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272
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
COCTOBER, 1878.
Dr. Fullarton, whom he calls the sole survivor of the massacre," which is hardly correct, as the doctor was confined apart from the other prisoners, and was not even a witness of their fate. The 13th chapter is interesting for some quotations from the minutes of Mr. Verelst, which show the commencement of the science of internal administration in Bengal. Verelst, as Mr. Wheeler truly observes, was a man very much ahead of his time. He administered with considerable success the districts of Bardwan, Midnapur, and Chittagong, which with Clive's jághir form the earliest territory of that youngest Presidency which has since so much outgrown its elder sisters. His remarks upon points of principle can in few instances be contradicted even now; and if they appear to us to be verbose and full of platitudes it must be remembered that Verelst was laying the foundations of a system, and was forced to dilate upon what a modern writer may safely take for granted. Mr. Wheeler does not mention, but our readers will not be sorry to know, that Mr. Verelst, after holding the high- est offices in days when the pagoda-tree daily quivered to its root under English hands, retired from the service a poor man, but acquired the fortune he well deserved along with the hand of an heiress.
After Verelst's papers no extract in the Bengal section of the work under review is so curious as one from a memorandum submitted, in 1746, by a Colonel James Mill to the Emperor Francis, consort of Maria Theresa, urging him to the conquest of the Lower Provinces. Colonel Mill, says Mr. Wheeler, had been twenty years in India; and his memoir is an appendix to “Bolt's Affairs in Bengal." We would like to know more of the man who, at so early a date, planned a conquest which was only forced upon the Company by stress of circumstances. "It is a miracle," he says, "that no European prince with a maritime power has ever attempted the conquest of Bengal. By a single stroke infinite wealth might be acquired, which would counterbalance the mines of Brazil and 'eru. The policy of the Moghuls is bad; their army is worse; they are without a nary. The empire is exposed to perpetual revolts. Their ports and rivers are open to foreigners. The country might be conquered or laid under contribution as easily as the Spaniards overwhelmed the naked Indians of Ame- rica. A rebel subject, named Aliverdi Khan, has torn away the three provinces of Bengal, Behar, and Orissa from the Moghul empire. He has treasure to the value of thirty millions sterling. His yearly revenue must be at least two millions. The provinces are open to the sea. Three ships
with 1500 or 2000 regulars would suffice for the undertaking. The British nation would coöperate for the sake of the plunder and the promotion of their trade. The East India Company should be left alone. No company can keep a secret. Moreover, the English company is so distracted as to be incapable of any firm resolution."
Reading these spirited sentences, and admiring the grasp of his subject displayed by the writer'. we cannot enough regret that Mr. Wheeler vouchsafes so little information abont him, and wonder whether he had no share in the realization, by his own nation, of his splendid dream. Or is it possible that our author has been deceived by a fabrication of some pamphleteer writing after the event ?
The extracts relating to Madras have apparently, as already mentioned, appeared in a former work of Mr. Wheeler's, which is probably in the hands of those interested in the subject. The most interesting are those relating to the internal government and social life of the settlement; ir particular the will of a young writer named Davtrs, dated 1720, and a letter to the Court of Directory dated 14th October 1712, respecting the trade in English woollen cloths.
So far Mr. Wheeler's extracts--by for the most important part of the work. The connecting text is by no means so valuable. It contains little new information, and is written in a jorky, slipahod style, painful to read, and often puzzling to make out the meaning of. To take, as an example, the first sentence in the book, "The three English Presidencies of Madras, Calcutta, and Bombay were founded in the 17th centary, during the reigns of Charles the First, Oliver Cromwell, and Charles the Second." Now, any one reading this and new to the subject would suppose that a Presidency of Madras was first established during the reign of the first-mentioned monarch, one of Calcutta under the Commonwealth, and one at Bombay under the "Merry Monarch," Bombay being consequently the junior Presidency. But Mr. Wheeler must know that there was no such thing as a Presidency of Bombay until 1687, when that of Surat, the oldest permanent establishment of the English nation in India (founded in 1612), was transferred to the island acquired by the English crown as part of the dowry of Katharine of Braganza, and subse quently granted to the Company, to be held "as of the Manor of East Greenwich," for a yearly rent of ten pounds in gold. Our author's references to authorities, too, are amazingly scanty, and his Index illusory-as a help, at least, to the systematic reader.
