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these districts should be applied to assist the operations, and promote the conveniency of the troops, in the manner that Colonel Murray might direct, and that Mr. Agar should endeavour to conciliate the Bheels or Coolies, and endeavour to gain their friendship by his shewing them all the kindness in his power, securing their revenue rather as a free gift than attempting to enforce its payment.

58. On this occasion the Resident furnished Mr. Agar with letters to the petty Rajabs of Loonwara and Burrea, from whom, although both tributary to Scindiah, and the former of them occa sionally so to the Guickwar, it was not (as already noticed) intended to receive any thing; and Mr. Agar's directions regarding them have been accordingly limited to the cultivation with them of a cordial and sincere understanding; and it appearing by Major Walker's latest report of the 14th of December, that there is another Chieftain called the Sarunt Rajah, who pays tribute to the government at Godra to the amount of seven or eight thousand rupees, the Major has been cautioned against demanding or receiving his contribution without the full previous concurrence and approbation of Colonel Murray.

59. Having thus been induced, by the information from the Supreme Government, of their having examined our correspondence with the Honourable General Wellesley respecting the defence of the province of Guzerat, to enter on our part into the preceding review of it, we trust that it may be found to convey a clear and just elucidation of the merits of our conduct, and lead to an

equitable decision, whether we have in any, and what degree, deserved the strictures Marquis Wellesley has on this occasion bestowed upon us.

60. Upon the principle clearly announced in the latter end of the 3d paragraph of the letter in question, it may perhaps appear, that, although charged with the misconception of the instructions addressed to them, this government had all along an idea more correct than the Honourable General Wellesley, of the real import of the orders from the Supreme Government.

61. It has been our uniform argument that he was thereby appointed "to exercise the sole and exclusive controul over the troops and affairs in Guzerat during the war," and that he had only to issue his directions to us, and not to call for our opinions, or to profess or desire thereby to regulate his own measures; and it has accordingly been solely owing to the Honourable General Wellesley's persisting in that line of conduct, and construing in a far less exclusive sense the extraordinary powers, political as well as military, with which he stood so fully vested as far as regarded that province, that all the present correspondence has ensued. questions now unhappily resulting from these different views having been, and still continuing by General Wellesley, (for the proof of which vide his letter of the 5th of this month) to be entertained of the true meaning of his brother Lord Wellesley's orders of June last, is not whether the plan, suggested in his letter of the 24 August, was unexceptionable, or otherwise, but whether he should have rested its operation on our

The

opinion

opinion of it; and also whether General Wellesley or the Supreme Government have a right, or could in reason expect that the Government of Bombay would, or in duty ought to have tacitly allowed their approbation of it to be against probability inferred, and their consequent responsibility entailed against their own conviction for beyond this we went not, offering, on the contrary, to join with the most perfect submission and readiness in the execution of the measures proposed, provided they were not concluded to proceed, and to be founded on our opinion of their being in all respects the fittest for the occasion. In urging our President's own objection, and those of the board at large within these limits, this government is at a loss to conceive how he can be charged (as in the 4th paragraph of the letter from his Excellency the Governor General in council) with opposing the orders of the Supreme Government, which can in no one instance of the administration of this Presidency be, they trust, with the smallest justice imputed.

62. Neither are we aware how, as stated in the Supreme Government's 5th paragraph, the single alteration that took place in one part only of General Wellesley's original arrangements under date the 2d of August, can have frustrated, in any degree, his Excellency the Governor General's plan for the conduct of the campaign in the Deccan. All the modification which thus ensued consisted, as introduced into the instructions to Colonel Murray, in reserving to the Resident at Baroda a small portion of influence, (such as both Major Malcolm and Gie

neral Wellesley, Marquis Wellesley's two nearest friends in India, entirely approved, and acknow ledged the expediency of in respect to that proportion of our subsidized military that should, exclu sive of those in the field, remain in and near about the capital of the court at which he resided), nor was this slight qualification, or what led to it, attended either with delay, or other sensible prejudice to General Wellesley's aforesaid plan of the 2d of Au gust; the letter and spirit of which, inclusive of the preservation of the Honourable General's own political controul and military command, in superiority to those of this Presidency, have continued, from our receipt of Lord Wellesley's orders of the 26th and 27th of June last, to be, to the present period, our leading rule in respect to Guzerat; constituting, in this view, the basis of all occasional orders to Major Walker, to Surat, and to Colonel Murray, as well as of the latter's permanent instructions; under which, and the intermediate proceedings of Lieutenant-Colonel Woodington in the reduction of Baroach and Powanghur, it is submitted whether in reference to the state of Guzerat, threatened as it was by domestic insurgents on its borders, combined, as supposed by Colonel Murray, with a large force belonging to Holkar, the Colonel could, during the extraordinary sickness and fever which affected his whole detachment, have, without overstepping all the rules of ordinary prudence, advanced beyond the frontier of Guzerat, and marched with his then inadequate force to Oujein, or done more for the two months that elapsed between

the

the middle of September and the middle of November, than defend the province of Guzerat; com prehending also in strictness, all that he dust venture on without the express directions of General Wellesley, to cross over the frontier into Malwa, which there is no reason to suppose were ever issued to him; and by the time he had, through the recovery of his men from the sickness incident to the rainy season, and the reinforcements he drew from Surat, and the junction of an available contingent from the Guikwar government, become able towards the end of November and begin ning of December, to have proceeded against Oujein; General Wellesley had (to his own regret, as he has since acknowledged) precluded the effect of these preparations by an armistice with the

enemy.

63. The next following paragraphs of the letter from the Supreme Government, under date the 23d of November, require but few remarks from this govern

ment.

64. Its sixth paragraph is merely declaratory of what has never been either disputed or demurred to; and the orders in its 7th were issued on the 14th instant, the day of their receipt, having in respect to these only to regret that, under the severe responsibility which Marquis Wellesley appears disposed to exact from us, either to our acting, or forbearing to act, the clauses of his orders here referred to should be so ambiguously word ed as to leave us in some degree of doubt whether we may not yet be blamed for refraining, as we mean to do, from exercising any authority whatever over Colonel Murray, which, as it will not pre.

vent our yielding him every assist. ance in our power, we intend to persevere in, as the safest course, in like manner as the Honourable General Wellesley and the Supreme Government have been already advised.

65. It is satisfactory to this government to reflect that the orders in the 8th paragraph of this letter from Bengal had been so fully anticipated, as to leave General Nicolls, the commanding officer of the forces under this Presidency, unaware of any thing remaining to be done to prepare the whole body of the forces under the command of Colonel Murray for active operations in the field," and we could therefore only evince our anxiety to meet what was viewed as in consistence with the object of this instruction by availing ourselves of the degree of discipline to whicha corps of fencible recruits (officered by the civil servants, lawyers, and merchants, and raised for the local service of the Presidency), had just attained, to convert them into a regiment of the line, and to send them off to Guzerat to

reinforce Colonel Murray, al, though with the certainty of leaving Bombay with only a few hundred men of all descriptions for its defence.

66. On the call made upon this Government in the 9th paragraph of the letter from his Excellency in Council, it will be permitted to the Governor in Council not only to disclaim all sense of the relaxation alluded to, but to affirm (referring as he does for the proofs to the abundant evidence on the records) that bis personal attention, labour, and continued exertions, in regard to the multiplied supplies of all descriptions

scriptions required by the Honourable General Wellesley for the present Mahratta war, have, to say the least, very much exceeded what were required of him in the Mysorean war thus referred

to.

67. Passing over the political truisms and general observations contained in the 10th and 11th paragraphs of the letter from Marquis Wellesley in Council, this Government is only interested in obtaining a fair appreciation (which they assuredly rely on from the discernment and impartiality of the proper tribunal) of the merits of this case between them and his Lordship; adding, at the same time, the assurance of their best endeavours to continue to fulfil, under every circumstance, the duties of their station, and for this purpose to form, as far as in their power, a correct judgment of the spirit and objects of all the orders that the Supreme Government may be pleased to direct to them. Nor was it ever the intention of this Government that" any local and temporary consideration" should be allowed to counteract "the paramount exigency of prosecut ing the war with vigour," but merely to suggest, on their opinion being required, how these two objects might in their judgment be most fitly combined, so as to support and promote each other; nor is it fair to convert their sentiments, thus gained from them, into a snare and source of reproach.

68. The remark of the Supreme Government, in their 13th para graph, that" on the active operations of the army in Guzerat, the speedy conclusion of peace now depends," unites their regret with that expressed by the HoBourable General Wellesley, that

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its operations should have been arrested at the moment when they might have best answered the pub lic wishes; at the same time that, after what has been presumed on the point of misconception "of orders," they have only to express their own unfeigned confi dence, that such an imputation cannot by any impartial tribunal be ascribed to this government.

69. On the orders, in the 14th, 15th, and 16th paragraphs of the letter before us, it may be suffici ent to observe, that they have met and will continue to receive implicit obedience from the administration of the Presidency of Bombay,

70. The explanations entered into relative to the proceedings for conciliating the Bheels, will, it is presumed, not only exonerate this government from the imputation of their having deviated in any part of their proceedings from the Honourable General Wellesley's original instructions on that particular head, but evince that what has drawn upon us the strictures in the Governor-General's 17th paragraph, flowed directly and wholly from their anxious desire to obey and follow up not merely General Wellesley's written plans, but even the verbal and indirect instructions with which he was at any time pleased to fa

your us.

71. Soliciting indulgence for the unavoidable length of this narrative, which has nevertheless been compressed as much as possible, we conclude by craving and expressing our confident reliance on an impartial judgment.

(A true Copy) (Signed) JAMES GRANT, Bombay Castle, Sec. to Gov. 26th Dec. 1803.

PROCEEDINGS IN PARLIAMENT

RELATIVE TO THE

AFFAIRS OF INDIA,

DURING

THE SECOND SESSION OF THE SECOND PARLIAMENT OF THE UNITED KINGDOMS OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND.

HOUSE OF COMMONS.

March 14th, 1804.

WAR IN CEYLON.

MR. CREEVEY."I now rise, Sir, in pursuance of the notification gave some time since, to move for certain papers and documents for the purpose of information, and as grounds for further inquiry respecting the war which the king's government in Ceylon has lately been carrying on in that island. I should not have presumed, Sir, to take upon myself the office of calling the attention of the House to this subject, had it not appeared to me of a very limited nature, and one lying within a very narrow compass; or had I perceived a disposition in any other gentleman to do the same thing. As the subject, however, now, Sir, has been some time before the public, as it appears to me to be one of the greatest importance, as no gentleman has appeared to take it up, and as his Majesty's ministers have not thought fit to give this House any information respecting it, I have thought it my duty to introduce it to the consideration of parlia

ment. As the House and the pube. lic are not in possession of any official account of the cause or.. origin of this war, and of many of its effects and consequences, I will shortly state to the House such leading particulars, as, from the information I am in possession of, I believe to be true. I am certain they are mostly true, and where I am incorrect, the papers I shall move for will set me right. From the year 1795, when we first took the island of Ceylon from the Dutch, to the end of 1802, our government in Ceylon seems to have pursued its proper objects, to have confined itself to the possession of the coast and open countries of the island, to the introduction of wholesome laws and civilization among the natives, who live under our government, and every thing I believe, during the period I have mentioned, bore the strongest and most flattering prospect of im provement. We had never, apparently, during this period en tertained the dangerous policy of interfering with the unprofitable interior of Ceylon, the woods and mountains, and wild inhabitants of the king of Candy's dominions. Some time, however, in 1802, it

seems

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