LETTER LV.
Hyder Alli Khawn, late Nabob of Mysore, and father to the present Tippoo Sahib Sultain, was as extraordinary a man, and perhaps possessed as great natural talents, as any recorded in the page of History. Born and bred up in the lowest ranks of an unenlightened and ignorant People, and to the last day of his life perfectly illiterate, he not only emerged from his native obscurity by the vigour of his mind and body, but became an object of terror and admiration to surrounding Potentates. Early initiated in the habits and inured to the toils of a military life, he rose, by the gradual steps of promotion, to a rank which afforded an opportunity of displaying his capacity and prowess: he soon obtained the command of that army in which he had once served as a common soldier, and immediately demonstrated that the sublimity of his mind was formed to keep pace with his extraordinary elevation.
The Marhattas, the most formidable people in Hither India, bordered on the Mysorean dominions, and kept their neighbours, by frequent hostilities, in a continual state of awe——making incursions on their territories, and taking possession, by force of arms, of large portions of their Country: but no sooner had Hyder got the command of the armies of his Country, than he drove back the Marhattas from the Mysorean dominions, which he extended by considerable acquisitions from the Marhatta frontiers; and followed up his conquests with such successful ardour, that he compelled that warlike Nation to respect his Countrymen as their equals, if not superiors, in military achievement. Thus, while he ingratiated himself with his Sovereign and Fellow-citizens by his wisdom, he acquired the admiration of the Soldiery by his personal address and valour; and at the same time, by the severity of his discipline, and the occasional austerity of his deportment, maintained an awe over them, which strengthened his authority without diminishing their affection.
Hyder was therefore now arrived at that point of elevation, beyond which no exertion of mental capacity, if governed by virtue or integrity, could raise him——So far he owed all to genius: but his towering ambition looked higher; and, unrestrained by any principle of religion or morality, he determined to accomplish, at any rate, that which he knew nothing but crime could accomplish. With wicked deliberation he looked forward into the womb of time, and with unparalleled policy arranged the whole system upon which he was to act, when that order of things his penetrating and intuitive genius enabled him to see would naturally arise from each other, should afford him a proper opportunity. Although he was utterly ignorant of books, and of course could derive little benefit from the examples of the great and ambitious men recorded in History, yet, drawing upon the infinite resources of his own mind for[for] information, he adopted the very same means of furthering his views; and foreseeing, that, with an immense army devoted to his interests, few things would be unattainable, he applied himself diligently to model and form that of the King of Mysore to the greatest perfection in discipline, and to render it attached to his person, and subservient to his views, by a skillful mixture of severity and relaxation, toil and reward, danger and applause, which none but a master-hand like his was capable of exactly compounding.
The death of his Sovereign the King of Mysore at length afforded him the opportunity to which he had so long, and with so prophetic an eye, looked forward——and gave him ample room for self-gratulation on the score of his sagacity and prudence.
The Heir in succession to the Throne, being then an infant, the politic Hyder, setting aside all claims of the kindred of the young Prince, took upon himself the guardianship——under the title of Regent assumed the supreme authority——and, though too well aware of the inviolable attachment of the People to their lawful Monarch to put him directly to death, usurped the Throne, and consigned him to imprisonment in Seringapatam, the capital of the Mysorean dominions.
Having thus, by his talents, acquired the possession of the Throne, he gave a large range to the sublimity of his views, and soon displayed the exhaustless resources of his mind in the new office of Governor and Legislator——forming such vast, well-ordered military establishments, and such judicious and salutary civil institutions, as made him blaze forth at once the terror of his neighbours, and rendered him, in the sequel, the most powerful and formidable Potentate in the Hither Peninsula. In carrying on those, his deficiency in letters was supplied by his vigilance and sagacity, sharpened by suspicion: three secretaries executed all his orders in separate apartments; and if, on comparison, they were found to differ, he who committed the error received sentence of death. His natural cruelty made him take the execution of their sentence upon himself not unfrequently: to slice off a head with his own hand, or see it done by others, was a luxurious recreation to the sanguinary Hyder.
The natural sagacity of this great man suggested, that in order to accomplish the extensive objects which his active and ambitious temper held up to his imagination, the introduction of the most perfect military discipline was above all other things necessary; and his judgment informed him that the European was the best. He therefore held out the most tempting allurements to military adventurers, and particularly to those, whether black or white, who had been trained in the service of the English East India Company: he sent emissaries, for the purpose, to all parts of India, with instructions to offer great rewards; and carried this design so far, that whenever accident or war threw persons of that description into his hands, he never failed to detain them, and, if they refused to enter into his service, treat them with the most unpardonable rigour and barbarity; and by these means brought his army to a state of perfection till then unknown to a Black Power. He did not stop there, but determined to establish a Navy——by large offers allured many ship-carpenters and artizans from Bombay——made no inconsiderable progress in constructing dock-yards, and had actually equipped some ships of the line, besides frigates, fitted to encounter European seas. Indeed, he seemed to have carried his views of conquest even to the Polar regions; for it is a fact, that he directed his people, in constructing those vessels, to fit them for encountering seas of ice, or, as he called it, the thick water.
To a man of such ardent ambition and deep penetration, the vast power which the English East India Company had acquired, and were daily acquiring, in the East, could not fail to be an object of jealousy. He conceived a deadly and implacable animosity to the British Nation, which influenced his whole succeeding life, ended only with his death, and was then transmitted to his son Tippoo Sahib, with the exaction of a solemn oath, ever to retain those sentiments.
A coincidence of circumstances, which has seldom occurred in the fortunes of men, tended, at a lucky crisis, to further the bold projects of Hyder; and neither fortune, though extremely propitious to him, nor his own unbounded talents and energetic[energetic] spirit, favoured the execution of them, more than the bungling politics, the ludicrous ambition, and the consequent unjustifiable proceedings, of one of our Presidencies in India——I mean Bombay. Fortunately, the wisdom and moderation of our East India Councils at this day, vindicate the wounded character of the British Nation, and justify me in the remarks I make.
An ambitious and profligate Chief of the Marhatta Tribes——his name, Roganaut Row——had been deposed by the Wise Men of his Country, for having murdered his nephew, in order to usurp the Throne of Setterah. He fled to Bombay, and, by specious promises and other means, prevailed on that Presidency to afford him an asylum, and finally to take up arms in his defence against the united Marhatta States, who at the very time were able to raise an army of three hundred thousand fighting men. Hostilities were first commenced by the English; and by them peace was first proposed. The treaty of Poonah was made, by which it was provided that Roganaut Row should quit Bombay; and by the English the provisions of that treaty were broken——for, in direct violation of it, Roganaut was kept at Bombay. This breach of the treaty led to another; for this crafty and unprincipled Chief made use of it with such address as to persuade that Presidency to attack the Marhattas again:——by magnifying the power of his party among his Countrymen, he prevailed upon them once more to assert his rights; and the Presidency of Calcutta, I am afraid, were induced to join that of Bombay in the plan.
It happened unfortunately, that at this time the Presidency of Bombay was composed of persons the most unqualified, probably, that could be found in any community for offices of such importance. One, particularly, was allowed, by the almost unanimous consent of those who knew his private or public character, to be ignorant, not only of the first principles of Government, but of the ordinary knowledge requisite for a Gentleman; and for situations of moment he was peculiarly disqualified by a fondness for minutiæ, to which he paid more attention than to matters of greater consequence. A temper and intellect of this kind were rendered still more incapable of the enlarged views[views] any Representative of a great Nation in a distant Colony should possess, by a mercantile education and habits, which narrowed even his circumscribed mind, and left him not a sentiment, not an idea, that was not merely commercial. The administration of such men was exactly what might have been expected; and, instead of asserting the dignity of Great Britain, or promoting the advantage of their employers——narrow policy, selfish views, and efforts arising from mistaken notions of conquest, made the whole tissue of their conduct in India.
Blinded by the plausible insinuations of Roganaut, and stimulated, as I have already observed, by a lust for conquest, which would have been unjustifiable even in an hereditary Despot, but which were peculiarly vicious and ridiculous in a body of Merchants who were themselves subjects, the East India Company’s Servants again determined to support, by force of arms, that most atrocious murderer: and with the contemptibly inadequate force of four thousand men, encumbered with an unwieldy train of baggage and servants for the accommodation of finikin voluptuous Officers, and led by two doughty compting-house champions (Carnac and Mostyn), with Colonel Egerton as Military Assistant rather than Commander, they set out, to encounter the whole torrent of the Marhatta force, and conduct Roganaut to Poonah.
Had Roganaut advanced at the head of his own partizans only, the Chiefs of the Marhatta Nation might possibly have taken different sides of the question, and left between them a breach for his arms or intrigues to make an entrance fatal to the general cause of the Country: but the assaults of a foreign army——an army of interested peculating strangers, as the Company’s troops then were——an army of avowed natural enemies, professing a different religion, entertaining different political principles, and formed by Nature of a different complexion——roused and united them in one common cause, and compressed discordant interests, which had been for time immemorial at irreconcilable variance, into one compact body of resistance, which, as it became more firm from the strokes of hostility, could not, in the nature of things, be subdued; in the same manner as the unjustifiable confederacy of Kings against France lately united all the conflicting parties of that Country—converted twenty-seven millions of People, male and female, into one compact armed force——rendered them not only invincible at home, but terrible abroad——and finally, has enabled them to bestride, Colussus like, the universe.
LETTER LVI[LVI].
The approach of the British Troops with Roganaut caused great alarm at Poonah; and the Ministers there sent to offer terms, which were contemptuously rejected. They then determined to save, by prowess, those rights which they could not preserve by justice or negociation——and took the field with such great force, that their menacing enemies found it expedient to consider of a retreat. The faithful Roganaut, finding his plans baffled, sent privately to Scindiah, the Marhatta Chief, proposing to him to attack the English, and promising in that case to join him with his part of the army: his perfidy, however, being discovered, the English Commanders began to retreat, carrying him along with them. They were, however, surrounded, and reduced to make the most abject concessions——offering a carte-blanche to Scindiah as the price of a retreat: but that august Chief nobly disdained to take advantage of their situation, and contented himself with terms which justice should have exacted from them, even if necessity had not compelled their acceptance. The restoration of Salsette, and of the other conquests made by the Company’s troops during the preceding hostilities, and the delivery of Roganaut’s person into the hands of the Marhattas, were among the provisions. Roganaut was delivered up: two hostages were taken for the remaining part of the treaty; and the harrassed remains of the English army were permitted to return to Bombay.
Roganaut having found means to escape, reached Surat; and the Company’s Chiefs refused to comply with the provisions of the treaty: notwithstanding which, the noble Marhatta dismissed the hostages, and prepared for a more manly revenge than that which could be wreaked on two defenceless individuals. General Goddart, who had been sent with an army from Bengal, was commissioned to negociate for a pacification: but Scindiah making the delivery of Roganaut into his hands an indispensable preliminary, the negociation was broken off, and both parties determined to refer the controversy to the decision of the Sword.
Every thing seemed to conspire to chastise the rashness and folly of our Indian Councils. The difficulties in which our American contest had involved the Nation, were reported with exaggeration in India, and gave additional firmness to our enemies in that quarter. The restless and intriguing spirit of the Court of Versailles found its way with Monsieur St. Lubin to the shores of Indostan, and so powerfully worked upon the mind of Hyder, that he entered into a treaty with France against England, and brought the strength of both into the most formidable combination that ever was made in that Country, to root out the power of Great Britain from the East.
Thus, by the depraved politics of the Councils of a petty Settlement, were the important interests of Great Britain in India, and the lives and properties of all its servants in that quarter, at once exposed to the fury of three formidable hostile powers——the Marhattas, Hyder and the French.
I will not entangle my narrative with a detail of the various military operations which arose from this confederacy: they were in general disastrous to the English, whose power there was preserved from utter annihilation by the energetic Councils of Mr. Hastings, the unexampled courage, of our troops, and the unparalleled abilities and gallantry of the veteran Sir Eyre Coote. That part which applies to my present narrative, is the only part I think it necessary to detail; but I wish you to inform yourself of all of them fully, by an attentive perusal of the different histories of that war.
In order to relieve the Carnatic, which was suffering under the ravages of a formidable victorious army, who had not only cut off a great part of our forces on that coast, but affronted our army even at the walls of Fort St. George, descents upon the coasts of Malabar were planned, in order to make a diversion: and General Mathews, in January 1783, landed, with a small army under his command, at a place called Rajamondroog——took Onore, and several forts; and being joined by other troops, which, under the command of Colonel Humbertson, had done considerable services to the Southward, and were now commanded by Colonel Macleod, marched from Cundapore, with an army consisting of twelve hundred Europeans and eight battalions of Sepoys, towards Hussaingurry Ghaut, a pass that leads over these immense mountains which divide the Peninsula, running North and South from Persia to Gape Comorin. After surmounting obstacles that would have discouraged a less enterprising Commander, and for which I refer you to his own Letter, inclosed herewith,[[8]] he mounted the Ghaut, carrying every thing before him with the fixed bayonet; and reached, within a short march of Hydernagur, the place where I was confined. Those operations were undoubtedly much facilitated by the death of Hyder Alli, which happened while I was in prison, and which drew the attention of Tippoo Sahib to affairs of more immediate importance than the defence of the Malabar forts.
I have thus digressed from the straight path of my narrative, in order to explain to you the occasion of the extraordinary revolution that so suddenly took place in the fort, which I stated to you in my last Letter but one——You will therefore look back to the conclusion of that Letter, from whence I again take up my narrative.
[8]. See Appendix.
I was utterly at a loss to conjecture what this so sudden resolution to release me and my opposite fellow-prisoner meant. I endeavoured to get some explanation of it from the persons about me; but all I could at the time collect was, that the Jemadar had directed me to be taken out of irons, and ordered me to appear before him. I walked out of the citadel with two or three men who had got charge of me: it was a delightful afternoon; and my sensations on once more revisiting the open air——at again viewing the vast expanse of the firmament above, and the profusion of beauties with which Nature embellished the earth beneath——were too blissful, too sublime, for description. My heart beat with involuntary transports of gratitude to that Being from which all sprung; and I felt that Man is, in his nature, even without the intervention of his reason, a being of devotion. For an hour of such delight as I then experienced, a year of imprisonment was, I thought, hardly too dear a price. Those exquisite sensations insensibly led my heart to the most flattering presages: the animal spirit appeared to have, in correspondence with the body, shaken off a load of chains; and as I walked, along, I seemed to tread on air.
As we proceeded forward, we found, at some distance from the fort, an open dooly, into which, the guards forcibly crammed me; and I was carried off, still attended by the same men. As we went along, they gave me to understand that Hyat Sahib, the Jemadar, was at a place ten or a dozen miles distant from Bidanore. I thought it within myself a most extraordinary circumstance, and was at a loss to conjecture for what purpose he required my presence there. Perhaps, thought I, it is to deliver me personally into the hands of Tippoo——perhaps to send me to Seringapatam. Suspense whetted my curiosity; and impatience to know my fate, set my mind afloat upon a wide sea of conjecture. Still, however, my senses acknowledged a degree of pleasure indescribable——I inhaled the fresh air with greediness, and, as I snuffed it in, said to myself, “Well, well——at the worst, this will enliven my spirits, and lay up a new stock of health and vigour, to enable me to endure with manhood whatever other sufferings the barbarians, into whose hands I have fallen, may have in store for me.”
When we had got about a mile from the fort, we met a person attended by three others, all on horseback. He was a man of considerable rank in that Country, and I recollected to have seen him at the Jemadar’s Durbar, where he had manifested a favourable disposition towards me, looking always graciously, and nodding to me, which, considering my circumstances and his, was not a little extraordinary. The moment he recognized me, he leaped from his horse, apparently in great agitation: then turning to the guards, ordered them to leave me immediately——saying at the same time that he would be answerable for the consequences. They seemed at first to hesitate, whether they would obey him or not; but on his shaking at them his sword, which was all along drawn in his hand, and smeared with blood, and repeating his orders a second time in a firm and decisive tone of voice and manner, they all ran off.
As soon as we were alone, he revealed to me, that he had all along known who I was——had most heartily pitied my sufferings, and privately entertained the most anxious wishes to serve me, but could not venture to interfere——the least jealousy, when once awakened, being there always followed up by summary vengeance. He then mentioned his name, informing me that he was the son of a Nabob near Vellore, whose dominions had been wrested from him by force, and united to the Carnatic; that his family had received great favours from my father, in return for which he felt himself bound to do me every service in his power; but that, having been, after the misfortunes which befel his family, taken into the service of Hyder, and holding then a place of consequence under him, he was disqualified from demonstrating his gratitude and esteem in the way he wished: he added, he had just come from the summit of the Ghauts, where he left the English army posted, after their having beat the Circar troops, and carried all the strong works which had been erected for the defence of the passes, and were deemed from their situation impregnable; that the Jemadar, Hyat Sahib, had gone thither to encourage the troops, and animate them to one grand effort of resistance, and would remain there till the succeeding day——Here he stopped, and seemed much agitated; but, recovering himself soon, said, in a solemn and alarming manner, “This day I heard Hyat Sahib give orders to bring you before him, in order that he might satiate his revenge by your death! How happy am I in having an opportunity to rescue you! I will carry you back with me, therefore, to Bidanore, and place you in a state of security with my family.”