At the same time the Mahratta Governor of Dehli rebelled, but
Perron reduced him after a short siege, and replaced him by
Captain Drugeon, the French officer already mentioned in
reference to the war of the Bais.
Thomas was for the present quite independent; and it may interest the reader to have a picture, however faint, of the scene in which this extraordinary conversion of a sailor into a sovereign took place. Hansi is one of the chief towns of the arid province curiously enough called Hariana, or "Green land," which lies between Dehli and the Great Sindh Deserts. When Thomas first fixed on it as the seat of his administration, it was a ruin among the fragments of the estates which had belonged to the deceased Najaf Kuli Khan. His first care was to rebuild the fortifications and invite settlers; and such was his reputation, that the people of the adjacent country, long plundered by the wild tribes of Bhatiana, and by the Jats of the Panjab, were not slow in availing themselves of his protection. Here, to use his own words, "I established a mint, and coined my own rupees, which I made current (!) in my army and country . . . . cast my own artillery, commenced making muskets, matchlocks, and powder…..till at length, having gained a capital and country bordering on the Sikh territories, I wished to put myself in a capacity, when a favourable opportunity should offer, of attempting the conquest of the Panjab, and aspired to the honour of placing the British standard on the banks of the Attock."
His new possessions consisted of 14 Pargannas, forming an aggregate of 250 townships, and yielding a total revenue of nearly three lakhs of rupees, Thomas being forced to make very moderate settlements with the farmers in order to realize anything. From his former estates, acquired in the Mahratta service, which he still retained, he derived nearly a lakh and a half more.
Having made these arrangements, Thomas consented to join Vaman Rao, the son of his former patron, in a foray upon the Raja of Jaipur; and in this was nearly slain, only escaping with the loss of his lieutenant, John Morris, and some hundreds of his best men. He then renewed his alliance with Ambaji Sindhia's favourite general, who was about to renew the war against Lakwa Dada in the Udaipur country.
This new campaign was the consequence of Lakwa having connived at the escape of the Bais, a trait of conduct creditable to his regard for the memory of Madhoji Sindhia, his old master, but ruinous to his own interests. For the moment, however, the Dada was completely successful, routing all the detachments sent against him, and taking possession of a considerable portion of Rajputana.
Thomas did not join this campaign without undergoing a fresh danger from the mutiny of his own men. This is a species of peril to which persons in his position seem to have been peculiarly open; and it is related that the infamous Sumroo was sometimes seized by his soldiers, and seated astride upon a heated cannon, in order to extort money from him. In the gallant Irishman the troops had a different subject for their experiments; and the disaffection was soon set at rest by Thomas seizing the ringleaders with his own hands, and having them blown from guns on the spot. This is a concrete exhibition of justice which always commands the respect of Asiatics; and we hear of no more mutinies in Thomas's army.
1800. In 1800 the sailor-Raja led his men once more against their neighbours to the north and northwest of his territories, and gathered fresh laurels. He was now occupied in no less a scheme than the conquest of the entire Panjab, from which enterprise he records that he had intended to return, like another Nearchus, by way of the Indus, to lay his conquests at the feet of George the Third of England. But the national foes of that monarch were soon to abridge the career of his enterprising subject, the Irish Raja of Hansi. For the present, Perron marched into the country of the Dattia Raja, in Bandelkhand, and entirely defeated Lakwa Dada, who soon after cried of his wounds. His success was at first balanced by Holkar, who routed a detachment of the Imperial army, under Colonel Hessing, at Ujain. Hessing's four battalions were completely cut up; and of eleven European officers, seven were slain and three made prisoners. This event occurred in June, 1801. But it was not long before the disaster was retrieved at Indor (the present seat of the Holkar family), by a fresh force under Colonel Sutherland. Holkar lost ninety-eight guns, and his capital was seized and sacked by the victors, about four months after the former battle.
The French commander of the regular troops was indeed now master of the situation. Victorious in the field, in undisturbed possession of the Upper Doab, and with a subordinate of his own nation in charge of the metropolis and person of the sovereign, General Perron was not disposed to brook the presence of a rival and that a Briton in an independent position of sovereignty within a few miles of Dehli. The French sailor and the English sailor having surmounted their respective difficulties, were now, in fact, face to face, each the only rival that the other had to encounter in the Empire of Hindustan.
NOTE. Thomas describes the Begam as small and plump; her complexion fair, her eyes large and animated. She wore the Hindustani costume, made of the most costly materials. She spoke Persian and Urdu fluently, and attended personally to business, giving audience to her native employee behind a screen. At darbars she appeared veiled; but in European society she took her place at table, waited on exclusively by maid-servants. Her statue, surmounting a group in white marble by Tadolini, stands over her tomb in the Church at Sardhana.