The Story of the British Army

by Charles Cooper King

For a time hostilities languished, but they were resumed against the Mysoreans in 1789, when Cannanore was taken; and finally, in 1792, Tippoo’s capital, Seringapatam, fell, and his two sons were left as hostages for the fulfilment of the treaty of peace that followed.

All this led to increased interest in Indian affairs by the home Government, and a corresponding increase in the number of European troops employed. In India there were by now the 23rd Light Dragoons, a regiment of Hanoverians, the 74th, 75th, 76th, and 77th Regiments of the line, together with the 98th, and the European Regiments of the East India Company; so that in 1784 the white troops numbered nearly 18,000 men. Hostilities recommenced in 1799 with Tippoo, and this time finally. With all his savage cruelty, he was a man of some military genius, as far as his education went. He does not seem to have lacked personal bravery; and notwithstanding the want of communication with England, he watched with interest the contests his British enemy in India was waging elsewhere. He corresponded with the French authorities in Mauritius; therefore, in 1797, with a view to a French alliance, he entered into negotiations with the Nizam and the Ameer of Afghanistan to help him, as Mahometans, against the “Feringhi” foe. But the Governor-General, Lord Mornington, was not prepared to wait till the war-clouds had fully gathered.

Warning Tippoo first, he assembled an army against him. The Bombay troops, under Stuart, were despatched to the Coromandel coast; at Malavelly, the Madras army under Haes, composed of Sepoys stiffened by the 33rd Regiment, at that time under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Arthur Wellesley, won a victory; and finally, after a brief siege, Seringapatam was carried by storm. Here the flank companies of the 12th, 33rd, 73rd, and 74th gallantly led the way, supported by the 12th and 75th, some 1200 native infantry, and 1000 British and 1800 native cavalry; a force which, with 60 field and 40 siege guns and their crews, numbered nearly 22,000 men. Two other armies co-operated more or less with the above; the one the troops of the Nizam, with some Sepoys, under Wellesley, the other under Stuart, formed of Sepoys and 1600 Europeans, including the old 103rd. The attack on Seringapatam was made at night, and fiercely resisted, war rockets being freely used by the defenders. But the British troops were not to be denied. The place was carried with much slaughter, and Tippoo fell, sword in hand, in the gateway of his capital, surrounded by his faithful followers, of whose dead bodies there lay seventy “in a space 4 yards wide by 12 long.”

It was to Sir David Baird that the chief credit of the assault was due, but none the less he was superseded in the government of the city by Colonel Wellesley, the brother of the Governor-General. “And thus, before the sweat was dry on my brow, I was superseded by an inferior officer.” These are his own words. But he lived to do distinguished work later, in Egypt, whither Wellesley was to have gone also, had not fever checked him.

Thus the whole kingdom of Mysore was practically added to the increasing empire of Great Britain, but brought her into hostile contact with the empire of the Mahrattas. This was founded by Sivagi in the previous century, and extended from Delhi to a tributary of the Krishna, and from Gujerat to the Bay of Bengal. Its leading chieftains were, speaking generally, the Peishwa at Poona, the Rajah of Berar, Scindia in the Northern Deccan, Holkar about Malwa, and the Guikowar about Gujerat. Touching these were the tributary state of the Nizam, the conquered Mysore, and the rest of the Carnatic and other territories that had succumbed to the growing land-hunger of the British Company.

The former governor of Seringapatam, now Lord Wellesley, was Governor-General of India. The perpetual antagonism of the native rulers among themselves gave him the same opportunity of assisting the one against the other as had fallen to his predecessors. He availed himself of the political chance as they had, but not to the same extent. There was a greater knowledge arising of Indian affairs, due possibly to the former action of Warren Hastings, and the prominency his impeachment by Burke in the House of Commons had given to these matters, and possibly also a growing popular interest in the political conduct of our rule in the great peninsula.

There was still the danger of French intervention and assistance. France, in those days, stood as an always possibly active opponent of the East India Company, as Russia does now of the Imperial Government of the same land.

Wellesley’s policy was rather one of subsidised alliances with the native princes than the active assistance of one against the other in local wars. Doubtless the practical result was much the same. The dominant power, in the long-run, absorbed the feeble units, to all intents and purposes, as fully as Clive and his successors had by war brought vast territories under the British rule.

The Peishwa made the first overtures. He wanted to regain his lost pre-eminence, and by the treaty of Bassein it was agreed to restore him. “It was the greatest diplomatic triumph which the world has ever witnessed. On the eve of a contest impending, which could not have been long delayed, between the Máráthá Confederacy and the British, it broke up the Máráthá Confederacy, it relieved the English of the danger which had long threatened them of having to face at one and the same time the united power of a league whose territories comprehended the North-West Provinces of India, Central India, and the greater part of Western India, and allowed them to meet and conquer each section of that league singly.”[55]

So the natural results followed. The rest of the Mahratta leaders formed common cause against the Peishwa and his new ally. They had, directly and indirectly, the assistance of their former ally, the French. Scindia had the aid and counsel of Perron, who had organised the former’s army after European methods. Pondicherry, restored to France by the treaty of Amiens, was a base of operations should that nation be at war with us, and had temporary command of the eastern seas. Wellesley made the first move, and restored the Peishwa by the capture of Poona; but it was evident the “restoration” was but a sham.