Negative Penalties. Certain laws whereby persons are secluded from military rank, &c. without inflicting any positive pains.
NEGLECT of DUTY. Officers or soldiers convicted of neglect of duty, are punishable at the discretion of a court-martial.
NEGROES, blacks, moors. The people brought from Guinea, and other parts of Africa, as slaves, and sent into the colonies of America, to cultivate sugar, tobacco, indigo, &c. and to dig in the mines of Peru or Mexico.
NELLI-COTAH, a fort situated about forty miles to the south of Tinivelly, in the East Indies. This fort has been rendered memorable by the manner in which it was carried by the English in 1755, and the barbarity with which a garrison was treated which had not killed a man and had called for quarter, and yet men, women, and children were massacred. The detachment consisted of 100 Europeans, and 300 sepoys, with two field pieces. These troops (to quote Mr. Orme’s words in his History of the Carnatic, page 386, book V.) set out at midnight and performed the march in 18 hours: the polygar, startled at the suddenness of their approach, sent out a deputy, who pretended he came to capitulate, and promised that his master would pay the money demanded of him in a few days; but suspicions being entertained of his veracity, it was determined to detain him as a pledge for the execution of what he had promised, and he was accordingly delivered over to the charge of a guard. The troops were so much fatigued by the excessive march they had just made, that even the advanced centinels could not keep awake; and the deputy perceiving all the soldiers who were appointed to guard him, fast asleep, made his escape out of the camp, and returned to the fort; from whence the polygar had sent him only to gain time, in order to make the necessary preparations for his defence. This being discovered early in the morning, it was determined to storm the place, of which the defences were nothing more than a mud wall with round towers. The troops had not brought any scaling ladders, but the outside of the wall was sloping, and had many clefts worn in it by the rain, so that the assault, although hazardous, was nevertheless practicable. It was made both by the Europeans and the sepoys with undaunted courage, in several parties at the same time; each of which gained the parapet without being once repulsed, when the garrison retired to the buildings of the fort, where they called out for quarter; but the soldiers, put all they met to the sword, not excepting the women and children; suffering only six persons, out of four hundred, to escape alive: shameful to relate, the troops and officers who bore the greatest part in this shocking barbarity, were the bravest of Englishmen, having most of them served under colonel Lawrence, on the plains of Tritchinopoly: but those who contemplate human nature will find many reasons, supported by examples, to dissent from the common opinion, that cruelty is incompatible with courage.
NESHAUNBURDAR, Ind. an ensign.
NETHERLANDS, that part of modern France which lies next to the North sea; it was once called the circle of Burgundy, and sometimes the Low Countries, so called from being situated between France, Lorrain, Germany, and the ocean.
They were formerly divided into 17 provinces, four of which were dukedoms, viz. Brabant, Limburg, Luxemburg, and Guelderland; seven were earldoms, viz. Flanders, Artois, Hainault, Holland, Zealand, Namur, and Zutphen; and five Baronies, viz. West Friezland, Mechlin, Utrecht, Overysell, and Groningen.
These were originally governed by distinct lords or princes, but were all united under Philip the good, duke of Burgundy, who left them to his son Charles, surnamed the Hardy, who being killed at Nancy, in 1477, the 17 provinces fell to his only daughter, Mary of Burgundy, who by marrying with Maximilian the First, of Germany, carried them into the house of Austria.
The kings of France claimed a right to Artois, Flanders, &c. In the reign of king Philip II. of Spain, William of Nassau, prince of Orange, and several other discontented noblemen, gave beginning to those disturbances which terminated in the separation of Holland, and the other countries known by the name of the United Provinces, occasioned by the dread of the inquisition, the insupportable rigor of the government of the Duke of Alva, and the violent encroachments of the Spaniards upon the liberties and privileges of the countries.
The Netherlands, comprehending Holland, have undergone material alterations during the progress of the French Revolution. Brabant and Flanders, which belonged to the house of Austria, have been annexed to France, and form several of its departments. Holland, upon the expulsion of the Stadtholder, was allowed to call itself an independent country, in alliance with France; but the British co-operating with the adherents of the Stadtholder, exposed it to repeated invasions, to put an end to these conspiracies, after twice expelling the English, the government was changed, and it is now distinguished by the name of the Batavian kingdom.