1755.—"Agreed, we despatch Lieutenant John Harding of a command of soldiers 25 Buxaries in order to clear these boats if stopped in their way to this place."—Ibid. 55.
" "In an account for this year we find among charges on behalf of William Wallis, Esq., Chief at Cossimbazar:
| Rs. | ||
| "'4 Buxeries | 20 (year) | 240.'" |
| MS. Records in India Office. | ||
1761.—"The 5th they made their last effort with all the Sepoys and Buxerries they could assemble."—In Long, 254.
" "The number of Buxerriés or matchlockmen was therefore augmented to 1500."—Orme (reprint), ii. 59.
" "In a few minutes they killed 6 buxerries."—Ibid. 65; see also 279.
1772.—"Buckserrias. Foot soldiers whose common arms are only sword and target."—Glossary in Grose's Voyage, 2nd ed. [This is copied, as Mr. Irvine shows, from the Glossary of 1757 prefixed to An Address to the Proprietors of E. I. Stock, in Holwell's Indian Tracts, 3rd ed., 1779.]
1788.—"Buxerries—Foot soldiers, whose common arms are swords and targets or spears."—Indian Vocabulary (Stockdale's).
1850.—"Another point to which Clive turned his attention ... was the organization of an efficient native regular force.... Hitherto the native troops employed at Calcutta ... designated Buxarries were nothing more than Burkandāz, armed and equipped in the usual native manner."—Broome, Hist. of the Rise and Progress of the Bengal Army, i. 92.
BYDE, or BEDE HORSE, s. A note by Kirkpatrick to the passage below from Tippoo's Letters says Byde Horse are "the same as Pindârehs, Looties, and Kuzzâks" (see [PINDARRY], [LOOTY], [COSSACK]). In the Life of Hyder Ali by Hussain 'Ali Khān Kirmāni, tr. by Miles, we read that Hyder's Kuzzaks were under the command of "Ghazi Khan Bede." But whether this leader was so called from leading the "Bede" Horse, or gave his name to them, does not appear. Miles has the highly intelligent note: 'Bede is another name for (Kuzzak): Kirkpatrick supposed the word Bede meant infantry, which, I believe, it does not' (p. 36). The quotation from the Life of Tippoo seems to indicate that it was the name of a caste. And we find in Sherring's Indian Tribes and Castes, among those of Mysore, mention of the Bedar as a tribe, probably of huntsmen, dark, tall, and warlike. Formerly many were employed as soldiers, and served in Hyder's wars (iii. 153; see also the same tribe in the S. Mahratta country, ii. 321). Assuming -ar to be a plural sign, we have here probably the "Bedes" who gave their name to these plundering horse. The Bedar are mentioned as one of the predatory classes of the peninsula, along with Marawars, Kallars, Ramūsis (see [RAMOOSY]), &c., in Sir Walter Elliot's paper (J. Ethnol. Soc., 1869, N.S. pp. 112-13). But more will be found regarding them in a paper by the late Gen. Briggs, the translator of Ferishta's Hist. (J. R. A. Soc. xiii.). Besides Bedar, Bednor (or Nagar) in Mysore seems to take its name from this tribe. [See Rice, Mysore, i. 255.]