SIKHIM AND BHUTAN
1775 Warren Hastings sent Hamilton into Bhutan to examine into the claims of the Deb Raja to Falakata and Julpaish, in the present Jalpaiguri district. Hamilton came to a conclusion in favour of the Deb Raja’s rights. In 1777 he was again sent to Bhutan to congratulate a new Deb Raja on his succession. In 1779 Warren Hastings, still keeping steadily in view his policy of maintaining regular intercourse with Bhutan and Tibet, determined to send Bogle again as envoy to the Penchen Rimpochi in Tibet, but as news arrived that the Rimpochi was about to take a journey to Pekin the Mission was postponed; and it was afterwards arranged, at the suggestion of the Lama, with the consent of the Emperor of China, that Bogle should meet the Lama at Pekin. This plan was most unfortunately frustrated by the death of the Penchen Rimpochi, at Pekin, from small-pox, and not long afterwards Bogle died in Calcutta of cholera. There can be little doubt that had this meeting with the Penchen Rimpochi taken place under such auspicious circumstances the whole course of our subsequent relations with Tibet and Bhutan would have been different.
A few years later the reincarnation of the Penchen Rimpochi in Tibet was reported to Warren Hastings; the Governor-General at once seized this further opportunity offered him of prosecuting his policy with the Lhasa Government, despatched Captain Turner in 1783 as his envoy to the Court of the infant Lama, and made him the bearer of the congratulations of the Indian Government on the event. Turner was also charged with letters to the Deb Raja, and it would appear from his report that he was to stimulate the Bhutan Durbar to keep to its engagements under the articles of trade concluded by Bogle. Eden also says that Turner was instructed to cede to the Government of Bhutan the district of Falakata, in Jalpaiguri. Turner’s Mission to Tibet was the last for many years. So far Warren Hastings’ policy had been successful. He had succeeded in establishing friendly relations with
266
