frequent and severe remonstrances of Colonel Clive to the Suba, on a conduct, which he foretold him, must, from the general detestation of his people, end in the destruction of himself, family, and country. -- His troops clamorous for their pay, whilst the Suba, in place of appropriating the sums he had acquired, by repeated assassinations, to the just demands of his Jummautdars and troops, lavished the same in boundless extravagancies.

About the latter end of July 1759, the young Nabob arrived in Calcutta, on a pretended visit to the Colonel; but the real design was, to negotiate, if possible, the surrender of Roy Doollub, and two or three other articles, given him in charge by his father; such as, giving up the Tunka lands on security, -- borrowing a large sum of money: -- but in these the son proving unsuccessful, a member of the Board and Select Committee, was, at his desire, sent to accompany him to the city, to reconcile the Suba to the negatives his son had met with at Calcutta, and at the same time to intimate to him the advice we had received, that a large armament was sitting out at Batavia, destined for Bengal, and to know his resolution, in case that force arrived in the river.

He was not to be reconciled to the refusals his son had met with, but determined to try his own power, and declared his intention to visit the Colonel himself in September, (which he did, but with no more success) he seemed to make light of the intelligence touching the Dutch armament, and not to give much credit to it, though he discovered great perplexity; however, he wrote a letter to the Colonel, demanding our assistance, by virtue of the treaty of alliance, in case the Dutch troops came into the river.

The armament from Batavia arrived during his visit at Calcutta; his stay after that was short, his mind seemed much embarrassed, and his whole subsequent conduct gave most undoubted proofs, that the Dutch force was arrived at his invitation; that such were the sentiments of Colonel Clive and his Council, appears from the narrative of our contest with the Dutch, November 1759, transmitted to the Court of Directors, and to our several Admirals: a perusal of this narrative will convince the impartial, that the Suba's behavior on this occasion, was a most flagitious breach of the treaty of alliance; and that no terms whatever should have been preserved with him after such treachery and ingratitude; to which we may add, by way of illustration, the subsequent farces carried on between the Nabobs and the Dutch, even until the month of July 1760, as set forth in the several letters between Mr. Holwell and the Resident at Morad-Baag, on this subject, to which I refer; where it will appear most manifest, that the Suba's real intentions never were to oppose these people, though he was from time to time calling upon us, and demanding assistance, by virtue of the treaty of alliance subsisting between him and the English: -- witness the private orders and instructions given to his son-in-law, Mhir Mahomet Cossim Aly Khan, so opposite to the public orders given to amuse and deceive us, when he was sent down to demolish the new works at Chinsura, the apparent delay in which drew much censure upon that General, until the truth was known.

In the beginning of the year 1760, the Shaw Zadda invaded the provinces again, with a force more respectable than in the preceding one, both in troops and commanders, by the revolt of Comgar Khan, Golam Shaw, Rheim Khan, and others; the Suba, by this time, having made himself and family so universally hated, that we may justly say, there was hardly a man in the province that did not wish success to the Prince.

Colonel Clive resigned the government early in February 1760, about which time the Morattors entered the province from the southward, and penetrated Burdomaan country, making a considerable diversion in favor of the Prince; the Suba demanded a body of our troops, Seapoys and field artillery, for defense of his country, to join his army under the command of Mhir Cossim Aly Khan; which were granted: -- but here the service expected, and intended by this united force, was entirely frustrated, by the pusillanimous and contradictory orders from the Suba to that General, which ended at last in Commanding him to advance towards Cutwah, for the defense of the city, in place of ordering him to march to the southward, against the Morattors, to drive them out of the country; and this in opposition to the strongest remonstrances made against it, by Mr. Holwell and Mhir Cossim Aly Khan: thus the country fell a prey to the Morattors, and a total stop was put to the collection of our Tunkas, on which was our dependence and expectation, for the service of the year. (Vid. Military Correspondence, Feb. and Mar. 1760.)

Our troops, under command of Major Caillaud, in conjunction with the Suba's army, commanded by his son Mhiran, had taken the field some time before Colonel Clive's departure for Europe, and shaped their rout towards Patna, whilst the Suba remained in the neighborhood of Rajamaal, a check upon Cuddeim Hossein Khan, Nabob of Purnea.

A regular and particular detail of the transactions of this laborious campaign, will not be expected here, as the progress of it will present itself in the course of the military correspondence, laid before the Select Committee; therefore general remarks on the success, effects, and probable consequences, will suffice.

This campaign, like the former ones, produced no definitive action, or stroke, to lay the least foundation of peace to the provinces: in the course of it, three morally sure, and important opportunities, were lost by the cowardice of both Nabobs. -- The first, when Mhiran refused to join Major Caillaud with his horse, in the immediate pursuit of the Prince, when defeated near Patna. -- The second, when the Suba refused to comply with the Major's request and demand, to cross his horse over Burdomaan river, to attack the Prince, when united with Subabut, the Morattor general. -- And the third, when in the last pursuit of Cuddeim Hossein Khan, the young Nabob refused to lead or detach his horse to the Major's assistance, by which a general action might have been brought on; but on the contrary, kept himself encamped above a mile in the Major's rear, as if his intentions were to leave our troops, without horse, a sacrifice to the enemy.

On the near approach of the Major to Patna, he received a Phirmaund from the Prince, of which he advised the Board, and promised to forward a copy; but no wonder that, in the course of so extraordinary and fatiguing a campaign, it should escape his memory. -- On the Shaw Zadda's arrival in the Bierboheen country, (after the unexpected march he formed upon his defeat near Patna) the President received intelligence that the Suba had actually a Vackeel in his camp; and that he was negotiating a separate treaty for himself. This appeared to have so dangerous a tendency, that any means were eligible to obtain the truth.

The late President, by a third hand, caused Assud Jumma Khan, Raja of Bierboheen, and his uncle Comgar Khan, to be wrote to, on this subject of the Suba's Vackeel and treaty. -- This soon produced a Phirmaund from the Prince, enclosing copy of the Suba's Arzdasht. The President made no reply to the Phirmaund, but returned a short one to Comgar Khan's letter, (which accompanied the Phirmaund) intimating, that copies were of little validity, where originals were in being.

A few days before the Prince began his retreat from the hills, the President received a second Phirmaund from him, enclosing original Arzdasht from the Suba. -- All that can be said for or against belief being given either to the authenticity of the copy or the original, will appear on the face of the correspondence, in two letters from the President to the Major, under dates the 22d and 24th of last April, and to Mr. Hastings the Resident at Morad-baag, the 20th of the same month: to these, we may further remark, that if they were forgeries, they have yet corroborating signatures of truth; and the whole tenor of the Suba's conduct most exactly tallies with the terms of the Arzdasht (or petition). But to resume the course of the campaign to the present time.

Patna is relieved and secured for the present -- Cuddeim Hossein Khan is deposed from his government of Purnea, and drove out of the country, but with all his treasure and valuable effects, to the reproach and infamy of the young Nabob's memory; so that after the rains he will easily join the Prince, with the essential sinews of war, money, the only thing he stands in need of to enable him to harass the provinces five years longer.

The young Nabob is taken off by lightening, -- and our troops are gone into quarters, after having done as much or more than could have been expected from men so wretchedly supported, by those for whose preservation they endured every distress and fatigue, and braved variety of deaths. --

The Prince has found means to preserve himself and forces, a footing on this side the Sone, and in the neighborhood of Patna: it is said, Comgar Khan has forsaken the cause of the Prince, which appears most improbable; not only on account that he has no other chance for reimbursing himself, but perseverance; but also, because we have undoubted intelligence that 3000 of his troops have joined his nephew, Assud Jumma Khan, who has thrown off his allegiance to the Suba. -- These troops are certainly lodged, to make an early and important diversion, at the opening of the next campaign, by entering the Burdomaan country as soon as the Prince begins to be in motion to the northward; and thus our supplies from thence will be again cut off, and the Company's affairs reduced to the last extremity of distress, unless the approaching ships of the season relieve us, or the whole Tunka's on those lands be collected during the rains. -- The latter is hardly possible, and the former carries very little probability with it -- The last proposal from the Suba, to pay our balances, and resume his lands, is devoutly to be wished, but it is to be feared he has no meaning in it.

The various reasons urged against supporting the present government longer, on the plan we have been sometime pursuing, to the heavy injury of the Company, with various expedients to rescue them from their manifest approaching ruin, are set forth at large, in the military correspondence -- in letters from the President to Major Caillaud, under dates the 24th and 25th of May, and 14th of June, and 3d of July; -- to Mr. Amyat, under dates the 25th and 30th of May, and 1st July; -- to Mr. Hastings, under dates the 24th of May, and 30th of June, and 5th and 8th July.

The sudden death of the young Nabob, if made a proper use of, seems to point out a middle way, if things are not gone too far already, to admit any other alternative than divesting this family from the government altogether. -- Vide the President's letter to Mr. Hastings, of the 16th July, and to Major Caillaud, of the 26th, on the subject of a successor to the young Nabob's posts. --

J. Z. H.

The foregoing Memorial, we believe, would carry sufficient conviction with it, to establish our three positions, were we to go no farther: -- the facts there stated are faithfully recited, and without exaggeration: if they are not, we are open to detection, from one side or other of the present division in the Court of Directors; there are leading members, in both parties, who can have recourse to the face of their records of consultations and committee proceedings.

As the several charges laid against Mhir Jaffier Aly Khan, in this Memorial, may, by being too much divided, not appear so clear and intelligible as we could wish, though sufficiently so for whom it was then drawn; we shall, for your more ready comprehension, throw the whole into a regular connection as follows: -- That, very soon after his advancement, he resolved to reduce that power which raised him to wealth and princely grandeur. -- That, in order to effect it, he began (by base assassinations, or other methods) to cut off, and drive out of the Provinces, every officer and person of importance whom he had the least cause to surmise favored our interest, or were attached to us. -- That he had been scarce seated in his government, when he entered into a secret negotiation with the Dutch, to introduce an armament in the Provinces, to counteract and destroy our power and influence; -- a measure as wicked as foolish. -- That he was guilty of the deepest deceit and treachery towards us, his benefactors and allies, in repeated instances. -- That, whilst our officers and troops were suffering every distress, and hazard of their lives, in defense of him, his son, and country, our commander in chief was basely and treacherously deserted, at three different periods, by father and son. -- That he meditated a separate, secret, treaty with the Shaw Zadda, and offered to sacrifice us to the Prince, but was not (happily for us) believed, or heard. -- That the whole term of his government was an uniform chain of cruelty, tyranny and oppression. -- That (over and above what is charged against him in the Memorial) he meditated, and was near carrying into execution, an infamous secret treaty with the Morattors, which would have proved the total destruction of the country, if it had not been timely prevented. -- That he threw every possible lett and hindrance in our way, in the collection of our Tunka's. -- That he encouraged, and winked at, the obstructions given to the free currency of our Calcutta Sicca's; by which, at times, the Company suffered heavy losses. --

Each of these charges is a violation of that treaty, which put Mhir Jaffier Aly Khan in possession of a government of more value than many kingdoms of Europe, supported by us at the expense of our blood, until it became a scandal and reproach to our name and nation. -- But it is time we proceed to other proofs than bare assertions: These we shall take from the correspondence so often referred to; and if, in the several vouchers we exhibit to you, some parts of your affairs should be laid more open than you, or rather your Court of Directors, with -- the necessity must plead our apology; faithfully assuring you, that we will only touch on such matters as may be absolutely requisite to support our charge.

Governor Clive departing for Europe the 8th of February, 1760, Mr. Holwell succeeded by his rank to the government; the established committee entrusted with the conduct of all political occurrences, with the country government, consisted of the President, Peter Amyatt, Esq; Major Caillaud, W. B. Sumner, Esq; and W. Macguire, Esq. The Major and Mr. Amyatt absent, the one in the field, the other chief at Patna.-- We shall open our proofs with a letter from the President to the Major, and that gentleman's answer, as the correspondence between Mr. Holwell and Major Caillaud was only on public affairs, which having long ceased to be of a secret nature, we think we cannot be justly accused of any breach of propriety in publishing any part of that correspondence which the public information calls for; especially, as whatever we shall produce from this quarter, will redound to that gentleman's honor.

To John Caillaud, Esq'

Fort William, the 15th of February, 1760.

Sir,

I congratulate your success in the reduction of Cuddiem Hossein Khan, the particulars of which I received from the Nabob, and dispatched them immediately to the Colonel, though fear too late for his receiving that satisfaction: he was a good deal anxious on this head, as he feared it might have been the cause of delaying your advance towards Rajah Ramnarain.

Subut at the head of about 3000 horse and a few foot, has advanced as far as Midnapore, and given a general alarm to the country; they demanded their chout; if they come with further views, their designs are not yet manifested. -- Rumor, without any foundation, says, that Roy Doolub has encouraged their march; be it so or not, I have thought it necessary to have a more than usual watchful eye over him at this juncture. -- I have wrote the Nabob on the subject of the Subut's advance; and gave it him as my opinion, that as he has now nothing to apprehend from Purnea, he should return to his capital. -- If you judge the service to the northward will admit of such a step, you will enforce it. Your correspondence will ever afford a real pleasure to him, who is with much esteem, Sir,

Your most obedient humble Servant,

J. Z. H.

To the Honorable J. Z. Holwell, Esq; President and Governor of Fort William

Camp Sbabsadapore, Feb. 27, 1760. H

Sir,

I been honored with your obliging favor of the 15th instant; you may be assured of finding in me a punctual correspondent, both from inclination and duty. T

The part of your letter, Sir, with regard to Roy Doolub, I have answered fully in the general letter which accompanies this. -- I should have first wrote on the subject, had you not prevented me; and am almost convinced, that, on further examination, we shall find that both your suspicions and mine are true and just: indeed the Letter to the Shaw Zadda, of which I send the copy, would be quite sufficient to condemn him, were it not that there is a possibility of its being formed by the Nabob on purpose; who is, from principle, very capable of doing that, or any other infamous action to gain his ends. -- I shall, however, suspend my judgment, until your examination is over. -- The precautions you have taken were highly judicious; for though the proofs against him may not, on trial, appear so clear as we could with for our satisfaction; yet he is still a person to be suspected, and of consequence cannot be too narrowly or strictly watched.

Your opinion, with regard to the Nabob's return to the Capital, agreed perfectly with mine; I had advised him to that step before the receipt of your letter, and have since enforced it on your judgment: -- he may easily, if he pleases, put an end to this beginning of trouble, if he will pursue the proper methods, and pay them their chout; but indeed, so dilatory is his conduct in every respect, and particularly where payments of money are to be made, that I suppose he will put it off, until they come with such a force as will oblige him to it, but that not until they have done as much damage to the country as will amount to double their tribute regularly paid.

The more I see of the Nabob, the more I am convinced, that he must be ruined in spite of all our endeavors, if he doth not alter his present measures. -- He is neither loved nor feared by his troops or his people; he neglects securing the one by the badness of his payments, and he wants spirit and steadiness to command the other. -- As no one knows him better than you, Sir, no one is more proper to give him the necessary advice on the occasion; nor can you too forcibly or frequently represent to him, the fatal consequences, if he persists in his folly. Believe me, Sir, with truth and respect,

Your obedient and obliged humble Servant,

J.C.

Our reason for introducing the first of these letters is for sake of the reply, and to do honor to the good sense and penetration of that gentleman; who could so early, and on so short an intercourse with him, form a consummate judgment of that weak and infatuated man; in which he had cause to be confirmed, day by day. -- We have only further to remark, on the subject of this letter, that on the strictest examination into the supposed letter of Roy Doolub to the Shaw Zadda, said to be intercepted by the Suba's Harkarahs, (or spys) it was proved a palpable forgery of the Suba, to get him delivered into his hands; hoping thereby to get the plunder of a Corore of Rnpees. -- An attempt similar to this, he made in Colonel Clive's time, against the same person, but was shamefully detected; and sure, none but him could ever have thought of it again.

To Mr. Warren Hastings, Resident at Morad Baag.

Fort William, 22d Feb. 1760.

Sir,

I wrote the Nabob's Harkarahs last night, and this morning received your favor of the 18th, and observed, by the Nabob's repeated anxieties concerning Subut, that his intelligence on that head is very imperfect; it is true he has possessed himself of Midnapore, but as yet there appears not the least foundation for his supposed advance to the city: -- He himself remains at Midnapore, some of his people are advanced to Chundercona, and a very few to Bowannypore, but not a man of his one foot to the northward of that place: if he ever had any design of marching to the city, the advance of our troops to join Cossim Aly Khan, and my putting Roy Doolub under an arrest, may probably have put a stop to it, though it never appeared to me he had forces with him equal to such an attempt. -- Things thus circumstanced, I must differ from you in opinion touching Cossim Aly Khan's march to the city with our troops; as it appears to me more eligible, that he throws himself between them and the city at as great a distance from the latter as possible, by which step he will have it in his power, either to march down and force Subut to quit Midnapore, or retreat towards the city at last; but it is very clear to me, Subut will withdraw as soon as Cossim Aly Khan begins his march. -- I am, Sir,

Your most obedient Servant,

J. Z. H.
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To John Caillaud, Esq;

Fort William, 24th Feb. 1760.

Sir,

Lest the general Confusion, and apprehensions of the approach of Subut and his Morattors, which now reign in the city of Muxadabad, should spread to the northward, and affect your operations, I judge it necessary you should be acquainted with the real state of this circumstance.

On the Nabob's departure from the city, Subut began his march from Ballasore, and after a short conflict with Koosall Sing, possessed himself of Midnapore, and sent small detached parties to seize on the country round him; one of which advanced as far as Chundercona, and another as far as Bowannypore, where they still remain without a man advancing a foot further to the northward; his whole force consists of about 1000 vagabond horse, and half as many foot: This force, by the timidity of some, and roguery of others at the city, has been magnified to ten times the number; and fear has taken such total possession of the people there, that they imagine him and his troops within an hour's march of them; our Gentlemen at Cossimbuzar, and Morad-baag, seem, by their letters, to be also under the greatest apprehensions. -- Cossim Aly Khan, who has just now taken his leave of me, takes the field to-morrow with about 1500 of the Nabob's troops; we have judged it necessary, at the Nabob's request, to reinforce him with the detachment intended for you, and 100 Europeans more, 200 Seapoys, and two field pieces: the whole have been encamped some days at the French gardens, and I doubt not but their first motion will restore the tranquility of the city and country. I am most truly, Sir,

Your most obedient humble Servant,

J. Z. H.

We propose by these two letters to point out the pusillanimity and folly of the Suba, in ordering the troops under Cossim Aly Khan to march towards Cutwah and the city, by which unfortunate measure, the Burdomaan country was abandoned, and left a prey to Subut and his handful of raggamuffin Morattors, to the irreparable stain and disgrace of the Suba's government, and heavy distress of your servants; whose whole dependence for supply was from the Tunkas (or assignments) upon that district -- as before remarked in the Memorial. --

To Mr. Warren Hastings.

Fort William, 8th March, 1760.

Sir,

I had yesterday your favor of the 28th, still on the subject of Roy Doolub and Rajaram, in which I find the Nabob's intelligence is as bad as it has been hitherto, with respect to Subut and his Morattors, who have gained some footing in the country, and eclat from no cause, but the Nabob's supineness and contradictory orders to his son-in-law Cossim Aly Khan. -- You mention the Nabob's having sent a Harkarah with your letter, who had seen Rasbeharry, &c. in Subut's camp, but no such Harkarah is come, and there was very good reason for it; he had imposed on the Nabob; and the fellow who brought your letter, tells me, the other was ordered to accompany him, but left him after they were dispatched; he believed he went to Subut's army -- the same intelligence I had sent me in an anonymous letter from Ballasore, respecting Rasbeharry, &c. and of Roy Doolub's having sent Subut money, for which I could not, on the strictest enquiry, find the least foundation. -- On my first intelligence, I ordered Rasbeharry to be brought before me; he has been long dangerously ill, and I could venture to swear he has never been out of Calcutta since November. On the receipt of your letter, I had him brought to me yesterday again at the manifest hazard of his life. -- From the palpable falsity of this intelligence, let the Nabob judge of the rest, and let him be satisfied, that let who will be with Subut, neither Roy Doolub nor Rajaram shall have it in their power to injure him. -- I have turned all his armed people out of the settlement (excepting a few for the service of his Tuzsaconna and Ginanah) they are both under the strictest guard, and at his own request, to quiet the Nabob's suspicions, he moves this day into a house next to the Armenian Church -- he writes me to put Roy Doolub in fetters, a disgrace I cannot think of inflicting, without being guilty of a breach of the sacred laws of protection granted him, unless a proved violation on his side justifies it; in that case, I will not only put him in irons, but send him directly to the Nabob. -- It has been hinted to me, whether by the Nabob's authority or knowledge I will not say, that a present of four Lack was ready for me, provided I would deliver him up, or that I might make my own terms. Should any intimation of this kind be insinuated to you, I request you would return the same reply I did, that I would not be guilty of such an action for four Corore. -- I am, Sir,

Your most obedient Servant,

J. Z. H.

To John Caillaud, Esq;

Fort William, 11th March, 1760. A

Sir,

I am favored with yours of the 27th ult. With respect to my sentiments of Roy Doolub, you have them in part in our public letter of this date; to which I will here add, that I am very sensible there are probable appearances that he has given some underhand encouragement, both to the Shaw Zadda and the Morattors; yet whilst proofs are not plain against him, I think we cannot proceed further than we have, consistent with the first plan of politics we set out with when this man had our protection given him. One ruling motive to the Nabob's having him in his hands, is most certainly his wealth; but he is still swayed by a much greater, to wit, that we should not have so strong a check over him as our detention of Roy Doolub ever will be. The protection given him is (next to our troops) the best security we have for the Nabob's good behavior. The letter referred to in the general letter, was one sent down to the Colonel; it was said to be wrote by Roy Doolub to Coja Huddy; the purport to cut the Nabob off, -- but the Colonel assured me the forgery of the letter was so palpable and scandalous, that it ought to destroy the credit of any future attempts from that quarter; and such are the reasons assigned this year, in the select Committee's letter to the Company, for the protection granted and continued to Roy Doolub, that we cannot consistently or prudently give him up, without the most glaring proofs against him. The judgment you have formed of the Nabob is too just; weakness, irresolution, suspicion, and (consequently) cruelty, form his disposition. What but the issue you predict, can result from these, when joined to a most ungracious and insolent demeanor, which has made him universally hated and despised? We must however support him and his government as long as we possibly can, without involving ourselves and employers in his ruin: when this appears, it will be time to think a little further, as I judge there is no treaty subsisting between us can exact that sacrifice.

I am, Sir,

Your most obedient, humble Servant,

J. Z. H.

To Peter Amyatt, Esq;

Calcutta, 11th March, 1760.

Sir,

Forgive my late reply to your favor of the 24th ult. You know the plague and hurry attending the dispatch of our last ship, and will therefore attribute my neglect to the real and only cause, and not as proceeding from any disregard of your obliging letters, for which I request you will accept my very sincere thanks; and permit me to assure you I shall receive your correspondence and commands with much pleasure, and be glad, on my part, in every shape, to promote every view you have or may have, either to the public or your own private advantage. Your situation, I believe, has been disagreeable enough; by express intelligence this morning, I learn, the Prince has escaped the Major's vigilance, and is advancing this way, and that the Major is marching back to secure the passes. In this I fear the Prince will have too much the start of him; should this prove the case, matters will begin to grow serious, and the face of things in this province require your early sentiments on this subject. I entreat you esteem me with great truth. Sir,

Your most obedient Servant,

J. Z. H.

To Mr. Warren Hastings.

Calcutta, 15th March, 1760.

Sir,

I yesterday received your letter of the 11th from Cossimbuzar, advising me of the intended march of the Nabob to Sukragully. I wrote you I think the 12th at night, and enclosed you a letter to the Nabob, and copy of it for your perusal, as also copy of Subut's letter to me, which I enclosed to the Nabob. I have kept in readiness 200 Europeans more to join Capt. Spears, being hourly in expectation of the Nabob's instructions to be joined by his command; but as yet I have not had a line from him on the subject of the Shaw Zadda's unexpected motion towards the passes. Cossim Aly Khan with Capt. Spear's command, was at Burdwan yesterday; if he continues thus dilatory and inactive, and I receive no demand for troops from the Nabob, I will certainly send Capt. Yorke with a separate command of 3 or 400 Europeans, field artillery, and seapoys, directly into the Kirpy country, where our Gomastah and Aurungs are daily plundered. I long for further advices from you. We have no intelligence from the Major, later than the 6th from Deuniapore.

I am, Sir,

Your most obedient, humble Servant,

J. Z. H.

To Mr. Warren Hastings.

Calcutta, 21st March, 1760.

Sir,

From the accounts I have had from the Commissary and Capt. Spears, the monthly expenses of this expedition cannot be less than 56,000 rupees. You estimate wrong in supposing the force less than one-fourth of the Major's. It exceeds his in Europeans, and is on the whole one thousand; therefore request you will press the Nabob, as the state of our treasury is very low, by our continual current expenses, and total stop to our Tunkas. These you are to observe, are the incident charges of the expedition, exclusive of the pay of the troops. And I once more request you insist on the Nabob's making an immediate remittance, to enable me to support the expedition, or he will lay me under an unavoidable necessity of recalling the troops into garrison. He writes me to order the troops to join him. I have already advised him those orders are sent to Capt. Spears, the moment he receives his summons; in contradiction to this, I last night received a letter from Mr. Watts, of the 18th at night, informing me that Cossim Aly Khan had just then received orders from the Nabob, to march against Subut, and prevent, if possible, his advance to Breeboon. His irresolution and supineness, I much fear, will prove his destruction at last, in spite of our utmost endeavors to save him. I see it will behove us to think of guarding against our being involved in the same ruin.

I am from good authority informed, that the Nabob has dispatched a trusty person with an abject petition to the Prince, who was, the 23d of the Moon, at Deingeer; that the person and petition is there with him. The purport of the petition runs thus: "That on advices reaching him that the Morattors intended to enter the country by the way of Patna, he had sent his son and the Major to oppose them; that it never was his intention to oppose his Majesty's arms, to whom he was an old professed slave; but by the evil counsels of Rajahram, Narain, his son Mhiran, and the Major, had acted contrary to his intentions and orders; and that if the Prince desired it, he was ready to surrender himself to his pleasure."

If these are his tricks, you will, I doubt not, think with me, it is time we should look to the Company and ourselves. What makes me the less hesitate in my belief of the above, is my knowledge of his scheme of sending Jaffier Cooley Khan on the like errand, before the Colonel went, which he then dropped on a threatening letter from the Colonel, which by his order I dictated to the Moonshee. I am Sir,

Your most obedient, humble Servant,

J. Z. H.

To Captain Spears.

Calcutta, 22d March, 1760.

Sir,

Various difficulties intervening, have retarded the march of your reinforcement under Capt. Fischer until now; though I think this evening or to-morrow morning will be the latest of their stay. The artillery and seapoys have been crossed these two days. Capt. Fischer will have orders to take the nearest rout to join you at Burdoman; but as I have reason to think you may by this time be joined by the old Nabob, and are advancing to the southward or south-west, you will be careful from time to time to dispatch advices to Capt. Fischer of your intended rout. It would not be amiss if you report this reinforcement much stronger than it is. You have given me no advice of your having received the commission I sent you, empowering you to hold general court-martials. Agreeably to your request, I have given Mr. Watts permission to pay the recruits the remainder of the bounty-money, if you and he think it absolutely necessary. Dr. Steward is appointed an additional surgeon for your command. Notwithstanding the orders you have already received, should you, upon any unforeseen emergency, receive orders from Major Caillaud to join him, you are to pay immediate obedience to such orders, or any others you may receive from him, touching the conduct of, or conducting the troops under your command. And here I think it necessary to explain to you, that although, as auxiliaries to the Nabob, you are to pay regard touching the destination of your troops for the defense of his government; yet should you see a probability of your coming to action with any of his enemies, you are, with respect to a proper disposition of your troops, to pay no regard to any orders you may receive from him on that head; but in conjunction with your Captains and Officers, in a council of war, determine on such dispositions as are most likely to give success and honor to the arms of your country. If the Nabob and his army join you, you are to take the most particular care to have no communication whatever between his troops and yours; to which end you must always encamp at proper distance from him, and by no means, in the usual course of your march, permit his troops to take the lead, unless you judge it necessary at any time, that advanced parties of his cavalry should precede your van. You are not only ever to be on your guard against a surprise from the enemy, but also against treachery from the Nabob himself; for which precaution I have my particular reasons: but you are likewise to have the strictest guard upon yourself, that no suspicions of this kind escape you unto any one, unless you should have cause sufficient to lay them before a select council of war, consisting of your Captains only.

I heartily wish you a successful campaign, and expect to have as frequent intelligence from you as possible. Sir,

Your most humble Servant,

J. Z. H.

To Mr. Hugh Watts.

Fort William, 29th March, 1760.

Sir,

I have before me your favors of the 20th, 21st, and 24th instant. The Nabob's inconsistencies and irresolution continue very uniform, and will in the end prove his ruin, unless he has better luck than he deserves. By a letter I have just received from him, he now seems to think the Prince will enter by the way of Bierboon and Lecra Koonda, and tells me he intends joining your party soon, and will advance that way to oppose him. I enclose you copy of the letter I dispatched some days ago to the Rajah of Bierboon, and have by Capt. Fisher sent you a supply of 15,000 sunwad rupees.

I have wrote this morning to the Nabob, enjoining him to secure some advantageous post near Burdwan, where he may have it in his option to fight or not, and with equal facility stop the advance of the Prince from Bierboon, or of Subut from the southward; but by no means to be provoked to fight before the Major joins him. If the Nabob advances beyond the Dummadah, the party of Morattors which fell on your rear, will most probably push for the city, where their 600 will, in the fears of the people, swell to as many thousands. As to the Subut, I think I can depend on the intelligence I have of his having taken the road from Bissnapore towards Bydenaut, to join the Prince. I have wrote however to the Nabob, and advised him, should he hold his resolution of marching with our troops to Bierboon, to take care that he leaves a trusty and capable officer, with as strong a body of cavalry as he can spare, at Cutwah, to defend that key to the city; and to the same purport I shall directly dispatch a letter to the Roy Royen. I am, Sir,

Your most humble Servant,

J. Z. H.

To Captain Macklean.

Fort William, March 30, 1760.

Sir,

In consequence of your address to the Board from Gangam, under date the 7th instant, which reached us the 24th, I judged you within a few days march of Calcutta, and dispatched to you a letter the 26th at night, advising you that Major Caillaud, with our forces, were in the field, somewhere about the Bierboon country; and that you should follow all such orders as you might receive from him, whether with respect to joining him with your command, or otherwise respecting the conduct of your march. By a letter received late last night from our resident at Cuttack, I have the pleasure of knowing you were arrived within half an hour of that city, which makes it needful I should give you a short state of things, as they are now circumstanced, for the guidance of your future conduct. -- The Shaw Zadda, with a considerable army, chiefly horse and without artillery, is advanced at the back of the hills, with intention to enter this province by the way of the Bierboon or Patcheet, to subvert this government. Subut (whose force is lately much increased by meeting no opposition to the southward) at the head of 5 or 6000 Moratta horse, is in possession of Midnapore, Kirpy, and all that part of the country; and I hear is advancing with the greatest part of his force from Bisnapore towards Bydenaut, or Bierboon, to join the Shaw Zadda. Major Caillaud, with the main body of our troops, in conjunction with the young Nabob and his forces, is in pursuit of, and close in the rear of the Shaw Zadda's army. The old Nabob, with the rest of the forces of the province, are at Boodeegaam, in the road to Bierboon, to oppose the Shaw Zadda in front, whilst the Major presses his rear. A body of 530 Europeans, as many Seapoys, and 6 field-pieces, are under the command of Capt. Spear, near the city of Burdwan, the capital of Burdoman, and are to march and join the old Nabob; and have, I conclude, by this time joined him. A detachment from Subut, of about 800 horse, are in the neighborhood of Burdoman, with intention to harass the rear of Capt. Spear, and retard as much as possible the junction of his troops with the old Nabob's. From this disposition of the enemy, it will behove you to advance with the utmost care and circumspection; and as you have only horse, without artillery to encounter, you need not be apprehensive of any thing, but a surprise or treachery from the part of Subut; against which, you must be ever on your guard. Our Resident at Cuttack advises me Subut's Dewan has supplied your party with provision, &c. This amicable appearance carries suspicion with it; as any assistance given you from a friendly motive, is, at this juncture, against the real designs and views of his master: therefore be assured they are meditating the gaining some advantage over you, or at least will attempt to bring about a desertion of your people.

We have already given orders for our resident, Mr. Rogers, to withdraw himself and the Company's effects on your arrival; both him and those you will take with you, and direct your march without loss of time towards Ballasore, and from thence to Midnapore; from this last-mentioned place you will have a fair and open road to Burdaman. Should you on good intelligence, find it practicable to make a successful attack on Midnapore, and dispossess the Morattas, without the loss of time or risk of a reduction of your people, you will do an acceptable service to the Nabob; but you are by no means to take this, or any other step that can long retard your march to Burdoman, where you are to halt until you receive further orders, either from myself, Major Caillaud, or Capt. Spear. If you find you have it not in your power (from causes unknown to me) to follow implicitly the foregoing instructions, you will then proceed according to your own discretion, and as the exigencies of your situation may require, taking care to give me frequent advice of your intended rout and determinations. I am, Sir,

Your most humble servant,

J. Z. H.

To Mr. Warren Hastings.

Fort William, 1st April, 1760.

Sir,

I enclose you copy of mine of yesterday, and wait an express answer from the Nabob, as I judge Macklean's party marched from Cuttack the 23d: I will suppose him advanced this day about Midnapore. The Major's and Spear's command having exhausted our military camp stores, occasioned many unforeseen difficulties in the dispatch of the reinforcement under Captain Fischer, who will encamp at Niah Serai, I judge, this afternoon. As I received an alarm from Captain Spear, that the Shaw Zadda was within two or three days march of the Nabob, I sent positive orders yesterday to Captain Fischer, to make forced marches, with his cannon and ammunition only, to join him, and to leave his spare stores, tents, &c. to follow him; for the security of which, I have this day dispatched twenty Europeans and twenty Seapoys more to join the escort; with orders to follow Fischer's rout, with the utmost expedition. The advance for this expedition must be sent directly here, as I have supplied the Commissary and Paymaster largely, and we much want cash for our current expenses. I am, Sir,

Your most humble servant,

J. Z. H.

To John Caillaud, Esq;

Fort William, April 5th, 1760.

Sir,

I have the pleasure of receiving yours of the 27th ult. from Oparabaund, and by advices from Mr. Hastings, of the 2d instant, may venture now to congratulate your having some rest from your labors, which I am sure have been severe enough. Your junction with the old Nabob and Captain Spear's command, will, I imagine, determine the Prince's retreat to the southward, as it must extinguish the hopes he may have cherished of acting offensively in this province; and as I judge by the time this reaches you, you will have settled the future operations of this campaign, I request you will favor me with the result of your Council, as soon as you conveniently can, and point out in what manner we can promote them from hence. I am, with perfect regard, Sir,

Your most obedient humble servant,

J. Z. H.

The eight preceding letters are recited in confirmation of some parts of our Memorial, and introductory and explanatory of others, and withal to give you a general idea of the campaign of 1760.

To the Honorable John Z. Holwell, Esq; President and Governor of Fort William.

Camp at Burpore, 6th April, 1760.

Sir,

My last was dated the 24th Inst. Yesterday we marched about five corse, and this day three; which brought us so near the enemy as to expect they would come and give us battle; but finding about noon they did not advance, I desired the Nabob to march on towards them, but he said the day was too far spent, and his people too much fatigued. The Prince is encamped near the Damoudah river, about three corse from us and I hope tomorrow we shall bring him to an engagement. The Maharattas are encamped very near him. I have the honor to subscribe myself, with the most perfect respect and esteem, Sir,

Your most obedient and most humble servant,

J. C.

To the Honorable John Z. Holwell, Esq; President, &c. Gentlemen of the Select Committee at Fort William.

Camp at Belgass, April 8th, 1760.

Hon. Sir and Sirs,

My last to the President was dated the 6th Inst. in which I informed him of my hopes of coming next day to an engagement with the enemy, who were encamped on the other side of the river Damoudah; and we should have succeeded according to my wish, could I have persuaded the Nabob to cross the river, or send over a large body of horse to keep them in play, until we should get up with them. But to neither of these would he consent, and all we could do was to get near enough to their rear to cannonade them. This they did not stand long, but soon got out of our reach, and pursued their march towards Bisnapoore, and, by the intelligence we received last night, are encamped seven corse from us. Thus all hopes of bringing them to another engagement, this campaign, are now over. We have lost the only opportunity we had, nor indeed can we expect much to improve opportunities, while we have to do with men, who are as ignorant as obstinate, and whose troops are under no order or command. I have the honor to be, with the most perfect respect and esteem, Gentlemen,

Your most obedient and most humble servant,

J. C.

To the Honorable J. Z. Holwell, Esq;

April 10th, 1760.

Sir,

The Shaw Zadda was within three corse of us this morning, but having early intelligence of our approach, has repassed the river Damoudah, and I suppose by this time is far enough from our reach.

I must frankly own, the motives of the Prince's present actions are quite a mystery to me; and as I cannot form the least probable judgment of them myself, I will not even pretend to conjecture what may be the event of them. Both the Nabob and him seem equally to avoid fighting, and there is no knowing in what manner to proceed, or what plan previously to determine on, while the Nabob continues to act so irresolutely, and while his pusillanimity prevents his exerting himself as he should do, on the fairest occasions which can offer. I have the honor to be, with the most perfect respect and esteem, Sir,

Your most obedient and most humble servant,

J. C.

To John Caillaud, Esq;

Fort William, 7th April, 1760.

Sir,

I am now forced to touch upon a subject, which appears to me to require our greatest attention. Some days ago I wrote to Mr. Hastings, concerning an information which was given me, that the old Nabob had sent a trusty person with a submissive Arzgee to the Shaw Zadda, in which he exculpated himself, by throwing the whole blame of the opposition made to his arms, on the machinations of the English. Mr. Hastings, in his letter in answer to mine, seemed to think it impossible such a step could have been taken by the Nabob, or indeed that he could have sent any Arzgee at all: however, in a subsequent letter from him, of the 27th, he finds out that an Arzgee was sent, though different in purport to that I informed him of. As I thought it most essential to us, to trace, if possible, the truth, I employed an emissary to Comgaar Khan, the consequence of which has been a Phirmaund from the Shaw Zadda, enclosing copy of the old Nabob's Arzgee to him, with an apology for not sending the original. A copy of the copy I send you enclosed, and request your sentiments, how and in what light this appears to you. If the copy is authentic, the case is plain, that this man for whom we have drawn the sword, would not scruple, if driven to any extremity, to make his peace by the sacrifice of his protectors. The Phirmaund, I suppose, differs little in matter from that he sent you; he reminds me of the obligations the English lay under to his ancestors, and offers a carte blanche for the Company, provided we will draw our forces off from doer of evil, and join them to his standard; which, he advises me, he has at present fixed at Seegur, and in a few days after purposes to erect it in Morshadabad, &c.

I enclose you a copy of a letter, sent the old Nabob by the Colonel, which I dictated to the Moonshee, by his order, a few days before his departure for Europe, on being informed the Nabob intended sending a messenger and petition to the Prince.

Whether this is a real copy or not, I will not say; though I firmly believe it true; that an Arzgee has been sent is allowed; and if it contained not matter detracting and injurious to us, why was it sent without being communicated to you by Mhiran, or to Hastings by the Nabob?

I am, Sir, your most obedient humble servant,

J. Z. H.

To John Caillaud, Esq;

Fort William, April 9th, 1760.

Sir,

Last night I received your favor of the 4th, from Mungol Koot. I think, from your mutual advance to each other, you must have, before this, obliged the Prince to make some decisive motion. I must confess I have no idea that he will stand a battle with you, and yet believe he harbors some hopes of a general defection of the Nabob's troops, though at the same time he deceives himself, if he imagines even this could be of any real service to him; if he fights, it is from the melancholy reflection of this being his ne plus ultra; and that if he does not now make a push, he will be deserted by Comgaar Khan and the rest of his followers, and be without any reasonable hopes of having any powers whatever to join and follow his future fortunes.

In mine of the 3d and 5th, I enclosed you copies of my instructions to Captain McLean; as he is advised of the situation of the enemy, I conceive he will naturally bend his march towards Injilee, and advance towards us as far East as he can, and keep the course of the river.

I confess myself something impatient to have your sentiments on mine of the 7th. I have returned no answer to the Prince's Phirmaund, but have replied to Comgaar Khan's letter, and intimated to him, that I can put no faith in copies; but that if he will send to me the Subah's original Arzgee, I shall then be able to form a judgment. I am, Sir,

Your most obedient humble servant,

J. Z. H.

To John Caillaud, Esq;

Fort William, April 15, 1760.

Sir,

I most heartily pity the embarrassed situation you must necessarily be in, with people who manifest themselves unworthy that government they have usurped. I must confess, the Nabob's whole conduct appears to me much more mysterious than that of the Prince; circumstanced as he is, he must plan various schemes, and from the nature of things, his councils must be attended with much confusion and irresolution. The Nabob's backwardness to engage him appears to me absolutely unaccountable, unless it arises from some secret negotiations, which it is possible he may be carrying on with the Prince, to make his own peace at the expense of his friends. I should not think myself justified in this conjecture, nor have given credit so readily to the petition sent by him to the Prince, (copy of which l sent you on the 7th) did I not know him capable of any thing ever so unworthy and treacherous. By letters from Mr. Amyatt, I learn Abdallah has gained another victory over the Vizier and his friends the Morattors, and that the Vizier and the young king Shaw Jehawan have sheltered themselves with the Jauts: this intelligence has, I doubt not, reached the Nabob, whose weak and cowardly imagination probably suggests some turn from that victory in favor of the Prince, and therefore thinks it necessary to temporize. These are surmises of my own, and possibly may have no foundation; they call, however, for some attention. The parts acted by both the old and young Nabob, in the recent contest with the Dutch, ought ever to awaken our apprehensions, and urge our being on our guard against the politics of an Indostan Durbar; the more especially, as we see the party round the Nabob, who we know would cut our throats if they could, obtain every day more power and influence over his Councils; men, who being raised as he himself was, from the dirt, can never vary the complexion of their groveling genius. Dispositions, such as you, Sir, have now (unhappily) to deal with, can only be worked on by the most peremptory dictates. The Nabob must be urged (I intended to say forced) to something decisive, or in a short time his country will be worth nothing to himself or any body else. I hitherto avoided writing to him on his late unaccountable and provoking conduct. My wish and intention is, that you should have every weight your present post and situation requires; your sway and influence over the Nabob is, at this juncture, of the utmost importance to the Company's affairs; and it is your own fault if you are not invested with such authority as yourself can wish. I therefore request you will, without reserve, point out to me, if any additional power or instructions to you, to act independently of the Nabob, (which we, as a Committee or Board, can invest you with) will conduce to the good of the service, and be a means of enforcing your salutary councils to the Nabob, and it shall be forthwith transmitted to you.

I am, Sir, your most obedient humble servant,

J. Z. H.

To the Honorable J. Z. Holwell, Esq; President and Governor of Fort William.

Camp at Dignagur, April 15, 1760.

Sir,

In order to come at the truth, with regard to the Nabob's Arzgee to the Prince, Mr. Hastings had recourse to the Nabob's Persian writer; a man who hath, on many occasions, given him proofs of attachment and fidelity. The moment he set his eyes on the paper, he declared it to be a forgery. May I beg leave to refer you to Mr. Hastings for the reasons he gave for it; as that Gentleman's knowledge in the language will enable him to give you a clearer idea of these distinctions in address and style of their letters, than I can pretend to. For my part, I own, after Mr. Hastings had repeated them to me, they were so satisfactory as to convince me the probability of its being a forgery was greatly in the Nabob's favor.

Two days before I received your letter, Sir, the Nabob and his son were with me, and I found the old man big with something that he did not know well how to begin breaking to me. I helped him forward all I could by those kind of assurances which often open the hearts of men; and he then told me he had wrote to the Prince, and had received an answer, such a one as gave him hopes, with other circumstances, that the Prince might be inclinable to treat and put himself perhaps in his power; but that he knew he (the Prince) would not do this, without I would be security for his safety. The Nabob was desirous to know, in such a case, how I would act; but the main drift of the discourse was, to find out how far I would be consenting to give him an opportunity of displaying the true eastern system of politics, by cutting him off. You may easily, Sir, guess my answer, that I was ready to do every thing for his service consistent with the honor of my country, and the sacred regard we gave to our word; and besides, if the Prince made any address to me on this subject of security, I must first have your orders and instructions in this affair. And thus the conversation ended.

I made it my business afterwards to enquire among some of the Nabob's people, on what grounds he founded these hopes of getting the Prince in his power? but they all assured me, as I suspected, that they were no more than the idle reports of some of his minions, who knew such stories would be well received and credited, and so found advantage in flattering his foolish hopes.

It is a very unfortunate circumstance that we have to do with a weak man, who neither from principle nor merit deserves the dignity of the station in which we have put him, and in which he would not remain twenty-four hours, if we were to withdraw our protection from him, and on which he so much depends, that I am obliged to give him a guard of Seapoys for the safety of his person. It doth not appear to me, however, in justice or in reason, that we ought to support him in the pursuit of unjustifiable measures; such as he follows in regard to not discharging the vast arrears due to his troops, who to a man have publicly declared, they will not draw their swords in his cause, and that only their fears of us prevent their using them against him. The consequence will be, as to his part, that while he is not afraid of his head he never will satisfy them; and to us, that though we may protect him from immediate danger to his person, we must relinquish the hopes of seeing the country free from troubles, while he keeps a body of troops that he will not pay regularly, and over whom he consequently hath no command. This rotten system still we might in some measure support, were we always assured none but the country powers would disturb us: but it is more than probable that the French or Dutch, if not both, may some time or other renew their attempts to be concerned, and with how much the more probability of success from the distracted state of the country while the Nabob continues to govern it so ill.

The first opportunity I propose representing all this to him in the strongest light I possibly can; and should our opinions agree, I should take it as a favor if you would enclose a letter from yourself to him, on the subject; I will deliver it, and take that opportunity as the best to try what can be done by working on his fears, the only way indeed I am convinced of managing him to our own advantage and his good. In particular, Sir, you will be pleased to enforce the payment of his troops, by hinting, that if he delays it, I have your orders not to prevent them taking their own measures.

To-morrow Captain Knox's detachment marches. The Prince is certainly gone back, and we talk of nothing but the pleasures of the great Rumnah first, and then of an expedition against the Purnea Nabob to conclude the campaign. As this last step is absolutely necessary, I shall do all in my power to prevent the former obstructing it; with what success, we shall soon know. I am, Sir,

Your most obedient and most humble servant,

J. C.

To John Caillaud, Esq;

Calcutta, 22d April, 1760.

Sir,

I have the pleasure of your two favors of the 15th and 17th, and must take a farther day to reply to them more circumstantially. For the present, I enclose you a Letter to the old Nabob to the purport of your request, and with it a copy for your perusal, and I hope approval. It contains, I think, nothing but what should at all events be urged to him at this juncture. Something must be done, and soon, to recover the currency of the trade of the provinces, or the Company must be lost; the sale of their woollen goods, copper, &c. exports is totally obstructed; their investments in consequence of this, and the unavoidable stoppage of the Tunkas wholly at a stand, and not more than a Lack and half in the treasury: Particulars you should be necessarily acquainted with, as they arise from the perpetual troubles of the country, perpetuated, I may say, by the wickedness as well as weakness of those who govern it.

To give you what are still my sentiments on the Nabob's Arzdasht to the Prince, and my reasons for those sentiments, I now enclose you a copy of my reply to Mr. Hastings on that head; and think my judgment of this affair more confirmed from the circumstance recited in your favor of the 15th, to wit, the Nabob's having acknowledged to you his writing to the Prince, and that his replies gave him hopes he was inclined to treat. The carrying on this concealed correspondence with the Prince I cannot look on in any other light than as the highest infringement of that respect and deference due to your station, and the treaty subsisting between us. And here it becomes needful, Sir, to remark, it is full time the Nabob should be convinced he should not look on you as an officer sent implicitly to submit to his orders or sentiments, but as his coadjutor and protector in the war. And should, at any time, his wretched politics dictate measures, which appear in your opinion destructive of the general end proposed, I hope, and doubt not, but you will think yourself fully authorized peremptorily to over-rule them, without losing time in application here, as I am very well satisfied we may depend on the propriety of your conduct in the command you are invested with.

I have the honor to be, with very real esteem, Sir,

Your most obedient humble servant,

J. Z. H.

This letter affords you a genuine picture of the distressed state of your affairs at this period.

To Mr. Warren Hastings.

Fort William, 20th April, 1760.

Sir,

I have your favors of the 13th and 14th, accompanied by your translation of the Suba's Arzdasht to the Prince, and your sentiments thereon. Though I confess your reasoning and conclusions in favor of the Suba's innocence, carry probability with it, they appear not to me convincing, nor square with my mode of thinking on this subject, for the following reasons: That the Nabob's Moonshee should, on the instant, pronounce it a forgery, amounts to no proof of its being so; that the Nabob had sent such an Arzdasht to the Prince, and that it was enclosed by the latter to me, was the discourse of the Buzar two or three days before it reached me. If you remember, I hinted in a former the intimation I had received of it; so that I may justly suppose the Moonshee was well prepared against a surprise, and consequently ready to disavow it and pronounce it a forgery, which he seems by your letter to have done, even before he gave it a perusal. The variation of its diction, and deviation from the usual form of the Nabob's addresses, appear to me equally inconclusive, as it is not at all improbable these might be done with design to plead and invalidate, in case of its coming to our knowledge. Whether this Arzdasht was sent by the Nabob or not, it is impossible to say with any precision; but this I am clear in, that it contains the very dictates of the hearts of the minions about him, and of course his own; and the very pleas he would have made use of in his justification, if success and victory had attended the Prince. These striking considerations, joined to the whole tenor of his conduct respecting the Dutch, &c. joined to his holding any correspondence at all with the Prince without our knowledge and approval, leaves my judgment of this in the same state it was; though, at the same time, I see it must rest here for want of more sufficient proof. I am, Sir,

Your most humble servant,

J. Z. H.

To John Caillaud, Esq;

Fort William, 24th April, 1760.

Sir,

I long much to have your sentiments on the subject of mine of the 22d I and yesterday. I have just now had the pleasure of yours of the 20th from Goperra, and think it necessary to advise you I last night received a letter from the old Nabob, chiefly to request that I would order Captain Macklean and half his troops to be entered in his service and pay: A request which can with no propriety whatever be complied with (in which opinion I dare say I shall meet your concurrence.) To this effect I now write him, and enclose you copy of my letter, that you be upon your guard when he touches you on that subject, which I suppose he will.

I think I have already intimated to you, I made no reply to the Phirmaund sent me from the Prince, but that I answered Comgaar Khan's; the contents of my letter to him were literally this, "That l had received the Phirmaund, and pitied the Prince's unhappy situation and misfortunes of his royal house; that he (Comgaar Khan) was no stranger to the ties and obligations which bound us to support Mhir Jaffier Aly Khan and his government; that copies amounted to no proof, but that if his original Arzdasht was sent me by the Prince, I should then know what judgment to form of it." With this answer I dispatched the Prince's messenger, and the same time sent two of my own Harkara's to return with an answer, in case the Prince thought proper to give me one. On the 16th they were returned to me with a second Phirmaund from him, and a reply from Comgaar Khan, as also two letters from him, one for Rajaram Harkara, and the other from Nund-comar, in the district of Seergur. The Harkaras were seized, stripped, kept prisoners 24 hours, plundered of the Phirmaund and letters, and then dismissed. I have taken every means possible for the recovery of the papers, but fear I shall fail in it, which gives me no small vexation, as I am almost convinced they contained the original Arzdasht, with possibly some other pieces of the Nabob's concealed correspondence with him. The Harkaras left the Shaw-Zadda at Gorrea Hottea, his troops much distressed for provisions, &c. He was then halting for Subut, whom he left at Jamgam with 3000 Moratta horse, and had the day my people came away received an express from the north-west from some Rajahs who were advancing with troops to join him, and who pressed the Shaw Zadda's speedy advance towards Patna, on which the Prince sent a messenger express to hasten Subut. On the other hand, it is conjectured, that the Prince's march to Bahaar is a feint only; that his intention is to lie perdue amongst the hills, and as soon as the combined troops are advanced to the northward, return suddenly into this province and surprise the city; and that in this case, the Dutch will declare for him, and join him. This system I would certainly adopt, was I the Shaw-Zadda -- however, on the whole, you will be better able to judge of these matters than I can at present. I am, with perfect esteem, Sir,

Your humble servant,

J. Z. H.

You have now before you all that has been said on the subject of the Suba's concealed Arzdasht, to the Prince, upon which you will form your own judgment. -- True, we have been robbed (literally so) of absolute proofs in this charge but if the strongest presumptive ones, supported by a thousand corroborating evidences in the Suba's conduct, have any weight, our proof is sufficient to claim belief: -- the intermediate letters from our last remark but one, speak for themselves, and fully prove the cowardice, or treachery, or rather both, at the river Dummodur.

To Mr. Warren Hastings.

Calcutta, April 25, 1760.

Sir,

I have your favor of the 20th, on the subject of the Nabob's having a considerable part of our troops in his pay, service and constant attendance on his person: three days past, I received a letter from him on the subject, to which I yesterday enclosed my answer, in a letter to Major Caillaud, with a copy of mine to the Nabob, for his perusal. To our complying with this request of the Nabob, I think there are strong and manifest objections; the most important of which is, that such a step will, I am convinced, lay the foundation of his independence. The 22d, I wrote a long letter to the Nabob, touching the payment of his troops, and necessity for his disbanding his rabble of Burcundasses, and the greatest part of his useless cavalry: the letter I enclosed to the Major, with a copy of it; confer with him as soon as you can, and request he will communicate to you the purport of those letters. -- Two reasons can only be urged in favor of the request now made by the Nabob; the reducing his immense expenses, and at the same time those of the Company, by such a reduction of troops now in their pay: to accomplish the first, complying with his request is needless, because, though the troops continue in our pay and dependence on us, yet they will be always at his call and service; -- and when this campaign is ended, we can, with much propriety, ease the Company by a reduction of the Seapoys to 2000 picked men, which Colonel Clive had determined, if he had stayed. I am, Sir,

Your most obedient servant,

J. Z. H.

To John Caillaud, Esq;

Calcutta, May 2d, 1760.

Sir,

Your favor from Maraud-Baag, of the 28th ult. I had the pleasure of receiving late last night, and find the situation of things between the two Nabobs just as I surmised. -- Having occasion to reply to a letter of the young Nabob's, I take the opportunity to urge the necessity of his remaining in the city, but touch the subject in such a way, as to carry the appearance of the highest compliment to his prowess. That one of them should keep the city is absolutely necessary, and a security to them both, as well as the province. I know but of one way to keep them steady, with respect to the operations of this campaign, and that a very short one: when the measures determined on are in your judgment absolutely needful and proper, just signify to them, that if they are not immediately carried into execution, you will march to Calcutta, and leave them to fight their own battles, and pursue their own councils: I will engage you have no further trouble with them; -- and I dare say, Sir, you are by this time convinced, that had they been treated in this way, on the defeat of the Shaw Zadda, above, and in the fortunate conjunction of attacking and destroying him so lately lost (in both which your judicious resolutions and advice were over-ruled) there had been a happy end to the troubles of the country.

That part of my letter to the Nabob you object to, has been wrong translated and explained to you; the utmost I intimated on that head was, "That as the season was so far advanced, one moment of it was not to be spent unprofitably."-- By which I intended to prevent the Nabob's idling his time away in the Pleasures of the Rumna and the city, of which you yourself seemed apprehensive.

I am, with sincere esteem, Sir,

Your most obedient humble servant,

J. Z. H.

To John Caillaud, Esq;

Calcutta, May 5, 1760.

Sir,

I take this juncture of complying with a recommendation left me by Colonel Clive, in favor of Cossim Aly Khan, and have wrote the Nabob on the subject; copy I enclose for your perusal. -- I have, I think, with good reason, many doubts touching the integrity, as well as capacity, in these times, of Rajah Ramnarain, and every principal person under him, and am sure the Nabob should change hands there. If your sentiments do not run counter to mine in this particular, I shall receive as a favor, your interesting yourself in behalf of Cossim Aly Khan.

I am ever, with sincere esteem, Sir,

Your most obedient servant,

J. Z. H.

To Mr. Warren Hastings.

Calcutta, May 6, 1760.

Sir,

I have already intimated to you the very low ebb of the Company's treasury; their whole investments at the Arungs are at a stand; and without considerable supplies, we shall not in one month more have sufficient for even the current expenses of the Factory. -- We were yesterday under the necessity of recommending to the Gentlemen of Cossimbuzar, their endeavoring to take up the money there on the Company's account, for the use of the silk investments; as also to the gentlemen at Ducca, to the same purpose, for the carrying on their investment. These considerations will, I doubt not, be sufficient to awaken your attention, respecting the expenses of the parties under Spears and Fischer, on account not a Rupee has yet been remitted to us. Therefore I am obliged to press your obtaining at least one lack of Rupees on this account, and that you will send it down with the utmost expedition: should it exceed the sums disbursed, which I am sure it will not, the Nabob shall be duly credited for it. Suffering him thus to run in arrears, in this article of field expenses, is the very worst system of politics we can adopt; and an effectual stop must in future be put to it, by insisting on an advance before our troops leave the garrison. Without this precaution, the Company must suffer great distress and difficulties in the conducting their mercantile affairs, as we find so little dependence on the punctuality of the Nabob's reimbursing us. I wrote you very pressingly on this subject the 23d ult. of which you have hitherto taken no notice. The repayment of the 200,000 Rupees lent the Nabob by Mr. Manningham, on the Company's account, must be demanded in the most urgent terms; and if you think it is not in his power to advance that sum, a fresh Tunka on the Kistnagur Country must absolutely be insisted on -- I mention this country in preference, because the remaining balances to be collected from it are now but small.

We have the greatest reason to complain of the Nabob's injurious behavior, respecting his obstructing the collection of our Tunkas, both in the Burdowan and Kistnagur Countries: from whence I am informed, by Mess. Watts and Howit, that his people are, by every oppressive measure, extorting that money which should pay our Kistebundees. I have wrote the Nabob and the Roy Royer warmly on the subject, and I request you remonstrate against it in the strongest manner. -- And that you signify to the former, without the least reserve, that I absolutely will not suffer a single Rupee to be carried out of those countries, whilst we have any the least claim upon them. And demand likewise, that he immediately order his people to withdraw from thence, or I will, without any ceremony, drive them out.

The necessity of the Company's affairs is such, that I have been obliged to apply to the Seats for a loan of 10 or 15 Lack, which they, under various pretences, have refused: I judged their own security, as well as an opportunity of obliging the Company, would have influenced their ready compliance; but herein I judged ill. However, I doubt not but an occasion may offer, for manifesting a proper resentment to that house for this refusal.

I request your speedy reply to this, and am, as ever, most truly, Sir,

Your most humble servant,

J. Z. H.

To John Caillaud, Esq;

Calcutta, May 8, 1760.

Sir,

My last were under date the 2d and 5th instant. In the former I enclosed, for your perusal, translation of a private letter from Mr. Bisdom, with copy of my answer. I now forward to you, translate of his replication. After you have considered them, I request you will favor me in returning them.

What weight or dependance can be laid on the sentiments or assertions contained in those letters from the direction of Chinsura, you will be as capable of judging as I am; and I should be extremely glad of your thoughts on this subject: -- for my own part, it appears to me, that the Nabob, with respect to the Dutch, is in a pursuit very wide of the road we have pointed out to him; and in which we ought not, nor can, from any justifiable cause, countenance him. That they should be so far disarmed of any means or power of raising disturbances in the country becomes absolutely necessary, both for his security and our own: -- but beyond this, that we should suffer his extorting sums of money from them (which can answer no useful purpose to us, but on the contrary, reflect dishonor on the power and influence we are supposed to have over him) is a measure which I really think will not give credit to our name or arms; and which we cannot too soon disclaim and object to. In these sentiments, I dare say, I have your private concurrence; and I must confess, I see no public motive which can fully vindicate our even winking at any oppressive or iniquitous designs, leveled against these or any other individuals under his government; because, whatever odium may fall on him, the world will bestow, and that justly, a large proportion on us, as knowing he dare not meditate practices of this kind, but under the sanction of the alliance between us: let us, therefore, for our own sakes, and to preserve as much as we can the peace of the country, insist on the execution of the plan laid down to him; but oppose that measure which the Nabobs, in place thereof, seem to have only in view, the plundering their possessions; and by this laudable opposition evince them and the world, it is not our wish or aim to injure them in their trade, rights, or properties; but to divest them only of that power which they so lately though impotently, employed to the subversion of ours.

I am, as ever, with much esteem, Sir,

Your obedient humble servant,

J. Z. H.

P. S. To what I have before urged, I may add the driving the Dutch to a desperate extremity, by laying such heavy and exorbitant demands on them, which they cannot in nature comply with, will answer no end, at least no good one; for they will have no resource left, but joining, at all events, the Nabob's enemies with the whole force they can collect together we have wrote the Nabob on this subject; copy of the letter I enclose you, and forward another to Mr. Hastings, by these Cossids.

J. Z. H.
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Re: Freda Bedi Cont'd (#3)

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Part 3 of 4

To Mr. Warren Hastings.

Calcutta, June 13, 1760.

Sir,

By express yesterday from Dacca we have advice that the Suba has taken off Allyverdee and Shaw Amet Khan's Begums. -- He sent a Jammautdaar and 100 horse, with orders to Jesseraut Khan to carry this bloody scheme into execution, with separate orders to the Jemmautdaar, in case Jesseraut Khan refused obedience: he refused acting any part in the tragedy, and left it to the other; who carried them out by night about two miles above the city in a boat, tied weights to their legs, and threw them over-board: they struggled for some time, and held by the gunwall of the boat, but by strokes on their heads with Latties, and cutting of their hands, they sunk. These are the acts of the Tyger we are supporting and fighting for. I am,

Your obedient humble servant,

J. Z. H.


To the Hon. John Zeph. Holwell, Esquire.

Maraud-baag, June 21, 1760.

Sir,

THE relation transmitted to me in your letter of the 13th, of the murder of the two Begums, filled me with horror and astonishment; but how were those sensations increased, when upon inquiry I was told, that not only the two wretched sufferers above-mentioned, but the whole family, to the number of nine persons, had undergone the same fate. I will not mention their names, till I have undoubted proofs of the truth of my intelligence, which I wish (though I cannot expect it) I may find not so bad at last as it has been represented to me. -- How this circumstance escaped my knowledge, I know not. It was not indeed an event to be learned from inquiry, and possibly the infamy of the fact might have made my friends, who were in the secret, neglect to speak to me upon a subject which, from our particular connections with the Nabob, and his entire dependence on our power, could not but reflect dishonor upon the English name. I have hitherto been generally an advocate for the Nabob, whose extortions and oppressions I imputed to the necessity of the times, and want of economy in his revenues; -- but, if this charge against him be true, no argument can excuse or palliate so atrocious and complicated a villainy, nor (forgive me, Sir, if I add) our supporting such a tyrant.

I have the honor to be, Sir,

Your most obedient, most faithful servant,

WARREN HASTlNGS.


The advices sent from Dacca touching these murders, were dispatched immediately after the first rumor of the deed; and from thence, as usual, imperfect: subsequent advices brought the true state of that execution, as follows:

Gosseta Begum, widow of Shaw Amet Jung;

Emna Begum, mother to the Nabob Surajud Dowla, and widow to Geynde Amet Khan;

Morad Dowla, the son of Patsha Kooly Khan, adopted by the Shaw Amet Jung;

Lutsen Nessa Begum, widow of Surajud Dowla;

Her infant daughters by Nabob Surajud Dowla.


These unhappy sufferers perished all in one night at Dacca, in the manner before-recited, with about twenty of their women of inferior note. -- It was said Alleverdy Khan's Begum by some means escaped this massacre of her whole family.

A conceived though groundless jealousy of Morad Dowla's making his escape from his confinement in Dacca, was the cause of this infernal carnage.

In the list of the Subah's assassination given in the Memorial, these were omitted:


Abdel Ohab Khan, waylaid and murdered by the Subah's order, on the Ramna, on pretence of a conspiracy, in March 1760.

Yar Mahomet, a favorite of Surajah Dowla, assassinated in presence of Mhiran, April 1760.


To Mr. Warren Hastings.

Fort William, May 8, 1760.

Sir,

YOUR favor of the 3d I received only yesterday; and, out of the fulness of my heart, I wrote to you the 6th, on the obvious near approach of the unsurmountable difficulties I shall have to encounter, in conducting the Company's business for the current year. -- The apology you make for the Seats, and they for themselves, we must submit to; but though they may hold good respecting the large loan I requested of them, yet had they been inclined to have shown a readiness to oblige the Company, they would at least have made a tender to me of such a sum as they could have spared with convenience to themselves. One reason they allege to me for their refusal is, their having refused the Nabob, which I now find had not a word of truth in it. Had they complied with my request, it would have armed them with the best reason they could have urged for not complying with his demand; and it would have been incumbent on us to screen and protect them from any violence intended against them. -- A time may come, when they may stand in need of the Company's protection, in which case they may be assured they shall be left to Satan to be buffeted.

I observe what you say, respecting your having advanced the 25,000 Siccas to Capt. Fischer, for the payment of his separate detachment. -- The troops must be paid beyond doubt, but if we are immediately laid under the necessity of again disbursing the sums we receive from the Nabob on his account, where will be the end of our expenses? and how are the Company to be reimbursed at last, if he is suffered thus to be in arrears to us? A stop must be absolutely put to this system, and soon: I therefore request you will communicate this, and my last letter to you on this subject, to the Major; and that some effectual means may be directly adopted, to free us from this tax, so greatly detrimental at present to our affairs. If time is given to the Nabob until the campaign is closed, I know the insuperable trouble we shall have in recovering a rupee from him. If something is not done satisfactory to us, I shall be under the necessity of laying a representation before the Board, who are, I know, very well inclined to come to resolutions which will be most ungracious to the Nabob in his present situation.

Request the Major will communicate to you mine of this date, on the Nabob's contest with the Dutch. I am, Sir,

Your most obedient humble servant,

J. Z. H.

To Peter Amyatt, Esquire.

Fort William, 11th May, 1760.

Sir,

I have the pleasure of your letters of the 23d and 25th ult. -- Matters now, I think, grow critical on your side; the Prince in your neighborhood, and, I fear, between Knox and the city, into which he will, I imagine, find no small difficulty to throw himself, without fighting under many disadvantages, though I hope you are strong enough for an occasional sally to favor any attempt he may make for your relief. -- Notwithstanding the Prince's junction with Mr. Law's inconsiderable force, I must confess my apprehensions for the city, are greater from treachery within, than from any attempts they can make from without, whilst Knox and his party are so near them. I have no better opinion of Ramnarain's integrity in the cause, than I have of his spirit and capacity; and the most gracious manner his brother and Molydore were dismissed by the Prince and Comgaar Khan gives strong cause of suspicion: therefore you cannot be too much on your guard against Ramnarain, as well as those who have the chief posts under him; and if Molydore, Donceram, and one or two more of them, were surprised, seized and secured, I doubt not but it would secure the safety of the city. Whether a step of this kind would be practicable, you are a better judge than l can possibly be. If Knox makes his way into the city, you will be strong enough to take the absolute command of it yourself, which I would by all means recommend to you, and the same time secure those you have reason to think disaffected. Ramnarain's backwardness to oppose the advance of Mr. Law's party, which I learn from yours to the Major of the 25th ult. evinces that he intends ill, or has no command over those under him; and consequently he is, in either case, most unworthy the trust he possesses, and the sooner he is divested the better.

Let me hear from you by every possible opportunity, and believe me truly, Sir,

Your most obedient humble servant,

J. Z. H.

To John Caillaud, Esquire.

Fort Willialm, 24th May, 1760.

Sir,

LAST night a letter from the Committee was dispatched to you, in which you had the Gentlemen's general sentiments only on the state of things, without descending to the particular causes of these sentiments which require elucidations.

The success of Capt. Knox justifies and does honor to your recommendation and our appointment, and gives quite a new aspect to the late desperate state of affairs in the province of Bahar; where I think the force under Captain Knox, if continued at Patna, will, with the assistance of Ramnarain, be amply sufficient to preserve the tranquility of the country and safety of Patna during that period, as also to take the field when the season permits, to quell, or rather prevent, any commotions which may be attempted the next year by the Prince against the Suba's government. -- We are averse, for two important reasons, to you (or your troops) being farther distant from us than the Purnea country, each of which I will speak distinctly to.

If we have any thing to apprehend from without, either from French or Dutch, we are to expect it from this time to the remainder of the S.W. monsoon; therefore it becomes an essential consideration, that our forces are kept as much within call as the nature of the present service will admit of, still giving a preference to ourselves, and the second place only to the defense of the Suba and his government; he must himself concur and submit to the utility of this precaution for his own sake, his safety depending absolutely on ours, and on the force we have to impede the entrance of any European power whatever in his country from any other quarter: I think he need be under no apprehension for these five or six mouths at least. -- And I hope there is yet time to accomplish the Suba's just pursuits against Purnea, and for your return to us with the troops, when the rains set in; a circumstance which leads me to my second reason.

Though the Prince, by this year's invasion, has benefited himself and followers no more than by the last, yet the consequence has been equally fatal to the country, or rather more so -- The large share of injury the Company suffers in their affairs, by the annual continuance of these troubles, calls for our most serious consideration, as I see no end to them whilst we support the present system, so obviously tending (and that not by slow degrees neither) to our employers ruin. To obviate this, some measures must be adopted; in concerting of which your presence with us and counsels are absolutely necessary, as soon as the present exigencies of things can admit of your absence from the troops. -- This moment I am interrupted by letters from Mr. Amyatt of the 14th, one to the Committee, the other to myself; in both which he lays such stress on the necessity of being reinforced by Europeans and Seapoys, that I fear it must over-rule all I have urged in this and my last paragraph, and after all oblige your march to Patna, with what force you think can be spared from the Purnea expedition; or whether you may not think it eligible to take the whole with you, and defer that expedition for the present. The seeming resolution the Prince has taken, not to quit the province of Bahar, and the increase of his army, are strokes we could not reasonably have expected after the repulses he received at Patna. By letters of the 12th from thence they advise us, the Prince and his army were retreated nine corse towards Tikara; by those of the 14th, only three; just to get clear of sallies from the city. Mr. Amyatt seems to write under the greatest apprehension as well for the country as the Company's investment of Salt-Petre, &c. Measures for the security of that must at least be entered on, though, for my own part, I fear if the Prince has really resolved to keep on this side the Soan, and is proceeding, as Mr Amyatt represents, succors will arrive too late to prevent mischief. I will directly summon a meeting of the Select Committee to reply to Mr. Amyatt's letter, and transmit you their sentiments for your conduct.

Since writing the above, I have received another Phirmaund from the Prince, enclosing the original Arzdasht of the Nabob, the truth of which appears to us to carry much probability, which is all I shall at present say to it. What follows are the sentiments of the other gentlemen of the Committee, as well as my own.

Hitherto our conduct in supporting the Suba's government can hardly be vindicated to our employers, the more especially since his flagrant and known breach of the treaty last year, not only by his invitation of the Dutch forces from Batavia, but by his shameful and insincere conduct and dealing with us after their arrival, and to this hour respecting that people, the weakness and inconsistency of his whole politics during the course of this campaign, joined to the repeated cruelties, murders, and oppressions, daily committed by him or his son on individuals, -- the universal detestation of his government throughout the provinces, -- the obvious certainty of these troubles in the country continuing without interruption, whilst this family exists at the head of it; all these, with many other considerations which I could enumerate, demonstrates, we cannot longer, consistent with what we owe to the Company, to natural justice, and propriety, and to the English name, support a system of usurpation and tyranny, which reflects dishonor on it, and must, if persisted in, involve our honorable employers and our colony in a speedy ruin. -- The more we see of this government, the more is verified your own just observation at your first knowledge of it, That it is rotten to the core: What then can be expected from a system rotten to the very heart of it, in every sense -- Ruin must attend the family, in spite of our efforts to save them; and we must as assuredly be partakers in a greater or less degree thereof -- to say nothing of our drawing our sword in support of such a system, against the legal, though unfortunate Prince of the country, from whom every advantage and emolument we can wish for the Company, is tendered to us, without limitation. -- This being the case, we are most anxious for two or three days conference with you, if possible. We think, if there appears an absolute necessity for it, that you may dispatch 150 or 200 Europeans, and 4 or 500 Seapoys, to reinforce Patna, and wish you could, under the pretence of soliciting a further supply of troops, or sickness, or any other cover which may occur to you, leave Capt. Yorke with your detachment, and return to us, if for twenty-four hours only. If you find this impracticable, without raising suspicions, which may have consequences we cannot foresee, then favor me with your sentiments as soon as possible without reserve. I am, with the most perfect confidence and esteem, Sir,

Your most obedient humble servant,

J. Z. H.

To the Honorable J. Z. Holwell, Esq; President and Governor of Fort William.

Camp at Balkissens Gardens, 29th May, 1760.

Sir,

I am honored this day with your favor of the 24th instant. My last letters of the 24th, and those of yesterday, of the 28th, contain all I can urge in favor of our return to Patna with the young Nabob -- you seem also convinced of the necessity of it, since the receipt of Mr. Amyatt's letters: I shall be glad to find it further confirmed by the sentiments of the Select Committee.

I am not master enough of the subject, to know how the Company's investment of Salt-petre will be so much hurt this year; and that you fear succors will arrive too late, to prevent much mischief; but this I am very confident of, that if we do not send succors, the whole province may be lost, and many years investments to come.

I will endeavor now, Sir, to reply as fully as I can to the subject on which you desire so earnestly to know my sentiments; and hope what I have to say will so fully satisfy you, that I need not at least leave the army, until the campaign is quite concluded, as I think it cannot be done without prejudice to our affairs.

Bad as the man may be, whose cause we now support, I cannot be of opinion that we can get rid of him for a better, without running the risk of much greater inconveniencies attending on such a change, than those we now labor under. -- I presume, the establishing tranquility in these provinces would restore to us all the advantages of trade we could wish, for the profit and honor of our employers; and I think we bid fairer to bring that tranquility about, by our present influence over the Suba, and by supporting him, than by any change which can be made. -- No new revolution can take place without a certainty of troubles; and a revolution will certainly be the consequence, whenever we withdraw our protection from the Suba: -- we cannot in prudence neither, I believe, leave this revolution to chance -- we must in some degree be instrumental to bringing it about. -- In such a case, it is very possible we may raise a man to the dignity, just as unfit to govern, as little to be depended upon, and in short, as great a rogue as our Nabob, but perhaps not so great a coward, nor so great a fool, and of consequence much more difficult to manage. -- As to the injustice of supporting this man, on account of his cruelties, oppressions, and his being detested in his government, I see so little chance, in this blessed country, of finding a man endued with the opposite virtues, that I think we may put up with these vices, with which we have no concern, if in other matters we find him fittest for our purpose.

As to his breach of his treaty, by introducing the Dutch last year, that was never so clearly proved, I believe, but as to admit of some doubt; -- Colonel Clive, before he left the country, seemed satisfied that what was suspicious in his conduct in that affair, proceeded not from actual guilt, but from the timidity of his nature. -- But if we still suspect him from further circumstances, we always have it in our power to put it to the test at once, by making him act as he ought, whether he will or no.

With regard to drawing our swords against the lawful Prince of the country; no man can more pity his misfortunes than I have done, nor would any one be more willing and happy to be instrumental in assisting him to recover his just right; -- but such a plan is not the thought of a day, nor the execution of it the work of a few months; -- there is a powerful party still remains; -- the Vizier, with the Maharattas and Jutes, who, notwithstanding the constant success of Abdallah against them, still make head against him; and such are their resources and their numbers, that I believe they will at last oblige the Patans to leave the country; for though they cannot beat them fairly out of the field, they bid fair to starve them out of the country.

You have, no doubt, received advice from Mr. Hastings, that Abdallah hath sent orders to the several powers, to acknowledge the Prince King of Indostan, by the name of Shaw Allum; -- rupees are struck by his order at Bannarras and Lucknow, in that name; -- orders are also given to Sujah Dowlatt, to accept the post of Vizier; and our Nabob hath got, it is said, instructions to acknowledge him, and pay him the obeisance due to the King of Kings, as he is styled.

If we were perfectly sure Abdallah would remain, as he says, until he saw the Prince well fixed on the throne, and the peace and tranquility of the country restored, we might, I think, all joined together, be a match for the Maharattas; -- but we must be well assured that Abdallah will heartily enter, and when entered, will firmly support the cause: -- for should this appointment of his be no more (as it is possible) than a finishing stroke, to end his expedition with the eclat of having given us a Mogul, and when a certain number of the country powers had entered into the alliance, he should think of a return to his own country, and leave us to fight it out with the other contending party, I fear the Vizier and the Maharattas would be too strong for those who remained of the alliance, supposing them to be the Ruellahs, and Sujah Dowlatt, and the Nabob of Bengal. -- However, supposing all this should take place, why may it not be done with our Nabob in our hand, still his friends and his protectors?

I am this instant favored with yours of the 25th; and I find by your postscript, that your opinion and mine, with regard to the Prince, do not differ much. I have no objections to follow the plan you propose: -- let Mr. Hastings sound the old Nabob, and I will go to work with the young one, who joins me this day.

We may continue our march on to Patna. -- The rains will give us time to negotiate, to see we go on sure grounds, and make such a plan of the alliance, as will do us honor, and be an advantage to our country and our employers; -- but let us not abandon the Nabob. -- Besides the reasons I have urged above, one more still remains, which I believe will have some weight, and make us cautious how we attempt, without very strong and urgent reasons, any change in the present system.

You are well acquainted, Sir, with the cause which first gave rise to the present share of influence which we enjoy in this part of the Mogul's empire: -- a just resentment for injuries received, was the first motive which induced us to make a trial of our strength; -- the case with which we succeeded enlarged our views, and made us cheerfully embrace all opportunities of increasing that interest and influence, both on account of the advantages which accrued from it to the Honorable Company, as likewise the hopes that it might in time prove a source of benefit and riches to our country. -- Such were, 1 believe, the motives of Colonel Clive's actions during his administration; such, I believe, were the views of the Honorable Company, when they solicited and obtained Colonel Coote's regiment from the Government; and such, I am certain, is the plan which the Colonel proposes, on his return, to pursue and to support, in hopes to convince the Ministry and the Company, as he is convinced himself, that if they please to support his project, it will prove of the greatest advantage to the public.

If I have stated our situation right, it follows, I believe, of course, that we are bound with vigor to work on the same plan, to act on the same principles, and to keep up the system as perfect and entire as it was left in our hands; that whatever resolutions the Nation or the Company may come to, on Col. Clive's representations, they may not be disappointed, by finding here (at least through our faults) any very material change in our situation, power, or credit.

One word more. All we can wish to do is, not to suffer the Nabob to impose on us, and to check every beginning of an independence he may endeavor to assume: -- let us consult and improve on every occasion that offers, the honor and advantage of our employers, and the increase of their trade and credit; and not let them suffer any additional expense, on account of pursuing any plan, or supporting any system whatever. -- By acting thus, I think we cannot err; we run at least no risk; and I believe the Company's affairs may be conducted by us under this Suba, as much to their advantage and credit, as any other whom a revolution may place in the government.

Enclosed, I have the honor to send Mr. Amyatt's last letter, received this morning. We have had, as you will see, another brush with the Prince's troops, and with great success: however, if the other plan goes on, we must put an end to this fighting system, and talk coolly on affairs. -- I shall expect the favor of your opinion with great impatience; and have the honor to assure you that I am, with perfect respect and esteem,

Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant,

JOHN CAILLAUD

It is worth remarking, that in this letter we see many specious arguments in favor of still preserving this system; apologies are made for: Suba's cruelties and oppressions; and even an attempt made to extenuate his conduct in the Dutch affair, by attributing it to his timidity. -- Howsoever Colonel Clive was actuated to declare afterwards, the sentiments set forth in this letter, yet the Memorial sent to the Company (sometime after it happened) carried the testimony of conviction, (to his having called in the Dutch) signed by Colonel Clive and his whole council. Possibly we may be wrong; but still we will not hesitate to say, that neither the pen nor tongue of a Cicero should influence us to think, the most atrocious crimes and cruelties can admit of palliation, let the complexion or principles of that government be what they will, -- much less vindicate the supporting such wickedness, let the advantages be ever so great to ourselves. -- But waving here these, and several other parts of this letter, we beg leave to refer you to our answer immediately following, where we think we have rendered the whole invalid. -- It is more worthy remark, that all the arguments so forcibly urged there, vanished on Governor Vansittart's arrival at Fort William -- without, as we remember, any material alteration in the face of affairs; -- for, after the flight of Cuddeim Hossein Khan, the rains set in, and a stop was put to all operations of the field. -- It is true, things were growing worse and worse; -- but that was no more than was foreseen long before, as appears from Mr. Holwell's repeated and urgent representations, on his part, as well as on that of the Committee, though then without obtaining any due influence: nor will this be much wondered at, when we unmask the cause. The Major having undoubted reasons to expect a change in the government of Calcutta, and that Mr. Vansittart would probably arrive with us in July, or sooner; it is but rational to think, that the Major rather chose to be joined with Mr. Vansittart, with whom he had been long connected in friendship, (than with Mr. Holwell, who was in a manner a stranger to him) in the subversion of a government which he saw must inevitably be brought on, but at the same time thought would admit of delay. This must have been the plan of thinking adopted by him then, or his subsequent conduct in falling immediately into, and having so principal a part in deposing Mhir Jaffier Khan, must appear wholly unaccountable. -- Messrs. Holwell, Sumner, and Mac-Gwire, the majority of your Select Committee, very clearly saw through this disguise; for they too had received intimation of Mr. Vansittart's appointment; and convinced that nothing could be effectually pushed by their majority in the Committee, without having a concurrence from the heart with the Commander in chief of your forces in the field, contented themselves with remonstrances on the unhappy situation of your affairs; -- having no other alternative in their power. To the truth of this, we venture to refer to Mr. Sumner, now in England.

Here we will beg leave to say publicly, what we have often said in private to some of your Court of Directors; If you would have your affairs conducted properly in Bengal, give your Commander in chief, rank, title, emoluments, anything to make him respectable in the eyes of that government, and your own forces; -- but give him not a vote in your Committees or Councils: -- recent and melancholy proofs evince the impropriety of doing it. -- There will ever be one set of political views in the cabinet, and another in the camp; and this inevitably must be the case: -- if it had not been so, you would, in the month of May or June 1760, have been yourselves Subas of Bengal, and now in possession of between two and three millions sterling per annum.

To John Caillaud, Esq;

Calcutta, June 14, 1760.

Sir,

MANY of the various reasons you assign for our supporting this government, at all events, I should most readily submit to, were we at the same time in any situation of supporting and conducting the Company's affairs with success and honor, or indeed of conducting them at all. They are burdened with a military force at the expense of near 50,000 Rupees each month, their bare pay, besides the immense charge of military stores, &c. The charges of their works, one month with another, amount to from 70 to 90,000 Rupees. The Company's great support, at this time, will be expected from their Bengal investments; and if we return them this season one ship's complete cargo, it will be the utmost the present prospect promises: for some time the business at their different Arungs has been at a stand; they have in a manner lost their silk investment for this season. -- The balance of their treasury, one lack and half only, without any hopes of a material supply, we having used every means in our power to borrow on their account without success: In hourly expectation of their credit suffering further disgrace, from our inability to answer the several bills drawn on us from different quarters; in less than the space of one month a disgraceful stop must be put to the progress of our new works; and I declare to you, I see not where we shall get money for the pay of our troops in garrison, and much less for the service of the marine, and other current expenses of the Presidency. -- I have no doubt but you will give due weight and attention to the forgoing real state of the Company's affairs; and from thence be convinced, that the support of the present system, until the Company's pleasure is known, will reduce us to no system at all; the more surely so, as we have so little foundation to expect any supplies at all from them, by the ships of this season.

Had it ever been my with or intention to have taken our support from the present Nabob, and transfer it to any other, your arguments, in that case, would have all the weight with me they so greatly merit; but, I think, on a representation of mine to you, and the copy of mine to Mr. Amyatt, you will see that was not my aim; for I concur minutely with your objections to such a step, and am very clear we should not mend our situation by a revolution in favor of any other, who would, as you truly observe, prove as bad as the present, and probably worse: -- But my views for the Company went much higher. That the country will never be in a settled, peaceful state whilst this family is at the head of it, is a position I lay down as incontestable; and that until the country enjoys that state, the Company's affairs must, in consequence, be daily approaching to certain ruin: I therefore judge we could never be possessed of a more just or favorable opportunity to carry into execution, what must be done, I plainly see, one time or other, if the Company have ever a secure footing in the provinces, to wit, Take this country into their own hands, limiting ourselves to the province of Bengal only, or extending our views to those of Bahar and Orixa, as on future debate might be thought most eligible. The situation of the Prince at present is such, that I am sure he would readily and thankfully hearken to an overture from us, and without hesitation, grant a Phirmaund appointing the Company perpetual Subas of the province. His two Phirmaunds to me, as I before advised you, offered a Carte Blanche for the company; and I dare say, that to you was of the same tenor. With respect to the validity of receiving a Phirmaund from him, I cannot think it possibly liable to impeachment; That he is the legal heir to the empire is beyond contradiction; that Abdallah has proclaimed him Emperor, by the name of Shaw Allum, ordered Siccas to be struck in his name, and called him to the throne, are truths which now I believe will admit of no doubt. But, on supposition things should come to the worst, and the issue of them at last prove in favor of Shaw Jehawn, I conceive it would very little affect us, when once in possession of the Provinces; for let the lot of empire fall to whom it will, the regular remittance of the stipulated revenues of the country, from which that court had hardly benefited since the time of Sujah Khan, would secure a confirmation, from whatever Prince fills the throne, if his eyes are open to his own interest.

The foregoing favorable circumstances considered, together with the present state of the Company's affairs, and the many just causes and provocations we certainly have against supporting this government any longer, can we, consistently with our duty to the Company, disregard an overture, which in fact came first from the Prince, so immensely advantageous to their affairs -- and redounding so greatly to their honor? -- and by which we should be sufficiently enabled to prevent the French ever regaining a footing in Bengal, or even an entrance to the country? -- Circumstances we have most to apprehend from, of anything that can possibly happen to the molestation and destruction of the Company's influence and concerns in India; for in such an event, we can, from experience, judge the assistance we should receive from the present government.


I have this moment received your favor of the 10th from Hybut Gunge, and think five or six days will bring you near the city. As nothing material has happened, your obliging apology for not writing more frequently, was needless, for I can very soon account for every moment of your time, in such troublesome and forced marches. I observe the first discouragement which check the Prince's hopes; and yet I think if he gives us the Subadary, promotes Mhir Jaffier and his son to some considerable posts, and takes them and their troops with him, and is joined by 4 or 500 of Europeans, with 2 or 3000 Seapoys, and a good field artillery, the result would be in his favor; and that, with these helps, he would gain the throne of his ancestors: -- for though after the late success of the Morattors against Abdallah's Visier, it might be imprudent in Sujah Dowlet to advance to the southward, yet when he was joined by the Prince, with a formidable force, there would be no objection to Sujah Dowlet's joining him with his whole power, in his march to Delly. -- Think, Sir, how glorious a circumstance for our Company and nation, to be aiding in so just and honorable a service! and what might they not both expect, if the Prince was established on the throne of Indostan; an event which appears to me a moral certainty, by such a coalition as is just hinted at above.

If matters should chance to come into treaty, a ratification of Colonel Clive's Jagier must not be forgot.

I am with real esteem, Sir,

Your obedient humble Servant,

J. Z. H.

How far his Lordship's prior and subsequent treatment of Mr. Holwell, merited this tender consideration, we leave to his Lordship's breast; -- and only remark, that this thought never occurred to his bosom friends, when they had it in their power to have screened him from much trouble and more anxiety.
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Re: Freda Bedi Cont'd (#3)

Postby admin » Mon Nov 23, 2020 6:35 am

Part 4 of 4

To Peter Amyatt, Esq;

Calcutta, 30th May, 1760.

Since mine of the 25th, I have received a letter from Mr. Hastings, enclosing abstracts of one from Jugul Kissore, the Nabob's agent at Delly, to the Nabob, advising him of the Shaw Zadda being actually proclaimed King, and called to the throne by Abdallah; and that the Vizerut was sent to Suza Dowla, who has already struck Siccas in the Prince's name. If this incident is really fact, which appears probable enough from the many particulars recited in Jugul Kissore's letter, our proceedings will require the nicest conduct at this conjuncture; and as we have hitherto opposed his arms, we must attone in future for such opposition, by making our force as serviceable to him as possible, -- even by joining him with such part of them as we can possibly spare, to assist him in securing the peaceable possession of the throne; provided we can thereby gain some essential point, which we must now most assiduously pursue, for the Company's benefit; the success and accomplishment of which will greatly depend on yours and the Major' s address, to whom I shall enclose copy of this, that you may act in concert on this occasion for the public good. --

On supposition that the Prince is recognized Emperor by Abdallah, I do not see how we can, consistent with our duty to the Company, to natural justice, or sound politics, support this family any longer against the Prince, without the most flagrant breach and violation of the laws of nations: Whilst his right remained doubtful, a pretext barely plausible remained for our conduct; but this recognition of the Prince by Abdallah, and the principal Omrahs of this empire, divests us even of that pretext; and our persisting will lay us, I fear, not only liable to censure from the Company, but from the whole world.

That the Suba will labor to exculpate himself, by throwing the odium of the resistance made to the Prince in these dominions on us, I have not the least doubt; of which there needs no stronger proof, than his secreting this extraordinary event, which on the instant he should have had communicated to me, by virtue of the treaty subsisting between him and the English; for all the intelligence of this affair I have from Mr. Hastings only, who obtained the copy of Jugul Kissore's letter from the Moonshee, contrary, he believes, to the Suba's intentions; -- so that, on the whole, we may reasonably conclude, he is well advanced by this time in making his peace with the Prince at our expense, and possibly at the price of the Company's ruin; -- in which he must be countermined without loss of time, and every piece of treachery carefully guarded against, which either he or his son, we know, are capable of projecting against our troops, or us. I yesterday received a letter from the old Nabob, desiring me to order part of Captain Fischer's command to Midnapore, for the security of that place, and collection of the revenues; which in my answer I absolutely refused, alleging for reason that his own people were fully equal to that service, and that I could not think of making any further dispersion of our troops, at a time when we might daily expect an enemy in the river. -- We cannot be too much upon our guard against this government, at this very critical period, for I perfectly know it capable of the most superlative baseness and treachery.

All these particulars premised and duly considered, the plan for our immediate conduct obviously presents itself. The Prince's resentment to this family is such, that I am convinced the first overture from us would be most readily embraced by him and his Ministers, that now we shall have it in our power to make our own terms for the Company; and that if we lose this opportunity, it is evident to me we shall never get another; and that the Company must ever remain on the most precarious and dangerous footing in this country.

The terms to be labored for, which now occur to me, are, 1st, The Subadary of Bengal, comprising Siccli-gully, or Telliagurry, for the Company. -- 2d, Their Governor, for the time being, to bear the title of Suba, or Nizam of the provinces. -- 3d, Mr. Law and his troops to be delivered up to us. -- 4th, No other European power whatever to be allowed to hold or maintain a fortification or troops in the province. -- 5th, An absolute grant, or phirmaund, for the security of our Salt-petre farm, free from all caveats and difficulties. -- 6th, A ratification of our treaties with Surajad Dowla, and the present Suba; and full indemnification and acquittal to the Company, for all our ancient phirmaunds, grants: and privileges, and full confirmation of the same to the Company. -- 8th, A letter to be obtained from the Emperor to the King of Great Britain, setting forth the particulars of all these grants to his subjects.

On our side we engage, 1st, To make due and regular remittance to court, of the stipulated revenues of the province, -- 2d, To quit the protection of the present family in the government. -- 3d, To pay obedience to all orders issuing from the throne; and 4th, To join the Prince with all the troops we can possibly spare from the defense of the Company's possessions: but this last article to be avoided, if practicable.


If you, jointly with Major Caillaud, think the foregoing plan can be carried into execution, consistent with the Company's safety and advantage, the same shall be laid before the Board, and proper powers transmitted to you if it meets with their approval. If you judge it impracticable, favor me with your sentiments, and point out what other probable scheme we can adopt, to extricate the Company's affairs from the difficulties and obstructions they labor under.

I am, Sir,

Your most obedient, humble Servant,

J. Z. H.

To the Honorable John Zeph. Holwell.

Camp at Punch-ruckee, 26th June, 1760.

Sir,

Since I had the pleasure to apprise you of Captain Knox's success against Caudim Hossein Khan, I have crossed the river with the Nabob, and have been in full pursuit of the same enemy for several days past. Encumbered by his treasure, and a great quantity of baggage, he was very much impeded in his retreat, and retired so slow from us, that yesterday morning, after a march of six hours, we found ourselves in sight of his rear-guard. Advised of our approach, he had then just struck his camp, wherein he left twelve very small pieces of cannon; and without seeming to observe us, continued on his way about three coss further, with our army following him. At the extremity of a large plain, bordered by a thick grove, and three or four villages, which covered part of his troops, he made a halt, and drew up his cannon. We did the same upon the plain, and a mutual cannonading ensued. Previous to this, I had sent repeated messages to the Nabob (who remained a considerable distance in our rear) immediately to dispatch a body of cavalry, to stop them and keep them in play, and not suffer so fair an occasion to be irretrievably lost; urging, at the same time, how impossible it was for men on foot, fatigued with a long march, to attempt to pursue horse: but he continued deaf to my remonstrances, and instead of sending me the least assistance, formed his troops above a mile in our rear, and there waited looking on until the enemy quitted the field. From the commencement of the cannonading until the firing ceased, it was about four hours. Little execution was done on either side. Two or three times they appeared in a large body, coming down upon us; but on our advancing, immediately retreated. We drove them from the villages, and they abandoned to us seven more pieces of cannon, and as many camels loaded with rockets. During the action, which very probably was a feint, for that very purpose, they found means to unload all their hackeries of their treasure, Genanah, and other valuable effects, to place them upon camels and elephants, with which they went off, and are now far enough out of our reach. All their empty hackeries they also left behind them. Nothing could induce the Nabob, even after all was over, to send a body of horse to intercept them in their retreat, which might have been effected with very little hazard. I marched seven coss after them this morning, but found they had left their camp, and departed in the night. I have the honor to be, with equal respect and esteem, Sir,

Your most obedient, humble Servant,

JOHN CAILLAUD.

To Peter Amyatt, Esq;

July 1, 1760.

Sir,

In expectation of hearing more particularly from you, on the Major's arrival with you, I deferred hitherto replying to your favor of the 12th; but now tender you my best thanks for that, and another of the 19th, with its duplicate.

We may say, very truly, that we have not gained much by this wild-goose campaign. The Prince and his friends have gained less, except we toss them a drubbing or two into their scale. Knox is a brave fellow, and I dare say the Major will finish Cudheim Hossein Khan, as you phrase it, if he does but stay, and give him as fair an opportunity. But pray, after all, what is to be the end of all these marches, counter-marchings, drubbings, &c.? Methinks we seem so keen after this royal game, as never once to recollect, that the Company must starve, if we find them no other amusement; we will suppose Cudheim Hossein Khan finished, and the Prince driven out of the country, with all his adherents, until the rains break up; when, in all human probability, the same royal hunt begins again, and so on, ad infinitum, whilst the Company have nothing but ruin in prospect. No money, no goods, no credit even with that government we are supporting; which on the contrary, in place of advancing, in this distressed state of our affairs, obstructs and embarrasses us on every occasion, in the collection of the Tunckas which are our due, and is capable of refusing us a perwannah for a year or two's chinam to finish our new works. And to form to you a complete idea of Mahomet Jaffier Aly Khan, he is now, at this very juncture, whilst we are risking our own throats to save his, in secret negotiation with the Morattors, to introduce a body of 25 or 30,000 of them into the provinces. He has agreed to pay them 12 lack in three months; a considerable sum was near being advanced to them, when he was informed I had intelligence of it, and then he dropped it. Mussaloode Mahomet Khan was dispatched to Cuttack, with two other Morattors, to finish this business.

I am sorry the Major's sentiments and yours seem to differ from my own, respecting the necessity we are under of supporting this government, at all events and in all circumstances. I must confess, my reason is not at all convinced of this obligation. If this must hold until the Company's pleasure be known, it can hold on no other terms, than the Nabob's making over some other parts of the country, that will fully reimburse the expense of the troops; for by Heaven! we shall not be able to pay them two months longer. I am truly, Sir,

Your most obedient humble Servant,

J. Z. H.

To Mr. Warren Hastings.

Fort William, 16th July, 1760.

Sir,

Your obliging letter of the 12th reached me only this morning, as also yours to the Select Committee. The sudden death of the young Nabob is very striking, and must, I think, occasion commotions in the Provinces. Had Providence thought proper to have appointed, by the same flash, Rajah Raagebullub to attend him to the other world, the country would have had a double benefit. Mhiran's troops, returning under his command, I think will prove bad politics. He has been at the bottom, the great cause of the long dissentions between Mhiran and his father; and the young Nabob's troops, we pretty well know, have neither affection for the old Nabob, nor can put faith or confidence in him. My reign is short; (I conceive Mr. Vansittart will arrive with us in ten days the farthest) however, short as it is, I would willingly employ the last hour of it for the advantage of the public: shall therefore transmit with this that advice to the old Nabob, which appears to me most essential for his service at this juncture, and what will, I think, prove most conducive to the settling the peace and tranquility of his country. Copy of my letter to the old Nabob I enclose you; my plan, you will observe, is short, and easily to be effected, now his son is gone -- to wit, to throw himself into the arms of Mhir Cossim Aly Khan and Roy Doolub; and dismiss from his Councils those two vipers, Aga Salah of Cuttack, and Rajah Bullob, as well as that infamous instrument of his cruelties, Chuccon.

You will signify to the Nabob, that, on the receipt of your letter, I paid every customary compliment to his son's memory, such as minute guns, colors of the fort and ships hoisted half mast, &c. and have wrote him also a separate letter of condolence on this melancholy occasion. I am, Sir, Y

our most obedient humble servant,

J. Z. H.

P. S. You will observe, that in my letter to the Nabob, I have as yet only mentioned Cossim Aly Khan to him.

Thus far advanced, we think it essentially proper to lay the whole progress of this revolution before you, even to the minutest circumstance.

To give governor Vansittart a full knowledge of the present situation of the provinces, and state of the Company's affairs, the correspondence and memorial were preferred to his perusal and consideration, together with all letters received, as well from the country powers as others. The result was a declaration from him, that one or other of Mr. Holwell's plans must be pursued, without loss of time, to save the Country and Company from impending ruin. -- Colonel Caillaud was immediately ordered from Patna to join our councils -- he arrived. Three or four days produced from the governor, a long statement of the present face of affairs, and the necessity of adopting measures therein proposed, which were in a manner literally taken from the correspondence and memorial, and obtained the sanction and concurrence of Colonel Caillaud, and the majority not only of the committee, but of the council also.

At this period Mr. Holwell received frequent letters from Mhir Mahomet Cossim Aly Khan, containing the strongest professions and assurances in favor of the Company, if, by our support, he was promoted to the succession of the Dewannee, and other posts enjoyed by the late Chuta Nabob, his brother-in-law. These letters were duly communicated to Mr. Vansittart, to whom he likewise wrote, but with more reserve, imagining Colonel Caillaud had swayed him in favor of Rajah Raagebullob, though without any real ground for such suspicion. These matters being debated in Committee, it was judged eligible to obtain permission for Cossim Aly Khan's paying a visit to Calcutta; a vircumstance he himself had intimated, in a letter to the governor and Mr. Holwell; the times gave good pretence for it, to wit, adjusting the operations of the next campaign, and finally settling the accounts of the Tunka's. To gain this point, the Governor and Mr. Holwell wrote to the Suba, with good success; Cossim Aly Khan had permission to come to Calcutta, and left the city some days after, and arrived with us about the 20th of September.

The usual ceremonies over, he had a private conference or two with the Governor; but still forming doubts of his being influenced by Colonel Caillaud, kept himself much on the reserve: the Governor expostulated with him on so improper a conduct. To this he replied, that he had the strongest reasons to conclude the new Colonel was his enemy; and therefore desired Mr. Holwell might be deputed to have a conference with him, to whom he could open his whole heart with confidence and freedom; to which the Governor gave a ready assent.

Mr. Holwell being well apprised that Coja Petruse (to whom the Company owed much in the last revolution, but much more in this) had the greatest weight with, and influence over Cossim Aly Khan, had secured him on the side of the Company; and at a private interview with him, at Mr. Holwell's garden, on the same day of the conference between the Governor and Cossim Aly Khan, Mr. Holwell formed a rough plan of the terms which must be insisted on for the Company, in lieu of the protection and support given to Cossim Aly Khan; which Petrude engaged he would promote, to the utmost of his power and influence.

The next morning, the 24th of September, Mr. Holwell communicated his conference with Petruse, and laid the rough plan before the Governor and Select Committee, who approved of it, with little variation; and the 25th was appointed for the conference between him and Cossim Aly Khan -- They met at seven, and about nine Mr. Holwell received a message from the Governor, intimating, that the Select Committee was going to sit, and would continue sitting until he joined them with the result of the conference.

After the usual compliments, and many grateful acknowledgments on the part of Cossim Aly Khan, for the many instances of friendship he had received from Mr. Holwell, during his government, the scene in point opened; when, with very little hesitation, he discovered his views were more extensive than had been imagined. He urged the repeated treacherous conduct of the Suba and the late young Nabob to the English, who had been not only their Creators, but their support and preservers; expatiated on their cruelties and murders, and the universal abhorrence of the people against the Suba and his house; dwelt much on his personal ingratitude to himself, in two attempts which he had made on his life, at the instigation of the late young Nabob; -- exclaimed against the secret negotiation he had carried on with the Shaw Zadda and the Dutch; -- communicated the private orders he had received from the Suba, when he was sent down against the Dutch, to favor them, in contradiction to the public ones, transmitted by the Suba at that time to Mr. Holwell; closing this introduction with saying, that the Suba was incapable of government; that no faith or trust could be put in him; and that, if he was not taken off, it would never be in his power to render the Company those services which he had so much at heart.

Mr. Holwell, who little expected a preliminary of this kind, expressed much astonishment and abhorrence at the overture
-- and replied, "That howsoever little the Suba deserved consideration, yet that the honor of the Company, and the English name, forbid our hearkening to any attempts against his life or dignity; that care would be taken, neither he nor his evil ministers should in future have power either to injure him, the Company, or his Country, in the manner he had already done; but that unless he (Cossim Aly Khan) dropped all mention, as well as every intention and attempt of the measure he had intimated, the conference must end there." To this he acquiesced, but with evident dissatisfaction of countenance; and only added, that as he had no support but the English, he must submit to their measures; but feared Mr. Holwell was not so much his friend as he hoped and expected.

This obstruction being removed, business and much altercation took place; none present but Cossim Aly Khan, Mr. Holwell, Coja Petruse, and Cossim Aly Khan's head Moonshe (or Persian secretary); and after debate on each article, the following were agreed to.

1st, That Cossim Aly Khan shall be invested with the Dewannee, be declared Chuta Nabob, and successor in the Subaship to Mhir Jaffier Aly Khan, and enjoy all the posts possessed by the late young Nabob.

2d, That all acts of the government shall run under the seal of, and in the name of, Mhir Jaffier Aly Khan; but the executive power should rest in Cossim Aly Klian; the dignity of the Suba to remain inviolable in the person of the former, with an allowance of one Lack of Rupees per mensem, for the support of his household, &c. expenses.

3d, That Cossim Aly Khan shall pay and make good the balance of the Tunka's, as lately adjusted with Omid Roy, on the part of Jaffier Aly Khan.

4th, That the Company shall keep up a standing force, for the defense of the government and provinces, consisting of 8000 Seapoys, 2000 European Foot, 2000 Country Cavalry, and 500 European Horse.

5th, That to enable the Company to keep up the above standing force, the countries of Burdomaan, Midnapore, Chittygang, and half the annual produce of the Chinam at Sillet, shall be ceded to the Company in perpetuity.

The above five articles contain the full tenor and essentials of the treaty, though not a literal copy of it. -- A sixth article, pressed by Mr. Holwell, That Cossim Aly Khan should concur with the English in acknowledging the rights of the Shaw Zadda to the throne of Indostan, was left dormant, and to be adjusted as future events should point out.

By one o'clock in the afternoon, Mr. Holwell attended the Committee, with the articles agreed to by Cossim Aly Khan, which met the unanimous approval of the members. At this committee it was moved and requested by the Governor, and backed by the Committee, That Mr. Holwell would accompany the Colonel (who was ordered to return to Patna) as far as the city, with joint powers from the Committee, to carry the foregoing articles into execution amicably, if possible, otherwise to force the Suba to a compliance. To this purpose they were to be accompanied by a detachment of 200 Europeans, 4 pieces of field artillery, and 5 or 600 Seapoys, under the command of Major Yorke, on pretence of reinforcing the troops at Patna.

This service was peremptorily refused by Mr. Holwell, for the following reasons: -- First, He saw no sufficient necessity for it. Secondly, He was pre-determined to resign the service as soon as the treaty was signed. Thirdly, He must have been second only in the commission with the Colonel; a character he could by no means submit to, under a gentleman he had so lately commanded; a circumstance which would have rendered Mr. Holwell of little weight or consequence at the city. -- On his refusal, the Governor declared he would go up himself with the Colonel, on pretence of paying the first visit to the Suba.

The 26th and 27th of September passed in conferences between the Governor and Cossim Aly Khan, in drawing the treaty out fair, and adjusting measures touching the carrying it into execution. The 27th, at night, a Committee was held at the Governor's house, and the treaty interchangeably signed by the Committee on the one part, and by Mhir Mahomet Cossim Aly Khan Bahadr on the other. The 28th, he made an entertainment for the Governor and Council; and the 29th, in the morning, took his leave, and departed for the city. -- The same morning Mr. Holwell took his leave of the Board, and resigned the service.


Major Yorke, with his detachment, marched a few days after, with instructions to arrive at the city a day or two after Cossim Aly Khan, that he might be near enough to protect him, if there should be occasion. The Governor and the Colonel followed soon after, and arrived at the city with the detachment, and took up their quarters at Moradbaag, on the opposite side of the river to Moorshadabad -- But here we will take up the thread of this detail from Mr. Vansittart's own words, in his remonstrance to the Board of Calcutta, of which we luckily have a copy, beginning where he leaves off, with the murder of Aly Verrdee Khan's family, already spoken to.--

"Executions of this kind had made the Nabob the dread or the detestation of all good men; and he necessarily became a prey to people of mean extraction and abject dispositions, who knowing that a government so managed could not stand long, fought only to make themselves rich by oppressions of all forts upon the country and inhabitants. To the heavy taxes laid by them on markets, is ascribed the present unusual scarcity and dearness of provisions at the city, the capital of a country once esteemed the most plentiful in the world. The Persons who have had the chief share in this bad management are, Keenooram, Moniloll, and Checon, all of low birth, and the two first the menial servants of Jaffier Aly Khan, before he came to the Subahship. These managed so, as to engage him continually in idle or vicious amusements, keeping him by that means in utter ignorance of his affairs, and in a state of indifference as to their success. No money came to his treasury, at the same time nothing was paid to his army, insomuch that his troops mutinied, and surrounded his palace in a tumultuous manner, threatening to take away his life; which they certainly would have done, had not his son-in-law, the present Cossim Aly Khan, become answerable, and paid them a very large sum out of his own treasury. This happened last June: and if the imminent danger with which his person was threatened on this occasion, awakened him for a moment, no sooner was it removed again to a distance, than he fell back into the lethargy which had so long possessed him; the same unworthy ministers remained still his only counselors, and continued in the management of his affairs to the last day of his administration; which he left in so confused and impoverished a state, that in all human appearance another month could hardly have run through, before he would have been cut off by his own Seapoys, and the city became a scene of plunder and disorder, the Nabob having made no further provision for the payment of the long arrears due to his people, after Cossim Aly Khan had freed him from his former extremity. This danger he could not but foresee, and more than once declared his apprehensions, yet had not the power to exert the necessary means for preventing it, but sunk the deeper into dejection.

"Besides this intestine danger to which the government was exposed, two armies were in the field, and waiting only the fair weather to advance, the Shaw Zadda towards Patna, and the Beerboon Rajahs of Bissenpoor, Ramgur, and the other countries bordering upon the mountains, were ready to shake off their dependence, and had already offered considerable supplies to the Beerboon Rajah. The Rajah of Carruckipoor had committed open hostilities, and taken possession of all the country about Bogglepoor, which entirely stopped the communication between the two provinces on that side of the river; in a word, the whole country seemed ripe for an universal revolt, those parts only excepted, whose natural weakness or neighborhood with the city intimidated them from taking up arms. To encounter all these difficulties, there was nothing but troops without pay, from whom therefore no great efforts could be expected: of this a very recent instance occurs in the detachment which was ordered against the Beerboon Rajah, three months before the Nabob's abdication, but never advanced more than three coss from the city; in which situation it continued upon my arrival there.

"All who are now in Bengal, and acquainted with the transactions of the government, will bear witness that this is a true description of facts: and all who are convinced of the facts, will certainly agree, that affairs were at an extremity no longer to be neglected without manifest danger of having the provinces over-run, and the trade entirely ruined. I was resolved therefore to use my utmost endeavors to get these bad ministers removed; and judging it might be difficult to prevail on the Nabob to part with his favorites without some degree of violence, I brought with me a detachment of Europeans and Seapoys, under pretence of sending them with Colonel Caillaud, to reinforce the army at Patna.

"I arrived, with the Colonel, at Cossimbuzar, the 14th of October, and the next day the Nabob paid us a visit. The 16th we went to the city and returned the visit; on the 18th, the Nabob came to Moradbaag, by appointment, to talk upon business. In the conversation which I had with him, in the two former meetings, I had taken occasion to represent to him, in general terms, the bad management of his ministers, the miseries and universal disaffection of the country, and the desperate state of his, as well as the Company's affairs. In order to give him a more full and clear view of the evils brought on through the weakness of his administration, and to point out the means for their removal, I had prepared three letters, which, after a short and friendly introduction, I delivered to him; of which translations are hereunto annexed.

"The Nabob seemed much affected by the perusal of the letters, but endeavored more to put an end to the conference, than to propose a remedy to the evils. I, however, prevailed on him to send for his dinner to Muradbaag, and in a manner insisted on his coming to some determination for the immediate reform of the government. At length, he confessed himself, through age and grief for the late loss of his son, incapable of struggling alone against so many difficulties. He desired he might have time to consult with his friends. I told him, the men with whom he had lately advised were not his friends, but his greatest enemies; that his returning again into the midst of them, would only be the means of augmenting his difficulties; that he had much better take the assistance of one from among his relations, on whose true attachment and fidelity he might more safely rely. He named five or six, and amongst them Cossim Ally Cawn. I asked him, which of that number was most fit to assist him in his present exigencies? He replied, without any hesitation, that Cossim Ally Cawn was the most proper; nevertheless, it was with the utmost difficulty I could prevail on him to send for him, and so very late that, before Cossim Ally Cawn could arrive, the old Nabob was so extremely fatigued, and in such a state of anxiety, that I could not refuse his return home to take his rest. I was convinced indeed, it was to no purpose to detain him, for such was the jealousy he discovered with respect to Cossim Ally Cawn, that I saw he never would consent, without some sort of force, to give the other the means of restoring order to his affairs. An hour or two after the Nabob's departure, Cossim Ally Cawn arrived, and seemed to be extremely apprehensive, that the Nabob, instead of trusting him with the management of his affairs, would endeavor by some means or other to get rid of him. I agreed therefore in opinion with him, that he should not go to the Nabob's house, until measures were taken for his security. We resolved, however, to give the Nabob the next day, the 19th, to reflect upon the letters before-mentioned, in hopes that he would propose some means of regulation. I heard nothing from him all day, but found by my intelligence, that he had been in council with his old advisers, Keenooram, Monilot and Checon, whose advice I was sure would be contrary to the welfare of the country in general, and that of the Company in particular. I determined therefore to act immediately on the Nabob's fears. There could not be a better opportunity than that the night of the 19th afforded, it being the conclusion of the Gentoo feast, when all the principal people of that Cast would be pretty well fatigued with their ceremonies. Accordingly I agreed with Caillaud, that he should cross the river with the detachment, between three and four in the morning, and having joined Cossim Ally Cawn and his people, march to the Nabob's palace, and surround it just at daybreak, being extremely desirous to prevent any disturbance or bloodshed. I wrote a letter to the Nabob, a translation of which is annexed, and delivered it to the Colonel, to send in to him at such a time as he should think most expedient. Measures were taken, at the same time, for seizing the persons of Keenooram, Monilot and Checon, my intention being only to remove these three unworthy ministers, and place Cossim Ally Cawn in the full management of all the affairs, in quality of deputy and successor to the Nabob. The necessary preparations being accordingly made with all the care and secrecy possible, the Colonel embarked with the troops, joined Cossim Ally Cawn, without the least alarm, and marched into the courtyard of the palace just at the proper instant. The gates of the inner court being shut, the Colonel formed his men without, and sent my letter to the Nabob, who was at first in a great rage, and long threatened he would make what resistance he could, and take his fate. The Colonel forbore all hostilities, and several messages passed between him and the Nabob. The affair remained in this doubtful state about two hours, when the Nabob, finding his persisting was to no purpose, sent a message to Cossim Ally Cawn, informing him he was ready to send him the seals and all the ensigns of dignity, and to order the Nobut to be struck up in his name; provided he would agree to take the whole charge of government upon him, to discharge all the arrears due to the troops, to pay the usual revenues to the King, to save his life and honor, and give him an allowance sufficient for his maintenance. All these conditions being agreed to, Cossim Ally Cawn was proclaimed, and the old Nabob came out to the Colonel declaring that he depended on him for his life. The troops then took possession of all the gates, and notice being sent to me, I immediately repaired to the palace, and was met by the old Nabob in the gateway. He asked, if his person was safe, which seemed now to be all his concern. I told him, that not only his person was safe, but his government too, if he pleased, of which it was never intended to deprive him. The Nabob answered, that he had no more business at the city; that he should be in continual danger from Cossim Ally Cawn; and that if he was permitted to go and live in Calcutta, he should be extremely happy and contented. Though I could not help lamenting his sudden fall, I was not sorry for this proposal, as I knew affairs would be much better managed without him; and his retaining a share of the authority (however small) could not fail to cause such perplexities, as might prove, in so critical and dangerous a juncture, of the worst consequences to the administration. Cossim Ally Cawn was accordingly seated on the Musnud, and I paid him my congratulations in the usual form. All the Jemmadars and persons of distinction at the city came immediately, and made their acknowledgments to the new Suba; and in the evening every thing was as perfectly quiet, as if there had been no change. The people in general seemed much pleased with this resolution, which had this peculiar felicity attending it, that it was brought about without the least disturbance in town, or a drop of blood spilt.

"The Nabob did not think himself safe even for one night in the city: Cossim Ally Cawn supplied him with boats, and permitted him to take away as many of his women as he desired (which he did to the number of about sixty) with a reasonable quantity of jewels. I furnished him with a strong escort of Europeans and Seapoys, and intended to lodge him at Herajeel, but he would not trust himself there, and begged he might sleep in his boats close to Muradbaug, which he accordingly did. He continued at Muradbaug the next day, and in the evening I visited him with Colonel Caillaud. He appeared then pretty easy, and reconciled to the loss of a power which he owned to be rather a burden than pleasure, and too much for his abilities to manage since the death of his son; and the enjoyment of the rest of his days in security, under the English protection, seemed to be the chief object of his wishes.

"On the morning of the 22d, he set out for Calcutta, and arrived there on the 29th. He was met by a deputation from the Council, and treated with every mark of respect due to his former dignity."


And now having completed our task, we think it necessary to request your indulgence for any inaccuracies and imperfections that may appear in this hasty performance, begun only the last Saturday, and printed the Wednesday after, under many difficulties, by the attacks against this revolution appearing so late; which has laid us under the necessity of omitting, for want of time, many other material vouchers: however, we think we have fully evinced the indispensable necessity which moved your servants to this measure; and hope we have cleared it from the imputation of unparalleled infamy, and the many other indecent and unbecoming reflections thrown out by hot-brained resentment against it. -- If we have done that, and enabled you to judge, at the ensuing crisis, with candor and propriety -- our labor is not in vain. -- lf we have not, we are sorry we have given ourselves and you this useless trouble. -- A few short reflections, and we come to a close. -- Had the heads of father and son been taken off at the period of the Dutch contest, in November 1760, as justice and honor called for; (and why it was not done, let the world judge) and that opportunity taken of acknowledging the Shaw Zadda, and receiving the Subaship of Bengal from him for the Company; (or the next opportunity, when urged by Mr. Holwell) -- happy would have been the issue to the Company and the nation! happy would it have been for those individuals, who, unfortunately misled, since died, butchered in your service! happy would it have been for those, who, in miserable times, succeeded to Colonel Clive and his Council, doomed to support a government that proved a disgrace to our name and arms; and that too with inadequate resources. On the whole, we hope we shall not be thought too presuming, if we venture to draw one general conclusion for you and ourselves, to wit -- That Mhir Jaffier Aly Khan, and his Son Mhiran, were more deserving a halter than a Subaship of Bengal. Not that we would be thought, in this, to detract from the Treaty of 1757, to which we give the high merit due to it, at that fatal, melancholy period.

J. Z. Holwell
Mount Felix,
Walton upon Thames, Surry,
Feb. 22, 1764.

POSTSCRIPT.

SINCE closing the foregoing address, a Pamphlet is come to our hands, bearing the title of "A Letter to the Honorable the Secret Committee for Affairs of the Honorable the United Company of Merchants of England trading to the East Indies," signed by six Gentlemen of your Council of Fort William.

After we had taken the trouble of perusing this piece, we made some inquiries how the Public came by it? and learnt that it was privately compiled abroad, and transmitted to England to a relation of one of the Gentlemen who signed it, to be delivered to the Court of Directors here; who, as we are informed, refused taking any notice of it, as it did not reach them by the usual and proper Channel. If our information in these particulars is just, we cannot help thinking the method taken by these Gentlemen was deficient in equity and generosity; for, to lodge an accusation when the accused have no opportunity of vindicating themselves, is unprecedented. Such we conceive to be the case respecting Mr. Vansittart; and we cannot help applauding the justice of your Court of Directors, for their candid behavior in giving no countenance to a proceeding so irregular. With regard to the Pamphlet itself, we cannot think the Publisher of it a friend to the parties concerned; or if he is, he has certainly judged-ill in throwing it out at this juncture. We flatter ourselves, this performance will not have weight enough to influence you, when you compare it with the facts and evidences laid before you in the foregoing Address: but this also we submit to your impartial judgment -- borrowing a paragraph from the Advertisement prefixed to that Letter, as apt to our purpose, with a little variation.

"But though the wisest and best may sometimes differ in points of so interesting a nature, yet it is from Facts and Arguments (drawn from these Facts) alone, that the Impartial ought to decide."
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Re: Freda Bedi Cont'd (#3)

Postby admin » Tue Nov 24, 2020 12:23 am

A Defence of Mr. Vansittart's Conduct, In Concluding the Treaty of Commerce With Mhir Cossim Aly Chawn, At Mongheer.
by a Servant of the Company, long resident in Bengal [J. Z. Holwell]
from India Tracts
by Mr. J. Z. Holwell, and Friends

To the Proprietors of East-India Stock.

In the course of altercation on your affairs at Bengal, many injurious insinuations have been leveled at the conduct and character of the Gentleman now presiding there; amongst these, the greatest stress seems to be laid on two accusations; to wit, the Treaty of Commerce made at Mongheer, and a Model of Cannon presented by Mr. Vansittart to Mhir Cossim Aly Khan. The first of these charges may be (in part) founded on ignorance: the second, on premeditated malice only. From both we undertake to exculpate him. Much has been said touching the liberties of the Company's phirmaunds from the Great Moguls, and Confidence asserts they were given up by Mr. Vansittart in the treaty of commerce he concluded at Mongheer. Let us examine this fact first, and clear it of the veil of darkness that covers it.

When Mr. Surman (head of the embassy sent by the Company to the emperor Farrucseer, to solicit the last phirmaund, and explanation of former grants) was on his return to Fort William, he pitched his tents in the neighborhood of Moorshadabad, and having acquired from the Emperor a title and rank in the list of Omrahs, something superior to that which Jaffier Khan (then Suba of Bengal) bore, Mr. Surman expected the first visit. -- Jaffier Khan allowed Mr. Surman's superior title, but considering himself in rank the third Suba of the empire, and Vice-Roy of Bengal confirmed from court, thought the dignity of his post demanded the first visit from Mr. Surman: frequent messengers passed between them, touching this ceremonial, for the space of three days; but neither stooping, Mr. Surman struck his tents, and returned to Calcutta. -- Thus an injudicious punctilio in Mr. Surman destroyed all future cordiality with a man, on whom (from the nature and power of his post) so much depended, for the due execution of those phirmaunds granted by Farrucseer.

We grant, that in the original phirmaunds to the Company, there was a general liberty of trade given, without any exemption of particulars; but when this general trade, as well inland as exports and imports, continued to be exercised by the servants of the Company as formerly, Jaier Khan presently manifested the resentment he had conceived against the English at Mr. Surman's behavior to him; and though his predecessors had been troublesome on this head, yet he went much further.

His first operations were, refusing us the right of coinage, and spiriting up the Zemindars, proprietors of the 37 villages on the other side the Ganges; both ceded to the Company by the phirmaund. These Zemindars kept up their demands so high, and started so many difficulties with regard to parting with their lands, that the Company have never got possession of them to this day: from the same cause, their presidency of Fort William was eternally incommoded by a vexatious government's jurisdiction in the very heart of Calcutta, known by the names of Molungah, Simlea, &c.

His next step was to claim an executive right to the trade of three the most staple and lucrative articles of tobacco, salt and beetlenut; alleging, that from time immemorial none had presumed to trade in these three articles, but those who had his particular license and express purwannah. He signified these sentiments to the Presidency, and prohibited the Company or their servants trading in them for the future.

The Company's servants still persisting to trade in these articles, Jaffier Khan stopped the Company's whole trade and investment for Europe, which could never again obtain a currency, but by the payment of a severe mulct, of one, two, three, and sometimes four lacks of rupees at a time.

The same system of politics was pursued by his successor, until the Company at home being wearied out with continued advices of these contests between the Government and their Bengal servants, came to a resolution of relinquishing their right to the trade of these three articles, tobacco, salt, and beetle nut, for themselves, and strictly prohibited their servants ever interfering in them, on pain of immediate dismissal from their service; and these commands were repeatedly issued by the Court of Directors to their servants abroad. Henceforward the servants were content to trade in these articles under the covert of a Mahometan dustick (or passport). This they did on the best terms they possibly could with the Mahometan merchant, which was generally a consideration of 25 per cent, a consideration very moderate on articles that commonly yield a profit of 80 to 150 per cent. This 25 per cent was a clear profit, without risk, to the merchant who gave his name, provided he was in favor at the Durbar; but at the worst, he was always able to get off for paying 8 or 10 per cent customs on the trade he covered, and put the rest into his pocket. Sometimes a joint trade was entered into in co-partnership, though not always in equal proportions.

The continual abuse of the Company's dusticks, by their servants, has been for the space of forty years last past, another great cause for related just complaints from the Durbar; for thereby the Emperor was robbed of his legal customs on a considerable proportion of the trade of the provinces. -- As the nature of the Company's dustick, and the mischiefs arising from the abuse of it, must be little known to you; a short explanation of both, becomes here absolutely necessary to your information.

The Company's dustick is a passport for their trade, issued under their broad Persian Purwannah seal, or seal of office, signed by the President, and counter-signed by the Secretary to the Council, specifying the quantity, number, package and quality of the goods to be passed by virtue of that particular dustick, clear of all duties, let, hindrance, or obstructions from the Government's guards, and receipts of custom settled on different parts of the rivers and other inland parts of the provinces. -- The dustick was also occasionally issued by the chiefs of your subordinate factories, under the same formalities; and whether from the Presidency or Subordinates, always specified the place from whence the goods came, and where destined; and with the particulars before recited, were set forth both in English and Persian, and a register regularly kept of every dustick issued. The dustick was drawn in Persian, as well as English, because at every Government's chowkey there was stationed a Persian Moonspee (Writer or Secretary) on the part of the Government, who being a stranger to the English language, the Company's trade might otherwise be liable to obstruction, delay, loss and damage, by a longer detention in their boats at sometimes inclement seasons of the year.

Your servants, down to the junior Writer, were entitled to a dustick on application, for the protection of his private trade. The wisdom of first granting this liberty and indulgence, and the continuing it so long after the fatal consequences were visible, are points I will not here discuss. Let it suffice, that I say the abuse of it gave too just a handle to the Government for frequently putting a stop to the provision of your investment in every part of the provinces, for one, two, and sometimes three months together, until bought off by the payment of a high mulct, which generally grew higher the longer a stand was made against it. Thus have I known a contention of this kind, which might easily (in the beginning of an embargo laid on your investment) have been compromised for fifty or a hundred thousand rupees, cost you, at the end of two or three months, three or four lacks. Though the policy of the government was invariable in this particular of the abuse of the dustick, (as formerly touching our trading in the three prohibited articles of salt, tobacco and beetlenut) they never, before the times of the Subas Ally Verdy Khan and Surajad Dowla, meditated the attack and destruction of your forts and garrisons; these had new and particular motives; former Subas, on a transgression either in the one or the other of the two before-mentioned causes, put an immediate stop to the provision of your investments, by laying a prohibition on the weavers and others employed in your manufactures, surrounding your subordinates with guards, and cutting off supplies of provisions, &c. They knew the importance of your investments, and the seasons for the dispatch of it to Europe, and knew also you could hardly sustain yourselves under the failure of one year's returns; all this they were perfectly acquainted with, and therefore knew your servants must necessarily submit, sooner or later, to any terms they thought fit to impose: a consideration also, which should have determined your Presidency to finish every dispute of this kind with all possible expedition. I will not say these exactions would not have been made, had no real cause been given; light pretenses are sufficient for arbitrary governments to act upon; but where real cause existed, which (regarding the abuse of the dustick at least) was too truly the case, we cannot surely much wonder at it. But to explain the nature of this abuse of your dustick, so constantly the source of complaints from the durbar:

When youth first embark in your service, at the age of 15 or 16, it cannot be reasonably supposed they set out with any fixed principles of moral rectitude; consequently the good dispositions they may have acquired by a careful education, become too much liable to be perverted, by designing artful men. These young gentlemen, on their arrival in Bengal, entertain a servant, under the denomination of a Banian, who, in the general, soon becomes their master, and continues that power and influence over them, more or less, as long as they reside in India; but more especially, if the Banian happens to be possessed of a capital that can be assisting to his (nominal) master in trade, the young gentleman himself rarely having a capital of his own to begin with.

These Banians are either simply so, or merchants as well as Banians. In general, they have no principle to be the rule of their actions, but gain; this is their sole pursuit, and to accomplish it they stick at nothing, so they can guard against a detection of their rogueries. If they are Banians simply so called, they are mostly tools of some native merchant, whose principles of rectitude are not a whit better than the Banians.

The Seats (a Gentoo Cast, so called) and the other Company's Dadney merchants, who provided their investments until the year 1753, rarely before that period stooped to be Banians to the gentlemen in your service; but from that period, finding the measure was adopted for providing your investment by your own gomastahs or factors at the Arungs, they condescended to serve either in person or by Banians who were entirely dependent on them.

These Dadney merchants, whilst they continued in that employ, always had the address to bring down their own private goods and merchandise with the Company's, under the cover and protection of the same dustick; but being in the above-mentioned year stripped of that means of eluding the king's duties, they fixed on another which they knew had been for a long term successfully practiced by the Banians; that is, covering their trade by the Company's dusticks, obtained chiefly from your junior servants.

Various were the terms of this illicit compact; sometimes the Company's servant was entitled to 1/8th, 1/4th, or 1/2 of the profits on the trade so covered. At other times, with sorrow I speak it, your dustick was sold at various prices, from 200 to 25 rupees each; and to such a shameful prostitution did this trade in dusticks come to, that it was no uncommon thing to see on the register a trade of two lack per annum carried on in appearance by persons known never to have been worth five pounds in their lives, nor that had credit to this amount in your Presidency. Sometimes they engaged in a joint trade, the Banian or merchant finding the capital, in the course of which if your servants came in for 1/16th of the profits he was well off, but oftener was brought in debtor.

The Government's spies in the settlement were well acquainted with prostitutions and abuse of the Company's Dustick, and sent daily advices thereof to the Durbar, where it used to be often thrown out in terrorem, "that they had a long Dustick account to settle with the English." -- And Surajud Dowla in 1756, declared he would prove from vouchers in his possession "that the English had defrauded the King in his revenues, by covering the trade of his subjects with their Dusticks to the amount of one Corore and a half (one million five hundred thousand pound sterling) in the space of fifty years." Howsoever this charge was exaggerated, it is a truth, that the sum of the frauds arising from this illicit practice must have been very important.

Your Court of Directors were so sensible of the repeated abuse of this indulgence, that I think, there are no less than give and twenty STANDING ORDERS against it transmitted to your President and Council of Fort William from the year 1702 to 1756, each of these orders directing, on detection, restitution of the King's duties, immediate dismissal from the service, and the aggressor to be sent to England on the first returning ship; but notwithstanding these orders, and the utmost vigilance of your Council abroad to prevent this practice, it was found impossible. The strongest prohibitions, the most solemn oaths, proved ineffectual; and though it was notoriously known, that there was hardly any period of your service, that there were not some of your servants who had no visible means of subsisting, but on this trade of Dusticks; yet, strange to tell! we find few examples made of the aggressors on the records of the Company. This can be accounted for, only from the difficulty of full detection; but surely in this case, where the very existence of the Company was liable to be brought into hazard, strong and glaring presumption of the fact should have been deemed proof sufficient; the more especially, as it was long evident, nothing but examples made of this presumptive proof, would be capable of putting a total stop to a practice that had so often embroiled, and distressed your affairs; and was at last one of those causes assigned by Surajud Dowla, for that destruction brought on your Bengal settlements in 1756. These examples should not have been confined to your servants only, but should have been extended to the Black Merchant or Banian, suspected of being concerned with them; these should have been banished your settlements, and in flagrant instances delivered up to the government. Three examples of this kind, we dare say, would have effectually put a stop to this mischief for ever: We think some directions to the above purport and intention were sent out by your Court of Directors a few years ago, but they were never put in practice.

To draw our foregoing anecdotes into a smaller compass, we beg leave to remind you, that we have shown two principal causes that gave rise to every contest which happened between your servants and the Government, down to the time of Surajud Dowla, viz. Your servants trading in the three prohibited articles so often mentioned, and their abuse of the Company's Dustick, both repeatedly forbid by your Court of Directors under the severest and most positive restrictions, and yet both continued, and lately the one of them absolutely avowed, nay, even contended for by some of your servants with indecency, arrogance and violence; to the utter subversion of the laws and natural liberties of a country where you trade upon sufferance; as well as in defiance and disobedience of the reiterated commands of their masters at home.

Let us take a short view of this government in the year 1760, when you saw a Vice Roy at the head of it, raised by your servants from motives of justice, joined to the necessity of your affairs; confirmed by yourselves in the opinion and judgment of your Directors: Consider this Vice Roy making you princely donations of the most valuable parts of his country; then see your servants aiming to strip him of the remainder, the commercial legal duties which were to be his future support in that government you had promoted him to -- now see him driven from two of his provinces for not tamely submitting to arrogant impositions -- then surely you will blush for the reproaches so wantonly thrown upon the English name and nation. But to return more immediately to our subject.

Soon after Mr. Vansittart's arrival to the Government of Fort William, such was the licentious conduct of your servants, more particularly at your subordinates, in those articles of trade so often forbid both by the Company and Government, that continual complaints came in of the unbounded violences of them and their agents. Mr. Vansittart plainly saw, unless some remedy was applied, general confusion must ensue. He took a middle road, and formed a judicious plan that all parties ought to have been satisfied with, and, as he expresses it, would have reconciled all differences, if faithfully adhered to on both sides: The liberties of the Phirmaunds touching these contested articles, as well as the whole inland trade, had been given up and relinquished by the Company long ago. -- He has the merit of stipulating for the resuming those liberties, and preserving them in perpetuity on terms highly advantageous to every one engaged in it, as we have already made appear. It has been charged against him, that he concluded this Treaty of Commerce without the assent of his Council. -- That he was first invested with a discretional power has been proved beyond contradiction; and though it has been also insinuated, he suppressed and never acknowledged the receipt of a letter sent by the Council, revolting that power, and containing a dissent to the terms of the Treaty transmitted to them by Mr. Vansittart: -- yet -- if such a revocation and dissent was dispatched, it appears very extraordinary that his enemies have not produced a copy of it, since, in other matters less important, they have been so minute. -- Therefore it is no unreasonable conclusion to say, We believe no such letter was ever sent, -- or it would certainly have appeared against him. -- Another objection has been started against his conduct, for not giving due time for this Treaty taking place. To this we say, that possibly he thought this licentious contraband trade of your servants required an immediate check. -- And as they had engaged in it, in direct breach of their masters orders, and we fear in breach also of their covenants; it was but just they should suffer the consequences, for they surely had no title to indulgence. One objection only, to this Gentleman's conduct regarding this Treaty, remains unanswered; and that is the article by which he gives the decision of disputes into the hands of the Government's officers: but for this error he has so ingenuously apologized himself, that nothing but ill-nature could be capable of continuing it as a charge against him. However, had not the unhappy and ill-judged second deputation taken place, this error might easily have been retrieved, and overruled as soon as the inconveniences had been discovered.

Concerning the present of Cannon, (levelled at Mr. Vansittart's reputation only) -- the charge is so evidently malicious, as hardly to deserve a reply. -- It is a notorious truth, that at the capture of Cossimbuzar and Fort William, the Government had store both of cannon and field pieces with their carriages, which they had six months in their possession. -- Surajad Dowla had 20 of the latter so well constructed by his own people, that they could hardly be known from those made in Europe. But we will not affront your understanding, by dwelling longer in the refutation of a charge so repugnant to sense as well as decency.

FINIS.
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Re: Freda Bedi Cont'd (#3)

Postby admin » Sat Nov 28, 2020 4:44 am

Manu (Hinduism)
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 11/27/20



This article is about Concept of Manu. For Surya's son and the current Manu, see Shraddhadeva Manu. For other uses, see Manu.

We have thus come to know certain very important facts about what our physiological life is. We must now go a little higher before we can fully understand what human life is as a whole. I have already hinted at the existence in the universe of a form of matter, higher in energy than solar matter. This matter I have named thought-matter, or Manas as it is called in Sanskrit. The centres of this thought-matter are called Manus. A Manu is in fact that bundle of ideas for the Universe, which in man is called the mind—Sanskrit Manas. It is these ideas which are the immediate cause of the substance and form and powers of prana. And it is these ideas which have caused the existence of life-bodies in the ocean of prana. You know very well that the human mind has a very great power upon the human life-body, and I may tell you here in brief that the object of Yoga is to give it the fullest power over every manifestation of human life, to render even the involuntary manifestations voluntary....

-- Karma and Reincarnation As Applied To Man (Being two papers read before the Meerut T.S., by Rama Prasad, M.A., F.T.S., revised and enlarged for the Press.), from "Lucifer, Vol. IX, London, November 15, 1891"


1. BEHOLD THE BEGINNING OF SENTIENT FORMLESS LIFE. FIRST THE DIVINE, THE ONE FROM THE MOTHER-SPIRIT; THEN THE SPIRITUAL; THE THREE FROM THE ONE, THE FOUR FROM THE ONE, AND THE FIVE FROM WHICH THE THREE, THE FIVE, AND THE SEVEN. THESE ARE THE THREE-FOLD, THE FOUR-FOLD DOWNWARD; THE “MIND-BORN” SONS OF THE FIRST LORD; THE SHINING SEVEN. IT IS THEY WHO ARE THOU, ME, HIM, OH LANOO. THEY, WHO WATCH OVER THEE, AND THY MOTHER EARTH. 2. THE ONE RAY MULTIPLIES THE SMALLER RAYS. LIFE PRECEDES FORM, AND LIFE SURVIVES THE LAST ATOM OF FORM. THROUGH THE COUNTLESS RAYS PROCEEDS THE LIFE-RAY, THE ONE, LIKE A THREAD THROUGH MANY JEWELS. 3. WHEN THE ONE BECOMES TWO, THE THREEFOLD APPEARS, AND THE THREE ARE ONE; AND IT IS OUR THREAD, OH LANOO, THE HEART OF THE MAN-PLANT CALLED SAPTASARMA. 4. IT IS THE ROOT THAT NEVER DIES; THE THREE-TONGUED FLAME OF THE FOUR WICKS. THE WICKS ARE THE SPARKS, THAT DRAW FROM THE THREE-TONGUED FLAME SHOT OUT BY THE SEVEN — THEIR FLAME — THE BEAMS AND SPARKS OF ONE MOON REFLECTED IN THE RUNNING WAVES OF ALL THE RIVERS OF EARTH. 5. THE SPARK HANGS FROM THE FLAME BY THE FINEST THREAD OF FOHAT. IT JOURNEYS THROUGH THE SEVEN WORLDS OF MAYA. IT STOPS IN THE FIRST, AND IS A METAL AND A STONE; IT PASSES INTO THE SECOND AND BEHOLD — A PLANT; THE PLANT WHIRLS THROUGH SEVEN CHANGES AND BECOMES A SACRED ANIMAL. FROM THE COMBINED ATTRIBUTES OF THESE, MANU, THE THINKER IS FORMED. WHO FORMS HIM? THE SEVEN LIVES, AND THE ONE LIFE. WHO COMPLETES HIM? THE FIVE-FOLD LHA. AND WHO PERFECTS THE LAST BODY? FISH, SIN, AND SOMA....

All this, teaches the hidden Science, is but the temporary reflection, the shadow of the eternal ideal prototype in Divine Thought; the word “Eternal,” note well again, standing here only in the sense of “AEon,” as lasting throughout the seemingly interminable, but still limited cycle of activity, called by us Manvantara. For what is the real esoteric meaning of Manvantara, or rather a Manu-Antara? It means, esoterically, “between two Manus,” of whom there are fourteen in every “Day of Brahma,” such a “Day” consisting of 1,000 aggregates of four ages, or 1,000 “Great Ages,” Mahayugas. Let us now analyse the word or name Manu. Orientalists and their Dictionaries tell us that the term “Manu” is from the root Man, “to think”; hence “the thinking man.” But, esoterically, every Manu, as an anthropomorphized patron of his special cycle (or Round), is but the personified idea of the “Thought Divine” (as the Hermetic “Pymander”); each of the Manus, therefore, being the special god, the creator and fashioner of all that appears during his own respective cycle of being or Manvantara. Fohat runs the Manus’ (or Dhyan-Chohans’) errands, and causes the ideal prototypes to expand from within without — viz., to cross gradually, on a descending scale, all the planes from the noumenon to the lowest phenomenon, to bloom finally on the last into full objectivity — the acme of illusion, or the grossest matter....

In the “Book of Hermes,” Pymander, the oldest and the most spiritual of the Logoi of the Western Continent, appears to Hermes in the shape of a Fiery Dragon of “Light, Fire, and Flame.” Pymander, the “Thought Divine” personified, says: The Light is me, I am the Nous (the mind or Manu), I am thy God, and I am far older than the human principle which escapes from the shadow (“Darkness,” or the concealed Deity). I am the germ of thought, the resplendent Word, the Son of God. All that thus sees and hears in thee is the Verbum of the Master, it is the Thought (Mahat) which is God, the Father. The celestial Ocean, the AEther .... is the Breath of the Father, the life-giving principle, the Mother, the Holy Spirit, .... for these are not separated, and their union is LIFE.” ...

We are forced to use here the misleading word “Men,” and this is a clear proof of how little any European language is adapted to express these subtle distinctions. It stands to reason that these “Men” did not resemble the men of to-day, either in form or nature. Why then, it may be asked, call them “Men” at all? Because there is no other term in any Western language which approximately conveys the idea intended. The word “Men” at least indicates that these beings were “MANUS,” thinking entities, however they differed in form and intellection from ourselves. But in reality they were, in respect of spirituality and intellection, rather “gods” than “Men.”

-- The Secret Doctrine: The Synthesis of Science, Religion, and Philosophy, by Helena P. Blavatsky, 1888


Image
Matsya protecting Vaivasvata Manu and the seven sages at the time of Deluge/Great Flood

Manu (Sanskrit: मनु) is a term found with various meanings in Hinduism. In early texts, it refers to the archetypal man, or to the first man (progenitor of humanity). The Sanskrit term for 'human', मानव (IAST: mānava) means 'of Manu' or 'children of Manu'.[1] In later texts, Manu is the title or name of fourteen mystical Kshatriya rulers of earth, or alternatively as the head of mythical dynasties that begin with each cyclic kalpa (aeon) when the universe is born anew.[1] The title of the text Manusmriti uses this term as a prefix, but refers to the first Manu – Svayambhuva, the spiritual son of Brahma.[2]

According to Puranas, each kalpa consists of fourteen Manvantaras, and each Manvantara is headed by a different Manu.[1] The current universe, is asserted to be ruled by the 7th Manu named Vaivasvata.[2]

In Vishnu Purana, Vaivasvata, also known as Sraddhadeva or Satyavrata, was the king of Dravida before the great flood.[3] He was warned of the flood by the Matsya (fish) avatar of Vishnu, and built a boat that carried the Vedas, Manu's family and the seven sages to safety, helped by Matsya. The tale is repeated with variations in other texts, including the Mahabharata and a few other Puranas. It is similar to other flood such as that of Gilgamesh and Noah.[4]

Matsya

As related in the main article, Matsya, the fish avatar of Vishnu, appears to Manu to warn him of an impending deluge. After being reared by and growing to an enormous size, Matsya then guides Manu's ship to safety at the peak of a mountain, where Manu re-establishes life through the performance of Vedic sacrificial rites (yajna). In Puranic accounts, Matsya also rescues the Vedas taken under the water, after they were stolen from Brahma by the Asura called Hayagriva (not to be confused with Hayagriva, the horse-headed avatar of Vishnu). From the Shatapatha Brahmana:

manave ha vai prātaḥ | avanegyamudakamājahruryathedam pāṇibhyāmavanejanāyāharantyevaṃ tasyāvanenijānasya matsyaḥ pāṇī āpede

sa hāsmai vācamuvāda | bibhṛhi mā pārayiṣyāmi tveti kasmānmā pārayiṣyasītyaugha imāḥ sarvāḥ prajā nirvoḍhā tatastvā pārayitāsmīti kathaṃ te bhṛtiriti

sa hovāca | yāvadvai kṣullakā bhavāmo bahvī vai nastāvannāṣṭrā bhavatyuta matsya eva matsyaṃ gilati kumbhyām māgre bibharāsi sa yadā tāmativardhā atha karṣūṃ khātvā tasyām mā bibharāsi sa yadā tāmativardhā atha mā samudramabhyavaharāsi tarhi vā atināṣṭro bhavitāsmīti

śaśvaddha kaṣa āsa | sa hi jyeṣṭhaṃ vardhate 'thetithīṃ samāṃ tadaugha āgantā tanmā nāvamupakalpyopāsāsai sa augha utthite nāvamāpadyāsai tatastvā pārayitāsmīti

—Satapatha Brahmnana, transliteration of Kanda I, Adhyaya VIII, Brahmana I ('The Ida'), Verses 1-4[14]

In the morning they brought to Manu water for washing, just as now also they (are wont to) bring (water) for washing the hands. When he was washing himself, a fish came into his hands.

It spake to him the word, 'Rear me, I will save thee!' 'Wherefrom wilt thou save me?' 'A flood will carry away all these creatures: from that I will save thee!' 'How am I to rear thee?'

It said, 'As long as we are small, there is great destruction for us: fish devours fish. Thou wilt first keep me in a jar. When I outgrow that, thou wilt dig a pit and keep me in it. When I outgrow that, thou wilt take me down to the sea, for then I shall be beyond destruction.'

It soon became a ghasha (a large fish); for that grows largest (of all fish). Thereupon it said, 'In such and such a year that flood will come. Thou shalt then attend to me (i.e. to my advice) by preparing a ship; and when the flood has risen thou shalt enter into the ship, and I will save thee from it.'


—Satapatha Brahmana, translation by Julius Eggeling (1900), Kanda I, Adhyaya VIII, Brahmana I ('The Ida'), Verses 1-4[47]


Heinrich Julius Eggeling (1842–1918) was Professor of Sanskrit at the University of Edinburgh from 1875 to 1914, second holder of its Regius Chair of Sanskrit, and Secretary of the Royal Asiatic Society, London.

Eggeling was translator and editor of the Satapatha Brahmana in 5 volumes of the monumental Sacred Books of the East series edited by Max Müller
, author of the main article on Sanskrit in the Encyclopædia Britannica, and curator of the University Library from 1900 to 1913.

-- Julius Eggeling, by Wikipedia


Aiyangar explains that, in relation to the RigVeda, 'Sacrifice is metaphorically called [a] Ship and as Manu means man, the thinker, [so] the story seems to be a parable of the Ship of Sacrifice being the means for man's crossing the seas of his duritas, [meaning his] sins, and troubles'. SB 13.4.3.12 also mentions King Matsya Sammada, whose 'people are the water-dwellers... both fish and fishermen... it is these he instructs; - 'the Itihasa is the Veda'.'

-- Shatapatha Brahmana, by Wikipedia


The kala pani (lit. black water) represents the proscription of the over reaching seas in Hinduism. According to this prohibition, crossing the seas to foreign lands causes the loss of one's social respectability, as well as the putrefaction of one’s cultural character and posterity.

The offense of crossing the sea is also known as "Samudrolanghana" or "Sagarollanghana". The Dharma Sutra of Baudhayana (II.1.2.2) lists sea voyages as first of the offenses that cause the loss of varna. The Dharma Sutra suggests a person can wipe away this offense in three years by eating little at every fourth meal time; bathing at dawn, noon and dusk; standing during the day; and seated during the night.

The reasons behind the proscription include the inability to carry out the daily rituals of traditional Hindu life and the sin of contact with the characterless, uncivilized mleccha creatures of the foreign lands. An associated notion was that crossing the ocean entailed the end of the reincarnation cycle, as the traveler was cut off from the regenerating waters of the Ganges. Such voyages also meant breaking family and social ties. In another respect, the inhabitants of the land beyond the "black water" were houglis, bad-spirited and monstrous swines who could sometimes mask their true ugliness by presenting an illusion of physical beauty or superiority. The mleccha people were spawned by immoral reprobates and blasphemously held religious belief in nāstika, albeit in different forms. They are understood to have rejected the Vedas and have ceased to worship Bhagavan, the divine Vedic God, in favor of concocted false religions and irreligions with contemptible manners of reverence. Their societies are immoral and built on deceit, subjugation, and corruption. Therefore, it was thought that true Hindus should not come under their influence or embrace their beliefs, as they will be just as deserving of contempt as a mleccha.

During the Portuguese Age of exploration, Portuguese sailors noted that Hindus were reluctant to engage in maritime trade due to the kala pani proscription.
In the eighteenth century, the banias of North India even considered the crossing of the Indus River at Attock to be prohibited, and underwent purification rituals upon their return.

-- Kala pani (taboo), by Wikipedia


Fourteen Manus

There are fourteen Manus that rule in succession during each Kalpa (day of Brahma). The current Kalpa has the following Manus:

List of Manus according to Source
Manvantara / Bhagavatha Purana[5] / Brahma Purana[6] / Linga Purana[7] / Skanda Purana 1[8] / Skanda Purana 2[9]


1 / Svayambhuva
2 / Svarocisha
3 / Uttama
4 / Tapasa/Tamasa
5 / Raivata
6 / Cakshusha
7 / Vaivasvata (current)
8 / Savarni
9 / Daksha-savarni / Raibhya / Dharma / Brahma-savarni / Bhautya
10 / Brahma-savarni / Raucya / Savarnika / Rudra-savarni / Raucya
11 / Dharma-savarni / The four Merusavarnis / Pisanga / Daksa-sarvarni / Brahma-savarni
12 / Rudra-savarni / Apisangabha / Dharma-savarni / Rudra-savarni
13 / Deva-savarni / Sabala / Raucya / Meru-savarni
14 / Indra-savarni / Varnaka / Bhautya / Daksha-savarni


Swayambhu Manu

In this Manvantara, the Saptarshis were Marichi, Atri, Angiras, Pulaha, Kratu, Pulastya, and Vashishtha.[10][11] In Svayambhuva-manvantara, Lord Vishnu's avatar was called Yajna.

The first Manu was Swayambhuva Manu. He had three daughters, namely Akuti, Devahuti and Prasuti. Devahuti was given in marriage to sage Kardama and she gave birth to nine daughters, and a single son named Kapila. Prasuti gave birth to Yajna and Akuti gave birth to one son and one daughter. Both Kapila and Yajna, who were sons of Devahuti and Prasuti respectively, were incarnations of Vishnu. Svayambhuva Manu, along with his wife, Satarupa, went into the forest to practice austerities on the bank of the River Sunanda. At some point in time, Rakshasas attacked them, but Yajna, accompanied by his sons, the demigods, swiftly killed them. Then Yajna personally took the post of Indra, the King of the heavenly planets.

Swarochisha Manu

The Saptarshis were Urjastambha, Agni, Prana, Danti, Rishabha, Nischara, and Charvarivan. In Svarocisha-manvantara, Lord Vishnu's avatar was called Vibhu.

The second Manu, whose name was Svarocisha, was the son of Agni, and His sons were headed by Dyumat, Sushena and Rochishmat. In the age of this Manu, Rochana became Indra, the ruler of the heavenly planets, and there were many demigods, headed by Tushita. There were also many saintly persons, such as Urjastambha. Among them was Vedasira, whose wife, Tushita, gave birth to Vibhu. Vibhu was the incarnation of Vishnu for this Manvantara. He remained a Brahmachari all his life and never married. He instructed eighty-eight thousand dridha-vratas, or saintly persons, on sense-control and austerity.

Uttama Manu

The Saptarshis for this Manvantara were Kaukundihi, Kurundi, Dalaya, Sankha, Pravahita, Mita, and Sammita. In Uttama-manvantara, Lord Vishnu's avatar was called Satyasena.

Uttama, the son of Priyavrata, was the third Manu. Among his sons were Pavana, Srinjaya and Yajnahotra. During the reign of this Manu, the sons of Vashista, headed by Pramada, became the seven saintly persons. The Satyas, Devasrutas and Bhadras became the demigods, and Satyajit became Indra. From the womb of Sunrita, the wife of Dharma, the Supreme Lord Narayana appeared as Satyasena, and killed all the evil Rakshasas who created havoc in all the worlds, along with Satyajit, who was Indra at that time.

Tapasa/Tamasa Manu

Saptarshis list: Jyotirdhama, Prithu, Kavya, Chaitra, Agni, Vanaka, and Pivara. In Tapasa-manvantara, Lord Vishnu's avatar was called Hari.

Tapasa/Tamasa, the brother of the third Manu, was the fourth Manu, and he had ten sons, including Prithu, Khyati, Nara and Ketu. During his reign, the Satyakas, Haris, Viras and others were demigods, the seven great saints were headed by Jyotirdhama, and Trisikha became Indra. Harimedha begot a son named Hari, who was the incarnation of Vishnu for this Manvantara, by his wife Harini. Hari was born to liberate the devotee Gajendra.

Raivata Manu

Saptarshis list: Hirannyaroma, Vedasrí, Urddhabahu, Vedabahu, Sudhaman, Parjanya, and Mahámuni. In Raivata-manvantara, Lord Vishnu's avatar was called Vaikuntha, not to be confused with Vishnu’s divine realm, of the same name.

Vaikuntha came as Raivata Manu, the twin brother of Tamasa. His sons were headed by Arjuna, Bali and Vindhya. Among the demigods were the Bhutarayas, and among the seven brahmanas who occupied the seven planets were Hiranyaroma, Vedasira and Urdhvabahu.

Chakshusha Manu

Image
SUDYUMNAN SEES RUDRA AND PARVATI

Saptarshis list: Sumedhas, Virajas, Havishmat, Uttama, Madhu, Abhináman, and Sahishnnu. In Chakshusha-manvantara, Lord Vishnu's avatar was called Ajita.

Ajita came as Chakshsusa Manu, the son of the demigod Chakshu. He had many sons, headed by Puru, Purusa and Sudyumna. During the reign of Chakshusa Manu, the King of heaven was known as Mantradruma. Among the demigods were the Apyas, and among the great sages were Havisman and Viraka.

Vaivasvata Manu

The current Manu. Saptarshis list: Kashyapa, Atri, Vashista, Angira, Gautama, Agastya, Bharadvaja.[11] During Vaivasvata-manvantara, Lord Vishnu's avatar is called Matsya.

The seventh Manu, who is the son of Vivasvan, is known as Sraddhadeva(or satyavrata ) or Vaivasvat(son of Vivasvan). He has ten sons, named Ikshvaku, Nabhaga, Dhrsta, Saryati, Narisyanta, Dista (Nabhanedista), Tarusa (Karusha), Prsadhra and Vasuman (Pramshu). In this manvantara, or reign of Manu, among the demigods are the Adityas, Vasus, Rudras, Visvedevas, Maruts, Asvini-kumaras and Rbhus. The king of heaven, Indra, is known as Purandara, and the seven sages are known as Kashyapa, Atri, Vashista, Angira, Gautama, Agastya and Bharadwaja.

Surya Savarni Manu

Saptarshis list: Diptimat, Galava, Parasurama, Kripa, Drauni or Ashwatthama, Vyasa, and Rishyasringa.[12] In Savarnya-manvantara, Lord Vishnu's avatar will be called Sarvabhauma.

In the period of the eighth Manu, the Manu is Surya Savarnika Manu. His sons are headed by Nirmoka, and among the demigods are the Sutapas. Bali, the son of Virochana, is Indra, and Galava and Parasurama are among the seven sages. In the age of this Manu, Lord Vishnu's avatar will be called Sarvabhauma, the son of Devaguhya

Daksa Savarni Manu

Saptarshis list: Savana, Dyutimat, Bhavya, Vasu, Medhatithi, Jyotishmán, and Satya. In Daksha-savarnya-manvantara, Lord Vishnu's avatar will be called Rishabha.

The ninth Manu is Daksha-savarni. His sons are headed by Bhutaketu, and among the demigods are the Maricigarbhas. Adbhuta is Indra, and among the seven sages is Dyutiman. Rishabha would be born of Ayushman and Ambudhara...

Brahma Savarni Manu

Saptarshis list: Havishmán, Sukriti, Satya, Apámmúrtti, Nábhága, Apratimaujas, and Satyaket. In Brahma-savarnya-manvantara, Lord Vishnu's avatar will be called Vishvaksena.

In the period of the tenth Manu, the Manu is Brahma-savarni. Among his sons is Bhurishena, and the seven sages are Havishman and others. Among the demigods are the Suvasanas, and Sambhu is Indra. Vishvaksena would be a friend of Sambhu and will be born from the womb of Vishuci in the house of a brahmana named Visvasrashta.

Dharma Savarni Manu

Saptarshis list: Niśchara, Agnitejas, Vapushmán, Vishńu, Áruni, Havishmán, and Anagha. In Dharma-savarnya-manvantara, Lord Vishnu's avatar will be called Dharmasetu.

In the period of the eleventh Manu, the Manu is Dharma-savarni, who has ten sons, headed by Satyadharma. Among the demigods are the Vihangamas, Indra is known as Vaidhrita, and the seven sages are Aruna and others. Dharmasetu will be born of Vaidhrita and Aryaka.

Rudra Savarni Manu

Saptarshis list: Tapaswí, Sutapas, Tapomúrtti, Taporati, Tapodhriti, Tapodyuti, and Tapodhan. In Rudra-savarnya-manvantara, Lord Vishnu's avatar will be called Sudhama.

In the period of the twelfth Manu, the Manu is Rudra-savarni, whose sons are headed by Devavan. The demigods are the Haritas and others, Indra is Ritadhama, and the seven sages are Tapomurti and others. Sudhama, or Svadhama, who will be born from the womb of Sunrita, wife of a Satyasaha.

Raucya or Deva Savarni Manu

Saptarshis list: Nirmoha, Tatwadersín, Nishprakampa, Nirutsuka, Dhritimat, Avyaya, and Sutapas. In Deva-savarnya-manvantara, Lord Vishnu's avatar will be called Yogeshwara.

In the period of the thirteenth Manu, the Manu is Deva-savarni. Among his sons is Chitrasena, the demigods are the Sukarmas and others, Indra is Divaspati, and Nirmoka is among the sages. Yogeshwara will be born of Devahotra and Brihati.

Indra Savarni Manu

Saptarshis list: Agnibáhu, Śuchi, Śhukra, Magadhá, Gridhra, Yukta, and Ajita. In Indra-savarnya-manvantara, Lord Vishnu's avatar will be called Brihadbhanu.

In the period of the fourteenth Manu, the Manu is Indra-savarni. Among his sons are Uru and Gambhira, the demigods are the Pavitras and others, Indra is Suci, and among the sages are Agni and Bahu. Brihadbhanu will be born of Satrayana from the womb of Vitana.

Almost all literature refers to the first 9 Manus with the same names but there is a lot of disagreement on names after that, although all of them agree with a total of 14.[13]

Bibliography

Main article: Manusmriti

The texts ascribed to the Svayambhuva Manu include Manava Grihyasutra, Manava Sulbasutra and Manava Dharmashastra (Manusmṛti or "rules of Manu").[14]

In Jainism

Main article: Kulakara

Jain theology mentions the 14th patriarch named Nabhiraja, mentioning him also as Manu.[15] This, state scholars, links ancient Jain tradition to Hindu mythologies, because the 14 patriarchs in Jain myths are similar to the 14 Manus in Hindu myths.[15] The Manu of Jainism is the father of 1st Tirthankara Rishabhanatha (Adinatha).[15] This ancient story is significant as it includes one of earliest mentions of ikshu (sugarcane) processing.[15]

See also

• Adam
• Proto-Indo-European religion, §Brothers
• Minos, king of Crete, son of Zeus and Europa.
• Mannus, progenitor of humanity in Germanic mythology according to Tacitus.
• Manes, king of Lydia
• Nu'u, Hawaiian mythological character who built an ark and escaped a Great Flood.
• Nüwa, goddess in Chinese mythology best known for creating mankind.
• Noah
• Ziusudra, hero of the Sumerian flood epic
• Atra-Hasis

References

1. Roshen Dalal (2010). Hinduism: An Alphabetical Guide. Penguin Books. p. 242. ISBN 978-0-14-341421-6.
2. Roshen Dalal (2010). The Religions of India: A Concise Guide to Nine Major Faiths. Penguin Books. p. 229. ISBN 978-0-14-341517-6.
3. Alain Daniélou (11 February 2003). A Brief History of India. Inner Traditions / Bear & Co. pp. 19–. ISBN 978-1-59477-794-3.
4. Klaus K. Klostermaier (5 July 2007). A Survey of Hinduism: Third Edition. SUNY Press. p. 97. ISBN 978-0-7914-7082-4.
5. His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. Teachings of Lord Caitanya (Third Edition): The Golden Avatara. The Bhaktivedanta Book Trust. pp. 109\u2013. ISBN 978-91-7149-730-7.
6. Motilal Banarsidass (1 January 1955). Brahma Purana - Parts I - IV. pp. 29 (3.4-7).
7. J.L.Shastri (1951). Linga Purana - English Translation - Part 1 of 2. pp. 24 (7.22-28).
8. N.A (1950). THE SKANDA-PURANA PART. 2. MOTILAL BANARSIDASS PUBLISHERS PVT. LTD, DELHI. pp. 45 (5.71-25).
9. N.A (1951). THE SKANDA-PURANA PART. 7. MOTILAL BANARSIDASS PUBLISHERS PVT. LTD, DELHI. pp. 317 (25.22-24).
10. Account of the several Manus and Manwantaras Vishnu Purana, translated by Horace Hayman Wilson, 1840, Book III: Chapter I. p. 259, The first Manu was Swáyambhuva, then came Swárochisha, then Auttami, then Támasa, then Raivata, then Chákshusha: these six Manus have passed away. The Manu who presides over the seventh Manwantara, which is the present period, is Vaivaswata, the son of the sun...
11. Inhabitants of the Worlds Mahanirvana Tantra, translated by Arthur Avalon, (Sir John Woodroffe), 1913, Introduction and Preface. The Rishi are seers who know, and by their knowledge are the makers of shastra and "see" all mantras. The word comes from the root rish Rishati-prapnoti sarvvang mantrang jnanena pashyati sangsaraparangva, etc. The seven great Rishi or saptarshi of the first manvantara are Marichi, Atri, Angiras, Pulaha, Kratu, Pulastya, and Vashista. In other manvantara there are other saptarshi. In the present manvantara the seven are Kashyapa, Atri, Vashista, Vishvamitra, Gautama, Jamadagni, Bharadvaja. To the Rishi the Vedas were revealed. Vyasa taught the Rigveda so revealed to Paila, the Yajurveda to Vaishampayana, the Samaveda to Jaimini, Atharvaveda to Samantu, and Itihasa and Purana to Suta. The three chief classes of Rishi are the Brahmarshi, born of the mind of Brahma, the Devarshi of lower rank, and Kings who became Rishis through their knowledge and austerities, such as Janaka, Ritaparna, etc. The Shrutarshi are makers of Shastras, as Sushruta. The Kandarshi are of the Karmakanda, such as Jaimini.
12. Maharishi Aswathama Retrieved 2015-02-15
13. Summary of Manu in Ancient Literature मनु (आदिपुरुष) Ghanshyam Dusane
14. The Laws of Manu. See 63: These seven very glorious Manus, the first among whom is Svayambhuva, produced and protected this whole movable and immovable (creation), each during the period (allotted to him).
15. Natubhai Shah 2004, pp. 15–16.

Sources

• Shah, Natubhai (2004) [First published in 1998], Jainism: The World of Conquerors, I, Motilal Banarsidass, ISBN 81-208-1938-1

External links

• Manu in Vedic scripture
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Re: Freda Bedi Cont'd (#3)

Postby admin » Thu Dec 31, 2020 8:49 am

Battle of Surat
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 12/31/20

Battle of Surat
Part of Imperial Maratha Conquests
Date: 6–10 January 1664
Location: Surat, Gujarat, India
Result: Maratha victory
Surat is sacked for six days by the Marathas
Belligerents: Maratha Empire / Mughal Empire
Commanders and leaders: Shivaji / Inayat Khan
Strength: 1,000 cavalry / 100
Casualties and losses: 12 killed; 7 wounded / 4 killed; 24 wounded

Battle of Surat, also known as the Sack of Surat,[1] was a land battle that took place on January 5, 1664, near the city of Surat, Gujarat, India between Maratha ruler Chhatrapati Shivaji and Inayat Khan, a Mughal captain. The Marathas defeated the small Mughal force, and engaged in sacking Surat for six days.[1]

According to James Grant Duff, a captain in the British India Regiment, Surat was attacked by Shivaji on 5 January 1664. Surat was a wealthy port city in the Mughal Empire and was useful for the Mughals as it was used for the sea trade of the Arabian Sea. The city was well populated mostly by Hindus and a few Muslims, especially the officials in the Mughal administration of the city. The attack was so sudden that the population had no chance to flee. The plunder was continued for six days and two-thirds of the city was burnt down. The loot was then transferred to Raigad Fort.

Background

As Shaista Khan, the Mughal governor, was in Deccan for more than three years fighting the Marathas, the financial condition of the Maratha Kingdom was dire. So to improve his finances, Shivaji planned to attack Surat, a key Mughal power centre, and a wealthy port town which generated a million rupees in taxes. His aim was to capture and loot the wealthy port city and bring all the loot back to his main residence, the Raigad Fort.

Battle

Composition of Forces


Local Subedar, Inayat Khan who was appointed by Aurangzeb, had only 100 men at his command. After attacking and then sacking the Mughal garrison, Shivaji attacked the Port of Surat and set the local shipping industry ablaze.

Shivaji was assisted by notable commanders along with cavalry of 1000.[citation needed]

Movement and clash of forces

Shivaji attacked Surat after a demand for tribute was rejected. The Mughal Sardar, was very surprised by the suddenness of the attack, unwilling to face the Maratha forces, he hid himself in the Fort of Surat.

Surat was under attack for nearly three days, in which the Maratha Army looted all possible wealth from Mughal and Portuguese trading centers. The Maratha soldiers took away cash, gold, silver, pearls, rubies, diamonds and emeralds from the houses of rich merchants such as Virji Vora, Haji Zahid Beg, Haji Kasim and others. The business of Mohandas Parekh, the deceased broker of the Dutch East India Company, was spared as he was reputed as a charitable man.[2][3] Similarly, Shivaji did not plunder the houses of the foreign missionaries.[4] The French traveller Francois Bernier wrote in his Travels in Mughal India:[5]

I forgot to mention that during pillage of Sourate, Seva-ji, the Holy Seva-ji! Respected the habitation of the reverend father Ambrose, the Capuchin missionary. 'The Frankish Padres are good men', he said 'and shall not be attacked.'


Shivaji had to complete the sacking of Surat before the Mughal Empire at Delhi was alerted and he could not afford to spend much time attacking the British. Thus, Sir George Oxenden was able to successfully defend the British factory, a fortified warehouse-counting house-hostel.

Casualties

One Englishman named Anthony Smith, was captured by the Marathas, and funds were demanded from him. Smith wrote an account of him witnessing Shivaji ordering the cutting off of the heads and hands of those who concealed their wealth.[1] However, when King Shivaji came to know and understand that Smith was poor, he freed him. When the Mughal Army finally approached on the fourth fateful day, Shivaji and his followers galloped southwards into the Deccan.

Aftermath

All this loot was successfully transported to the Deccan before the Mughal Empire at Delhi could get the news of the sacking of Surat. This wealth later was used for developing & strengthening the Maratha State.[6][7] This event enraged the Mughal Emperor, Aurangzeb. The revenue of the Mughal Empire was reduced as trade did not flourish as much after Shivaji's raid on the Port of Surat. To take his revenge, the Mughal Emperor sent a veteran Rajput general, Jai Singh, to curb Shivaji's activities.[citation needed]

See also

• Battle of Sinhagad
• List of Indian battles

References

1. Vincent Arthur Smith (1919), The Oxford History of India, Oxford University Press, page 435
2. H. S. Sardesai (2002). Shivaji, the great Maratha. Cosmo Publications. pp. 506–. ISBN 978-81-7755-286-7. Retrieved 14 December 2011.
3. Balkrishna Govind Gokhale (1979). "VII. The Merchant Prince Virji Vora". Surat In The Seventeenth Century. Popular Prakashan. p. 25. ISBN 9788171542208. Retrieved 25 November 2011.
4. H. S. Sardesai (2002). Shivaji, the great Maratha. Cosmo Publications. p. 506. ISBN 978-81-7755-286-7.
5. The great Maratha, Volume 2, H. S. Sardesai, Genesis Publishing Pvt Ltd, 2002, ISBN 8177552864, ISBN 9788177552867
6. News in London Gazzet http://www.indianexpress.com/news/resea ... per/362848
7. Mahmood, Shama (31 May 1999). "1. Mughal - Maratha Contest in Gujarat". Suba Gujarat under aurangzeb (Thesis). Department of History, Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda. pp. 19–38. hdl:10603/60357 – via Shodhganga@INFLIBNET Centre.

Bibliography

• James Grant Duff - History of Marathas
• S.D.Samant - Vedh Mahamanvacha
• Babasaheb Purandare - Raja ShivChhatrapati
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Re: Freda Bedi Cont'd (#3)

Postby admin » Sun Jan 31, 2021 2:28 am

Nathaniel Brassey Halhed
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 1/30/21

Image
Nathaniel Brassey Halhed
Born: 25 May 1751, Westminster
Died: 18 February 1830
Occupation: Orientalist and philologist



Nathaniel Brassey Halhed (25 May 1751 – 18 February 1830) (Bengali: হালেদ, romanized: "Haled") was an English Orientalist and philologist.[1]

Halhed was born at Westminster, and was educated at Harrow School, where he began a close friendship with Richard Brinsley Sheridan. While at Oxford he undertook oriental studies under the influence of William Jones. Accepting a writership in the service of the East India Company, he went out to India, and there, at the suggestion of Warren Hastings, translated the Hindu legal code from a Persian version of the original Sanskrit. This translation was published in 1776 as A Code of Gentoo Laws. In 1778 he published a Bengali grammar, to print which he set up the first Bengali press in India.[2]

In 1785 Halhed returned to England, and from 1790–1795 was Member of Parliament for Lymington, Hants. For some time he was a disciple of Richard Brothers, and a speech in parliament in defence of Brothers made it impossible for him to remain in the House of Commons, from which he resigned in 1795. He subsequently obtained a home appointment under the East India Company. He died in London on 18 February 1830.[2]

Early life

Nathaniel Brassey Halhed was born in a merchant family to William Halhed, a bank director, on 25 May 1751 and christened in St Peter le Poer, Old Broad Street; his mother was Frances Caswall, daughter of John Caswall, Member of Parliament for Leominster. He went to Harrow School from the age of seven to seventeen.[3]

Halhed entered Christ Church, Oxford on 13 July 1768, at the age of 17.[4] He remained there for three years but did not take a degree. William Jones had preceded him from Harrow to Oxford and they shared an intellectual relationship. At Oxford he learnt some Persian.[3]

Halhed's father was disappointed in him and decided to send him to India under the employment of the East India Company through his connections.
His petition for a writership was granted by Harry Verelst. Appointed on 4 December 1771, Halhed was forewarned and had learned accounting.[5]

In India

Halhed was first placed in the accountant general's office under Lionel Darrell. He was next used as a Persian translator, and was sent to Kasimbazar for practical experience, and also to learn about the silk trade, by William Aldersey. It was in Kasimbazar that Halhed acquired Bengali, for dealing with the aurungs (weaving districts).[6] In Bengal he had several romantic interests: Elizabeth Pleydell, a certain Nancy, Diana Rochfort, and Henrietta Yorke.[7]

Halhed became one of Warren Hastings's favorites, and a believer in his approach to Indian affairs. On 5 July 1774 the Governor asked for an assistant for Persian documents, in addition to the munshis, and Halhed was appointed.

Marriage

After wooing several accomplished women, Halhed married (Helena) Louisa Ribaut, stepdaughter of Johannes Matthias Ross, the head of the Dutch factory at Kasimbazar when Halhed was stationed there. The betrothal probably took place in 1775.[8]

Association with Warren Hastings

When Hastings then nominated him for the post of Commissary General in October 1776, however, there was serious resistance, and Halhed found his position untenable.[9]

Leaving Bengal, Halhed went to Holland, and on to London. Financial reasons forced him to consider a return to India, but he tried to do so without overt support from Hastings. On 18 November 1783 he asked the Company's directors to appoint him to the committee of Revenue in Calcutta. He was successful, but not in dissociating himself from Hastings. He returned to India as a reputed Englishman with a wife and black servant, but when he reached Calcutta, Hastings was in Lucknow.[10]

Halhed presented his credentials to Edward Wheler, the acting governor-general, but there was no vacancy in the committee and no other appointments could be made without Hastings. Then summoned by Hastings to Lucknow, he made a futile journey there, since Hastings had by then decided to leave for England and was bound for Calcutta.[11]

Hastings was planning to bring supporters to England, and wanted to have Halhed there as an agent of the Nawab Wazir of Oudh. At this point Halhed threw in his lot with Hastings.[11]

Support for Hastings and Brothers

Halhed therefore returned to England, on 18 June 1785, identified as a close supporter of Hastings. The political context was the rise in 1780–4 of the "Bengal Squad", so-called.[12]

The "Bengal Squad" was, in the first place, a group of Members of Parliament. They looked out for the interests of East India Company officials who had returned to Great Britain. From that position, they became defenders of the Company itself.[13] The group that followed Hastings to England consisted of: Halhed, David Anderson, Major William Sands, Colonel Sweeney Toone, Dr. Clement Francis, Captain Jonathan Scott, John Shore, Lieutenant Col. William Popham, and Sir John D'Oyly.[14] This group is called by Rosane Rocher the "Hastings squad" or "Bengal squad".[15] That follows the contemporary practice of identifying the "Squad" or "the East Indians" with the backers of Hastings.[12]

Edmund Burke brought 22 charges against Hastings in April 1786, and Halhed was in the middle of the defence. For the Benares charge, Halhed had drafted a reply for Scott, but it was not in accord with Hastings's chosen line. He also cast doubt on some of Hastings's account when he was called on to testify. As a result, Halhed became unpopular with the defence team.[16]

Halhed began to look for a parliamentary career: his choice of enemies made him a Tory. His first candidature, at Leicester in 1790, failed and cost him a great deal. He succeeded in acquiring a seat in May 1791 at the borough of Lymington, in Hampshire.[17] His life was changed in 1795 by Richard Brothers and his prophecies. A revealed knowledge of the Prophecies and Times appealed to Halhed and resonated with the style of antique Hindu texts.
[18] He petitioned for Brothers in parliament when he was arrested for criminal lunacy. Unsuccessful, he damaged his own reputation.[19]


Image

Richard Brothers (25 December 1757 – 25 January 1824) was an early believer and teacher of British Israelism, a theory concerning the Lost Ten Tribes of Israel...

He entered the Royal Navy and served under Keppel and Rodney. In 1783, he became lieutenant, and was honourably discharged on 28 July 1783, receiving a pension which amounted to half-pay (54 pounds per year). He then travelled on the continent of Europe and later married Elizabeth Hassall in 1786. His marriage was reported as being "unhappy" and so he returned to service in the Royal Navy.

Because he came to believe that military service was not compatible with his new calling to serve Christianity, in 1789 he once again left the Navy. Built upon the principle of individual revelation, Brothers believed that he could not serve the King as head of the Church of England.

In 1791, he began to question the oath he had been required to take for receipt of his military half-pay, and he found himself with little income as a result of his subsequent actions. Brothers then divided his time between the open air and the workhouse, where he developed the idea that he had a special divine commission. Brothers claimed to hear the voice of an attending angel which proclaimed to him the fall of Babylon the Great, which was in fact London. Apparently upon Brothers's plea for mercy, God decided to spare London for a time and the destruction was halted. Around this time, Brothers was also expectant of a heavenly lady who would descend from the clouds showering him with money, love and happiness. In February 1792 Brothers declared himself a healer and claimed he could restore sight to the blind. He drew large crowds, but not due to his healing ability as much as his small gifts of money to those he prayed for.

In 1793 Brothers declared himself to be the apostle of a new religion. He began to see himself as possessing a special role in the gathering of the Jews back into Palestine, in particular, the "Jews" who were hidden amongst the population of Great Britain. In similarity to modern British Israelists, Brothers asserted that the "hidden Israel" had no notion of its biological lineage and that part of his role would be to teach them of their true identity and lead them to the land of Canaan. Brothers proclaimed himself to be Prince of the Hebrews, literal descendant of the Biblical House of David, and the Nephew of the Almighty, who would rule over Israel until the return of Jesus Christ. Brothers declared he would achieve all this using a rod he had fashioned from a wild rosebush, with which he would perform miracles, as Moses had done.


All this was declared in the first British Israelist publication in 1794:

A REVEALED KNOWLEDGE OF THE PROPHECIES AND TIMES, Book the First, wrote [sic] under the direction of the LORD GOD and published by His Sacred Command, it being the first sign of Warning for the benefit of All Nations; Containing with other great and remarkable things not revealed to any other Person on Earth, the Restoration of the Hebrews to Jerusalem by the year of 1798 under their revealed Prince and Prophet (i.e., Richard Brothers). London, Printed in the year of Christ 1794.


Brothers began to attract quite a following, but due to his rejection of organisational work, and eccentric nature, he did not develop any sort of social movement. In consequence of prophesying the death of the King and the end of the monarchy, he was arrested for treason in 1795, and imprisoned on the grounds of being criminally insane. His case was, however, brought before Parliament by his ardent disciple, Nathaniel Brassey Halhed, an orientalist and a member of the House of Commons. As a result Brothers was removed to a private asylum in Islington.

While he was in the private asylum Brothers wrote a variety of prophetic pamphlets which gained him many believers. Amongst his supporters was William Sharp, the engraver. Some of his political predictions (such as the violent death of Louis XVI) seemed to be proof that he was inspired. But when Brothers predicted that, on 19 November 1795 he would be revealed as Prince of the Hebrews and Ruler of the world, and the date passed without any such manifestation, Sharp deserted him to become a religious follower of Joanna Southcott. His followers tended to drift away either disillusioned or embarrassed.

Brothers spent the last 30 years of his life designing the flags, uniforms, and palaces of the New Jerusalem.
John Finlayson finally secured his release from the private asylum in 1806, and Brothers moved into his London home, where he died a lonely figure on 25 January 1824.

-- Richard Brothers, by Wikipedia


Life of seclusion and after

The turn of the century saw Halhed a recluse, as he was for 12 years in all. He wrote on orientalist topics, but published nothing. From 1804 he was a follower of Joanna Southcott. In poverty, he applied for one of the newly opened civil secretary posts at the East India company, and was appointed in 1809.[3]

Image

Joanna Southcott (or Southcote) (April 1750 – 27 December 1814), was a self-described religious prophetess from Devon, England. A "Southcottian" movement continued in various forms after her death...

Originally in the Church of England, in about 1792 she joined the Wesleyans in Exeter. Becoming persuaded that she possessed supernatural gifts, she wrote and dictated prophecies in rhyme, and then announced herself as the Woman of the Apocalypse spoken of in a prophetic passage of the Revelation (12:1–6).

Coming to London at the request of William Sharp, the engraver, Southcott began selling paper "seals of the Lord" at prices varying from twelve shillings to a guinea. The seals were supposed to ensure the holders' places among the 144,000 people who would be elected to eternal life.

At the age of 64 Southcott affirmed that she was pregnant and would be delivered of the new Messiah, the Shiloh of Genesis (49:10). The date of 19 October 1814 was that fixed for the birth, but Shiloh failed to appear, and it was given out that she was in a trance.


She had a disorder which gave her the appearance of being pregnant and this fuelled her followers, who reached a number of around 100,000 in 1814, mainly in the London area.[5]

Southcott died not long after...

The "Southcottian" movement did not end with her death in 1814. Her followers are said to have numbered over 100,000, but had declined greatly by the end of the 19th century. In 1844 a lady named Ann Essam left large sums of money for "printing, publishing and propagation of the sacred writings of Joanna Southcott"...

In 1881 there was an enclave of her followers living in the Chatham area, east of London, who were distinguished by their long beards and good manners.

Southcott left a sealed wooden box of prophecies, usually known as Joanna Southcott's Box, with the instruction that it be opened only at a time of national crisis, and then only in the presence of all the 24 bishops of the Church of England at that time, who were to spend a fixed period beforehand studying Southcott's prophecies. Attempts were made to persuade the episcopate to open it during the Crimean War and again during the First World War. In 1927, the psychic researcher Harry Price claimed that he had come into possession of the box and arranged to have it opened in the presence of one reluctant prelate, the suffragan Bishop of Grantham. It was found to contain only a few oddments and unimportant papers, among them a lottery ticket and a horse-pistol. Price's claims to have had the true box have been disputed by historians and by followers of Southcott.

Southcottians, denying the authenticity of the box opened in 1927, continued to press for the true box to be opened. An advertising campaign on billboards and in British national newspapers such as the Sunday Express was run in the 1960s and 1970s by one prominent group of Southcottians, the Panacea Society in Bedford (formed 1920), to try to persuade the 24 bishops to have the box opened. The Society's slogan was: "War, disease, crime and banditry, distress of nations and perplexity will increase until the Bishops open Joanna Southcott's box." According to the Society, this true box is in their possession at a secret location for safekeeping, with its whereabouts to be disclosed only when a bishops' meeting has been arranged. Southcott prophesied that the Day of Judgement would come in the year 2004, and her followers stated that if the contents of the box had not been studied beforehand, the world would have had to meet it unprepared.


Charles Dickens refers to Mrs Southcott in his description of the year 1775 at the beginning of A Tale of Two Cities.

-- Joanna Southcott, by Wikipedia


With access to the Company Library, Halhed spent time in 1810 translating a collection of Tipu Sultan's dreams written in the prince's own hand. He also made translations of the Mahabharata as a personal study, fragmentary in nature, and made to "understand the grand scheme of the universe".[20]

The old "Hastings squad" had become marginal after the trial, but Hastings was called to testify as an expert on Indian affairs in 1813.[21] He died on 22 August 1818. Halhed wrote two poems, and was also given the responsibility of composing the epitaph.[22]

In spring 1819, Halhed declared his intention of resigning from the Company's services after ten years of service. He was allowed a £500 salary, and recovered some of his early investments.[22]

Death

Image
Halhed tomb, Petersham

Halhed lived on for another decade, without publishing anything further. His quiet life came to an end on 18 February 1830. He was buried in the family tomb of Petersham Parish Church.[23] At his death his assets were estimated to be around £18,000. Louisa Halhed lived for a year longer and died on 24 July 1831.[24]

Legacy

Halhed's collection of Oriental manuscripts was purchased by the British Museum, and his unfinished translation of the Mahabharata went to the library of the Asiatic Society of Bengal.[2]

Works

Halhed's major works are those he produced in Bengal, in the period 1772 to 1778.[3]

A Code of Gentoo Laws

Just before Halhed was appointed as writer, the East India Company's court of directors notified the President and council at Fort William College of their decision to take over the local administration of civil justice: the implementation was left with the newly appointed Governor, Warren Hastings. Hastings assumed the governorship in April 1772 and by August submitted what was to become the Judicial Plan. It provided among other things that "all suits regarding the inheritance, marriage, caste and other religious usages, or institutions, the laws of the Koran with respect to Mohametans and those of the Shaster with respect to Gentoos shall be invariably adhered to." No British personnel could read Sanskrit, however.[25]

Translation was undertaken and 11 pundits were hired
to which an eleventh was added. Hastings envisaged making a text in English that contained the local laws. He intended to show the prudence of applying the Indian laws.

The pundits worked to compile a text from multiple sources, the Vivadarnavasetu (sea of litigations). It was translated to Persian, via a Bengali oral version by Zaid ud-Din 'Ali Rasa'i[???]. Halhed then translated the Persian text into English, working with Hastings himself. The completed translation was available on 27 March 1775. The East India Company had it printed in London in 1776 as A Code of Gentoo Laws, or, Ordinations of the Pundits. This was an internal edition, distributed by the East India Company.
A pirate edition was printed by Donaldson the following year, followed by a second edition in 1781; translations in French and German appeared by 1778.

The book made Halhed's reputation, but was controversial, given that the English translation was remote from its original. It failed to become the authoritative text of the Anglo-Indian judicial system. Its impact had more to do with Halhed's preface and the introduction to Sanskrit than the laws themselves. The Critical Review wrote in London, September 1777, that:[26]

"This is a most sublime performance ... we are persuaded that even this enlightened quarter of the globe cannot boast anything which soars so completely above the narrow, vulgar sphere of prejudice and priestcraft. The most amiable part of modern philosophy is hardly upon a level with the extensive charity, the comprehensive benevolence, of a few rude untutored Hindoo Bramins ... Mr. Halhed has rendered more real service to this country, to the world in general, by this performance, than ever flowed from all the wealth of all the nabobs by whom the country of these poor people has been plundered ... Wealth is not the only, nor the most valuable commodity, which Britain might import from India."


Halhed in the preface stated that he had been "astonished to find the similitude of Shanscrit words with those of Persian and Arabic, and even of Latin and Greek: and these not in technical and metaphorical terms, which the mutation of refined arts and improved manner might have occasionally introduced; but in the main ground-work of language, in monosyllables, in the names of numbers, and the appellations of such things as would be first discriminated as the immediate dawn of civilisation." This observation was shortly to be heralded as a major step towards the discovery of the Indo-European language family.

The Gentoo Code (also known as A Code of Gentoo Laws or Ordinations of the Pundits) is a legal code translated from Sanskrit (in which it was known as vivādārṇavasetu) into Persian by Brahmin scholars; and then from Persian into English by Nathaniel Brassey Halhed, a British grammarian working for the East India Company.[1][2] Vivādārṇavasetu is a digest of Hindu law in 21 sections (taraṅga) compiled for Warren Hastings by the pandits.[3] The translation was funded and encouraged by Warren Hastings as a method of consolidating company control on the Indian subcontinent. It was translated into English with a view to know about the culture and local laws of various parts of Indian subcontinent. It was printed privately by the East India Company in London in 1776 under the title A Code of Gentoo Laws, or, Ordinations of the Pundits. Copies were not put on sale, but the Company did distribute them. In 1777 a pirate (and less luxurious) edition was printed; and in 1781 a second edition appeared. Translations into French and German were published in 1778. It is basically about the Hindu law of inheritance (Manusmriti).[4]

The Manusmṛiti ... was one of the first Sanskrit texts to have been translated into English in 1776, by Sir William Jones, and was used to formulate the Hindu law by the British colonial government...

Over fifty manuscripts of the Manusmriti are now known, but the earliest discovered, most translated and presumed authentic version since the 18th century has been the "Kolkata (formerly Calcutta) manuscript with Kulluka Bhatta commentary". Modern scholarship states this presumed authenticity is false, and the various manuscripts of Manusmriti discovered in India are inconsistent with each other, and within themselves, raising concerns of its authenticity, insertions and interpolations made into the text in later times...

The title Manusmriti is a relatively modern term and a late innovation, probably coined because the text is in a verse form...

T]he text version in modern use, according to Olivelle, is likely the work of a single author or a chairman with research assistants.

Manusmriti, Olivelle states, was not a new document, it drew on other texts, and it reflects "a crystallization of an accumulated knowledge" in ancient India....

The text is composed in metric Shlokas (verses), in the form of a dialogue between an exalted teacher and disciples who are eager to learn about the various aspects of dharma....

The verses 12.1, 12.2 and 12.82 are transitional verses. This section is in a different style than the rest of the text, raising questions whether this entire chapter was added later. While there is evidence that this chapter was extensively redacted over time, however it is unclear whether the entire chapter is of a later era....

The structure and contents of the Manusmriti suggest it to be a document predominantly targeted at the Brahmins (priestly class) and the Kshatriyas (king, administration and warrior class).[34] The text dedicates 1,034 verses, the largest portion, on laws for and expected virtues of Brahmins, and 971 verses for Kshatriyas...

Chapter 7 of the Manusmriti discusses the duties of a king, what virtues he must have, what vices he must avoid. In verses 7.54 - 7.76, the text identifies precepts to be followed in selecting ministers, ambassadors and officials, as well as the characteristics of well fortified capital. Manusmriti then lays out the laws of just war, stating that first and foremost, war should be avoided by negotiations and reconciliations. If war becomes necessary, states Manusmriti, a soldier must never harm civilians, non-combatants or someone who has surrendered, that use of force should be proportionate, and other rules. Fair taxation guidelines are described in verses 7.127 to 7.137...

Sinha, for example, states that less than half, or only 1,214 of the 2,685 verses in Manusmriti, may be authentic. Further, the verses are internally inconsistent. Verses such as 3.55-3.62 of Manusmriti, for example, glorify the position of women, while verse such as 9.3 and 9.17 do the opposite. Other passages found in Manusmriti, such as those relating to Ganesha, are modern era insertions and forgeries...

There are so many contradictions in the printed volume that, if you accept one part, you are bound to reject those parts that are wholly inconsistent with it. (...) Nobody is in possession of the original text...

Scholars doubt Manusmriti was ever administered as law text in ancient or medieval Hindu society. David Buxbaum states, "in the opinion of the best contemporary orientalists, it [Manusmriti] does not, as a whole, represent a set of rules ever actually administered in Hindustan. It is in great part an ideal picture of that which ... ought to be law".

Donald Davis writes, "there is no historical evidence for either an active propagation or implementation of Dharmasastra [Manusmriti] by a ruler or any state – as distinct from other forms of recognizing, respecting and using the text. Thinking of Dharmasastra as a legal code and of its authors as lawgivers is thus a serious misunderstanding of its history".


-- Manusmriti, by Wikipedia


The Pandits and the Maulvis were associated with judges to understand the civil law of Hindus and Muslims.

Citations

1. Jones, William (9 November 2006). Sir William Jones, 1746-94: A Commemoration. The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd. ISBN 9781584776888 – via Google Books.
2. Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Halhed, Nathaniel Brassey" . Encyclopædia Britannica. 12 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
3. Halhed, Nathaniel Brassey (9 November 1776). A code of Gentoo laws, or, Ordinations of the pundits : from a Persian translation, made from the original written in the Shanscrit language. London: [s.n.] – via Trove.
4. Halhed, Nathaniel Brassey (1971). A Code of Gentoo laws, or, Ordinations of the Pundits. London. p. 96. Retrieved 9 November 2019.

See also

• List of ancient legal codes

External links

A Code of Gentoo laws at archive.org

-- Gentoo Code, by Wikipedia


A Grammar of the Bengal Language

Image
Scanning image of A Grammar of the Bengal Language, 1778.

The East India Company lacked employees with good Bengali. Halhed proposed a Bengali translatorship to the Board of Trade, and set out a grammar of Bengali, the salaries of the pundits and the scribe who assisted him being paid by Hastings. Difficulty arose with a Bengali font. Charles Wilkins undertook it, the first Bengali press was set up at Hugli, and the work of creating the typeface was done by Panchanan Karmakar, under the supervision of Wilkins.[27]

The grammar was the property of the Company, Wilkins informed the council on 13 November 1778 that the printing was completed, by which time Halhed had left Bengal. Halhed's Grammar was widely believed at the time to be the first grammar of Bengali, because the Portuguese work of Manuel da Assumpção, published in Lisbon in 1743, was largely forgotten.

Other works

Halhed's early collaboration with Richard Brinsley Sheridan was not an overall success, though they laboured on works including Crazy Tales and the farce Ixiom, later referred to as Jupiter, which was not performed. Halhed left for India. One work, The Love Epistles of Aristaenetus. Translated from the Greek into English Metre, written by Halhed, revised by Sheridan and published anonymously, did make a brief stir. The friendship came to an end, Elizabeth Linley chose Sheridan over Halhed, and later they were political enemies.

The opening of the Calcutta Theatre in November 1773 gave Halhed occasion to write prologues. A production of King Lear also spurred him to write more pieces. He produced humorous verse: A Lady's Farewell to Calcutta, was a lament for those who regretted staying in the mofussil.

Halhed wrote an anonymous tract in 1779 in defense of Hastings's policies with respect to the Maratha War. He began to write poetry, also, expressing his admiration for the governor, such as a Horatian ode of 1782. Under the pseudonym of "Detector" he wrote a series of open letters that appeared in newspapers, as separate pamphlets and in collections. These letters span over a year, from October 1782 to November 1783.

In the decade of Hastings's impeachment, Halhed remained involved in the war of pamphlets. The Upanisad (1787) was based on Dara Shikoh's Persian translation. He wrote and distributed a Testimony of the Authenticity of the Prophecies of Richard Brothers, and of his Mission to recall the Jews. Scandalously, he identified London with Babylon and Sodom: and was judged eccentric or mad.

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Testimony of the Authenticity of the Prophecies of Richard Brothers, and of His Mission to Recal the Jews, by Nathaniel Brassey Halhed, M.P.
And God Said, "Let There Be Light."
Printed by Charles R. & George Webster, in the White House, Corner of State and Pearl Streets


See also

• Gentoo

Citations

1. "Halhed, Nathaniel Brasssey". Biographical Dictionary of the Living Authors of Great Britain and Ireland. 1816. p. 142.
2. Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Halhed, Nathaniel Brassey" . Encyclopædia Britannica. 12 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
3. Rocher, Rosane. "Halhed, Nathaniel Brassey". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/11923. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
4. s:Alumni Oxonienses: the Members of the University of Oxford, 1715-1886/Halhed, Nathaniel Brassey
5. Rosane Rocher (1983). Orientalism, Poetry, and the Millennium: The Checkered Life of Nathaniel Brassey Halhed, 1751–1830. Motilal Banarsidass. p. 37. ISBN 978-0-8364-0870-6.
6. Rosane Rocher (1983). Orientalism, Poetry, and the Millennium: The Checkered Life of Nathaniel Brassey Halhed, 1751–1830. Motilal Banarsidass. p. 38. ISBN 978-0-8364-0870-6.
7. Rosane Rocher (1983). Orientalism, Poetry, and the Millennium: The Checkered Life of Nathaniel Brassey Halhed, 1751–1830. Motilal Banarsidass. pp. 40–1. ISBN 978-0-8364-0870-6.
8. Rosane Rocher (1983). Orientalism, Poetry, and the Millennium: The Checkered Life of Nathaniel Brassey Halhed, 1751–1830. Motilal Banarsidass. p. 96. ISBN 978-0-8364-0870-6.
9. Rosane Rocher (1983). Orientalism, Poetry, and the Millennium: The Checkered Life of Nathaniel Brassey Halhed, 1751–1830. Motilal Banarsidass. pp. 92–6. ISBN 978-0-8364-0870-6.
10. Rosane Rocher (1983). Orientalism, Poetry, and the Millennium: The Checkered Life of Nathaniel Brassey Halhed, 1751–1830. Motilal Banarsidass. pp. 119–121. ISBN 978-0-8364-0870-6.
11. Rosane Rocher (1983). Orientalism, Poetry, and the Millennium: The Checkered Life of Nathaniel Brassey Halhed, 1751–1830. Motilal Banarsidass. pp. 121–2. ISBN 978-0-8364-0870-6.
12. C. H. Philips, The East India Company "Interest" and the English Government, 1783–4: (The Alexander Prize Essay), Transactions of the Royal Historical Society Vol. 20 (1937), pp. 83–101, at p. 90; Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Royal Historical Society. DOI: 10.2307/3678594 JSTOR 3678594
13. Sykes, John. "Sykes, Sir Francis". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/64747. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
14. Rosane Rocher (1983). Orientalism, Poetry, and the Millennium: The Checkered Life of Nathaniel Brassey Halhed, 1751–1830. Motilal Banarsidass. pp. 125–6. ISBN 978-0-8364-0870-6.
15. Rosane Rocher (1983). Orientalism, Poetry, and the Millennium: The Checkered Life of Nathaniel Brassey Halhed, 1751–1830. Motilal Banarsidass. p. 131. ISBN 978-0-8364-0870-6.
16. Rosane Rocher (1983). Orientalism, Poetry, and the Millennium: The Checkered Life of Nathaniel Brassey Halhed, 1751–1830. Motilal Banarsidass. pp. 132–4. ISBN 978-0-8364-0870-6.
17. Rosane Rocher (1983). Orientalism, Poetry, and the Millennium: The Checkered Life of Nathaniel Brassey Halhed, 1751–1830. Motilal Banarsidass. pp. 141–2. ISBN 978-0-8364-0870-6.
18. Rosane Rocher (1983). Orientalism, Poetry, and the Millennium: The Checkered Life of Nathaniel Brassey Halhed, 1751–1830. Motilal Banarsidass. p. 157. ISBN 978-0-8364-0870-6.
19. Rosane Rocher (1983). Orientalism, Poetry, and the Millennium: The Checkered Life of Nathaniel Brassey Halhed, 1751–1830. Motilal Banarsidass. pp. 168–9. ISBN 978-0-8364-0870-6.
20. Rosane Rocher (1983). Orientalism, Poetry, and the Millennium: The Checkered Life of Nathaniel Brassey Halhed, 1751–1830. Motilal Banarsidass. p. 214. ISBN 978-0-8364-0870-6.
21. Rosane Rocher (1983). Orientalism, Poetry, and the Millennium: The Checkered Life of Nathaniel Brassey Halhed, 1751–1830. Motilal Banarsidass. p. 216. ISBN 978-0-8364-0870-6.
22. Rosane Rocher (1983). Orientalism, Poetry, and the Millennium: The Checkered Life of Nathaniel Brassey Halhed, 1751–1830. Motilal Banarsidass. pp. 226–7. ISBN 978-0-8364-0870-6.
23. Fison, Vanessa (May 2015). "Nathaniel Halhed and his Descendants in Petersham in the Eighteenth Century". Richmond History: Journal of the Richmond Local History Society (36): 24–37.
24. Rosane Rocher (1983). Orientalism, Poetry, and the Millennium: The Checkered Life of Nathaniel Brassey Halhed, 1751–1830. Motilal Banarsidass. p. 228. ISBN 978-0-8364-0870-6.
25. Rosane Rocher (1983). Orientalism, Poetry, and the Millennium: The Checkered Life of Nathaniel Brassey Halhed, 1751–1830. Motilal Banarsidass. pp. 48 and 51. ISBN 978-0-8364-0870-6.
26. Dalrymple 2004, p. 40
27. Hossain, Ayub (2012). "Panchanan Karmakar". In Islam, Sirajul; Jamal, Ahmed A. (eds.). Banglapedia: National Encyclopedia of Bangladesh (Second ed.). Asiatic Society of Bangladesh.

References

• Dalrymple, William (2004). White Mughals: love and betrayal in eighteenth-century India. Penguin Books. ISBN 978-0-14-200412-8.

External links

Wikisource has the text of the 1885–1900 Dictionary of National Biography's article about Halhed, Nathaniel Brassey.

• Books by Nathaniel Brassey Halhed — archive.org
• Orientalism, poetry, and the millennium : the checkered life of Nathaniel Brassey Halhed, 1751-1830 by Rosane Rocher
• Islam, Sirajul (2012). "Halhed, Nathaniel Brassey". In Islam, Sirajul; Jamal, Ahmed A. (eds.). Banglapedia: National Encyclopedia of Bangladesh (Second ed.). Asiatic Society of Bangladesh.
• Excerpts of his notes on some Persian translations of Sanskrit texts were published by Hindley under the title Antient Indian Literature Illustrative of the Researches of the Asiatick Society, established in Bengal. 1807.

Attribution

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Halhed, Nathaniel Brassey". Encyclopædia Britannica. 12 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
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Richard Brothers
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 1/30/21

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Richard Brothers

Richard Brothers (25 December 1757 – 25 January 1824) was an early believer and teacher of British Israelism, a theory concerning the Lost Ten Tribes of Israel.

Biography

Life


Brothers was born in Port Kirwan, Newfoundland (earlier known as Admiral's Cove). He was educated in Woolwich, England. He entered the Royal Navy and served under Keppel and Rodney. In 1783, he became lieutenant, and was honourably discharged on 28 July 1783, receiving a pension which amounted to half-pay (54 pounds per year). He then travelled on the continent of Europe and later married Elizabeth Hassall in 1786. His marriage was reported as being "unhappy" and so he returned to service in the Royal Navy.[1]

Because he came to believe that military service was not compatible with his new calling to serve Christianity, in 1789 he once again left the Navy. Built upon the principle of individual revelation, Brothers believed that he could not serve the King as head of the Church of England.

In 1791, he began to question the oath he had been required to take for receipt of his military half-pay, and he found himself with little income as a result of his subsequent actions. Brothers then divided his time between the open air and the workhouse, where he developed the idea that he had a special divine commission. Brothers claimed to hear the voice of an attending angel which proclaimed to him the fall of Babylon the Great, which was in fact London. Apparently upon Brothers's plea for mercy, God decided to spare London for a time and the destruction was halted. Around this time, Brothers was also expectant of a heavenly lady who would descend from the clouds showering him with money, love and happiness. In February 1792 Brothers declared himself a healer and claimed he could restore sight to the blind. He drew large crowds, but not due to his healing ability as much as his small gifts of money to those he prayed for.

Works

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A Revealed Knowledge of the Prophesies and Times, 1794, the most important work of Richard Brothers

In 1793 Brothers declared himself to be the apostle of a new religion. He began to see himself as possessing a special role in the gathering of the Jews back into Palestine, in particular, the "Jews" who were hidden amongst the population of Great Britain. In similarity to modern British Israelists, Brothers asserted that the "hidden Israel" had no notion of its biological lineage and that part of his role would be to teach them of their true identity and lead them to the land of Canaan. Brothers proclaimed himself to be Prince of the Hebrews, literal descendant of the Biblical House of David, and the Nephew of the Almighty, who would rule over Israel until the return of Jesus Christ. Brothers declared he would achieve all this using a rod he had fashioned from a wild rosebush, with which he would perform miracles, as Moses had done.

All this was declared in the first British Israelist publication in 1794:

A REVEALED KNOWLEDGE OF THE PROPHECIES AND TIMES, Book the First, wrote [sic] under the direction of the LORD GOD and published by His Sacred Command, it being the first sign of Warning for the benefit of All Nations; Containing with other great and remarkable things not revealed to any other Person on Earth, the Restoration of the Hebrews to Jerusalem by the year of 1798 under their revealed Prince and Prophet (i.e., Richard Brothers). London, Printed in the year of Christ 1794.


Brothers began to attract quite a following, but due to his rejection of organisational work, and eccentric nature, he did not develop any sort of social movement. In consequence of prophesying the death of the King and the end of the monarchy, he was arrested for treason in 1795, and imprisoned on the grounds of being criminally insane. His case was, however, brought before Parliament by his ardent disciple, Nathaniel Brassey Halhed, an orientalist and a member of the House of Commons. As a result Brothers was removed to a private asylum in Islington.

While he was in the private asylum Brothers wrote a variety of prophetic pamphlets which gained him many believers. Amongst his supporters was William Sharp, the engraver.

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William Sharp (29 January 1749 – 25 July 1824), was an English engraver and artist.

Sharp was the son of a reputable gunsmith who lived at Haydon's Yard, Minories in central London. He was apprenticed to the 'bright-cut' engraver and genealogist, Barak Longmate (1738–93), and after marriage to a Frenchwoman, set himself up as a writing engraver in Bartholomew Lane (off Threadneedle Street)...

Sharpe was a republican and a friend of Thomas Paine and Horne Tooke, and became a member of the Society for Constitutional Information. As a result of a legal dispute involving Horne Tooke, Sharp was questioned by the Privy Council on charges relating to treason, but was eventually dismissed without punishment as merely an "enthusiast".

He became a convert to the teachings of Mesmer and Swedenborg and came under the religious influence of would-be visionary Jacob Bryan (who worked for Sharp as a printer for a time), and millennialist prophet Richard Brothers, engraving the latter as "Prince of the Hebrews". After Brothers' incarceration in an insane asylum in Islington, Sharp became an adherent of prophetess Joanna Southcott, whom he brought from Exeter to London and kept at his own expense for a considerable time; he made a portrait drawing of her which he engraved. Despite her apparently premature death, he never lost faith in her divine mission or the possibility that she would reappear, and wrote a book in her defence: "An answer to the world etc." (London, 1806).

-- William Sharp (engraver), by Wikipedia


Some of his political predictions (such as the violent death of Louis XVI) seemed to be proof that he was inspired. But when Brothers predicted that, on 19 November 1795 he would be revealed as Prince of the Hebrews and Ruler of the world, and the date passed without any such manifestation, Sharp deserted him to become a religious follower of Joanna Southcott. His followers tended to drift away either disillusioned or embarrassed.

Death

Brothers spent the last 30 years of his life designing the flags, uniforms, and palaces of the New Jerusalem. John Finlayson finally secured his release from the private asylum in 1806, and Brothers moved into his London home, where he died a lonely figure on 25 January 1824. Finlayson then began a financial campaign against the Government, seeking payment of an enormous claim for his maintenance of Richard Brothers prior to his death.[1]

References

1. Chisholm 1911.

Attribution

Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Brothers, Richard" . Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.

Further reading

• Kossy, Donna. "The Anglo-Israelites" in Kooks: A Guide to the Outer Limits of Human Belief, Los Angeles: Feral House, 2001 (2nd ed. exp. from 1994). (ISBN 978-0-922915-67-5)

External links

A Revealed Knowledge of the Prophesies and Times Text and commentary.
• Richard Brothers and the Anglo-Israelites at the Kooks Museum

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Richard Brothers (1757-1824)
by olivercowdery.com

Early Years of Richard Brothers

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Lieutenant Richard Brothers came to London from Canada (as a semi-retired naval officer during a lull) in the Continental wars. His life in the British Navy had not been a pleasant one, and he came away from that experience with an abiding repugnance for wars and blasphemy, especially for Christian prayers for military success and mandatory sacred oaths for military allegiance. At some point in his career (perhaps about 1789) Brotehrs became convinced that God was speaking to him personally, through divine revelation, and that he had been called as a latter day prophet and eventual messiah.

Born in Newfoundland, on 25 Dec. 1757, to an English soldier garrisoned there, Richard Brother's citizenship was British, but his origin technically Canadian. He is often cited as being the first Canadian to establish a new religious sect. As a child he was sent to England for his education, and apparently remained there, becoming a midshipman in the Royal Navy at age thirteen. The budding prophet retired from the Navy as a half-pay officer (potentially available for recall to service) in 1784. His activities and whereabouts for the next five years remain a mystery, be he reportedly served on merchant ships, traveling in the Mediterranean to ports in France, Italy and Spain.

Around 1789-90 Brothers found himself back in England, in the region of London. Here it was that he became convinced that he was a modern prophet and a favorite of the Judeo-Christian God. At one point, following unusually severe thunderstorms in 1791, he fled London, believing that God was about to destroy that city for its wickedness. When London was not, in fact, destroyed, Brothers attributed its temporary salvation to his own intercession with God for its deliverance.

The "Nephew of The Almighty"

At about this same time Brothers became convinced that he was a chosen Israelite of the House of David, impowered to call the Jews and other Israelites out from their dispersion among the nations and lead them back to Jerusalem in Turkish Palestine. Claiming a pedigree from King David via the same lineage as that of Jesus Christ, Brothers felt he was descended from Jesus' Brother James the Righteous -- and thus a "Prince of The Hebrews" and rightful latter day King of Judah. Brothers extended his hopeful claims to being something of a messiah -- or, at least the destined ruler of all Israel, reigning in a restored royal city of Jerusalem. After making these claims, the new prophet was sometime called the "Nephew of the Almighty," apparently by his growing band of followers as well as by those who branded him a religious fanatic and a madman.

Brothers' revelations (accompanied by his own commentary on selected biblical texts) began to appear in print at the beginning of the 1790s and some were compiled into a booklet for public sale in London as early as 1794. This volume, A Revealed Knowledge of the Prophecies... was reprinted in Albany, New York that same year, introducing the American Colonials to Brothers' strange pronouncements and dire predictions. However, in the course of proclaiming himself God's chosen one, Brothers managed to offend the British King George III (having prophesied that the Royal family would have to step down from that dignity at the imminent coming of the "King of Heaven and Earth") and soon received an unprophesied punishment. Escaping a sentence of treason, he lost his Lieutenancy he was committed as a lunatic to an asylum in Canonbury Tower. This was in May 1795, by the King's Privy Council -- for teaching seditious nonsense and claiming that God command England refrain from military action against Republican France. The "Nephew of God" cooled his heels in the English asylum for eleven years. He was finally released in 1806, when his keepers decided he was no longer a menace to society.

Prior to his confinement Richard Brothers had prophesied that he would lead all the world's scattered Israelites back to Palestine and there rebuild Jerusalem. He was less specific as to whether he would have the Jerusalem Temple rebuilt once he began his reign of glory there. Evidently Brothers saw his planned restoration of Israel as a preliminary event in the long hoped-for establishment of the Judeo-Christian "Kingdom of God." His theology more or less "promoted" Jesus Christ into being God the Father -- so perhaps Brothers viewed his own paradisical reign and new world order as being a sort of replacement for popular notions regarding an expected millennial rule of Christ on Earth.

Richard Brothers and Joanna Southcott

Brothers' lengthy imprisonment, of course, greatly delayed his anticipated restoration of Israel. During his confinement, in 1801, another budding "chosen one" was sought out by some of the prophet's followers. This was Joanna Southcott, already independently something of a prophetess herself among a radical branch of the British Methodists. She inherited a number of Richard Brothers' tenets and was viewed by many followers as being his prophetic successor.

Besides being widely reprinted under his own name, a good deal of Brothers' innovative tenets were further publicized throughout the world in 1795 by their promulgation in a popular rendition of apocalyptic predictions entitled The World's Doom. However, by the first years of the new century, popular faith and interest in Richard Brothers' claims to a divine mission had cooled considerably. Perhaps his envisaging a never-fulfilled earthquake judgment that would level St. Paul's Cathedral and destroy the English Parliament distroyed Brothers' religious reputation among patriotic Englishmen caught up the the fervor brought on by the Napoleonic wars. The "Nephew of God" left what little remained of legacy to the growing Southcott movement. He also no doubt helped influence the thought of later proponents of the "Anglo-Israelite" theories explaining the fate of the Ten "Lost" Tribes of Israel. But, as a would-be prophet in his own right, Richard Brothers' name soon slipped into obscurity and his life into oblivion. He died in England, unremembered, in 1824.

Richard Brothers and Mormon Origins

Given the exstensive (and potentially fruitful) field comprised by Richard Brothers' "prophetic" claims, tenets, and activities, it is rather remarkable that no previous writers on American churchly history have thought to compare and contrast his religion with that of the equally "prophetic" early Mormons. Both Richard Brothers and Joseph Smith, Jr., after all, did claim respectively to speak for God, delivering to their followers timely and exclusive latter day "revelation." Both men asserted that they and/or their coreligionists could discern previously undiscovered signs of "Israelite" descent in persons otherwise counted as "Gentiles." Both men sought to gather and restore a scattered Israel previous to establishing the Kingdom of God in a new world order, ruled over from a holy city of refuge. Both men found reasons to re-write passages of scripture from the Authorized Version of the Bible, to suit their own opinions and needs. Both men made use of many of the same predictive biblical prophecies to support their own religious programs. Both laid claim to a religious or churchly authority superior to that of an "apostate" Roman Catholic Church, etc., etc.

Probably the very short prophetic career of Richard Brothers, conducted on another continent and two decades previous to the rise of Joseph Smith, has escaped the attention of religious historians. If so, it is perhaps a mistake worth correcting by contemporary students of Mormon Origins.

The first writer to mention Richard Brothers and Jospeh Smith in the same breath, figuratively speaking, was Professor Jonathan B. Turner, in his 1842 book, Mormonism in All Ages... In that early study of the Mormons, the writer seeks to compare the Latter Day Saints to the deluded followers of past false prophets and their "absurdities." He says:

In 1792, Joanna Southcote [sic], a servant maid of Exter, England, assumed the character of a prophetess, and pretended that she was the woman of the wilderness, and could give the seal of eternal life to her followers. Like Smith & Co., she uttered dreadful prophetic denunciations upon her opposers and the unbelieving nations, and predicted the speedy approach of her millennium. Of course her thousands of followrers found all her predictions fulfilled. In the last year of

her life she secluded herself from the world, and especially from the society of the other sex, and gave out that she was with child of the Holy Ghost, and that she should give birth to the Shiloh promised to Jacob before the end of the harvest, which would be the second coming of Christ. Harvest, however, came and went, but no Shiloh appeared. She died on the 27th of the following December. Her disciples refused to bury her. They waited four days for her resurrection and the birth of the Shiloh, until she began to rot. They then consented, with much reluctance, to a post-mortem examination, which fully refuted their belief. Her disciples then, with still greater reluctance, buried her body, but not their faith either in her or the promised Shiloh. On the contrary, they continue to flatter themselves that she will yet, in some way, reappear, and that with her will come their long expected Shiloh, and their Mormon gathering and millennium of Mormon glory.

In the same year, 1792, Richard Brothers published a book of prophecies and visions, and an account of his daily intercourse with God in London. Among his followers was a member of the British parliament, a profound scholar, and one of the most learned men of his time. He made a speech in the house of Commons declaring his full belief in one of the greatest absurdities ever presented to the British populace. (pp. 94-95)


Other early writers would echo Turner's opinions regarding Joanna Southcott, but practically all subsequent reports on the Mormons made no mention of her precursor, Richard Brothers. In later years, Brothers' name seems to have been linked to that of Smith only in very obscure articles, like the one on "Impostors" which has appeared in verious editions of the Catholic Encyclopedia.

Under this heading we may notice a certain number of objectionable characters who, while not of sufficient importance to claim separate treatment, have at various epochs so far achieved notoriety...

Passing over a certain number of religious enthusiasts who may in various degrees have been self-convinced and who range from the crazy hallucinations of Joanna Southcott (died 1814), who believed she was to bring forth the Messiah, or of Richard Brothers, the Divinely crowned descendant of King David and ruler of the world (c. 1792), to the miracle-working claims of Anna Lee (died. 1784), the foundress of the American Shakers, we will pause only to say a word of Joseph Smith (1805-1844), the first apostle of Mormonism. It cannot be doubted that this man, who after a dissolute youth professed to have visions of a golden book, consisting of metal plates inscribed with strange characters, which he dug for and found, was a deliberate impostor. Smith pretended to decipher and translate these mystic writings, after which the "Book of Mormon" was taken back to heaven by an angel...


The first modern scholar of Mormon Origins to connect Richard Brothers with the phenomenon of Mormonism was D. Michael Quinn, in his 1987 Early Mormonism and the Magic World View.

...Richard Brothers published his visions, prophecies, and revealed expansions of biblical texts in multiple during the 1790s in Pennsylvania, New York, and Massachusetts during the 1790s. He claimed that in 1791, "I was in a vision, and being carried up to heaven, the Lord God spoke to me from the middle of a large white cloud." His publication reached such hinterland towns as Hanover, New Hampshire, where Hyrum Smith attended school near the Joseph Smith family residence (Richard Brothers A Revealed Knowledge of the Prophecies and Times. 2 vols. in 1 -- West Springfield, MA: Edward Gray, 1797, 1:49; National Union Catalog of Pre-1956 Imprints 78:366; Catalog of Books, for Sale at the Bookstore... on the road leading to Lebanon -- Hanover, NH, n.p., 1799, 6; Lucy Mack Smith, Biographical Sketches... 1853, 59-60...). Brothers was an English sectarian, yet such testimonies of theophany were even more common among early American evangelicals....
(p. 14, rev. 2nd. ed., 1998)


While Quinn's report was a welcome addition to the sparse knowledge available concerning Richard Brothers' impact on the northeastern US at the end of the 18th century, Quinn missed making the obvious connection between the availbility of A Revealed Knowledge... in Hanover, New Hampshire and an outbreak of Brothers-like religious frenzy in adjacent central Vermont at nearly the exact same time (1799-1800) -- the infamous "Wood Scrape."

Although Quinn writes knowledgeably in his book about the Nathaniel Wood "New Israelite" sect of Middletown, Vermont, he apparently does not discern the evident parallels that outbreak of religious fanaticism in New Emgland with the nearly simultaneous religious performance by Richard Brothers in "Mother" England.

One scholar who has made the Brothers-Wood Scrape connection is John L. Brooke. In his 1994 The Refiner's Fire, Brooke relates that "The Masonic-millenarian connotations in Brothers' tracts... circulating in New England in the 1790s... Masonic millenarianism also seems to have shaped the hermeticism and restorationism of the New Israelite cult of Middletown, led by the Wood family..." Indirectly Brooke lays the ground-work for his readers' realization that Nathaniel Wood and his followers in Middletown, Vermont in 1799-1800 would have had ready access to the Richard Brothers book in nearby Hanover, New Hampshire. In fact, Brothers' book was circulating throughout New England during this period and the Wood group members probably would not have needed to travel even so far as Hanover's bookshops (which grew up in the shadow of that town's Dartmouth College) to obtain A Revealed Knowledge...

The pertinent passages penned by Brooke on these matters are as follows:

... attracting several English Swedenborgian millenarians who a few years later became followers of the prophet Richard Brothers. In the midst of threats of war in 1794, Brothers, a former naval officer living in London, pronounced himself the "Prince and Prophet of the Hebrews" and predicted the coming of the kingdom of God and the return of visible and "invisible" Hebrews to a New Jerusalem to be rebuilt in the Holy Land. Confined as insane, Brothers would lose some of his followers to Joanna Southcott, "the woman clothed with the sun," who carried the renewed English tradition of the restoration of the Kingdom of God, dormant since the 1650s, into the nineteenth century (Clark Garrett, Respectable Folly: Millenarians and the French Revolution in France and England -- Baltimore, 1975, 97-120, 171-223; John F. C. Harrison. The Second Coming: Popular Millenarianism, 1780-1850, -- New Brunswick, 1978, 57-85; Schuchard, Freemasonry, Secret Societies, and the Continuities of Occult Traditions, 402-17)
(p. 97)

Other, more ephemeral writings drawing upon Masonic and millennial themes appealed to a much broader audience. The rise of revolutionary France, its dramatic confrontation with the British-led alliance, and its ramifications in American politics inspired a wave of militantly pro-French sentiment and shaped an audience eager for premillennial predictions and prophicies Among these, the prophecies of London's "Prince and Prophet of the Hebrews," Richard Brothers, were widely read in at least eleven American editions published from 1795 to 1797 in Philadelphia, New London, Worcester, West Springfield, and Albany, where it was put out by a Freemason, Thomas Webb. In Connecticut, the Reverend David Austin translated visions and a growing mental instability into a series of published sermons and treatises on millennial and Masonic themes during the 1790s, literally obsessed with the notion that the "Millennial Door" was opening. (In general, for these themes, see Ruth Bloch, Visionary Republic: Millennial Themes in American Thought, 1756-1800 -- New York, 1985, 150-68; David Austin, Masonry in Its Glory, or Solomon's Temple Illuminated (East Windsor, Conn., 1799)

Many of these prophecies focused on legendary artifacts. Brothers' followers from the Masonic Avignon Society had accepted him as a true prophet, based on prophecies popularly ascribed to Christopher Love, an English Presbyterian executed for conspiring against Cromwell in 1651. Love's "Prophecies," which included references to an engraved pillar of brass erected by patriarch Seth and the prophet Enoch...
(p. 99)

... Asel [Smith] drew language from Nebuchadnezzar's dream in the Book of Daniel: "I believe that the stone is now cut out of the mountain without hands, spoken of by Daniel, and has smitten the image upon his feet." This language had once been deployed by radical English sectarians, and was soon to be taken up agains in his grandson's Church of Latter-day Saints; in the 1790s it could be found in the English prophet Richard Brothers' "Revealed Knowledge," where the stone signified the restored Kingdom of God, soon to destroy all other kingdoms, as Asael hoped the stone would destroy "all monarchical and ecclesiastical tyranny." (Asael Smith's letter to Jacob Towne, Jan. 14, 1795, in Anderson, Joseph Smith's New England Heritage, 119; Richard Brothers, Revealed Knowledge... -- Philadelphia, 1795, 51)

The Masonic-millenarian connotations in Brothers' tracts, along with those of Christopher Love's writings and the anonymous "Remarkable Prophecy." all circulating in New England in the 1790s, could well have shaped Asael's writing, complementing the alchemical connotations that this passage would have had for a family still in communication with the Townes, once owners of the Topsfield copper lots. ("Brothers' Prophecies" was one item listed in a Catalogue of Books, for Sale at the Bookstore in Hanover... -- Hanover, NH, 1799)

The Masonic millenarianism also seems to have shaped the hermeticism and restorationism of the New Israelite cult of Middletown, led by the Wood family, recently moved from Norwich, Connecticut. One nineteenth century account places Joseph Smith Sr. himself among the New Israelites. If true, it would have taken him about fifty miles from his young family in Tunbridge. In any event, Joseph would boast in the 1830s in Ohio that his divining career had begun decades before in Vermont. (Quinn, Early Mormonism, 22, 31-2; Hill, Joseph Smith, 67; Ronald W. Walker. "The Persisting Idea of American Treasure Hunting," BYU Studies 24, 1984, 444; Stephen Green, "The Money-Diggers," Vermont Life 24 (1969), 48; Hemenway, ed., Vermont Historical Gazetteer, 3:1089.)
(p. 133)

William Cowdery was deeply involved in the New Israelite movement... There were other elements to this complex tangle of Freemasonry and millenarism in the New Israelite towns. In 1823 Ethan Smith, the Anti-masonic Congregational minister in Poultney, published a text entitled "View of the Hebrews, or the Tribes of Israel in America." As had Richard Brothers, the English Prophet of the 1790s, Ethan Smith emphasized that the millennium and the restoration of the Kingdom of God depended on the return of the Jews to Jerusalem. In particular, the fulfillment of ancient prophecy required the return of the Ten Lost Tribes to Israel. On the basis of a report of a parchment book found in Pittsfield, Massachusetts (William Miller's birthplace), and stories of metal artifacts and plates recovered from Indian burial mounds in western New York and Ohio, Ethan Smith was concinced that the American Indian peoples were the Lost Tribes... (Persuitte, Joseph Smith and the Origins of the Book of Mormon, esp. 5-8; ...)
(p. 142)

... the Mormon message also resonated with a centuries-old radical religious culture. British converts to Mormonism were in great measure already committed to millenarian, primitivist, and even magical religious sensibilities that had been circulating through orbits of radical religion ever since the seventeenth century. Revitalized in the decades following the 1790s by prophets such as Richard Brothers and Joanna Southcott, millenarianism and restorationism had persisted in odd corners of post-Restoration England, entangled with the hermetic pietism of Jacob Boehm, the Philadelphian Society, and Emmanuel Swedenborg... (J. F. C. Harrison, The Second Coming --New Brunswick, 1979; Clark Garrett, Respectable Folly -- Baltimore, 1974; W. H. G. Armytage, Heaven Below: Utopian Experiments in England, 1560-1960 -- London, 1961, 32-73, 259-71; William H. Oliver, Prophets and Millennialists: The Uses of Biblical Prophecy from the 1790s to the 1840s -- Aukland, 1978...) (p. 238)


Image
British Cartoon depicting Richard Brothers as a Mad Moses

Richard Brothers and the American Zion

The important point that Brooke seems to have missed here is that the leaders of the Nathaniel Wood cult formed their own Yankee-Israelite theology in the midst of much the same kind of tense, pre-millennialistic expectations as did Richard Brothers. There were biblical prophecies regarding the restoration of Isreal which must be fulfilled prior to the coming of a paradisical Kingdom of God on Earth -- and, since the Jews in 1800 were not "restoring" Israel, it was up to Gentiles of forgotten Israelite descent to take up that awesome end-times task.

Like Richard Brothers in England, leaders of the Wood group were pronouncing Israelite lineage upon their disciples.Like Richard Brothers in England, leaders of the Wood group were also applying apocalyptic biblical predictions to their own neighborhood -- far from the Holy Land. Nathaniel Wood quite likely borrowed his European-Israelite ideas from Richard Brothers' book or from Richard Brothers news reports printed in New England newspapers. The Wood group made use of divining rods to confirm that European-descended Vermonters were indeed "Israelites" unaware of their origin and destiny. But it appears that Nathaniel was also claiming to receive direct revelation from God, just as Richard Brothers was doing at roughly the same time in England. If so, Wood could have dispensed of his witch hazel stick and pronounced Israelite genealogies, commands to gather, and directions to build a New Jerusalem directly from his own mouth -- just as Prophet Brothers was doing.

One of Richard Brothers' great innovations was to bring biblical predictions home to his own land and people. While other would-be prophets no doubt did much the same in ages past, Brothers' immoderate interpretation of ancient scripture and claims of divine revelation struck a religious response both in England and in far off New England. If Brothers could claim revelations from God predicting an impending all-destructive earthquake on his home ground, 'why could not Nathaniel Wood, In Middletown, Vermont not do the same? If Brothers could call for a pre-millennial gathering of the chosen of God at his end of the Atlantic, why could not Yankee religious extremists do the same at their end of the Ocean?

The Nathaniel Wood group may have not copied Richard Brothers line for line and precept for precept, but he is a likely source for several of their own innovations in Middletown at the end of the 18th century. The one compelling element they added to this heady mix was the notion that a gathering of Israel could be carried out on American soil -- without the need of a migration all the way back to restore the old Jerusalem. In fact, a NEW Jerusalem could be built in America, populated by newly minted Yankee Israelites. All that was missing from the Wood group's doctrine was the belief that American Indians were also Israelites, equally entitled to gather with their white brethren to a New World Zion. Twenty years later that missing tenet would be supplied by Mordecai M. Noah -- completing the foundation for the later Mormon doctrine of an Israelite gathering and latter day temple-building "on the borders of the Lamanites."
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Joanna Southcott
by Wikipedia
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Joanna Southcott[1]
Born: April 1750, Taleford, Devon, England
Died: 27 December 1814 (aged 64), London, England
Nationality: English
Occupation: religious prophet

Joanna Southcott (or Southcote) (April 1750 – 27 December 1814), was a self-described religious prophetess from Devon, England. A "Southcottian" movement continued in various forms after her death.

Early life

Joanna Southcott was born in the hamlet of Taleford, baptised at Ottery St Mary, and raised in the village of Gittisham, all in Devon. Her father, William Southcott (died 1802), ran a small farm. She did dairy work as a girl, and after the death of her mother, Hannah, went into service, first as a shop-girl in Honiton, then for a considerable time as a domestic servant in Exeter. She was eventually dismissed because a footman, whose attentions she rejected, claimed that she was "growing mad".[2]

Self-revelation

Originally in the Church of England, in about 1792 she joined the Wesleyans in Exeter,[3] Becoming persuaded that she possessed supernatural gifts, she wrote and dictated prophecies in rhyme, and then announced herself as the Woman of the Apocalypse spoken of in a prophetic passage of the Revelation (12:1–6).

Coming to London at the request of William Sharp, the engraver, Southcott began selling paper "seals of the Lord"[4] at prices varying from twelve shillings to a guinea. The seals were supposed to ensure the holders' places among the 144,000 people who would be elected to eternal life.


The new Messiah and death

At the age of 64 Southcott affirmed that she was pregnant and would be delivered of the new Messiah, the Shiloh of Genesis (49:10). The date of 19 October 1814 was that fixed for the birth, but Shiloh failed to appear, and it was given out that she was in a trance.

She had a disorder which gave her the appearance of being pregnant and this fuelled her followers, who reached a number of around 100,000 in 1814, mainly in the London area.[5]

Southcott died not long after. The official date of death was given as 27 December 1814, but it is likely that she died the previous day, as her followers retained her body for some time in the belief that she would be raised from the dead. They agreed to her burial only after the corpse began to decay.

She was buried at the Chapel of Ease at St John's Wood in January 1815.[6]

Legacy

The "Southcottian" movement did not end with her death in 1814. Her followers are said to have numbered over 100,000, but had declined greatly by the end of the 19th century. In 1844 a lady named Ann Essam left large sums of money for "printing, publishing and propagation of the sacred writings of Joanna Southcott".[7][8] The will was disputed in 1861 by her niece. Her grounds for doing so included that the writings were blasphemous and the bequest was contrary to the Statutes of Mortmain: the Court of Chancery refused to find the writings blasphemous but voided the bequest as contrary to the Statute of Mortmain.[9][10]

In 1881 there was an enclave of her followers living in the Chatham area, east of London, who were distinguished by their long beards and good manners.[11]

Southcott left a sealed wooden box of prophecies, usually known as Joanna Southcott's Box, with the instruction that it be opened only at a time of national crisis, and then only in the presence of all the 24 bishops of the Church of England at that time, who were to spend a fixed period beforehand studying Southcott's prophecies. Attempts were made to persuade the episcopate to open it during the Crimean War and again during the First World War. In 1927, the psychic researcher Harry Price claimed that he had come into possession of the box and arranged to have it opened in the presence of one reluctant prelate, the suffragan Bishop of Grantham. It was found to contain only a few oddments and unimportant papers, among them a lottery ticket and a horse-pistol. Price's claims to have had the true box have been disputed by historians and by followers of Southcott.[12]

Southcottians, denying the authenticity of the box opened in 1927, continued to press for the true box to be opened.[13] An advertising campaign on billboards and in British national newspapers such as the Sunday Express was run in the 1960s and 1970s by one prominent group of Southcottians, the Panacea Society in Bedford (formed 1920), to try to persuade the 24 bishops to have the box opened. The Society's slogan was: "War, disease, crime and banditry, distress of nations and perplexity will increase until the Bishops open Joanna Southcott's box." According to the Society, this true box is in their possession at a secret location for safekeeping, with its whereabouts to be disclosed only when a bishops' meeting has been arranged. Southcott prophesied that the Day of Judgement would come in the year 2004, and her followers stated that if the contents of the box had not been studied beforehand, the world would have had to meet it unprepared.


The Panacea Society was a millenarian religious group in Bedford, England. Founded in 1919, it followed the teachings of the Devonshire prophetess Joanna Southcott, who died in 1814, and campaigned for Southcott's sealed box of prophecies to be opened according to her instructions. The society believed Bedford to be the original site of the Garden of Eden.

The Society's inspiration was the teachings of the Devonshire prophetess Joanna Southcott (1750–1814). It was founded by Mabel Barltrop (1866-1934) in 1919 at 12 Albany Road, Bedford. A clergyman's widow, Barltrop declared herself the 'daughter of God', took the name Octavia and believed herself to be the Shiloh of Southcott's prophecies. Barltrop had originally heard of Southcott via a leaflet written by Alice Seymour.

Alice Seymour (January 10, 1857 – October 24, 1947) was an English follower of Joanna Southcott. Southcott predicted the second coming of Christ and had left prophesies to be used in time of crisis.

Seymour was born in Plymouth. Her parents were members of the Christian Israelite Church who followed the evangelist John Wroe. She read the works of Joanna Southcott as a child.

In 1907 she said she was visited by spirits who told her that she was to write a life of Joanna Southcott. She did this and it was published in 1909, "The Express". She had previously thought that she was to write a Southcott biography book with the Reverend Walter Begley, but he had died in 1905. The 1909 book was well received at the Daily News, which made it their book of the week.

In 1914 she led a campaign to get the secret prophesies of Joanna Southcottt opened. The prophesies were intended for a moment of crisis and Southcott had laid down the conditions under which they could be opened including the presence of 24 bishops.

Seymour created a group who followed the ideas of Southcott and she was in disagreement with the Panacea Society who she described as "the Bedford group."

-- Alice Seymour, by Wikipedia


She and 12 apostles founded the Society, originally called the Community of the Holy Ghost.

A central purpose of the Society was to persuade 24 Anglican bishops to open Southcott's sealed box of prophecies, and to this end, advertisements were placed in newspapers, both national and local. In the late 1920s and early 1930s the Society generated over 100,000 petitions for the box to be opened. The Society claimed to be in possession of the original box. The Panaceans also believed that the one that was opened in 1927 and found to contain a broken horse pistol and a lottery ticket, was not the genuine box.

During the 1930s the membership began to dwindle as did Alice Seymour's smaller rival group.

Despite this, the group continued placing adverts in newspapers calling for action from the Church of England. In the 1970s the Society rented billboards which proclaimed "War, disease, crime and banditry, distress of nations and perplexity will increase until the Bishops open Joanna Southcott's box."

Another main activity of the Panacea Society was to offer healing of all diseases, including cancer, to those who would write to its headquarters in Bedford and receive a piece of linen blessed by Octavia. They were instructed to put the linen in a jug of water, pray, and drink this "Water A" four times a day. Water A could then be diluted with additional water, producing "Water B," which should be applied to the body as bath water or through sponges. From 1924 to 2012, some 130,000 applicants received the pieces of linen for free, and were only asked to write back and report on the results of the cure. The correspondence, coming from all over the world, is still conserved in the Bedford Panacea Museum, and has been studied in 2019 in a book by British scholar Alastair Lockhart.

The Society had its headquarters on Albany Road, close to the remains of Bedford Castle. Another property, an end-of-terrace house on Albany Road named The Ark, was maintained as a residence for the Messiah after the Second Coming.

Although small in size, the Society was relatively wealthy, owning several properties in the Castle Road area of Bedford. By 2001, when the Society started to sell off some of its property in order to retain its status as a charity, it was reported to have assets valued at £14m...[

Whilst the religious society is no longer functioning, there still exists a charity whose main remit is to sponsor academic research into the history and development of prophetic and millenarian movements, as well as provide financial assistance to support the work of registered charities and recognised groups concerned with poverty and health in the Bedford area. The charity officially changed its name to The Panacea Charitable Trust in 2012.

-- Panacea Society, by Wikipedia


Charles Dickens refers to Mrs Southcott in his description of the year 1775 at the beginning of A Tale of Two Cities.[14]

Works

Among her 60 publications may be mentioned:

• The Strange Effects of Faith. London: E. J. Field. 1802.
• The True Explanation of the Bible. London: S. Rousseau. 1804.
• The Book of Wonders (1813–1814)
• Prophecies announcing the birth of the Prince of Peace, extracted from the works of Joanna Southcott to which are added a few remarks thereon, made by herself, ed. Ann Underwood. London: 1814
• Joanna Southcott: A dispute between the woman and the powers of darkness (1802) New York; Woodstock: Poole 1995. ISBN 1-85477-194-9. Facsimile

See also

• John Ward (1781–1837), a self-styled prophet who claimed to be Southcott's successor
• Alice Seymour – another 20th-century follower of Southcott

Notes

1. Portrait drawn and engraved by William Sharp, 1812.
2. Dictionary of National Biography, 1885–1900, vol. 53, p. 277.
3. Women Writers IV. Novelists, Essayists and Poets – R–Z (London: Jarndyce Antiquarian Booksellers, Summer 2012).
4. Denham, G (1815). "Remarks on the Writings and Prophecies of Joanna Southcott: being an attempt to prove her assertions inconsistent with the will of God as revealed in the scriptures of eternal truth". Dean&Munday. p. 23. Retrieved 16 December 2015.
5. Robert Chamber's Book of Days, vol. 2, p. 775.
6. Robert Chamber's Book of Days, vol. 2, p. 775.
7. Austin Wakeman Scott (1966). Select cases and other authorities on the law of trusts. Law school casebook series (5th ed.). Little, Brown. p. 682.
8. Frank Swancara (1971). Obstruction of justice by religion: a treatise on religious barbarities of the common law, and a review of judicial oppressions of the non-religious in the United States. Civil liberties in American history. Da Capo Press. p. 171.
9. Thornton v. Howe, 54 Eng. Rep. 1042 (Ch. 1862).
10. Charles Beavan, ed. (1863). Report of cases in Chancery: argued and determined in the Rolls court during the time of the Rt Hon. John Romilly, Kt, Master of the rolls, Volume XXXI, 1862. Saunders and Benning. p. 14.
11. Robert Chambers, Book of Days, vol 2, p. 776.
12. Trevor H. Hall (1978). Search for Harry Price. Duckworth. pp. 154–160. ISBN 0-7156-1143-7.
13. "Religion: Servant Woman's Box". Time Magazine. 8 May 1939.
14. Charles Dickens. A Tale of Two Cities. Spiritual revelations were conceded to England at that favoured period, as at this. Mrs. Southcott had recently attained her five-and-twentieth blessed birthday, of whom a prophetic private in the Life Guards had heralded the sublime appearance by announcing that arrangements were made for the swallowing up of London and Westminster.

References

• This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Southcott, Joanna". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
• Richard Reece M. D.: A letter from Joanna Southcott to Dr. Richard Reece containing a circumstantial exposition of her present situation, as given by nine medical gentlemen..., six of whom have pronounced her pregnant with her permission to Dr. Reece, in case of her death before the birth of the child, to open her body, to find out the cause which has produced such singular effects in a woman of her age. London, 1814
• Richard Reece M. D.: A Complete Refutation of the statements and remarks published by Dr. Reece relative to Mrs. Southcott ... By an impartial observer. London, 1815
• Richard Reece M. D.: A correct statement of the circumstances that attended the last illness and death of Mrs. Southcott with an account of the appearances exhibited on dissection and the artifices that were employed to deceive her medical attendants. London 1815
• Library of Biography. Remarkable Women of different Nations and Ages. First Series. Boston. John P. Jewett and Co., 1858
• Richard Pearse Chope: Life of Joanna Southcott. Bibliography of Joanna Southcott by Charles Lane, communicated by R. Pearse Chope read at Exeter, 25 July 1912. Reprinted from the Transactions of the Devonshire Association for the Advancement of Science, Literature and Art. 1912.
• The trial of Joanna Southcott during seven days, which commenced on the fifth, and ended on the eleventh of December 1804 at the Neckinger House, Bermondsey, London. Plymouth, England: Jas. H. Keys, 1916
• Rachel J. Fox: The truth about Joanna Southcott (prophetess), the great box of sealed writings, together with a challenge to the bishops to support her writings, by a Member of the Church of England. Bedford: Swann & Cave, 1921
• Rachel J. Fox: The sufferings and acts of Shiloh-Jerusalem, a sequel to "The finding of Shiloh." London: Cecil Palmer, 1927.
• Ronald Matthews: English Messiahs. London: Methuen, 1936
• George Reginald Balleine: Past finding out, the tragic story of Joanna Southcott and her successors. London: S.P.C.K., 1956
• Eugene Patrick Wright: A catalogue of the Joanna Southcott collection at the University of Texas. Austin: Univ. of Texas, 1968
• Grayson, Emma: Had they had knowledge. New Plymouth, N.Z. 1974
• Report on the papers of J. Southcott, 1750–1814, religious fanatic, and of her followers, 1801–1896. Middlesex Record Office 1040. London, 1975
• John Duncan Martin Derrett: Nathaniel Brassey Halhed, his association with Joanna Southcott. Poona (India): B.O.R. Institute, 1979.
• James K. Hopkins: A woman to deliver her people. Joanna Southcott and English millenarianism in an era of revolution. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1981 ISBN 0-292-79017-1
• John Duncan Martin: Prophecy in the Cotswolds 1803–1947. Joanna Southcott and spiritual reform. Shipston-on-Stour: P. I. Drinkwater on behalf of the Blockley Antiquarian Society, 1994
• Val Lewis: Satan's mistress, the extraordinary story of the 18th century fanatic Joanna Southcott and her lifelong battle with the Devil. Shepperton: Nauticalia, 1997 ISBN 0-9530458-0-3
• Susan Juster: Mystical pregnancy and holy bleeding, visionary experience in early modern Britain and America. In: William and Mary quarterly Vol. 57, No. 2 (2000) ISSN 0043-5597
• Frances Brown: Joanna Southcott, the woman clothed with the sun. Cambridge: Lutterworth, 2002 ISBN 0-7188-3018-0
• Frances Brown: Joanna Southcott's box of sealed prophecies. Cambridge: The Lutterworth Press, 2003 ISBN 0-7188-3041-5
• Gordon Allan, "Joanna Southcott: Enacting the Woman Clothed with the Sun," Michael Lieb, Emma Mason and Jonathan Roberts, eds, The Oxford Handbook of the Reception History of the Bible (Oxford, OUP, 2011), 635–648

External links

Wikisource has the text of an 1879 American Cyclopædia article about Joanna Southcott.

• Dedicated to the life and writings of Joanna Southcott at the Wayback Machine (archived 18 November 2006)
• The Panacea Society
• Joanna Southcott's memorial stone
• Archives relating to Joanna Southcott in the Harry Price papers
• "Southcott, Joanna" . New International Encyclopedia. 1905.
• Works by Joanna Southcott at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
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