Siyar al-mutaʾakhkhirin 1.2

A Translation of the Seir Mutaqherin (Haji Mustafa) 1.2

Language: English

1.2.1

Few weeks had elapsed after this event, when I received intelligence that Governor Hastings was going to depart for Europe: this circumstance, to which he seemed to have been preparing our hearts, completed the unhinging of my mind as if by some unexpected stroke. That Gentleman had been one of my oldest acquaintances among the English: I had conceived an affection for his person so early as twenty-five years ago; and he had proved in the sequel, the principal author of my well-being: his quitting India at a time when I was yearly losing some of my friends by their departure for Europe, or by death; and when my mind, affected by these discouraging losses, and impressed with the thoughts of that ill-fated girl, wanted some potent relief, became a calamity that overwhelmed all my faculties. Some people observed that I was talking to his picture, a picture of striking likeness, by the inimitable Zophanii. I was sensible myself that some strange alteration had taken place within me, and I was thinking how to make a diversion to so much accumulated sorrow, when my good fortune interposed. On my going into one of the Navvab's seats, an old woman, among other articles of sale, offered me some broken leaves of a decayed book, in which the author talked with encomiums of the English Parliament in Europe, and with some asperity of the English Government in Bengal. A Persian discourse upon English Politics! strange indeed!

1.2.2

I took the broken leaves, and perused some of them in the Garden; and the style, as well as the matter, having awakened my curiosity, I seized on this opportunity to afford some relief to my wearied mind. I resolved to translate it, in order to shew the author's opinions to a couple of friends; but on translating, I found that I had in hand only some broken leaves of a second volume, and that the first and third were wanting; and these I found at Moorshoodabad, on my soon returning to Bengal. My views by this time had been greatly enlarged by the perusal of my author; and after having lightly thought of translating some parts of his book, merely as an object of curiosity, but especially as a resource against grief and deep felt sorrow, I resolved to translate the whole of it, as a matter of honor and benefit, being then intent on sending two of my children to England, and anxious to add something to an independent fund which I wished to establish for their education. Shall I end the phrase? I translate it now as a matter of information, which it is incumbent upon me to impart to my adopted Countrymen (the English) ; and as a warning which I owe to their prosperity. Having lived or strolled full five and-twenty years among them ; being so far accustomed to their language, that I cannot, for want of practice, write any other so fluently ; having been this long series of years an admirer of their language and history ;

1.2.3

and being indebted to their national munificence, as well as to their private partiality, for the little competency upon which I now subsist ; the transition is but natural, (and this is but a very small merit, if any at all) from such a set of sentiments to such another, as would render me a well-wisher to their government and a friend to their prosperity : my own welfare has flowed from theirs, and even now does flow from it. The general turn of the English individuals in India, seems to be a thorough contempt for the Indians (as a national body). It is taken to be no better than a dead stock, that may be worked upon without much consideration, and at pleasure : But beware ! that national body is only motionless, but neither insensible, nor dead. ...There runs throughout our author's narrative, a subterraneous vein of national resentment, which emits vapours now and then, and which his occasional encomiums of the English, can neither conceal nor even palliate ; and yet he is himself but a voice that has spoken among a million of others that could speak, but are silent : Nor have signs of this national sullenness been wanting these sixteen years. Living myself in the centre of Moorshoodabad ; wearing an Hindostany dress, and making a practice in the evening to walk the streets with only a servant, either to listen to, or to mix with, any company I meet with either there or in the market place ;

1.2.4

I necessarily get a variety of information, which is often out of the power, and always out of the way, of any other European : for an example of this, I shall appeal to the testimony of Mr. William Wroughton, now Chief at Dacca, a gentleman, to whose person and abilities, no man in Bengal will object. Full fifteen days before government had received any official account of that calamitous event, I wrote him an affecting note about the ferment actually caused in the city of Moorshoodabad, by the defeat at Vargam near Poonah ; and expressed a wish that government might receive an early notice of it.

1.2.5

I hope it is admitted on all hands, that small accidental stories, and unpremeditated expressions on an important event, will better point out the national turn of mind, however dormant, than any professed reasoning. The unfortunate affair at Benares with Cheyt-Sing, was repeatedly reported at Moorshoodabad with such woeful circumstances, as seemed to partage the whole Nation; numbers were deeply affected (and to be affected for an European governor, or indeed for any European at all, is a very novel matter in India) and they used to say : " Pity ! a great pity ! the father of the Hindostanies is gone, — we shall never see such another man." But others, and this was the majority, left the person out of the question ; and minded only the crisis. " What ! are we not men as well as " Cheyt-Sing's People ? and what could prevent me from giving " a slap to one or two of his chairmen ? (the Governor's) they " would have dropped his palanquin, as by a signal, and any " man could have killed him with ease. I saw him at Barwa : " he had not an armed man by him ; and his chairmen were " but a dozen of people ; and this would have at once produced " a revolution — You talk to me of the Brigade at Behrampore ; " it is a name only — there are not two thousand men in it ;

1.2.6

" and a full half of them will desert on hearing of his death — " well. Sir, and the other half ? well, the other half — are they ' not Hindostanies ? and at all events we are such multitudes " here — with each a brick-bat in our hands, we could knock them " down to a man." These and the like expressions I heard at that very time in one of the best companies in Moorshoodabad. Two days after, as a Regiment of Sepoys on its way to Chunar-ghur, was marching through the City at day-break, I went out, and was standing to see it pass by, the Regiment halted ; and a few men from the centre ran into a dark lane, and laid hold of a hen and some roots : the people screamed. " Do not make so much noise," said one of the men in his Bodjpooria Idiom ; " we go to-day with the Frenghees, but " we are all servants (tenants) to Cheyt-Sing, and may come back " to-morrow with him ; and then the question will be not about " your roots, but about your wives and daughters." The street, although the main thorough-fare, could admit but six men in front, and there had been two halts more, in which time I had opportunities of hearing such suspicious words and expressions, that I resolved to write a letter to Colonel Ironside on that subject. But two days having been accidentally spent in determining upon the expediency or propriety of the letter, I thought it better to take counsel from time itself, and I went to pay my respects to that Commander who kept me to dinner.

1.2.7

He had a great deal of task with me : "I find no great harm," said the Colonel, " That now and then, a Governor, with a " couple of Colonels or two should make way for others ; but " what gives me concern is, to hear that we are not liked in " the city, and that some disaffection has crept amongst our " own Sepahees." Finding the man upon the right way, I thought it better to drop my own information as it might produce a counter order to the regiment, with some other serious inconveniencies.