SIR WILLIAM HUNTER'S "BRITISH INDIA," VOL. II.
WHEN the first volume of Sir William Hunter's History of British India appeared every one thought that, in the loss of his chance of writing the far larger work he had at one time contemplated, he had paid a sufficient tribute to misfortune. He was still far from old and in fairly good health. We little imagined that his sands had nearly run out, and that the second volume would be finished by another hand. Like its predecessor, it is a very valuable addition to our knowledge of Indian history. It is full of materials which had never been worked up into a connected narrative, but, after all, it deals only with the substructions of our Indian Empire. The details with which it is filled—about the too characteristic trickiness of the Martyr-King, about the straighter and stronger methods of Cromwell, about the squabbles of rival capitalists, about the gallant attempts of one servant of the Company after another to found settlements here, there, and everywhere on the Indian seaboard—had all to be told. Per- sons to whom the names of many of these forgotten settle- ments are familiar will feel very grateful for being able to turn to such a book of reference as this, but, before the more important items of information now given can get down into general circulation, we must have another Sir William Hunter endowed with that power of making things interesting which he showed in his shorter and more popular works.
The opening chapter deals with the relations between the Company and the Crown, which ended with the appeal of the Company to Parliament. The first Charles's high pretensions and low expedients, as Sir William Hunter puts it, wearied out the Company as they had wearied out the nation, and its appeal to Parliament was the commercial counterpart of the nation's appeal to the sword. The next three chapters recount the early history of the settlements on the Bombay, the Madras, and the Bengal coasts ; but in the fifth the historian returns to the relations between the supreme authorities in London and the merchant-adventurers who were slowly building up a commonwealth of their own in the Eastern seas. The Charter which Cromwell, after infinite negotiation, gave to the Company, passed the Broad Seal of England on October 19th, 1657, about a hundred years before the battle of Plessey, and two hundred before the war of the Mutiny. The document has apparently disappeared. Anyhow, it has been hitherto searched for in vain. So much, however, is known, that it ratified the Charter of James I. with some small modifications and gave additional privileges. Sir William Hunter sets out its main provisions pretty fully in pp. 134 to 137. In addition to establishing the position of the Company on a fax firmer basis, Cromwell tamed the insolence of the Dutch and the Portuguese. All interested in India accordingly owe much to the Protector, and may reflect with satisfaction that both his grandson and great-grandson were Governors of Bengal, while a more remote desoendant was Viceroy and Governor-General. The family of Crom- well's famous secretary was not equally fortunate, for Sir William, quoting Professor Masson, tells us that the highest position occupied by Milton's grandson was that of parish clerk at Madras.
The Company had no reason to complain of Charles II.
• 21 History of British India. By Sir W. W. Hunter. Vol. II. London: Longman and Co. [15I.] He took money from it, but he treated it well. His brother was, indeed, largely interested in its prosperity, and it is amusing to learn that the money he drew from the sale of its stock was of no slight importance to the exiled Court of St. Germaine This was rendered possible by that same temper in the British people, which allowed the statue of that un- fortunate Monarch which now looks on Whitehall to remain on its original site behind the Banqueting Hall in perfect safety through the Revolution and under a long line of Kings who filled the throne of the Stuarts. During the reigns of Charles H. and his brother more than one administrator appeared in India whose name should be held in remembrance. There was Sir George Oxenden, who defended Surat against Sivajee. There was Aungier, who was the true founder of Bombay, and who also held his own against the Mahratta warrior. There was Sir John Child, the brother of Sir Josia, who was as vigorous in India as was his brother in London. And there was Job Charnock, who was styled by his masters the directors " our old and good servant," no prowler for himself beyond what was just and modest. It was he who, after great diffi- culties and dangers, created Calcutta. During the latter part of this period the Company had definitely to put aside its old policy of remaining a purely mercantile under- taking, and to determine to meet force by force. Sir Thomas Roe in the early part of the century had recom. mended, and wisely recommended, the former policy. That was, however, at the time when the strong arm of the Mogul repressed the covetous desires of unscrupulous Viceroys or rebel chiefs. It was quite unsuited to a time when the Mogul power had become very weak at the extremities of its Empire, when, as Charnock found to his cost, the representative of the supreme ruler could do what he pleased on the Hooghly in absolute defiance of express orders from Delhi, and when the " mountain rats " of Maharashtra openly flouted the power of Aurungzebe, doing what they pleased in all regions which lay tolerably near their fastnesses.
From the days of Sir Josia Child and his immediate pre- decessor, Sir Joseph Ashe, the Company became committed, as the Dutch and Portuguese had been before, to a territorial policy.. No one could have told the story of the vicissitudes and ultimate success of that policy so well as Sir William Hunter. It is really too sad that the man who had con- scientiously to wade through so many grimy details, such, for instance, as those which fill the sixth chapter, should not have lived even to tell of the amalgamation of the rival Companies. The pen dropped from Sir William's hand before he had quite finished chap. 8, and the work has been completed with the help of his materials by Mr. Roberts. That gentleman has done his part in a very adequate fashion, and it would be quite wrong to deny him his fair mead of praise. He has brought down the history to the welding together of the two Companies under the Godolphin award of 1708. That award began a period of steady, though inconspicuous, progress, which lasted about a generation, and laid the foundation of all that followed,—of the brilliant conquests of war, and the far more brilliant conquests of peace, the kind of conquests to which the inhabitants of an Indian city referred when speaking of the magnificent irrigation works in the Deltas of the Godavari and the Kistna. They described the " liquid gold " which used to be borne down to the sea by those rivers as turned into " solid gold " for the benefit of themselves and their children.
Of course it was desirable that there should be on record some connected account of the beginnings of the Company based upon reliable documents. But the deplorable accident which has made these two volumes appear as a whole, and not as a part, puts them quite out of focus. It would be difficult to give a good reason why any one who is not obliged should spend much time over them. He was a wise man who ex- claimed : " Oh 1 Nile, how much it has contributed to your glory that we should have been so long ignorant of the fountains whence you spring !"
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