Lesson Learned

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Speaker 1 Welcome to Aaron Menke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of iHeartRadio and Grim and Mild.

Speaker 2 Our world is full of the unexplainable. And if history is an open book, All of these amazing tales are right there on display, just waiting for us to explore.

Speaker 2 Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.

Speaker 2 It probably goes without saying that the British conquest of India was the result of decades of ruthless subterfuge.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 They then worked to undermine the Indian government itself.

Speaker 2 In 1802, a loose confederation of Indian princes went to war with one another, and Britain used this as an opportunity to justify their takeover.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 One of the defining battles of this campaign was the Battle of Asse.

Speaker 2 where British forces were led by Major General Sir Arthur Wellesley.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 Major Wellesley awoke at the crack of dawn and ordered his troops on the march. They raced across the hills of India, hoping to catch the retreating Indian army.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 He wanted to bring honor to his family name, not stopping to think what he was doing to the country.

Speaker 2 It just didn't 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.

Speaker 2 The rapidly advancing army stopped suddenly when they came across a river blocking their path.

Speaker 2 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 other side of the river.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 He looked at a map and saw that there were two villages very close to one another further east down the river.

Speaker 2 The map didn't indicate whether the river was crossable there, but Wellesley felt that there had to be a crossing at that spot.

Speaker 2 Two villages wouldn't just crop up next to each other on opposite sides of a river with no way to travel back and forth.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 They turned toward the Indian army and prepared to surprise them. But their enemies were more clever than that.

Speaker 2 The Indian general anticipated this tactic and swiveled the Indian cannons a perfect 90 degrees. They opened fire on the British army, tearing them to pieces.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 Their regiments opened fire on the cannons, killing their operators, and then they ran at the Indian infantry with their bayonets. But once again, they had underestimated their enemy.

Speaker 2 Many members of the Indian Cannon Regiment had seen the rifle attack coming and were only playing dead.

Speaker 2 Once the rifle infantry passed over them, they got back up and started firing into the British infantry from behind.

Speaker 2 The major swore at this deception, ordering his cavalry to swarm the Indian cannons. This time, he made sure that they stayed dead.
Soon, Major Wellesley's army forced their enemy into a retreat.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 Over the 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.

Speaker 2 To them, the Indians were a resource for Britain to exploit. And this attitude served Wellesley well throughout his career.

Speaker 2 At first, he had very little sympathy for his enemy or the men under his command.

Speaker 2 He won stunning victories in Spain, and then in France, where he famously defeated Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815.

Speaker 2 Soon, he was better known throughout the empire by his noble title, the Duke of Wellington.

Speaker 2 He even became prime minister two different times, where he was violently pro-slavery and against social programs to help the poor. He was a big proponent of child labor.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 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 his troops.

Speaker 2 It was a curious way to admit that he had failed to learn the value of human life.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 1 Banking with Capital One helps you keep more money in your wallet, with no fees or minimums on checking accounts and no overdraft fees. Just ask the Capital One bank guy.

Speaker 1 It's pretty much all he talks about. In a good way.
He'd also tell you that this podcast is his favorite podcast, too.

Speaker 1 Oh, really?

Speaker 1 Thanks, Capital One Bank Guy.

Speaker 1 What's in your wallet? Terms apply. See Capital One.com/slash bank.
Capital One NA member FDIC.

Speaker 2 This show is sponsored by American Public University. You want your master's degree.
You know you can earn it, but life gets busy.

Speaker 2 The packed schedule, the late nights, and then there's the unexpected. American Public University was built for all of that.

Speaker 2 With monthly starts and no-set login times, APU's 40-plus flexible online master's programs are designed to move at the speed of life. Start your master's journey today at apu.apus.edu.
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Speaker 2 Ask any police detective and they'll tell you that anonymous tip lines can be crucial to solving an investigation. When people see wrongdoing, they want to report it.

Speaker 2 They just have to find an inconspicuous way of sharing what they know. Which could be why, in 1772, an anonymous informant reached out to future founding father Benjamin Franklin.

Speaker 2 He had vital information that could 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.

Speaker 2 In December of 1772, Benjamin Franklin walked back to his house in London, England to find a mysterious package on his doorstep.

Speaker 2 Franklin, you see, had been living in London for 15 years as an agent for the House of Representatives of Massachusetts, so he was used to finding correspondence on his doorstep.

Speaker 2 But usually his letters bore a return address. He unwrapped the package and his eyes went wide.

Speaker 2 Inside were 13 letters written by Thomas Hutchinson, the new royal governor of Massachusetts, and his lieutenant governor, Andrew Oliver.

Speaker 2 The letters were written about five years before, between 1768 and 1769, a time period that Franklin knew had been one of social unrest in Boston where Governor Hutchinson was stationed.

Speaker 2 In the letters, Hutchinson vents his frustration over the growing political tension in the colonies.

Speaker 2 The colonists were upset over taxes imposed by the British government on common goods like sugar, paper, glass, even playing cards.

Speaker 2 And yet the colonists themselves had no representation in parliament. They called the taxes tyranny.

Speaker 2 The colonists grew so frustrated that in 1765, a group of angry, overtaxed rebels sacked the governor's mansion, costing half a million dollars in damages in today's money.

Speaker 2 After that, protests became commonplace in Boston. Anti-British sentiment grew.
Hutchinson became worried that Boston was on the brink of an all-out revolt.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 He also suggested that the Massachusetts government be restructured to give the governor more power. Franklin was shocked.

Speaker 2 He realized that these letters were the reason why, a few years before, Parliament actually did send more troops to Boston.

Speaker 2 But instead of maintaining peace, the soldiers only exacerbated the tension between the patriots and those loyal to the crown.

Speaker 2 The tension reached a boiling point in 1770 when a crowd of angry protesters gathered in front of the old statehouse to harass the red coats that were stationed there.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 Hutchinson had worried that the colonies were on the verge of a revolution, and now it seemed that his call for military intervention would be the cause of it.

Speaker 2 Franklin wanted to avoid that at all costs. He was actually neutral to the idea of independence.

Speaker 2 He believed that a compromise between the colonies and parliament was possible, especially to avoid a bloody revolution. And so, he hatched a plan.

Speaker 2 He would 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.

Speaker 2 They could remove the governor and his lieutenant from office and find a path toward reconciliation with Parliament.

Speaker 2 And so, Franklin sent the letters back to North America to Thomas Cushing, the Speaker of the Assembly in Boston. He made it clear that Cushing was not to make the letters public for any reason.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 Effigies of Hutchinson and Oliver were burned on the Boston Common. The letters were reprinted in newspapers up and down the coast.
And when Parliament found out about it, all hell broke loose.

Speaker 2 They launched an all-out investigation looking for the traitor who sent the letters to Massachusetts. And eventually, they pinned the blame on three innocent men.

Speaker 2 And that's when Franklin knew that he had to come forward and admit what he had done.

Speaker 2 As a result, he was hauled into the Privy Council chamber where 35 ministers of Parliament spent the better part of an hour dressing him down and berating him with insults.

Speaker 2 He tried to plead his case, but they wouldn't hear him. They called him a thief before dismissing him from his post.

Speaker 2 As Franklin turned to leave the chamber, he realized that Parliament would never compromise with the colonies, that revolution would be the only way forward.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 He soon rejoined the Continental Congress and helped Thomas Jefferson draft the Declaration of Independence.

Speaker 2 He never figured out who sent him the Hutchinson letters, though, but that unmarked package added fuel to a growing fire and it sparked a revolution that changed the course of history.

Speaker 2 Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts or learn more about the show by visiting CuriositiesPodcast.com. This show was created by me, Aaron Mankey, in partnership with How Stuff Works.

Speaker 2 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 theworldoflore.com.
And until next time, stay curious.

Speaker 2 This show is sponsored by American Public University. You want your master's degree.
You know you can earn it, but life gets busy.

Speaker 2 The packed schedule, the late nights, and then there's the unexpected. American Public University was built for all of that.

Speaker 2 With monthly starts and no set login times, APU's 40-plus flexible online master's programs are designed to move at the speed of life. Start your master's journey today at apu.apus.edu.
You want it?

Speaker 2 Come get it at APU.

Speaker 1 This is an iHeart Podcast.