A History of the Mahrattas v1.c5.s1: I. Memoir of James Cuninghame Grant Duff
A History of the Mahrattas v1.c5.s1
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I. Memoir of James Cuninghame Grant Duff
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JAMES GRANT, known later as James Cuninghame Grant Duff, was the eldest son of John Grant, of Kincardine O’Neil, and his wife Margaret Miln Duff, heiress of the Duffs of Eden, Banffshire, and was born in the town of Banff on July 8, 1789. After his father’s death in 1799, his mother moved to Aberdeen, and there, at the Marischal College, Grant received his education. He was designed for the East India Company’s civil service; but impatient at the prospect of delay in obtaining an appointment, he accepted an infantry cadetship on the Bombay establishment in 1805, and arrived in India early in 1806. On his way to India he was wrecked off Cape St. Roque in Brazil, and had the misfortune to lose everything he possessed, including his family papers. He was present at the taking of the Cape of Good Hope by the expedition under Baird in 1806, where his patriotism was stirred by seeing three Highland regiments leap to their feet and advance to the strains of the ‘Rothiemurchus rant.’ On this occasion he had another hairbreadth escape from drowning, by the capsizing of a boat-load of soldiers, and only saved himself by the skill in swimming which he had acquired in his early days at Banff.¹
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¹ Extract from the *Book of the Duffs*, p. 498, by Taylor, 2 vols., 1914, kindly supplied by A. C. Grant Duff, Esq.
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After a period of study at the cadet establishment in Bombay, he obtained a commission as Ensign on April 23, 1807, and was posted to the 1st Battalion of the 1st Bombay Native Infantry (Bombay Grenadiers). In July, 1808, he took part with his regiment in the storming of Mālia, a fortified stronghold of freebooters in Kāthiāwār, where he displayed conspicuous gallantry. Two years later he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant, and became adjutant and interpreter of his regiment, in which, by reason of his knowledge and capacity, he exercised a greater influence than his seniority indicated. This preferment nearly involved him in a duel with a brother officer. While still a lieutenant he attracted the notice of Mountstuart Elphinstone, then Resident at the court of the Pēshwā in Poona, and became, together with Captain Pottinger, his assistant and devoted friend. Elphinstone had no mean opinion of his capabilities, and spoke of him in later years as ‘a man of much ability and, what is more, much good sense.’
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Grant was with Mountstuart Elphinstone at Poona in November 1817, when the final struggle with the Pēshwā took place, and is mentioned in Colonel Burr’s dispatch, describing the engagement between his brigade and the Pēshwā’s army at Kirkee, as having ‘most handsomely volunteered his services’ as an orderly-officer on the Colonel’s staff, and as having ‘particularly distinguished himself throughout the action.’ From a letter, dated Bombay, April 24, 1822, from Mountstuart Elphinstone to Grant,¹ it is clear that the latter deserves the credit for launching the timely attack of Colonel Burr’s brigade. In his history Grant (i.e. Grant Duff) speaks of a messenger being dispatched to warn Colonel Burr of the enemy’s approach and to order him to attack the Pēshwā’s army, when Burr himself was disposed to act on the defensive. ‘As to the facts about Kirkee,’ wrote Elphinstone in the letter above mentioned, ‘the important thing is that Colonel Burr and I had talked the matter over most fully, and fixed most positively that if ever war broke out he was to begin by attacking the Mahrattas; and from this I never knew, till we were actively engaged, that he ever swerved. When we were going to cross the river, you proposed to me to desire Burr to advance. I forget in what terms I sanctioned the request, but my impression was that it was perfectly settled Burr was to advance, and that the moment he knew war was begun he would do so. It turned out that I was quite mistaken, and that Burr would not have stirred without an order; and we are therefore indebted to you for what happened.' In the lengthy operations against the Pēshwā Bājī Rāo in 1817–18, which terminated in his submission and the annexation of the Deccan and Southern Marāthā country, Grant took an active part in both a civil and military capacity. He is mentioned in Mountstuart Elphinstone's diary under date December 7, 1817, as having fought gallantly with Russell, Pottinger, Tovey and others in a smart skirmish with the Pēshwā's troops near Pandharpur, and he was often consulted by Elphinstone on problems connected with the settlement of the country.
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¹ Colebrooke, *Life of M. Elphinstone*, ii. 138.
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In 1818 Grant, who now held the rank of captain, was appointed Resident at Sātāra, his instructions being contained in a letter from Mountstuart Elphinstone, dated April 8, 1818. His remuneration was fixed at 2,000 rupees per mensem, with allowances aggregating 1,500 rupees per mensem in addition to the cost of his office establishment.¹ By a proclamation of April 11, 1818, Elphinstone invested Captain Grant with full powers for the arrangement of the affairs of the Sātāra State; and by a treaty of September 25, 1819, entered into with the Rājā Pratāp Singh, Grant was to administer the country in the name of the Rājā until 1822, and then transfer the entire administration to him and his state officials, who might be presumed to be fit by that time for the task. Grant carefully impressed upon the Rājā that intercourse with other princes, except such as were specifically mentioned in the treaty, would be punished with annexation of his territory, and he trained the young chief so successfully in habits of business that Pratāp Singh was given complete control in 1822.² Mountstuart Elphinstone described the Rājā in 1826 as ‘the most civilized Marāthā I ever met with, has his country in excellent order and everything, to his roads and aqueducts, in a style that would do credit to a European. I was more struck with his private sitting-room than anything I saw at Sātāra. It contains a single table, covered with green velvet, at which the descendant of Shivaji sits in a chair and writes letters, as well as a journal of his transactions, with his own hand. I do not know what his ancestor would think of so peaceful a descendant.'¹ For this result credit is mainly due to Grant, who not only instructed Pratāp Singh in the art of administration, but cultivated in him a taste for literary and general knowledge, and taught the value of refinement of character.² During his period of office as Resident Grant concluded treaties with the Sātāra jāgīrdārs or feudatories, namely with the Pant Sachiv, the Pant Pratīnidhī, and the chiefs of Daphle and Phaltan on April 22, 1820, and with the Rājā of Akalkot and Sheikh Waekar (i.e. the descendant of Sheikh Mīran of Wai) on July 3, 1820. The character of his administration is best described in the words of a Brahman writer of to-day, who is known throughout the Bombay Presidency as an ardent student of Marāthā history. ‘In addition to judgment, energy and talent for business of no ordinary kind, he (Grant) possessed in an eminent degree the power of appreciating the character of the people and adopting measures to suit their peculiarities, which made him popular with the Rājā and his rayats alike. The name of “Grant Sāheb” is still familiar as a household word in the Sātāra district.’³ Before he finally relinquished office Captain Grant obtained for the Rājā the restoration of the fort of Pratāpgarh, then in British possession, which contained the famous temple of Bhavānī, the family goddess of Sivājī and his descendants, and which the Rājā was particularly anxious on this account to include in his own possessions.⁴
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¹ Parliamentary Papers, 1873, vol. xxxviii, pt. i.
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² Heber's Journal, ii. 212.
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¹ Colebrooke, Life, ii. 188.
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² For some details of Grant’s policy see his report on Sātāra in Elphinstone’s Report on the Territories taken from the Pēshwā, 1821.
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³ Rāo Bahādur D. B. Parasnis, Mahableshwar, pp. 40, 41.
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⁴ Parasnis, ibid., p. 41.
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By 1822 toil and anxiety had so told upon Captain Grant’s health that he was compelled to return to Scotland in the following year, after handing over charge of his appointment to Colonel (afterwards General) Briggs. While on furlough in Scotland he completed his History of the Mahrattas, the materials for which he had long been collecting, and eventually published it in 1826. On May 12, 1827, he finally retired from the Company’s service. On his mother’s death in 1824 he had succeeded to the Eden estates, and had assumed, in consequence, the additional name of Duff, and having settled on the estate, occupied himself with agriculture, cattle-breeding and planting. The hedges which he planted are still a feature of the neighbourhood. In the year 1827 he married Jane Catherine, only daughter of Sir Whitelaw Ainslie, an eminent physician, and author of the *Materia Medica of India*. In 1850 his wife succeeded to an estate in Fifeshire which belonged to her mother's family, and Grant Duff then adopted the further name of Cuninghame. He died on September 23, 1858, aged sixty-nine years.
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He left behind him a daughter and two sons, the elder of whom, Sir Mountstuart Elphinstone Grant Duff, G.C.S.I., was born in 1829. His christian names record the fact that Mountstuart Elphinstone was his godfather. He was Under-Secretary of State for India in Gladstone's first administration (1868–74), and a few months after the defeat of the Liberals in the latter year he visited India for the purpose of becoming better acquainted with the country, for whose government he had been responsible in the House of Commons during the preceding six years. He subsequently published a record of his tour, which is full of information regarding the flora of India. In 1880–1 he was Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies, and from 1881 to 1886 was Governor of Madras. He died in 1906. During the later years of his life he published his voluminous *Notes from a Diary*, a work useful to the student of social conditions in the Victorian Age.¹
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¹ R. P. Karkaria, *The Charm of Bombay*, p. 386.
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The younger son is Mr. Ainslie Douglas Ainslie, of Delgaty Castle, Turriff, Aberdeenshire, who assumed the surname of Ainslie in lieu of Grant Duff. Captain Grant Duff's daughter, Alice Jane (*ob.* 1891), married Gaspar Obrist, of Zurich, and had two sons, one of whom is married and has two daughters.
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The Right Hon. Sir M. E. Grant Duff, G.C.S.I., had four sons and four daughters namely:
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(1) Arthur Cuninghame Grant Duff, formerly Minister at Dresden and Coburg.
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(2) Sir Evelyn Mountstuart Grant Duff, K.C.M.G., formerly Envoy at Berne.
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(3) Adrian Grant Duff, C.B., Lieutenant-Colonel, 1st Battalion Black Watch. Killed in action, September 14, 1914. He married the Hon. Ursula Lubbock, daughter of the first Lord Avebury, and had one son and three daughters.
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(4) Clara, who married in 1895 the Right Hon. F. Huth Jackson and has one son and three daughters.
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(5) Hampden Grant Duff, Captain, R.N. (retired).
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(6) Victoria Grant Duff, O.B.E.
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(7) Lily, who married the Hon. Gerard Collier, second son of the second Lord Monkswell, and has three children.
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(8) Iseult Grant Duff, formerly a missionary (C.M.S.) at Amritsar.
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Mr. Ainslie Douglas Ainslie, the author's second son, has had three sons and one daughter, namely:
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(1) Douglas, translator of works by Signor Benedetto Croce, the Italian philosopher.
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(2) Percival (ob. 1895), who married Beatrice Brabazon Moore, and left one daughter, now Mrs. Tristram Beresford.
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(3) Julian, who married (1) Florence Elphinstone, by whom he had two daughters, the elder of whom is married (Mrs. Ruthven Stewart), and (2) Juliet Molesworth, by whom he has one daughter.
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(4) Edith Fanny (Rachel).