neighbourhood. This zemindar, presuming on the peaceful policy of the government, began to treat it with such contempt and menace, that a force of about 6,000 men was sent against him. Among these were five companies of H.M. 17th Regiment, a battalion of Grenadiers, five other native battalions, 220 pioneers, six squadrons of light cavalry, fifty European and 250 native gunners; the whole under the command of Major-General Dickens.

On the 12th of October, 1807, the fort was invested; a breach was reported practicable, and an assault ordered on the 18th of November. Lieutenant-Colonels F. Hardyman, of the 17th, and Duff, H.E.I.C.S., led the stormers, who were repulsed, and the last-named officer was slain. Though the assault was a failure, so resolute had it been that the defenders lost heart, and fled the fort in the night, to strengthen the garrison of another chief, named Gunourie. On the morning of the 19th, General Dickens took quiet possession of the place. Where the remains of Colonel Duff and others who fell with him were interred is unknown; but in the burial-ground of Allyghur there may still be seen the half-obliterated tombs of Captain Robertson, Lieutenants Livingstone and Jones, "who fell before Comonah, November 14th, A.D. 1807."

Before he had been many months in India, Lord Minto found himself under the necessity of interfering in the internal affairs of our ally, the Nizam of the Deccan, whom he soon reduced to a species of cypher in his own capital. When the Nizam's minister, Meer Alum, died, he wished to appoint Moonir-ul-Mulk his successor, but the government of Bengal preferred a certain Rajah Chunda Loll, whom they knew to be favourably disposed to British interests, and was, moreover, an amicable Hindoo; so by virtue of our military force at Hyderabad, Chunda was appointed, and from that moment, in fretful indignation, the Nizam ceased to take active interest in public affairs.

Meanwhile, Chunda Loll, as dewan, acquiesced implicitly in all that our Resident proposed, as to appointment of officers and pay of the troops-for now a regular army had sprung up in the Deccan, disciplined by British officers and subordinate to British interests. Thus Chunda was amply protected in his office and uncontrolled in his government, which was not, however, productive of good. "The prosperity of the country," says Sir John Malcolm, "began to decline under a system which had no object but revenue, and under which, neither regard for rank nor desire for popularity existing, the nobles were degraded and the people oppressed. The prince (of whose sanity

413

doubts had often been entertained) lapsed into a state of gloomy discontent; and while the dewan, his relations, a few favourites, and money-brokers flourished, the good name of the British nation suffered; for it was said, and with justice, that our support of the actual administration freed the minister and his executive officers from those salutary fears, which act as a restraint on the most despotic rulers." *

In another direction Lord Minto found the necessity of departing from the non-interference system; and though he declined more extensive engagements, he was compelled to assist the Peishwa, with whom our relations were not, just then, on a very satisfactory footing.

No sooner had Bajee Rao, by the Treaty of Bassein, bartered his independence for personal security, than he repented, and would gladly have availed himself of any confusion or course of events which might have led to his becoming again the real head of the Mahratta confederacy; but the general turn of affairs, after the late war, having made our alliance necessary for his existence, he had wisdom or cunning enough to conceal his aversion. In that war, many of his feudatories, named the Southern Jaghirdars, had done us good military service, and were thus deemed under British protection.

Jealous of this, Bajee Rao stretched over them his powers as lord paramount so strictly that he seemed to aim at their destruction; and when, to aid in this, and compel the recognition of his title, he applied for a subsidiary force, and that force was refused, he did not disguise his intense dissatisfaction. On the attention of Lord Minto being drawn to this troublesome matter, he lodged a minute, in which, "while admitting that the Treaty of Bassein entitled the Peishwa to the aid which he asked, provided the justice of his claims could not be impugned, he approved of a compromise, which the Resident at Poonah had suggested, and by which the Jaghirdars, while acknowledging themselves to be the Peishwa's feudatories, and relinquishing all acknowledged usurpations, were guaranteed in possession of their lands."

To these half measures the Peishwa was fain to submit, but he did so sullenly, and in a manner which evinced that, sooner or later, open hostility might display itself.

Holkar, of whom we have heard so much, had now become for some time past addicted to deep intoxication and every species of unrestrained indulgence; and by way of making himself more completely head of the house of Holkar, he

"Memoir of Central India."

adherents, to the number of 200, were seated in a large tent, when it was let fall upon them at a concerted signal; and while the officers of Ameer Khan saved themselves, all the Rajpoots were inhumanly massacred by showers of grape and musketry from every direction. Of 700 horse that accompanied Sevace Sing, and continued mounted near the tent, only 200 escaped; the rest were slain, and a number of Ameer Khan's people, among whom was one of his own relations, fell under the promiscuous fire of the cannon. Sevace Sing had been killed by the grape; but his head was cut off and sent to Maun Sing, who rewarded Ameer Khan with a jaghire, and a large sum of money." "*

Prior to breaking into Berar, Ameer had thoroughly pillaged the Rajpoots; and finding their territories exhausted, there was nothing for him but to serve Ragojee Bhonsla in the same fashion, making, as a pretext for doing so, the accusation, that when Holkar, during the disasters of his early career, had sought a shelter at Nagore, the rajah had plundered him of many valuable jewels.

Acting in the name of the then fatuous Holkar, Ameer boldly demanded their restoration in money, value, or kind; and, on the refusal of the rajah, burst into his territories, at the head of 40,000 horse and 24,000 robber Pindarees, armed in every fashion; and meeting with but slender opposition, made himself master of Jubbulpore, a strong fortress, and all the adjacent district.

Our relations with the invaded Rajah of Berar were peculiar. He had no subsidiary alliance with Britain, nor was there any treaty under which he could distinctly claim our friendship; and on the timid and selfish "peace at any price" principle, he should have been left to the tender mercy of Ameer Khan and his 64,000 robbers; but some technical abstracts had to be obviated before we could aid him. He artfully professed to be acting in Holkar's name, "and in this character could plead that any assistance given by the British Government to the rajah would be a violation of the treaty by which they had engaged not to interfere, in any way, with Holkar's affairs, nor with the exaction of claims on any state with which they themselves were not actually in alliance."

These statements were troublesome to answer. The pretext of Ameer Khan being in the service of Holkar might have been thrown easily aside, but for the professed peaceful policy of the Indian Government, as inculcated at Leadenhall Street. Yet Lord Minto, aware of the gross inconsistency of the whole situation, had too much spirit and

* 41 Central India."

too much common sense to be thus fettered in action, and in a minute lodged by him, on the 10th of October, 1809, he wrote thus :

"The question was not whether it was just and expedient to aid the rajah in the defence and recovery of his dominions (although, in point of policy, the essential change in the political state of India which would have occasioned the extinction of one of the substantive powers of the Deccan, might warrant and require our interference), but whether an interfering and ambitious Mussulman chief, at the head of a numerous army, irresistible by any power but that of the Company, should be permitted to establish his authority on the ruins of the rajah's dominions, over territories contiguous to our ally, the Nizam."

Moreover, there was another moving cause. The trammelled Nizam was not without secret projects of his own for the subversion of British dominion in India; and it was therefore decided by Lord Minto to repel Ameer Khan by force of arms. With this view, a body of troops, under Colonel Barry Close, assembled on the eastern frontier of Berar, while another stationed in Bundelcund, under Colonel Martindale, prepared to support him; and their aid was thankfully accepted by the rajah, all the more readily that he had not asked for it, and that no recompense was expected for it.

When Colonel Close was ready to move, Lord Minto wrote to both Holkar, or his representative, and to Ameer Khan, demanding of the former whether the invasion of Berar was by his order; and to the latter, bluntly requiring him to withdraw. Ameer scornfully denied the right of the British to interfere with him, and threatened to invade them, if troubled more on the subject. Meanwhile, the rajah, encouraged by Lord Minto's countenance, had mustered troops, attacked Ameer Khan, and compelled him to seek refuge in the town of Bhopal, which is surrounded by a stone wall, and is in Malwah. On being reinforced there, he re-entered Berar, but met with a second repulse, and then the approach of Close's column left him no alternative but flight. He retreated to Seronge, in Malwah. This was his own capital, and is a large open town, situated in a fertile country, and has long been celebrated for its manufacture of chintzes.

On being followed up by Colonel Close-who deemed his destruction as necessary as that of Dhoondia Waugh by Sir Arthur Wellesley-and on being abandoned by his disorderly forces, he next fled to Indore, on which Lord Minto ordered the British troops to be recalled; and, to prevent a recurrence of such an invasion of Berar, it was

1809.]

agreed to furnish the rajah with a subsidiary force; but as the rajah dreaded to have any such arm, with its influences and necessities, within his territories, the negociation came to nothing; and Lord Minto, with all his peaceful plans, next found himself embroiled in the district called Kotra.

The town and district of this name are in Bundelcund, and situated eighty-four miles distant from Gwalior, on the right bank of the Betwa, a river which rises in Gundwana, and after a course of 350 miles, falls into the Jumna.

A chief named Gopal Sing had usurped this place, though the legal heir, Rajah Bukht Sing, had been formally recognised by Sir George Barlow, "but more in mockery than in good faith, since on the principles of non-interference, he was denied the assistance necessary to make it effectual." Acting in a bolder spirit, Lord Minto sent a body of troops, to put him in possession, and Gopal Sing dared not resist them; yet he was too fearless a spirit to

417 remain tranquil under dispossession, and retiring to the neighbouring hills began a predatory warfare on every hand, all the more successfully that the removal of Colonel Martindale's forces to menace Ameer Khan left him at liberty to lay the whole country in flames.

Several detachments of troops were marched against him; but after long eluding them and carrying off enormous quantities of plunder, he was suddenly surrounded in an intrenched post among the mountains. Cutting a way out, he escaped to renew his predatory strife, which he continued with such valour and success that, eventually, he was able to make terms with us; and instead of being hanged or blown from a gun, received a full pardon for four years of massacre and pillage, with a jag hire of eighteen villages as a reward!

Policy of this kind, in such a land, could but lead to further depredations and outrages by armed outlaws.

IN 1806, Rear-Admiral Sir Edward Pellew having assumed the chief command in the Indian Ocean, Rear-Admiral Sir Thomas Trowbridge was directed to proceed to the Cape of Good Hope as commander-in-chief. His flagship was the Blenheim (seventy-four), a second-rate once, but cut down and utterly worn out. Early in 1806 she had gone ashore in the Straits of Malacca, where she received so much injury as to unfit her for crossing the Bay of Bengal; but having patched her up at Pulo Penang, Sir Thomas-a fine old seaman, and one of the heroes of the Nile-whose pride it was to conquer difficulties, rigged her with jury-masts, and took her safely to Madras.

Then the defects of the old Blenheim became alarmingly apparent her back was broken in an extraordinary manner; she seemed to be literally falling to pieces, and the whole labour of the crew at the pumps barely sufficed to keep her from sinking at her anchors. Captain Austin Bissett, a gallant officer, who captured the Lodi, and fought some brilliant actions off Cuba and San Domingo, commanded the Blenheim. He represented her perilous state to Sir Thomas, who persisted in his

purpose, and sailed for the Cape, taking with him several passengers. This was on the 12th January, 1807.

The Java (thirty-six), (an old Dutch prize), under Captain George Pigot, and the Harrier (eighteen-gun brig), Captain Finlay, accompanied him. On the 1st of February, when near the south-east end of Madagascar, the three ships were compelled to lay to in a tremendous gale of wind. In the evening, the Java bore up, to close with the Blenheim, both ships having signals of distress flying. The officers of the Harrier observed that the luckless old seventy-four had settled considerably down in the water, and the brig in attempting to give some succour, by running foul, is supposed to have accelerated her destruction. As night came on the brig bore away for the Cape, and from that hour nothing was ever heard either of the Blenheim or the Java.

On receiving Captain Finlay's alarming report, Sir Edward Pellew, hoping that Sir Thomas might have put into some port for repairs, ordered his son, Captain Edward Trowbridge, then commanding the Greyhound (thirty-two), to go in search of