Observations on the Disturbances in the Madras Army in 1809Malcolm, John
History
Observations on the Disturbances in the Madras Army in 1809
Malcolm, John
India. Army -- History; Malcolm, John, 1769-1833
temper of this force would have satisfied Government that there was
no good ground for this eulogium; and the slightest reflection on the
common motives of human action would have prevented its being made. The
Company's officers at Hyderabad treated the praise bestowed upon them
with scorn, disclaimed all right to it in an address to Government,
and, abandoning that moderation which had before characterized their
proceedings, they commenced with all the zeal of converts in their new
career. In their ardour to make amends for the past, they took the lead
in violence. Their numbers and apparent unanimity inspired them with
fatal confidence: and this force, who were excited to action by a weak
and unwise attempt to divide them from the rest of the army, became the
most active promoters of sedition, and gave an example of opposition to
Government, in which their repentance came too late to prevent the ruin
of many of those who were betrayed, by a reliance on them, into the
adoption of the same unjustifiable course.
The general spirit of indignation which the orders of the 1st of
May were calculated to excite, must have been foreseen; but it was
perhaps expected, that the terror struck by so decided and vigorous a
proceeding would repress the effects of this spirit, and alarm even
the most violent into order and obedience. If such was the intention,
the measure was certainly inadequate to the end proposed. When we
bear in mind the inflamed state of the minds of a great majority of
the officers of the coast army, was it reasonable to expect, that the
suspension from the service, and the removal from their commands, of
a few of the most popular (including some of the most moderate[9])
officers in the service, would strike a panic in a body of men
so agitated? Was it not more likely that they would deem this a
repetition of what they had before considered injustice, and rush on
the extreme of violence? It could have no other effect; and therefore,
if it had been resolved to take no steps to conciliate or restore the
temper of the army, this was the period (before their combinations
were matured,) that a severe and wise Government would have chosen
to come to issue; and, had the danger been fully met at this moment,
those consequences which resulted from the line pursued would, in
all human probability, have been avoided: but if the object of the
Government of Fort St. George had been the ruin of its own army, no
measures could have been more calculated to effect that object than
those pursued. The character of its acts till the 1st of May has been
fully shown. It would be as tedious as useless to dwell upon the many
trifling but irritating measures to which it had recourse from that
period till the 26th of July. These measures were, if not oppressive,
all marked by a spirit of the most provoking suspicion, and never
contained one particle of that generous feeling of noble confidence,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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