Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 1/Mountstuart Elphinstone
MOUNTSTUART ELPHINSTONE.
IN MEMORIAM.
Every now and then a great man passes noiselessly away from amongst us, and the world takes no account of the loss. There are no loud lamentations; no turgid panegyrics; no ready-made obituary notices in the daily papers. People do not talk about it, or write about it, or care to inquire how it happened. The dead man may have done some great things in his time; but, if one would not pass out of the recollection of a community of busy men, and submit to a moral sepulture in the midst of one’s career, it is necessary to be always a-doing. The tranquil close of an active life is a fair thing to contemplate; but tranquillity is the grave of contemporary fame.
Such a man passed away from amongst us a few days ago, in a sheltered retreat on the Kentish border of the Surrey Hills. As you pass from Godstone in the one county to Westerham in the other, you skirt the little village of Limpsfield, and turning sharp down to the left, you soon come upon the lodge-gates of a little home park, in which stands a modest dwelling-house, scarcely exceeding the dimensions of a suburban villa. In this peaceful pleasant nook lived Mountstuart Elphinstone; and there, on Sun- day, the 20thbf November last, he died, at the ripe age of eighty years.
More than thirty years have gone by since he put off the harness from his back. In November, 1827, he handed over the government of Bombay to his friend Sir John Malcolm; and from that date, content to see others reap the fame and fortune freely offered to him, he lived a life of literary leisure. He was recognised during all this time as the highest living authority upon all questions of Indian government; but his counsel was given in secret, and it was known to few how frequently his advice was sought, and how reverently it was followed.
A younger son of a Scotch peer, he was sent out to India, as a boy, in the Civil Service of the East India Company. A great historical epoch lay before him — the reign of the two Wellesleys. Reputations in those days ripened apace. Oppor- tunities of distinction were not wanting, and the best men came to the front. In his noviciate yoimg Elphinstone chose the political department of the public service, and graduated in diplomacy under Barry Close at the Court of Poonah. In the early part of the first Mahratta war, John Malcolm had accompanied Arthur Wellesley as his political adviser; but severe illness having compelled him to leave the camp, Elphinstone took his place, and for a time carried on the political duties of the campaign, as the friend and adviser of the great Duke, who appreciated his courage no less than his genius; and who, struck by his military ardour at the siege of Gawilghur, told him that he ought to have been a soldier. From that time his professional advancement was rapid. In 1804 he was appointed Political Resident at Nagpore; and in 1808, when all India was frightened from its propriety by threatened invasion of Alexander of Russia and the great Napoleon, Elphinstone was one of the three officers selected to check-mate the imperial allies in the countries between India and Russia. Whilst Malcolm went to Persia, and Metcalfe to the Punjab, he conducted a British mission to the Court of the king of Cabul, and concluded a treaty with that luckless Suddozye prince, who thirty years afterwards involved the British nation in the last and worst of his disastrous failures. It was a splendid mission, lavish in its expenditure, making the mouths of the greedy Afghans water at the thought of an Englishman, until empty-handed Burnes destroyed the beautiful illusion. All that Elphinstone had to do, he did right well: and then he returned to India and wrote a book. The book was, in truth, the best result of the mission. But never was any man less of a book-maker. What he wrote, he wrote for Government, not for the public. It was simply, in the first instance, an official report. But when he went round from Calcutta to Bombay, and was there introduced by Malcom to Sir James Mackintosh, the full-brained Recorder besought him not to forget the public; and, though a little alarmed at first, he took the hint, and the official report grew into the best book on Caubul which has yet been given to the world. “Malcolm brought Elphinstone to breakfast,” wrote Mackintosh, at that time (1811) in his journal; “he has a very fine understanding, with the greatest modesty and simplicity of character.”
Elphinstone had by that time obtained the highest diplomatic appointment under the government of India. He was Resident at Poonah, where Badjee Rao, the Peishwah, held his court; and there he remained until he became Peishwah himself. The story of the downfall of the Mah- ratta Prince, and the acquisition of his territories by the British, has been often told by historians and biographers. A weak man, the tool of evil counsellors, he was persuaded to suspect the designs of Lord Hastings, and he was betrayed into hostility by his fears. An immense Mahratta army, in October, 1817, was assembled at Poonah, with the ostensible object of assisting our opera- tions against the Pindarrees. But, little by little, the truth began to manifest itself. Our allies were the most formidable of our enemies: the Mahratta troops were only waiting for a signal to attack the British Residency, to murder the Resident, and boldly to declare war against the English. If, in the face of this danger, Elphinstone had possessed any other than the highest qualities of mind; if he had not been cool, resolute, sagacious, the crisis would have overwhelmed him, and the vast designs of Lord Hastings would have been disarranged by the precipitated hostility. He knew the temper of Badjee Rao; he knew the feeling in the Mahratta camp; he heard from the verandah of the Residency the turmoil of preparation— but he betrayed no consciousness of coming danger, and by his very quietude averted the collision until it was comparatively harmless. The little Sepoy force at the Residency was strengthened by the arrival of a European regiment; and then, although the enemy were more than thirty thousand strong, and our own troops not a tenth of the number, Elphinstone felt that he was equal to the struggle. On the 5th of November it came. The battle of Khirkee was fought. Then again the civilian gave heroic proof of the fine soldierly character and high military qualities which had won the admiration of the Duke. Nominally, the force was commanded by another; but Elphinstone, ever in the thick of the fight, was the real general on that memorable day. The vast Mahratta army was beaten by the handful of British troops; and before it could recover from the shock of the unexpected disaster, reinforcements came to our aid, and the country of the Peishwah lay at our feet.
Badjee Rao fled; his broad lands were confiscated; and Elphinstone was appointed to administer the territories which thus passed under our rule. In this responsible position he exhibited administrative ability of the highest order. He had many difficult questions to solve; but he solved them with equal wisdom and justice. India has seen some administrative triumphs since that time, but Elphinstone’s authority is still cited as the highest; still frequent reference is made to the principles he inculcated and the rules which he established; and still the administrator holds his place in the affections of a grateful people. In the Poonah territory he remained for two years, at the end df which he was summoned to assume the government of Bombay. Malcolm, who had expected this promotion for himself, rejoiced in the prosperity of his friend, and unstintingly acknowledged his peculiar fitness for the office. Canning, who then presided at the Board of Control, had submitted to the Court of Directors three names — Malcolm, Munro, and Elphinstone; and they had chosen the civilian.
During eight years Mountstuart Elphinstone continued to preside over the Bombay government. They were years of comparative tranquillity, and were spent by him in administrative and legislative rather than in political business; the chief work to which he addressed himself being that of codification. The prominent events of his career are not many; but there is one circumstance so illustrative of the disinterestedness and integrity of the man, that it must be recorded here to his honour. The Home Government having impressed upon him the necessity of retrenchment in the expenditure of his Presidency, he applied the pruning-knife to the charges of Government House before he would touch anything else. He greatly curtailed his own establishment, and then reflecting that if he could efficiently maintain his position with that diminished state he ought to have done so before, he paid into the government treasury the sum of 4500/. , which his sensitive conscience caused him to regard as public money improperly expended.
In November, 1827, amidst the affectionate regrets of the community, European and native, Mountstuart Elphinstone retired from the government of Bombay — and from public life. From that date, although he was then in the full vigour of his prime, and the very meridian of his intellectual powers, he could not be induced to accept office. The Governor-Generalship of India was twice placed at his disposal, but he modestly declined the tempting offer, on the plea of infirmity of health. That when, in 1835, he was invited to proceed to India, as the successor of Lord William Bentinck, he could not persuade himself to obey the call, was, perhaps, the greatest calamity that has ever befallen our Indian empire. It is no exaggeration to assert, that had he reigned in India, instead of Lord Auckland, there would have been no Affghan war, and, therefore, no Sepoy Rebellion. That, mistrusting his health, he acted conscientiously in thus resisting the allurements of ambition, is not to be doubted: but it is not less a misfortune that such great political sagacity and administrative ability should have been lost to his country at so early an age.
And yet it was not wholly lost; for his advice, as has been said, was often asked, and freely given. Still, the last thirty years of his life were those of a literary recluse. His work upon the early history of India is the sole result of his studies; but although little more than a fragment, it is an invaluable one. People have deplored, and wondered, that the history was never continued; and it was once foolishly stated in the House of Commons, that the East India Company, fearful of the consequences of Elphinstone’s honesty, had put up one of their own officials to write a history of India, and thus to drive him from the field. The statement was tdb absurd to require sober contradiction; but he said next morning, with an amused look, that he had written, as far as he had gone, because he possessed materials of history, within the reach of few other men, but that, approaching the period of our English conquests, he entered upon common ground, and that there was no reason why he should do what others could do as well, or better than himself; — an explanation more characteristic of the modesty of the man, than satisfactory to the public.
As years advanced, and his physical infirmities increased upon him, he withdrew more and more from society; only visiting the metropolis for a few weeks every year towards the close of the summer. His life was spent, for the most part, in his retreat on the Surrey Hills; and there death foimd him this November. He had been well content to fade out of the memory of the busy world. He told Metcalfe, many years ago, that if, on leaving India, he did not wish to be wholly forgotten, he must go into Parliament. This Elphinstone could not persuade himself to do, and he had accordingly been forgotten. But there were a few who still sought him out, and who visited the recluse among his books, and spent hours of deepest interest in converse with him, not wholly on affairs of State. His love of literature was undiminished to the last; and a day's talk with Elphinstone, at Hookwood, would embrace every conceivable subject from Veds and Shastrea to the last new poem. His memory was fresh, and his enthusiasm undiminished to the last; and if you did not leave his presence wiser for what had fallen from him, it was the fault of your own stolidity.
His place in history will be with Malcolm, Munro, and Metcalfe; whether above or below them it matters not to inquire. And, indeed, he differed from them all so essentially in many respects, that it would be difficult to assign him his exact position. But it may fitly be recorded as a memorial of honour upon the tomb of the East India Company, that it had four such servants as these, and was not ungrateful to them.