Lesson Learned

War and revolution are on the schedule for today's tour.

Order the official Cabinet of Curiosities book by clicking here today, and get ready to enjoy some curious reading!

 

 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history
is an open book, all of these amazing tales right
there on display, just waiting for us to explore. Welcome
to the Cabinet of Curiosities.

Speaker 1 (00:36):
It probably goes without saying that the British conquest of
India was the result of decades of ruthless subterfuge. First
arriving on the subcontinent under the guise of simple traders,
the British bargained and betrayed their way into being the
only European power operating in India. They then worked to
undermine the Indian government itself. In eighteen oh two, a

(00:58):
loose confederation of India princes went to war with one another,
and Britain used this as an opportunity to justify their takeover.
They offered protection to the losing prince, claiming that he
was the rightful ruler of India, and then they launched
an assault on central India that would cement their control.
One of the defining battles of this campaign was the

(01:18):
Battle of Aussay, where British forces were led by Major
General Sir Arthur Wellesley. Although he was Irish not English
by birth, he embodied the ruthless efficiency of British forces,
though he would soon find that his victories came at
the cost of his soul. Major Wellesley awoke at the
crack of dawn and ordered his troops on the march.

(01:39):
They raced across the hills of India, hoping to catch
the retreating Indian army. The Major wanted to prove himself
by defeating them in battle. His older brother was the
British Governor of India, and so he had a personal
stake in this as well as professional. He wanted to
bring honor to his family name, not stopping to think
what he was doing to the kun It just didn't

(02:01):
occur to him that he was bringing British oppression to
these people in the same way that his own Irish
ancestors had been colonized hundreds of years earlier. The rapidly
advancing army stopped suddenly when they came across a river
blocking their path on the other side. Major Wellesley was
shocked to see that the Indian Army had set up
a defensive position with cannons lining a ridge on the

(02:23):
other side of the river. Wellesley could tell the Indian
general wanted to trap his army in the river with
cannon fire, and he wasn't about to let that happen.
He looked at a map and saw that there were
two villages very close to one another further east down
the river. The map didn't indicate whether the river was
crossable there, but Wellesley felt that there had to be
a crossing at that spot. Two villages wouldn't just crop

(02:46):
up next to each other on opposite sides of a
river with no way to travel back and forth. So
he ordered his army east, and soon they arrived at
these villages, where sure enough there was a crossing of
the river. Wellesley smiled at his cleverness, then forced his
men on. They turned toward the Indian army and prepared
to surprise them, but their enemies were more clever than that.

(03:08):
The Indian general anticipated this tactic and swiveled the Indian
cannons up perfect ninety degrees. They opened fire on the
British army, tearing them to pieces. Major Wellesley saw no
way forward but ahead. He ordered his men to march
toward the cannons. They suffered heavy losses, but were soon
within rifle range. Their regiments opened fire on the cannons,

(03:30):
killing their operators, and then they ran at the Indian
infantry with their bayonets. But once again they had underestimated
their enemy. Many members of the Indian cannon regiment had
seen the rifle attack coming and were only playing dead.
Once the rifle infantry passed over them, they got back
up and started firing into the British infantry from behind.

(03:52):
The Major swore at this deception, ordering his cavalry to
swarm the Indian cannons. This time, he made sure they
stayed dead. Soon Major Wellesley's army forced their enemy into
a retreat. They killed thousands of enemy soldiers, but at
the cost of hundreds of dead and wounded of their own.
Not that any of this affected Wellesley much. Over the

(04:14):
next several years, he and his brother ruled India with
an iron fist, strictly enforcing segregation between the Indian people
and their own men, allowing very little intermingling to them.
The Indians were a resource for Britain to exploit, and
this attitude served Wellesley well throughout his career. At first
he had very little sympathy for his enemy or the

(04:35):
men under his command. He won stunning victories in Spain
and then in France, where he famously defeated Napoleon at
the Battle of Waterloo in eighteen fifteen. Soon he was
better known throughout the Empire by his noble title, the
Duke of Wellington. He even became Prime Minister two different times,
where he was violently pro slavery and against social programs

(04:57):
to help the poor. He was a big proponent of
child labor, but the many battles would eventually take their toll.
Later in his career, the Duke was seen weeping openly
at the sight of casualties on the battlefield. When he
was asked what he would have done differently in his career,
he answered, I should have given more praise, as if
to say he should have better appreciated the sacrifice of

(05:20):
his troops. There was a curious way to admit that
he had failed to learn the value of human life. Fortunately,
most of us don't have to fight three separate wars
across two different continents just to learn an obvious lesson
like that ourselves. Ask any police detective and They'll tell

(05:51):
you that anonymous tip lines can be crucial to solving
an investigation. When people see wrongdoing they want to report it.
They just have to find an in case conspicuous way
of sharing what they know, which could be why in
seventeen seventy two, an anonymous informant reached out to future
Founding father Benjamin Franklin. He had vital information that could

(06:11):
decide the course of a revolution, so in the dead
of night he delivered a smoking gun that would lead
to the shot heard round the world. In December of
seventeen seventy two, Benjamin Franklin walked back to his house
in London, England, to find a mysterious package on his doorstep. Franklin,
you see, had been living in London for fifteen years

(06:32):
as an agent for the House of Representatives of Massachusetts,
so he was used to finding correspondence on his doorstep,
but usually his letters bore a return address. He unwrapped
the package and his eyes went wide. Inside were thirteen
letters written by Thomas Hutchinsondy, new Royal Governor of Massachusetts,
and his lieutenant Governor, Andrew Oliver. The letters were written

(06:55):
about five years before, between seventeen sixty eight and seventeen
sixty nine, a time period that Franklin knew had been
one of social unrest in Boston, where Governor Hutchinson was stationed.
In the letters, Hutchinson vents his frustration over the growing
political tension in the colonies. The colonists were upset over
taxes imposed by the British government on common goods like sugar, paper, glass,

(07:19):
even playing cards, and yet the colonists themselves had no
representation in Parliament. They called the taxes tyranny. The colonists
grew so frustrated that in seventeen sixty five a group
of angry over taxed rebels sacked the Governor's mansion, costing
half a million dollars in damages in today's money.

Speaker 2 (07:38):
After that, protests.

Speaker 1 (07:40):
Became commonplace in Boston anti British sentiment grew. Hutchinson became
worried that Boston was on the brink of an all
out revolt. In these letters, he encouraged Parliament to send
more troops to Boston and to give them the freedom
to enact harsher punishments on colonial protesters. He also suggested
that the Massachusetts government be restructure to give the governor

(08:01):
more power. Franklin was shocked. He realized that these letters
were the reason why a few years before, Parliament actually
did send more troops to Boston, but instead of maintaining peace,
the soldiers only exacerbated the tension between the patriots and
those loyal to the crown. The tension reached a boiling
point in seventeen seventy when a crowd of angry protesters

(08:23):
gathered in front of the Old State House to harass
the Red Coats that were stationed there. A few of
them threw rocks, and to retaliate, nine British soldiers fired
into the crowd, killing five colonists. After that, protests erupted
in major cities like Boston and New York. Hutchinson had
worried that the colonies were on the verge of a revolution,

(08:44):
and now it seemed that his call for military intervention
would be the cause of it. Franklin wanted to avoid
that at all costs. He was actually neutral to the
idea of independence. He believed that a compromise between the
colonies and Parliament was possible, especially to a void a
bloody revolution, and so he hatched a plan. He would

(09:04):
show these letters to a few members of the Massachusetts
Assembly and they would realize that Hutchinson was largely to
blame for the escalating tensions in Boston. They could remove
the governor and his lieutenant from office and find a
path toward reconciliation with Parliament. And so Franklin sent the
letters back to North America to Thomas Cushing, the speaker

(09:24):
of the Assembly in Boston. He made it clear that
Cushing was not to make the letters public for any reason.
But months later Franklin learned that instead of keeping those
letters private, the Massachusetts Assembly leaked them to the press,
and the public took to the streets. Effigies of Hutchinson
and Oliver were burned on the Boston Common. The letters

(09:45):
were reprinted in newspapers up and down the coast, and
when Parliament found out about it, all hell broke loose.
They launched an all out investigation looking for the trader
who sent the letters to Massachusetts, and eventually they pinned
the blame on three innocent men. And that's when Franklin
knew that he had to come forward and admit what

(10:05):
he had done. As a result, he was hauled into
the Privy consul chamber, where thirty five ministers of Parliament
spent the better part of an hour dressing him down
and berating him with insults. He tried to plead his case,
but they wouldn't hear him. They called him a thief
before dismissing him from his post. As Franklin turned to
leave the chamber, he realized that Parliament would never compromise

(10:28):
with the colonies, that revolution would be the only way forward.
As he reached the chamber door, it said that he
turned to the Solicitor General and he whispered, I will
make your master a little king for this, and then
he left and sailed home to Philadelphia. He soon rejoined
the Continental Congress and helped Thomas Jefferson draft the Declaration

(10:48):
of Independence. He never figured out who sent him the
Hutchinson letters, though, but that unmarked package added fuel to
a growing fire and a sparked a revolution the change
the course of history. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided
tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on

(11:10):
Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show by visiting
Curiosities podcast dot com. This show was created by me
Aaron Mankey in partnership with how Stuff Works, I make
another award winning show called Lore, which is a podcast,
book series, and television show and you can learn all
about it over at the Worldoflore dot com.

Speaker 2 (11:32):
And until next time, stay curious.