Colonial Governors

"The visit of the British Association for the Advancement of Science to Montreal last autumn was much more than a startling innovation… it was a surprising testimony to the social and political change that has come over the British Empire within the quarter of a century."

"It should be earnestly remembered that besides the blessings of the Gospel, Christianity is the only remedy for the rapid decline of the northern Indians, and the terrible distresses they sometimes endure."

"The most remarkable step which Tippoo has lately taken, is his communication with Zemaun Shah . . . if an invasion of Hindostan should ever seriously be attempted by Zemaun Shah, the diversion of our force, which would be occasioned by such an event, would offer the most favourable opportunity to an attack from Tippoo on our possessions in the Peninsula. No mode of carrying on war against us could be more vexatious or more distressing to our resources than a combined attack upon Oude [Oudh] and the Carnatic . . . Zemaun Shah has not abandoned his project of invading Hindostan, and that the safest means of rendering that project abortive will be to consider it as practicable, and to take the best precautions against it which the advantages of our situation and the interval of time can furnish . . . I wish to know from you, whether we ought to suffer, without animadversion and spirited representation, such open acts of hostility on the part of Tippoo? My ideas on this subject are, that as on the one hand we ought never to use any high language towards Tippoo, nor ever attempt to deny him the smallest point of his just rights, so on the other, where we have distinct proofs of his machinations against us, we ought to let him know that his treachery does not escape our observation, and to make him feel that he is within the reach of our vigilance. At present it appears to me that he is permitted to excite ill will against us wherever he pleases, without the least attempt on our part to reprehend either him for the suggestion, or the Court, to whom he applies, for listening to it."

"Fair Hebe I left, with a cautious design To escape from her charms, and to drown them in wine, I tried it; but found, when I came to depart, The wine in my head, and still love in my heart."

"I should think it will never be necessary. In fact I doubt if the fear of death ever prevented a man of no principle from committing a bad action. There are two crimes that would merit death, and for either of them I should wish to confine the criminal till an opportunity offered of delivering him as a prisoner to the natives of New Zealand, and let them eat him. The dread of this will operate much stronger than the fear of death."

"Steadfast in mind, modest, without self seeking, Phillip had imagination enough to conceive what the settlement might become, and the common sense to realize what at the moment was possible and expedient. When almost everyone was complaining he never himself complained, when all feared disaster he could still hopefully go on with his work. He was sent out to found a convict settlement, he laid the foundations of a great dominion."

"The women (convicts) in general, I should suppose, possess neither virtue nor honesty. [...] The natives may, it is probable, permit their women to marry the men (convicts) after a certain time. [...] Women may be brought from the Friendly and other islands, a proper place prepared to receive them, and where they will be supported for a time, and lots of land assigned to such as marry with the soldiers of the garrison."

"As I would not wish convicts to lay the foundation of an empire, I think they should ever remain separated from the garrison and other settlers that may come from Europe; and not be allowed to mix with them, even after the seven or fourteen years for which they are transported may be expired."

"Governor Phillip had the satisfaction to find one of the finest harbours in the world, in which a thousand sail of the line might ride in perfect security."

"In passing near a point of land in this harbour, the boats were perceived by a number of the natives, twenty of whom waded into the water unarmed, received what was offered them, and examined the boat with a curiosity which impressed a higher idea of them than any former accounts of their manners had suggested. This confidence, and manly behaviour, induced Governor Phillip, who was highly pleased with it, to give the place the name of Manly Cove."

"There are few things more pleasing than the contemplation of order and useful amusement arising gradually out of turmoil and confusion; and, perhaps, this satisfaction cannot anywhere be more fully enjoyed than when a settlement of civilised people is fixing itself upon a newly-discovered or savage coast."

"Macquarie was the Prince of men! Australia's pride and joy! We ne'er shall see his like again; Bring back the Old !"

"The length of time I have governed this Colony, the progress it has made in improvement during my Administration and more especially the fond recollection of my only surviving Child being born in it — all combine in attaching me most strongly to it, I shall not fail to cherish the same sentiments of attachment in my Son — who, although yet so young, feels, and already expresses, the strongest affection for his Native Australian Land. My most fervent prayers will accordingly be offered for the welfare and prosperity of this Country, and for the happiness of its Inhabitants; fondly, and confidently anticipating, that, in less than half a century hence, it will be one of the most valuable appendages to the British Empire."

"The Aborigines, or Native Blacks of this Country, having for the last three years manifested a Strong and Sanguinary Hostile Spirit, [...] I have this Day ordered three Separate Military Detachments to march into the Interior and remote parts of the Colony, for the purpose of Punishing the Hostile Natives, by clearing the Country of them entirely, and driving them across the mountains; as well as if possible to apprehend the Natives who have committed the late murders and outrages, with the view of their being made dreadful and severe examples of, if taken alive. [...] In the event of the Natives making the smallest show of resistance – or refusing to surrender when called upon so to do – the officers Commanding the Military Parties have been authorized to fire on them to compel them to surrender; hanging up on Trees the Bodies of such Natives as may be killed on such occasions, in order to strike the greater terror into the Survivors."

"From the facts I have adduced in the course of this paper I must come to the conclusion that the theory which makes all the languages of Europe and Asia, from Bengal to the British Islands, however different in appearance, to have sprung from the same stock, and hence, all the people speaking them, black, swarthy, and fair, to be of one and the same race of man, is utterly groundless, and the mere dream of learned men, and perhaps even more imaginative than learned. I can by no means, then, agree with a very learned professor of Oxford, that the same blood ran in the veins of the soldiers of Alexander and Clive as in those of the Hindus whom, at the interval of two-and-twenty ages, they both scattered with the same facility. I am not prepared, like him, to believe that an English jury, unless it were a packed one of learned Orientalists, with the ingenious professor him- self for its foreman, would, "After examining the hoary documents of language," admit "the claim of a common descent between Hindu, Greek, and Teuton," for that would amount to allowing that there was no difference in the faculties of the people that produced Homer and Shakespear, and those that have produced nothing better than the authors of the Mahabharat and Ramayana; no difference between the home-keeping Hindus, who never made a foreign conquest of any kind, and the nations who discovered, conquered, and peopled a new world."

"In the earlier part of his memoir, Sir Bartle Frere had compared our mode of treating uncivilized races to that of the Romans. He heartily wished that the resemblance held in certain essential points. Our military hold was as firm, our tolerance of local customs was as great, our dealings were as just, and more just than theirs. But we did not amalgamate with them as the Romans did, we did not intermarry; by means of our missionaries we pressed upon them a form of religion which was not the most congenial. Our civilization was stiff. This, and much more, was pointed out in a very able and most pathetic memoir by Mr. Blyden, the present Minister of Liberia to England, who is a full-blooded negro. The article appeared in ``Frazer’s Magazine some years ago, and it showed the repressive effect of White civilization upon the Negroes, as contrasted with that of the Mohammedans. It was a shame to us as an Imperial nation, that representatives of the many people whom we governed, did not find themselves more at home among us. They seldom appeared in such meetings as the present one; they did not come to England. We did not see them in the streets. It was very different in ancient Rome, where the presence of foreigners from all parts of the then known world was a characteristic feature of every crowd. He did not now suggest any action, but merely wished to lay stress on this serious drawback to our national character as rulers of a great Empire. He thought they were greatly indebted to Sir Bartle Frere for introducing to public notice so important a subject as the best form of conduct of civilized races towards their less civilized neighbours, and he trusted that it would meet with that full and many-sided discussion which so important a question deserved."

"The dissensions and revolutions of the native governments will point out the time when it is proper for us to become actors. It can never arrive while Tippoo exists; while his power remains unimpaired, we shall be perpetually in danger of losing what we have. Why then not remove, while we can, so formidable an enemy? But his system, if not broken, may in time be communicated to the successors of the Nizam, or other Moorish [Muslim] people who may hereafter appear in the Deccan. If once destroyed, there is little danger of its being re-established; it would require what may not appear in many ages—another Hyder; and even he would be unequal to the task . . . let us then, while we can, make the most of the superior stability of our own government; and if we are not, for inconceivable reasons of state, to extirpate Tippoo, let us at least humble him, by depriving him of the Malabar coast. When cut off from all intercourse with Europeans, his political and military systems may linger on during his reign, but will soon expire under a successor."

"Lord Mountstuart Elphinstone (1779-1859) in comparing the ancient Greeks with the ancient Hindus, says: "Their (Hindus) general learning was more considerable; and in the knowledge of the being and nature of God, they were already in possession of a light which was but faintly perceived even by the loftiest intellects in the best days of Athens.""

"There is no question of the superiority of the Hindus over their rivals in the perfection to which they brought the science. Not only is Aryabhatta superior to Diaphantus (as is shown by his knowledge of the resolution of equations involvll1g several unknown quantities, and in general method ofresolvll1g all indetermll1ate problems of at least the first degree), but he and his successors press hard upon the discoveries of algebraists who lived almost in our own time!"

"Thomas Munro was even more emphatic: If a good system of agriculture, unrivalled manufacturing skill, a capacity to produce whatever can contribute to convenience or luxury; schools established in every village for teaching reading, writing, and arithmetic; the general practice of hospitality and charity among each other: and above all, a treatment of the female sex full of confidence, respect, and delicacy, [if all these] are among the signs which denote a civilised people, then the Hindus are not inferior to the nations of Europe; and if civilisation is to become an article of trade between England and India. I am convinced that England will gain by the import cargo."

"Such arguments were by no means uncontested. In 1841, Mountstuart Elphinstone objected that "it is opposed to their foreign origin that neither in the code [of Manu] nor, I believe, in the Vedas, nor in any book . . . is there any allusion to a prior residence or to a knowledge of more than the name of any country out of India." Responding to some of the arguments that had been brought forward, he argued that "to say that [the original language] spread from a central point is a gratuitous assumption, and even contrary to language; for emigration and civilization have not spread in a circle." As far as he was concerned, "the question, therefore, is still open. There is no reason whatever for thinking that the Hindus ever inhabited any country but their present one, and as little for denying that they may have done so before the earliest trace of their records or tradition" (97-98)."

"It is opposed to their foreign origin, that neither in the code of Manu nor I believe in the Vedas, nor in any book that is certainly older than the code, is there any allusion to a prior residence or to a knowledge of more than the name of any country out of India. Even mythology goes no further than the Himalayan chain in which is fixed, the habitation of Gods. It is unthinkable and beyond all canons of logic and common sense that the Hindus had forgotten their original home even at the time of the composition of the earliest Vedas. Christians look to Jerusalem for the origin of their religion, Muslims to Arabia, and Jews to Palestine, but the Hindus have all their sacred places within India itself. If they really had come from outside India, they should have some place of pilgrimage like Mecca or Benares. "To say that it (emigration) spread from a central point is a gratuitous presumption and even contrary to analogy for emigration and civilization have not spread in a circle but from east to west.""

"The common origin of the Sanscrit language with those of the west leaves no doubt that there was once a connection between the nations by whom they are used; but it proves nothing regarding the place where such a connection subsisted, nor about the time, (…) To say that it spread from a central point is a gratuitous assumption."

"Neither in the Vedas, nor in any book .. .is there any allusion to a prior residence ... out of India ... There is no reason whatever for thinking that the Hindus ever inhabited any country but their present one."

"In the Surva Siddhanta is contained a system of trigonometry which not only goes beyond anything known to the Greeks, but involves theorem which were not discovered in Europe till two centuries ago."

"Everything now is done by moderation and conciliation—at this rate, we shall be all quakers in twenty years more . . . if peace is so desirable an object, it would be wiser to have retained the power of preserving it in our hands, than to have left it to the caprice of Tippoo, who, though he has lost half his revenue, has by no means lost half his power. He requires no combination, like us, of an able military governor, peace in Europe, and allies in the country, to enable him to prosecute war successfully. He only wants to attack them singly, when he will be more than a match for any of them . . . when we have a General of less ability than Lord Cornwallis at the head of Government, Tippoo may safely try, by the means of Gooty, Chitteldroog and Biddanor, to recover the conquests of the Mahrattas and the Nizam. If Lord Cornwallis himself could not have reduced Tippoo without the assistance of the Mahrattas,—for there is no doubt that without them he could never, after falling back from Seringapatam in May, have advanced again beyond Bangalore."

"Where, also, could the central point be, from which a language could spread over India, Greece and Italy, and yet leave Chaldaea, Syria and Arabia untouched? The question, therefore, is still open. There is no reason whatever for thinking that the Hindus ever inhabited any country but their present."

"In a private letter, Sir Thomas Munro, who was an official in Madras then, wrote: ‘A second attack [by Tipu] is daily expected; and if the king [of Travancore] is left alone, all his exertions against a power so superior can delay but for a short time his ruin. The English battalions were behind the Lines, but not at the place attacked; and it is said that they have orders not to act, even on the defensive . . . the barrier once forced, orders for them to act will arrive too late. All their efforts will then avail but little against the numbers of their enemies, and will only serve to draw a heavier vengeance on themselves and the unfortunate Rajah.’"

"If a good system of agriculture, unrivalled manufacturing skill, a capacity to produce whatever can contribute to convenience or luxury, schools established in every village for teaching, reading, writing and arithmetic; the general practice of hospitality and charity among each other; and above all, a treatment of the female sex full of confidence, respect, and delicacy, (if all these) are among the signs which denote a civilized people, then the Hindus, are not inferior to the nations of Europe; and if civilization is to become an article of trade between England and India, I am convinced that England will gain by the import cargo."

"In 1841, Mountstuart Elphinstone, the first Governor of the Bombay Presidency, wrote in his History of India: “No set of people among the Hindus are so depraved as the dregs of our great towns. The villagers are everywhere amiable, affectionate to their families, kind to their neighbours…. The Hindus are mild and gentle people…. Their superiority in purity of manners is not flattering to our self-esteem.”"

"[Hastings] recognizes that in public he is taken to be Christian but then, he admits, in "hipocricy [sic], . . . prudence or rather necessity imposed silence." But, "I am unable not unwilling to receive and understand. What my inability is founded on I cannot to a certainty determine." To me, though, it is very clear. He cannot see anything that distinguishes Christianity from the other religions about which he knows. "Is the incarnation of Christ more intelligible than . . . those of Bishen?" Europeans prevail over non-Europeans not because of the superiority of Christianity but for secular reasons: "a free government, cold climate and printing and navigation." Christianity does not make people "better." "Let those who know the lower uneducated class in England . . . say how much more rarely crimes are committed in England than in India.""

"The writers of the Indian philosophies will survive, when the British dominion in IndIa shall long have ceased to exist, and when the sources which it yielded of wealth and power are lost to remembrances."

"I hesitate not to pronounce the Gita a performance of great origmality, of sublimity of conception, reasoning and diction almost unequalled; and a single exception, amongst all the known religions of mankind."

"It is hardly surprising that the Englishmen would try by every means to keep up the differences between the two communities. Sir Bamfylde Fuller, Lieutenant-Governor of East Bengal and Assam, admitted his preferential treatment of the Muslims and explained it by a_ parable. “I said,” writes he, “that I was like a man who was married to two wives, one a Hindu, the other a Muhammadan—both young and charming— but was forced into the arms of one of them by the rudeness of the other.“ (225)"

"This is the first and most essential thing to learn about India — that there is not, and never was an India, or even any country of India, possessing, according to European ideas, any sort of unity, physical, political, social, or religious ; no Indian nation, no “ people of India,” of which we hear so much. Until we rightly appreciate the significance of such facts we shall, among other things, never understand how our Indian Empire has come into existence, and how this vast dominion is maintained by a handful of Englishmen. There was never, as Professor Seeley has said, any conquest of India by the English, according to the ordinary sense of the word “ conquest.” The conquest was rather, to borrow his expression, “ in the nature of an internal revolution,” directed by English- men, but carried out for the most part through the Natives of India themselves. No superiority of the Englishman would have enabled England to conquer by her own military power the continent of India with its 300 millions of people, nor could she hold it in sub- jection if it had been occupied by distinct nations. In the words of Professor Seeley, “ the fundamental fact is that India had no jealousy of the foreigner, because there was no India, and therefore, properly speaking, no foreigner.” It is a consequence of all this, that in every great Indian province the political sympathies of large sections of the population towards men who, geographically speaking, are their own countrymen, are often as imperfect as they are towards their English masters. We have never destroyed in India a national government, no national sentiment has been wounded, no national pride has been humiliated; and this not through any design or merit of our own, but because no Indian nationalities have existed. They no more exist in the so-called Native States than in our own territories, and the most important of those States are ruled by princes who are almost as much foreigners to their subjects as we are ourselves."

"I then burnt the city and put everything to sword, and for days continuously the people shed blood. Wherever they were found and caught, no life was spared to any Musalman, and their mosques were filled up and set on fire. We counted 6,000 dead bodies. It was, my Lord, a great deed, well fought and well finished."

"I leave no town or building of the Mussalmans. Those who are taken alive, I order them to be roasted…"

"...had not the negociations to that end been interrupted in consequence of a resolution formed by Tippoo (in the combined view of indulging his zeal as a Mahommedan, and at the same time rooting up as he fondly might imagine, the causes of that aversion which the Malabar Hindus had hitherto shewn to his government) to attempt the forcible conversion of all his Hindu subjects in Malabar to the Musulman faith ...."

"[T]hence (from Lucknow) to Oudee (an ancient city, once the seat of Pathan Kings, but now almost deserted), 50 cos. Not far from this city may be seen the ruins of the fort and palace of Ramchand, whom the Indians regard as God Most High: they say that he took on him human flesh that he might see the great tamasha of the world. Amongst these ruins live certain Bramenes who carefully note down the name of all such pilgrims as duly perform their ceremonial ablutions in the neighboring river. They say that this custom has been kept up for many centuries. About two miles from these rivers (sic.) is a cave with a narrow mouth but so spacious within and with so many ramifications that it is difficult to find one’s way out again. They believe that the ashes of the god are hidden here. Pilgrims come to this place from all parts of India and after worshiping the idol take away with them some grains of charred rice as proof of their visit. This rice they believe to have been kept here for many centuries."

"Thus India is like a mighty bastion which is being battered by heavy artillery. We have given blow after blow, and thud after thud, and the effect is not at first very remarkable; but at last with a crash the mighty structure will come toppling down, and it is our hope that some day the heathen religions of India will in like manner succumb.”"

"But for a long time to come the prime movers in these operations must continue to be European. And we hope that a great Christian, and if we may use the term, ecclesiastical army will be raised, the rank and file consisting of natives, while the captains and generals are highly qualified Europeans."

"I shall conclude by reminding you that, as patriotic people, you may be confident that the missions in India are doing a work which strengthens the imperial foundations of British power, and raises our national repute in the eyes of the many millions of people committed to our charge. You may be also confident that the results are fully commensurate with the expenditure."

"India is a country which of all others we are bound to en- lighten with eternal truth…. But what is most important to you friends of missions, is this — that there is a large population of aborigines, a people who are outside caste…. If they are attached, as they rapidly may be, to Christianity, they will form a nucleus round which British power and influence may gather. Remember, too, that Hinduism, although it is dying, yet has force … and such tribes, if not converted to Christianity, may be perverted to Hinduism…. You may be confident that the missions in India are doing a work which strengthens the imperial foundations of British power…. I say that, of all the departments I have ever administered, I never saw one more efficient than the missionary department."

"I cannot give you an exact idea of the vicious orgies which occur constantly in the Hindu temples. There is a considerable amount of immorality, which is practically the outcome of the religion ;though, on the other hand, there are many domestic virtues practised by the people, showing how much of goodness would be produced, if the religion were purer."

"The missionaries who accompanied the colonial rulers decided to use this idea to further their own proselytizing activities by branding the tribals as followers of “aboriginal” religions distinct from the “Hinduism” allegedly brought in by the theoretically postulated Aryan invaders. In 1866, Sir Richard Temple edited a book “Papers Related to the Aboriginal Tribes of the Central Provinces”, based primarily on the writings of, and of those inspired by, the missionary Reverend Stephen Hislop (1817-1863), which set the trend in “scholarly” writings on the subject. This rapidly became a matter of colonial policy."

"Now, India presents the greatest of all fields for missionary exertion, greater even than China."

"It is commonly said that it was the Mahomedans whom the British displaced as rulers in India. This is true only in a restricted sense. It would be nearer the truth to say that it was the Mahrattas in the main, whom we displaced."

"Be careful in always having a good beacon fire, as the signals entirely depend upon it, that the ships may enter the bay in safety"."

"You shall also keep your fires burning if the ships are blown back by contrary winds, but if the ships are foreign or not Dutch (onduitsch) you shall at once extinguish your fire."

"And as we are making our position stronger every day, it is to be hoped that they (Khoisan) will feel less inclined to disturb us, provided, however, that a strict watch be kept on everything and we remain on our guard in every direction, continuing with diligence at the fences and other defensive forts..."