Observations on the Disturbances in the Madras Army in 1809. John Malcolm
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substance of this letter was an order to assemble the Company's officers at each station, to propose the test to them, and instantly to remove from their corps all such as declined to sign it. They were directed to be sent to such stations as the commanding officer chose, and that they should there receive their allowances until the situation of affairs and the temper of their minds should admit of their being employed with advantage to the state.
This was, it must be recollected, the first public appeal that had been made to the officers of the Company's service by the Government of Madras since the orders of the 1st of May; and it certainly was not of a character calculated to flatter the feelings of those to whom it was addressed. It spoke to their sense of duty, and pride as officers; but in the same breath told them they were not trusted, and that they were to be coerced into order and submission. The high praises that were given in this letter to the fidelity and loyalty of his Majesty's troops were perfectly just; but quite unnecessary, as far as regarded the allegiance and obedience of that part of the service; and could therefore serve no purpose but to exasperate the feelings of the officers of the Company's army. But the mode in which this measure was carried into execution was the most characteristic of the Government by whom it was adopted, and of itself was sufficient to account for its complete failure, and indeed to make it very doubtful if it ever was wished or intended that it should succeed.
No previous effort whatever was made to dispose the minds of the senior and more reflecting part of the Company's officers in favour of this measure, though such a step (which could have been adopted in many ways without the slightest hazard) seemed essential to its success. A short and peremptory summons was sent to every Company's officer of the garrison of Fort St. George, to attend at the quarters of Colonel Conran, the commanding officer. That officer read the circular letter to which I have alluded to the astonished officers whom he had assembled; and then, presenting the test, informed them they must either sign immediately, or go to Pulicat, the place fixed for their banishment. Can any man the least acquainted with the human mind be surprised, that an almost general and indignant rejection was the result of such a proceeding? Five regimental officers only could be prevailed upon to sign it at this meeting; and the remainder were immediately sent to Pulicat[19]. At the Mount the rejection was still more general. Colonel Hare had the day before removed his tents across the bridge of Marmalon, where all the officers were summoned at an equally short notice. When Colonel Hare read the circular letter, presented the test for signature, and told them that those who refused their signature would not be allowed to return to camp, they refused with one general sentiment of indignation at the manner in which they had been treated, and were immediately separated from their corps[20].
The test was signed by all the staff-officers at the Presidency, and by some officers who were there on leave: at Trichinopoly twenty-two signed it, but few others at any other station of the army. In short, the whole number of signatures did not amount to one hundred out of about one thousand two hundred, which is near the number of officers on the coast establishment in India.
The almost total failure of this expedient (if it ever was intended to reclaim or fix any officers in the Company's service to their duty,) will not surprise any man the least acquainted with human nature, and with the temper of those to whom the measure was proposed. Those officers, who had never departed from their duty in thought, word, or deed, felt this test, which was a mere repetition of the obligation of their commission, as at least an act of supererogation; and it was painful, as it had a taint of suspicion in it. Others, who were in some degree pledged to support their brother officers, conceived that this was an indirect mode of obtaining their individual pledges to act against them; and concluded, from its being proposed, that every hope of an amnesty was at an end[21]; whilst the more violent only saw in it the pursuit of plans which banished every expectation from their minds of obtaining personal security, much less the object they had in view, through any means but successful resistance.
The most moderate among these officers argued, that no opportunity whatever had been given to the Company's army of retrieving itself; and, guilty as it might have been, they said the memory of its former fame merited some consideration; and an appeal to its loyalty and duty, combined with an act of amnesty, would, they thought, if it had been made to the officers of the Company's army with that confidence which inspires attachment, have secured the fidelity of a great part of them: and if it had been possible for Government to have gone further, and to have promised, "that in the event of the conduct of the army meriting such favour, they would recommend the case of the officers who had been suspended to the indulgent consideration of the Court of Directors[22]," they were confident all would have been reclaimed to their duty. But had efforts so worthy, in their opinion, of the clemency and greatness of Government failed in bringing all to reason, they would have acted with the most ardent zeal against men whom they should in such event not only have considered as rebels to their country, but as destroyers of the reputation of the army to which they belonged. There can be no doubt these were the sentiments of many respectable officers of rank and influence: and had Government adopted, on the 26th of July, any such measures of conciliation, it would have been completely successful; and not only the hazard of a contest, but all those disastrous consequences which were certain to be the inevitable consequence of complete success, would have been avoided. And can there be a doubt in the mind of any rational being but it might have taken such a line, at the very moment that which has been described was adopted, without any substantial sacrifice of either its strength or dignity, and certainly with the greatest benefit to the interests of the British nation in India?
The measure that was taken was supposed, by almost all the discontented, to be a completion of that design which the Government of Fort St. George had from the first (they conceived) entertained, of relying solely on the King's troops; and they concluded, from the substance as well as the mode in which the step taken on the 26th of July was carried into execution, that the Company's military establishment on the coast was meant to be destroyed at the first blow; and all were therefore included in one general mass, as fit objects of suspicion and disgrace.
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