As soon as Hydernagur was taken possession of, Hyat Sahib immediately issued orders to the forts of Mangalore, Deokull, Ananpore, and some others in that Country, to surrender to the British arms. Some obeyed the mandate; but those three resisted, and were reduced by General Mathews. Rendered incautious by success, our army became less vigilant, and Tippoo retook Hydernagur; and, in direct breach of the capitulation, made the garrison prisoners, treated them with a degree of inhumanity which chills the blood even to think of, and forced General Mathews to take poison in prison!
Mean-time Hyat Sahib, with whom the General had got into disputes, arrived at Bombay, and laid a charge against him, which he, being in the hands of Tippoo, could not controvert, or even know. And what was the charge? The whole extent of it was his (Mathews’s) having got two lacks of rupees, and a pearl necklace, as a present——a sum, considering the country and the circumstances, not at all extraordinary, but which is completely vindicated by the General’s Letter to the Court of Directors, dated at Mangalore, the 15th of March, 1783; in which he states the present, and requests permission to accept it. This, as I said before, is on record, and was translated by Mr. Sybbald, who was then Persian interpreter at Bombay. The Letter I allude to, you will see in the Appendix. In short, General Mathews had his faults, but an unjust avarice was not amongst them.
LETTER LIX.
Having, in my last Letter, said as much as I thought justice demanded in defence of General Mathews, against the charge of peculation, I am now to speak of him as his conduct touched me. He was, as I have already mentioned, an old friend of my father’s, and an intimate of my own: I had reason, therefore, to expect from him, according to the usual dispositions and manners of men, if not partiality, at least friendship; and in such a case as I have related, where my services gave me a claim to notice, it was not unreasonable to suppose that he would have been forward to promote my interest, by stating my services in such a manner as to call attention to them. He had, however, some disagreeable discussions with his Officers; and seeing I was on a footing of intimacy with Colonel Humbertson, and still more with Major Campbell (he who so ably and gallantly defended Mangalore against Tippoo’s whole army and six hundred French), and finding me extremely zealous and importunate to have his arrangement with Hyat Sahib adhered to, he became displeased, and, though he himself had determined that I should remain with him, changed his mind, and ordered me away at an hour’s notice——many days sooner than he had originally intended to send off any dispatches. He moreover occasioned my losing a sum of money, and on the whole paid less attention to my interest than the circumstances of the case demanded.
In the evening of the day on which he determined on my departure, I set off with his dispatches to the Governments of Madras and Bengal, and reached the most distant of our posts that night. From thence I had thirty miles to Cundapore, a sea-port town upon the Malabar coast, taken by us from the enemy. During this journey, which was through the Country of Tippoo Sahib, I had only six Sepoys to conduct me: yet, such was the universal panic that had seized all classes and distinctions of people at the progress of the British arms in that quarter, I met only a few scattered Sepoys, who were so badly wounded I presume they were unable to travel——the villages throughout being completely abandoned by all their inhabitants.
The sudden change of diet, which physicians tell us, and I experienced, is dangerous, from bad to good, as well as the reverse, conspiring with the mortification I felt at seeing things going on so very contrary to what I wished, and what I had reason to expect, had a most sudden and alarming effect upon my constitution; and I was seized on the road with the most excruciating, internal pains, which were succeeded by a violent vomiting of blood. At length, with great difficulty, I reached Cundapore, where the Commanding Officer, and all about him, did every thing in their power to afford me assistance and comfort under my miseries, which increased every hour rapidly. I felt as if my inside was utterly decayed, and all its functions lost in debility: at the same time my head seemed deranged——I could scarcely comprehend the meaning of what was said: lifting up my head was attended with agonizing pain; and if I had any power of thought, it was to consider myself as approaching fast to dissolution. I had the sense, however, to send to General Mathews, to acquaint him with my indisposition, and utter inability to proceed with his dispatches. To this I received the following Letter:
“Bidanore, Feb. 3, 1783.
“Dear Campbell,