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The covenanted servants comprised nominated or favoured persons who, after receiving a special education in the Company’s seminary at Haileybury, were subjected to examination in England, and then sent out to India at the Company’s expense. They entered into a covenant, prescribed by ancient custom, ‘That they shall obey all orders; that they shall discharge all debts; and that they shall treat the natives of India well.’ Until 1853 (when a system of public competition was established by the charter granted to the Company in that year), the appointment of persons to this favoured service was wholly in the patronage of the directors. After a certain amount of tuition and examination, the young men (’writers,’ as they were sometimes called) were conveyed to India, where they pursued further studies, chiefly in oriental languages, at Calcutta, Madras, or Bombay. While so studying, they received an ‘out-of-employ allowance.’ At length they commenced employment as ‘assistants’ to magistrates and collectors in country districts, as soon as they possessed a certain amount of knowledge of vernacular languages, criminal law, and revenue law. Their daily duties were partly magisterial, partly fiscal. After some years’ practice, the assistant was competent for promotion. He became collector or magistrate of a district, under regulations differing in the different presidencies. In Bengal, the offices of judge, magistrate, and collector were held by three different persons, all ‘covenanted;’ in the other presidencies the offices of magistrate and collector were held by the same person; in the ‘non-regulation provinces’ (Punjaub, Nagpoor, Sinde, &c.), all three offices were held by one person. The local government had a voice in the selection of persons to fill these offices; but the principle of promotion by seniority was extensively acted on, and was almost claimed as a right by the ‘covenanted.’ The salaries paid were very munificent. The lowest assistant received £500 per annum, and the amount rose gradually to £10,000 per annum, the salary of a member of the Supreme Council at Calcutta.

Such were the chief points of difference between the covenanted and uncovenanted services of the East India Company. It was not so much a distinction of race, colour, or creed, as a means of favouring selected persons in England, and of giving those persons a special education to fit them for civil duties in India.

Collectors and Collectorates.– We shall next notice in a succinct way the remarkable duties of such of the covenanted civil servants as filled the office of collector – especially in those districts where the collector was also the magistrate. In the Northwest Provinces, to which the mutiny was mainly confined, the collector-magistrate of each district was in many matters controlled by the commissioner of the province in which the district was situated; but he had in a larger degree than the commissioner an intimate knowledge of the villages and villagers of India, their incomes, hopes, fears, wants, and peculiarities; and he became more deeply involved in anxieties and dangers consequent on the mutiny.

The term ‘collector’ very inadequately expresses the status and duties of the official so named. So far from being a mere tax-gatherer, he was a revenue judge, an executive district authority, with large powers and heavy responsibilities. As collector and magistrate, he was responsible to two different departments – to the higher judicial courts for his conduct as a magistrate, and to the revenue department in all that concerned his collectorship. He had two sets of assistants, with duties clearly defined and separated. The magisterial duties being dismissed without further description, as susceptible of easy comprehension, we shall dwell only on the collectorship.

The duties of the collector were fivefold. He was collector of government revenue; registrar of landed property in his district; revenue judge between landlord and tenant; ministerial officer of courts of justice; and treasurer and accountant of the district. None but a man of varied and extensive attainments, united to zeal and industry, could adequately fulfil so many duties; many of the great names in the recent years of Indian history are those of men who laid the foundations for their greatness as collectors. The districts over which the collectors presided varied greatly in size and wealth; but in all cases they comprised several thousand villages each, and yielded revenue varying from one to two hundred thousand pounds per annum – for the whole of which the collector was responsible. In the whole of India, the collectorates were somewhat under a hundred and seventy in number, for the most part identical with districts, but in a few cases comprising whole provinces newly annexed; and these collectorates yielded, in 1856, revenue to the amount of about thirty millions sterling.

The collector-magistrate had generally two assistants, like himself ‘covenanted’ servants of the Company. Besides these there were ‘uncovenanted’ servants, European and native, sufficient in number for the duties to be rendered. The district was marked out into sub-districts containing from one to two hundred villages each. The collector resided at the head-station of the district, with a staff of clerks, writers, and record-keepers. Each sub-district was under the revenue management of a responsible native officer, who had subordinates under him to keep his accounts and conduct the details of his office. Carrying down the classification still more minutely, every village in every sub-district had its headman and its native accountant, who were in intimate correspondence concerning the revenue of the village.

The chief official of the district, as collector of government revenue, obtained this revenue mainly from three sources – land-tax, spirit and drug duty, and stamps. The second and third items were so small in amount, that many well-wishers of the Company urged the abandonment of those imposts; and at anyrate only a small share of the collector’s attention was devoted to them. The land-tax was the great source of revenue; and until the government of India undergoes an entire revolution both in spirit and in practice, such must continue to be the case. So decided was the importance of this tax compared with all others, that of the thirty millions sterling raised in 1856, no less than seventeen millions resulted from land-tax. The land-tax formed the great fund out of which the vast expenses for the executive government, military and civil, were mainly paid. Hence the importance of the revenue-collector and his land-tax duties. The assessment of the land, for the realisation of the tax, differed in different presidencies, according to the relations existing between the state, the landowners, the farmers, and the labourers. In Bengal the revenue was collected in gross from great and powerful zemindars, the state having little or nothing to do with the actual cultivators. In Madras no zemindars or great men were recognised; the state drew the tax from the ryots or cultivators, each on his own bit of land. In Bombay the Madras system existed in a modified form. In Oude nothing could be done till the annexation in 1856, when the peculiar thalookdaree system¹⁴⁵ laid a foundation for many troubles in the following year. In the Northwest Provinces the assessment depended on the peculiar village tenures, which had existed from time immemorial, and according to which the ownership of the soil could not be interfered with by the state so long as the village paid the revenue. Great as may have been, and great as were, the differences between the Hindoo, Mohammedan, and English governments, this village system maintained its ground century after century. The tenure of land in these provinces, recognised by the Company as among those institutions which they wished to respect, were mainly three in number:

Zemindaree– denoting those estates where the property was held collectively without any territorial division, whether the owners were one, few, or many.

Puttidaree– those estates where the property was partially or entirely divided, and held separately by the coparceners.

Bhyacharuh– estates held by coparcenary communities, where actual possession had overborne law; it was a kind of Puttidaree founded on actuality rather than right.

Whichever of these systems prevailed, the Company respected it in assessing the land-tax; and thus each piece of land was represented in the tax-books by the name of a particular tax-payer or community of tax-payers. The actual assessment, the percentage on produce, depended on circumstances specially ascertained in each district; but the two guiding principles laid down by the Company, when they established a revenue-system for the Northwest Provinces were – that the rate should be light enough to leave a wide margin of profit to the cultivators; and that it should be fixed without alteration for a considerable period of years. The collector, knowing how much was assessed upon every village or every piece of land, was armed with powers sufficient to enforce payment. Whether the assessment was ‘light’ or not, was a standing controversy between those who respectively supported the zemindaree, the ryotwaree, and the village systems. The Company’s advocates generally urged that, though the ratio of tax to produce seemed heavy, any comparison with English land-tax would be fallacious; seeing that the villagers and cultivators in India were not called upon to pay, in addition to land-tax, any such imposts as excise, tithes, church-rates, county-rates, poor-rates, or income-tax. The excellences and defects of the system, however, are not discussed here; we simply describe the system itself.

The collector, having a definite amount to receive, from a definite number of villages, represented by a definite number of persons, could neither increase nor lessen, anticipate nor postpone, the tax, without special reasons. If a district suffered from drought, the government often deferred or wholly remitted the tax; but this only under well-defined circumstances. The collector’s register recorded all changes in ownership or occupancy by death or private transfer; and as he knew each year who ought to pay, he was intrusted with certain powers to enforce payment by imprisonment, distraint of personal property, annulment of lease, sequestration of profits, transfer of defaulting share to a solvent shareholder of the same community, farming of the estate to a stranger, or sale by public auction.

In most districts, until the time of the Revolt, the collection of revenue was an easy task, occupying only a portion of the collector’s thoughts in May and June, November and December. ‘So complete the machinery,’ said a writer in the Calcutta Review, ‘so prosperous the provinces, so well adjusted the assessment, that the golden shower fell uninterruptedly; and the collector, who had without an effort of his own transmitted a royal ransom half-yearly to the public treasury, was scarcely aware of the financial feat which he and his subordinates had performed.’ But when a drought, an inundation, or any great calamity interfered with the growth or harvesting of the crop, the collector’s duties were most trying and laborious; seeing that he had to listen to petitions for relief or delay from hundreds or thousands of villages in his district.

His ordinary duties as a collector of revenue occupied only a small portion of his time and thoughts. As registrar of landed property, he kept maps and registers of land, drawn out with a degree of minuteness scarcely paralleled in any other country in the world; and these maps and registers were renewed or corrected annually, to shew the size, position, ownership, and crop of every cultivated field in the whole district. As revenue judge between landlord and tenant, he was often called upon to assist the responsible landowner to collect his rent from the cultivators, or to assist the cultivator in resisting oppression by the landlord; it was a duty requiring a knowledge both of law and of revenue matters. As a ministerial officer of the courts of justice, he had to put in force, somewhat in the manner of a sheriff, all decisions of the judge relating to land, transfers of property, or arrears of land-tax; and his local knowledge often enabled him to assist the judge in arriving at an equitable decision. As treasurer and accountant, he took care of the bags of silver coin in which the land-tax and the other taxes were chiefly paid, tested and weighed the coin before making up his accounts, paid monthly stipends to some of the military and civil officers of the district, kept a minute debtor and creditor account, and transmitted his accounts and his surplus silver to Calcutta. In addition to all these duties, the collector, considered as the European who possessed most knowledge on various subjects in his district, performed miscellaneous duties scarcely susceptible of enumeration. ‘Everything that is to be done by the executive, must be done by him, in one of his capacities; and we find him, within his jurisdiction, publican [tax-gatherer], auctioneer, sheriff, road-maker, timber-dealer, enlisting sergeant, sutler, slayer of wild beasts, wool-seller, cattle-breeder, postmaster, vaccinator, discounter of bills, and registrar-general – in which last capacity he has also to tie the marriage-knot for those who object to the Thirty-nine Articles. Latterly, he has been made schoolmaster of his district also. Every new measure of government places an extra straw on the collector’s back. Whatever happens to be the prevailing hobby, the collector suffers. One day specimens are called for, for the Exhibitions of London or Paris; the next day, the cry is for iron and timber for the railway, or poles for the telegraph.’

CHAPTER XXVII.
DISCUSSIONS ON REBEL PUNISHMENTS

Before entering on the military struggles that marked the month of April, it may be desirable to notice the phases of public feeling concerning the amount of punishment due to the mutineers and rebels in India. The discussions on this subject undoubtedly influenced the course of proceeding adopted both by the military and the civil authorities; although it may not be possible to measure the exact amount of that influence, or the exact date at which it was felt. Some of the proceedings of Viscount Canning at Calcutta, in reference to this matter, belonged to the month of March; some of the discussions in the imperial parliament, and at the India House, bearing on Canning’s line of policy, belonged to later months; but it will be useful to give a rapid sketch, in this place, of the nature of the discussion generally, and of the remarkable tone given to it by party politics in England. All reference to the debates concerning the reorganisation of the Indian government, whether at home or in India itself, may more fittingly be postponed to a later chapter.

Almost from the first, a large portion of the Anglo-Indian population cried aloud for most summary and sanguinary vengeance on rebels and mutineers of all kinds, Mohammedan and Hindoo, towns-people and country peasants. General Neill was idolised for a time by this class – not so much because he was a gallant soldier and a skilful commander, as because he was supposed to be terribly severe in his treatment of insurgents. This matter has been adverted to in former pages, as well as the torrents of abuse that were poured upon the governor-general for ‘clemency’ – a word used in a mocking and bitter spirit. Many of the censors afterwards joined the ranks of those who abused the same governor-general for a policy supposed to be antagonistic to that of ‘clemency.’ The fact is again mentioned here, owing to its connection with a controversy that gave rise to formidable parliamentary struggles many months afterwards. The proceedings of four different bodies – the Calcutta government, the Board of Control, the Houses of Parliament, and the Court of Directors – must be briefly noticed to shew the course of this controversy.

At first, when the mutiny was still in its earlier stages, the friends and relations of those who had suffered barbarous treatment at the hands of the natives gave utterance to a wild demand for vengeance, springing not unnaturally from an excited state of feeling. The following, from one of the Calcutta journals, is a fair example of this kind of writing in its milder form: ‘Not the least amongst the thousand evils which will follow in the track of the rebellion is the indurating effect it will have upon the feelings of our countrywomen when the struggle is over. There are many hundreds of English ladies who lie down nightly to dream of horrors too great for utterance; who scarcely converse except upon one dreadful subject; and who would be found almost as willing as their husbands and fathers to go out and do battle with the mutineers, if they could only insure the infliction of deep and thorough vengeance. It is a contest with murderers who are not satisfied with their life’s blood, that they have to expect daily. Their very servants are perhaps in league to destroy them. They suffer almost hourly worse than the pains of death. Many have already died by homicidal hands; but more from the pangs of starvation and travel, from the agonies of terror, and the slow process of exhaustion. And all this while friends and relatives sigh vainly for the coming of the day of retribution.’ The italicised passages shew only a very moderate use of the words ‘vengeance’ and ‘retribution,’ but may suffice to indicate the feeling here adverted to.

The Calcutta government, as has been duly recorded in the proper chapters, from time to time issued orders and proclamations relating to the treatment which the mutineers were to receive, or which was to be meted out to non-military natives who should shew signs of insubordination. There was, as one instance, the line of policy contested between Mr Colvin and Lord Canning. The former issued, or intended to issue, a proclamation to the mutineers of the Northwest Provinces, in which, among other things, he promised that ‘soldiers engaged in the late disturbances, who are desirous of going to their own homes, and who give up their arms at the nearest government civil or military post, and retire quietly, shall be permitted to do so unmolested;’ whereas Lord Canning insisted that this indulgence or leniency should not be extended to any regiments which had murdered or ill-used their officers, or committed cruel outrages on other persons. Then there were several orders and statutes proclaiming martial law in the disturbed districts; appointing commissioners to try mutineers by a very summary process; authorising military officers to deal with rebel towns-people as well as with revolted sepoys; enabling the police to arrest suspected persons without the formality of a warrant; making zemindars and landowners responsible for the surrendering of any ill-doers on their estates; and other measures of a similar kind. When, in the month of July, Viscount Canning found it needful to check the over-zeal of some of the tribunals at Allahabad, who were prone to hang accused persons without sufficient evidence of their guilt, he was accused of interference with the righteous demand for blood. It is true, that these were, in the first instance, merely newspaper accusations; but as the English public looked to newspapers for the chief part of their information concerning India, these controversies gave rise to a very unhealthy excitement; and weeks, or even months, often passed before the truth could be known – as was strikingly evidenced in the case of the lieutenant-governor of the Central Provinces, whose supposed ‘clemency’ (in a matter of which, as soon appeared, he knew absolutely nothing) was held over him as a reproach for nearly four months. In September appeared a proclamation at Agra, warning the natives of the possible consequences of any complicity on their parts in the proceedings of the mutineers. Part of the proclamation ran as follows: ‘The government of these provinces calls on all landowners and farmers, with their tenantry, and on all well-disposed subjects, to give all possible assistance to the authorities in bringing those outcasts (mutineers and rebels) to justice. Landowners and farmers of land, especially, are reminded of the terms of their engagement not to harbour or countenance criminals and evil-disposed persons. The government requires proofs of the fidelity and loyalty of all classes of its subjects, in recovering the arms, elephants, horses, camels, and other government property, which have been feloniously taken by the offenders. All persons are warned against purchasing or bartering for any such property of the state under the severest penalties; and rewards will be paid to those who, immediately on obtaining possession of the same, bring them to the nearest civil or military station.’

So far as concerns the imperial parliament, little took place during the year 1857 touching on the subject of the present chapter. The opposition party sought to shew that her Majesty’s ministers were responsible for the outbreak; some members of both Houses broached their views concerning the causes of the mutiny; others criticised the mode in which troops were sent to India; some condemned, others defended, Viscount Canning; many put forth suggestions concerning the future government of India; many more sought to overwhelm with guilt the East India Company; while missionaries, civil servants, Indian judges, aristocratic officers, favoured commanders, were made subjects of frequent and warm debate – but the members of the legislature generally held aloof from that excessive demand for a sanguinary policy towards the insurgents, so much dwelt on by many of the Anglo-Indians. After passing an act, containing among other provisions clauses relating to ‘The Punishment of Mutiny and Desertion of Officers and Soldiers in the Service of the East India Company,’ parliament was prorogued on the 28th of August. During the recess, the press was busy on those accusations and reclamations already adverted to – in turn correcting, and corrected by, the official documents which from time to time appeared. Commercial troubles having agitated the country during the autumn, parliament met again on the 3d of December, for a short session before Christmas. Although the purpose of meeting was prescribed and limited, the members of the legislature did not deem it necessary or desirable to remain silent on a subject so uppermost in men’s thoughts as the mutiny in India. Speeches were made, motions brought forward, explanations given, and returns ordered, on the state of the army, the mode of sending over troops, the conduct of the government, and various other matters bearing on the struggle in the East. The speech from the throne contained many allusions to that struggle, but none that bore on the mode of punishing the rebels. The Earl of Derby, in a speech on the opening-night, sought to discourage the cry for vengeance raised in many quarters. After urging that England should deal with the mutineers in justice and not in revenge, he added: ‘For every man taken with arms in his hands there ought to be a righteous punishment, and that punishment death. For those miscreants who have perpetrated unmentionable and unimaginable atrocities upon women, death is too mild a sentence. On them should be inflicted the heavier punishment – a life embittered by corporal punishment in the first instance, and afterwards doomed to the most degrading slavery. Be they Brahmins of the highest caste, they should be forced to undergo the lowest, most degrading, most hopeless slavery. But, while he would take this course, he earnestly deprecated the extension of a feeling of hostility to the whole native population. From letters which he had seen, he feared that every white man in India who had suffered in any way by the mutiny came to regard every man with a black face as his enemy. Now, that was a feeling which should be restrained, if not by Christianity, at least by motives of sound policy. Measures should be taken to convince the natives that the English are their masters; but they must also be convinced that the English are their benefactors. We should not try to govern India by the sword alone.’ This sentiment was also well expressed by Mr Mangles, chairman of the East India Company, at the Haileybury examination on the 7th of December. Addressing the assembled professors, prizemen, students, and Company’s officers present, he adverted to the sudden rupture of friendly relations in India, and added: ‘For many years to come, there must exist strong mistrust and suspicion, if not more bitter feelings, between those who rule and those who are subject. It is impossible that it should be otherwise, after the scenes which have been passed through, the treacheries and murders – and worse than murders – that have been rife throughout the land. But, gentlemen, you are bound to struggle with those feelings and subdue them. It will be your duty to remember that only a small part, an infinitesimal part, of the population of India have been engaged in these frightful and scandalous outrages.’ [Here many striking instances of fidelity were brought to notice.] ‘It would therefore be most unjust to bring the charge of treachery against the whole people of India. It will be your duty, under these circumstances, to struggle against the suspicion and distrust which have been engendered by recent events, and to endeavour to win the affections of the people over whom you are called upon to exercise power. If we cannot govern India in that way, we ought to give up the country and come away.’

When parliament met for the usual session, in February, a question was put by the Earl of Ellenborough, concerning the policy intended to be pursued towards the rebels. Adverting to a rumour of some very wholesale series of military executions in Central India, he said: ‘Without questioning the justice of the sentence in that particular case, he doubted if capital punishment was so efficacious as a severe flogging. The natives were not afraid of death, but shrank from corporal pain. Besides, it is quite impossible to hang all the mutineers, and the continued exhibition of unrelenting severity must inevitably create a blood-feud between the natives and their European masters.’ Earl Granville, on the part of the government, replied that no particular instructions had been sent out to Viscount Canning on this matter, because the utmost reliance was placed on the justice and firmness of that nobleman: he added, that he agreed in the opinion that the frequent spectacle of capital punishment must have the worst possible effect; and he concluded by stating that the governor-general was directing his thoughts towards the possibility of transporting some of the evildoers to the Andaman Islands.

Now occurred a change in political matters which threw Indian discussions into a new channel. Hitherto, the subject of the punishment of mutineers had been discussed in parliament with reference rather to persons than to property. The ministry, however, having been changed on grounds quite irrespective of Indian affairs, and the Earl of Derby having succeeded Viscount Palmerston as premier, India was dragged into the consequences of this change. The Earl of Ellenborough, admitted on all hands to be a well-informed statesman on Indian matters, however opinions might differ concerning his temper and prudence, was appointed president of the Board of Control. When governor-general of India, many years earlier, he had been in frequent collision with the East India Company, as represented both by the Court of Directors and by the Calcutta government; and it was thought probable that his new assumption of authority in Indian affairs would be marked by something notable and important. It was so. The singular termination of his ministerial career was closely and immediately connected with the subject to which this chapter relates, in a way that may now be briefly narrated.

At first this question of punishment had to be discussed by the new government in the same manner as before – that is, in relation to the sanguinary vengeance advocated by many writers of letters and newspaper articles, especially at Calcutta. On the 18th of March, Mr Rich moved in the House of Commons for the production of certain papers which he expected would throw light on this matter, he contended that the conduct of the army, in the punishment of the insurgents, was merciless and cruel. He intimated the necessity of requiring the authorities in India to act strictly up to the instructions of Lord Canning, who, he thought, deserved honour for his firmness and humanity. The Calcutta journals, he asserted, recommended that Oude should be made one wide slaughter-house, in which extermination should be the rule rather than the exception; and it was but right that the government should at once check this terrible feeling of sanguinary animosity. Most of the speakers in the debate that followed agreed in the view taken by Mr Rich; and more than one of them broached the doctrine that the insurgents in Oude ought not to be treated like rebel sepoys – seeing that, whether wisely or unwisely, they were fighting for what they deemed national independence.

During the first half of the month of April, nothing occurred in parliament involving any very great collision of opinions on this particular subject; but towards the close of the month a clashing of views on Oude affairs became manifest to the public. Throughout the first ten months of the mutiny, while Viscount Palmerston was at the head of affairs, the opposition party, in both Houses of Parliament, frequently appeared as advocates for the deposed royal family of Oude, dwelling on the injustice involved in the deposition. Much of this advocacy may have been sincere, but much also was mere special pleading; for the speakers well knew that, if in office, they would not and could not seek to undo what had been done. No sooner did a change of ministry take place, than the new occupants of office became much more cautious in denouncing the ‘annexation of Oude;’ seeing that, if an iniquity at all, it was one in which the Marquis of Dalhousie, the Calcutta government, the Court of Directors, the Crown, and both Houses of Parliament, were all implicated. Every one now saw that the practical question before the country was – not the rights or wrongs of the annexation – but the treatment of insurgents engaged in the warlike struggle. It became known that the Secret Committee of the Court of Directors had sent a letter to the governor-general in council, dated the 24th of March, relating to the treatment which it was desirable that rebels and mutineers should receive. So peculiar and anomalous were the functions of this Secret Committee, that although nominally belonging to the Court of Directors, it was little other than the mouthpiece of the president of the Board of Control. The letter was really from the Earl of Ellenborough, rather than from any one else.