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.