Warren Hastings was not content with a single effort to reopen the commercial and friendly intercourse which in former times had subsisted between Tibet and India. As he had expected little from the first move, so he had always intended to work continuously with the same end in view, hoping to eventually gain that end by repeated efforts over long periods.

Bogle returned to Calcutta in June, 1775, and in November of the same year Hastings deputed Dr. Hamilton, who had accompanied him to Tibet, on a second mission to Bhutan. Hamilton spent some months in Bhutan, inquiring into and settling certain causes of dispute; and in July, 1777, he was sent on a third mission to Bhutan to congratulate a new Deb Raja on his succession. Thus, as Markham points out, Warren Hastings, by keeping up a regular intercourse with the Bhutan rulers, by maintaining a correspondence with the Tashi Lama, and by means of an annual fair at Rangpur, prevented the opening made by Bogle from again being closed.

Warren Hastings also intended to send another mission to Tibet itself, and in 1779 Bogle was appointed Envoy for a second time. But in the meanwhile the Tashi Lama had decided to undertake a journey to Peking to visit the Chinese Emperor. Bogle, therefore, was to have been sent to Peking to meet the Lama there, but, most disastrously for all friendly intercourse between Tibet and India, the Lama died in Peking in November 1780, and Bogle himself died at Calcutta in April, 1781.

The success of Asiatic affairs depends so much on the influence of personalities that the death of these two men, who had conceived such a real respect and affection for one another, was an almost fatal blow to Warren Hastings’ plans for the improvement of the relationship between Tibet and India. Nevertheless, he kept steadily on with his deliberate policy, and watched for some other opportunity of carrying it to fruition. Persistency of aim and watchfulness for opportunities, making the most of the occasion offered, and decisiveness of action—these were always Hastings’ guiding principles. So when, in February, 1782, news reached Calcutta that the Tashi Lama, in accordance with the Tibetan ideas of reincarnation, had reappeared in the person of an infant, he resolved to send another mission to Tibet to congratulate the Regent.

For this duty he selected Captain Samuel Turner, an officer who had distinguished himself at the Siege of Seringapatam and on a mission to Tippoo Sultan, and who was then thirty-three years of age.

Turner himself was very favourably received at Shigatse, and at his first interview informed the Regent that Warren Hastings had an earnest solicitude to preserve and cultivate the amicable intercourse that had so happily commenced between them; that this correspondence, in its earliest stages, had been dictated by the purest motives of humanity, and had hitherto pointed with unexampled sincerity and steadiness towards one great object, which constituted the grand business of the Tashi Lama’s life—peace and universal good; that the Governor-General, whose attention was always directed towards the same pursuits, was overwhelmed with anxiety lest the friendship which had been established between himself and the Regent might undergo a change, and he had therefore sent a trusted agent to convey his congratulations on the joyful reappearance in the world of the late Tashi Lama, and to express the hope that everything that was expected would at length be effectually accomplished.

To this the Regent replied that the present and the late Tashi Lama were one and the same, and that there was no manner of difference between them, only that, as he was yet merely an infant, and his spirit had but just returned into the world, he was at present incapable of action. The Regent assured Turner of the firm, unshaken attachment which the Tashi Lama had entertained for Mr. Hastings to his latest breath, and he was also loud in his encomiums on the occasion that gave birth to their present friendship, which originated entirely in his granting peace to the Bhutanese in compliance with the intercession of the Tashi Lama.

In other interviews the Regent assured Turner that during the interview of the late Tashi Lama with the Emperor of China, the Lama had taken several opportunities to represent in the strongest terms the particular amity which subsisted between the Governor-General and himself. The Regent said that the Lama’s conversation had even influenced the Emperor to resolve upon commencing a correspondence with his friend. Turner was also assured that the Tashi Lama particularly sought from the Emperor liberty to grant admission to Tibet to whatever person he chose, without control. And to this the Emperor is said to have consented; but, owing to the death of the Tashi Lama and the jealousy of the Chinese officials, nothing resulted.

The power and influence of these Chinese officials in Tibet was evidently very great, for in his intercourse with the Tibetan officials Turner could plainly trace, though they were averse to own any immediate dependence upon the Chinese, the greatest awe of the Emperor of China, and of his officers stationed at the Court of Lhasa, who had usurped even from the hands of the Dalai Lama the greatest portion of his temporal power. When Turner offered to attend a certain ceremony, the Regent excused himself from accepting the offer of his company on account of the Chinese, whose jealousy of strangers was well known, and to whom he was particularly anxious to give no occasion for offence. On a subsequent occasion the Regent told Turner that many letters had passed between himself and the Dalai Lama, who was always favourably inclined towards the English; but he attributed the discouragement and obstruction Turner had received to the Chinese officials at Lhasa. “The influence of the Chinese,” adds Turner, “overawes the Tibetans in all their proceedings, and produces a timidity and caution in their conduct more suited to the character of subjects than allies.” At the same time, they were very jealous of interference by the Chinese, and uneasy of their yoke, though it sat so lightly upon them. And while they respected the Chinese Emperor, and had this fear of Chinese officials, they “looked upon the Chinese as a gross and impure race of men.”

And now again, as in Bogle’s time, we see traces of Russian influence. The Regent and the Ministers told Turner that they were no strangers to the reputation of the reigning Czarina, Catherine, her extent of dominion, and the commerce carried on with China. Many overtures, they told him, had been made on the part of Russia to extend her commerce to the internal part of Tibet, but the disinclination of the Tibetans to enter into any new foreign connection, and the watchful jealousy of the Chinese, had hitherto defeated every attempt of that nature.

Turner spent nearly a year in Tibet, and though he was unable to visit Lhasa owing to the antipathy of the Lamas, he was able to obtain some substantial concessions from the Regent of the Tashi Lama at Shigatse. He obtained^[5] “his promise of encouragement to all merchants, natives of India, that may be sent to traffic in Tibet, on behalf of the Government of Bengal,” and he reports to Warren Hastings that his authority alone is requisite to secure these merchants the protection of the Regent, who had promised to grant free admission into Tibet to all such merchants, natives of India, as shall come recommended by the Governor of Bengal; to yield them every assistance requisite for the transport of their goods; and to assign them a place of residence for vending their commodities, either within the monastery at Shigatse, or, should it be considered as more eligible, in the town itself. He did not consider it consistent with the spirit of Warren Hastings’ instructions, he reports, to be importunate for greater privileges than those to native traders. Such as he had obtained he hoped would suffice to open the much-wished-for communication. When merchants had learnt the way, tasted the profit and established intercourse, the traffic might bear a tax, which, if laid upon it in its infancy, might suppress its growth.

Turner rejoined Warren Hastings at Patna in March, 1784, and I remember seeing, among some original letters of Warren Hastings in the Indian Foreign Office, an enthusiastic appreciation of Turner’s work, and an expression of the great pleasure the meeting afforded him; for Hastings was as warmly appreciative with some men as he was coldly reserved with others.

As long as Hastings remained in India our intercourse with Tibet prospered. But soon after his departure a contretemps occurred, and all his work was undone. In 1792 the Nepalese invaded Tibet, sacked Shigatse, and carried off all the plunder of the monasteries. The Lamas had to flee across the Brahmaputra and apply for protection to the Chinese. A Chinese army was despatched to their assistance. The Nepalese were defeated and driven back across their own frontier, and peace was only concluded upon the conditions of an annual tribute to the Emperor and the full restitution of all the spoils which they carried off.

By an unfortunate circumstance, through the first British Envoy having arrived in Nepal just about the time of this invasion, the Chinese commander formed the impression that we had instigated, or at least encouraged, the Nepalese in their attack on Tibet; and the representations which he made to his Government, coupled, says Turner, with our declining to afford effectual assistance to the Lamas’ cause, had considerable weight. As a consequence, all communication between Tibet and India was stopped, and “the approach of strangers, even of Bengal and Hindustan, was utterly prohibited.” The Hindu holy men were charged with treachery in acting as spies and guides for the Nepalese, and were forbidden to remain any longer in Shigatse; and “from this period,” continues Turner, “unhappily is to be dated the interruption which has taken place in the regular intercourse between the Company’s possessions and the territory of the Lama.”

It was a sad ending to what had begun so promisingly, and one is tempted to reflect what Warren Hastings would have done if he had still held the reins of government in Bengal, and whether he would have been able to restrain the Gurkhas, to assist the Lamas, and to reassure the Chinese. Certainly it is a most unfortunate circumstance that we so often are unable to help our friends just when they most need our help, and press our friendship upon them just when they least want it.

Thus the results of Warren Hastings’ forethought and careful, steady endeavour were all lost. Yet it must be conceded by the sturdiest advocate of non-interference that those endeavours were not merely statesman-like, but humane. There was never any attempt to aggress. No threats were ever used; no impatience was shown. Warren Hastings, as the representative of a trading company, looked, firstly, to improve trade relations; but as the ruler of many millions of human beings, he knew that trade or any other relationship must be based on mutual good feeling, and he knew that good feeling with a suspicious people can only be established by a very, very slow process. He therefore took each step deliberately, and he strove to secure permanently the advantages of each small step taken; and, having done this, he had some right to expect that when he himself had shown so much restraint and moderation, those who followed after would continue the same deliberate policy.

Unfortunately, as we have seen, the policy of drift and inaction in regard to Tibet set in on Warren Hastings’ departure. The promotion of intercourse had proved a difficult business; and with so much on hand elsewhere in the building up of the Indian Empire, it was perhaps natural that the ordinary Governor-General should let the matter drop.