War broke out with the Ghoorkas in Nepal in 1813–15; other hostilities occurred with the Pindari freebooters in 1815, when the enemy, arrogant and blustering, were defeated by the 24th, 66th, and 87th, with Indian troops in addition under Ochterlony, and converted into friends. They had no great opinion of us at first. We had “been driven from Bhurtpore, which was the work of man: how should they then storm the mountain citadel, which was built by the hands of God?” But they took their punishment with good humour, and having appealed to China, as the suzerain power, to help them, after all requested our assistance if the relieving army entered their territories. Thus this little frontier state of India first brought us within measureable distance of war with the Celestial Empire.
Finally, there was fighting with the Mahrattas again, at Nagpore (where the second battalion of the Royal Scots behaved with exemplary steadiness), at Maheidpore and Corregaum, at Soonee and Talnere, and lastly, at the capture of the fortress of Assirghur, “the Gibraltar of the East.”
In this latter “affair,” the Royal Scots, the flank companies of the 38th, 67th, and Madras European Regiments, vied with each other in the siege and storm of this most formidable fortress. The result of all these operations was that the bulk of our late enemy’s possessions was annexed to the Empire.
The strength of the European army, both Imperial and local, had steadily grown. In 1817 there were four cavalry regiments, the 8th, 17th, 22nd, and 24th Light Dragoons, and the 7th, 8th, 14th, 65th, 67th, 87th, and 47th Regiments of the line, serving in India.
With the exception of some punitive expeditions against the Wahabees in the Persian Gulf, and against the Kandians in Ceylon, little occurred for many years, except the second and successful siege of Bhurtpore; though the Ameers of Scinde were at times restless, and their action foreshadowed at no distant period a serious campaign.
But the capture of Bhurtpore is an important epoch in our military history in India. It was the capital of the Jauts, who boasted that neither the English nor the Mogul had been able to subdue them. But their self-confidence had a rude awakening. For Lord Combermere assembled an army in November 1825, among which were the 11th Dragoons, 16th Lancers, and the 14th and 59th Regiments, with the future 101st, and this force brilliantly carried the hitherto impregnable fortress by storm. The 16th Lancers, who had only recently been armed with the lance, especially distinguished themselves, and slew or took prisoners 3000 cavalry and infantry of the enemy, when attempting to escape after the great breach was carried, this latter duty falling mainly to the 14th and 59th.
A curious bit of superstition gathers round the fall of Bhurtpore. The native tradition was, that the place would only fall when an alligator, or kumbhir, “drank up the waters of the city ditch.” When, therefore, Lord Combermere invested the place, and, by cutting the banks of Lake “Mootee Jheel,” prevented the ditch from being filled with water, the old prediction was in native eyes awfully fulfilled.
Among the spoil, amounting in value to £500,000, was found, singularly enough, a small cannon of brass, bearing the inscription, “Jacobus Monteith me fecit, Edinburgh, anno Dom. 1642.”
This important victory not only confirmed the conquest of India, but, by wiping out the remembrance of Lord Lake’s failure to carry the place in 1805 with the flank companies of the 22nd, 57th, and 76th line Regiments, and the Company’s European Regiment, it restored the British prestige among the natives, and prevented the occurrence of a general rising against our rule, which the absence of so large a number of troops in Ava rendered possible, if not from positive dislike to us, from a desire for plunder. In this gallant siege hand grenades were used for the last time in India.