CHAPTER XLII. HYDER ALI AND SWARTZ THE MISSIONARY.-INVASION OF THE CARNATIC.-DESTRUCTION OF COLONEL BAILLIE'S TROOPS. with sharp nails they tore his flesh asunder, and then scourged him afresh while his shrieks rent the air." SILENTLY but actively Hyder Ali, for the space of seven years, had been concocting schemes with the French at Pondicherry, increasing and disciplining his forces, and preparing and perfecting the sinews To extort money by torture was common then of war by a system of finance, that, curiously all over the East, from Pekin to the Golden Horn, enough, has been applauded by some writers, and was not unknown in Europe during the Middle though it consisted chiefly in extortion from his Ages, and even in England under the more barsubjects, and the pillage of his neighbours. An barous of the Plantagenets, "when men buried in illiterate man, Hyder could neither read nor write; the earth what they could not secure in trade or in yet he was a good mental arithmetician in a certain banks, and the possession of which they could not way, and he was assisted by learned Brahmins, who own without danger." were great accountants and expert financiers; but his chief resource was the old Indian practice of pouncing upon any man of reputed wealth; and if he escaped Hyder by suicide, his family and servants were barbarously tortured till the secreted hoards were attained. A Brahmin dewan sent a dying declaration, that the full amount of his fortune was 50,000 pagodas, and prayed him to receive the money into the treasury, and leave his family untouched and in peace. Hyder took the money, and though doubting not that a judicious application of torture might have led to the disgorging of more, he made a merit of leaving the family free; but his next dewan, also a Brahmin, was frightfully tortured till he gave up every farthing he had, on which he was permitted to crawl away, a beggared cripple. His successor was a Mussulman, an able and honourable man; but he, too, was subjected to torture, and died under it, as he had no money to give up. Another dewan, on being dismissed from office, declared solemnly that all he possessed was 10,000 rupees, which he had when appointed, so he was flung into a dungeon, where he died, and the rupees were taken from his family, who were thus reduced to beggary. The missionary Swartz, who lived some time in Mysore, wrote thus of Hyder:— "He is served through fear; two hundred people with whips in their hands stand always ready for duty, for not a day passes on which numbers are not flogged. Hyder applies the same cat to all transgressors alike-gentlemen and horse-keepers, tax-gatherers and his own sons. It will hardly be believed what punishments are inflicted on the collectors. One of them was tied up, and two men came with their whips and cut him dreadfully; So by such means the treasury of Mysore was well filled, and all the weight that money could give, was on the side of Hyder when he began to prepare for war against us in 1780. In the preceding year, the governor, Sir Thomas Rumbold, endeavoured to ascertain his precise intentions, and for this purpose resorted to the Rev. Mr. Swartz, the eminent Danish missionary, whom Bishop Heber, in his Journal, characterises as being one of the most active and fearless, successful and able missionaries who had appeared since the days of the Apostles. While pursuing his labours in Tanjore, Sir Hector Munro invited him to visit Madras, when the governor pressed him to make a journey of inquiry to Seringapatam; as the object was to prevent the effusion of human blood, the good missionary undertook it, as he records, for three reasons: "First, because the mission to Hyder was not attended by political intrigues; second, because this would enable me to announce the Gospel of God my Saviour in many parts where it had never been known before; and third, as the honourable Company and the Government had shown me repeated kindness, I conceived that by this journey I might give them some marks of my gratitude.' Accordingly he wrote to Hyder, announcing his visit, and on the 25th of August, 1779, he entered Seringapatam; and in his first interview with the dreaded despot, he tells us that the latter desired him to take a seat beside him, on a carpet of exquisite tapestry. He listened to all Swartz had to advance with politeness and pleasure; but said, openly and unreservedly, that "the Europeans had broken all their solemn promises and engagements; yet that, nevertheless, he was willing to live in peace with them, provided." But provided what, 1780.] HYDER ALI INVADES THE CARNATIC. Mr. Swartz omits to tell. In Hyder's army he found a body of European troops, French and Germans, together with some Malabar Christians, among all of whom he pushed his missionary work, and to whom he preached every Sunday. He had many interviews with Hyder, on whom he urged friendship and peace. On one occasion Swartz said that he deemed the subject of his visit "in no wise derogatory to the office of a minister of God, who is a God of Peace." "Very well," replied Hyder-" very well. I am of the same opinion with you; and wish that the English may be as studious of peace as you are. If they offer me the hand of peace and concord I will not withdraw mine." 213 vengeance of the terrible Hyder, and was threatened with that of his brother; and now Sir Thomas Rumbold, fearing the complication he had created, just before he quitted Madras in bad health, and conceiving that something might be effected by another peaceful mission, in February, 1780, dispatched Mr. Gray, formerly of the Bengal Civil Service, on an errand that proved worse than useless; for now Hyder Ali, who had exhausted the whole of his small stock of patience upon the gentle Swartz, became filled with sudden fury, and confident in his strength, after prayers in all the mosques, and grotesque and uncouth ceremonies in all the Hindoo temples, quitted Seringapatam in the month of June at the head of a force certainly not surpassed, in strength and efficiency by any native army that had ever been assembled in the south of India.” * Its total strength was 90,000 men, of whom 28,000 alone were cavalry. In addition to his well-drilled infantry, he had 40,000 peons, 2,000 artillery and rocketeers, 400 Europeans, and a complete staff of French officers to direct everything on the best European plans. His train consisted of 100 pieces of cannon of all calibres. Swartz returned, very well satisfied with the suc-"which had probably not been equalled, and cess of his peaceful mission, early in October, to find that in the preceding month Sir Thomas Rumbold had strangely taken measures to render war with Mysore inevitable, by sending Colonel Harper with a force to aid Bassulet Jung at Adoni, in defiance of a remonstrance from Nizam Ali. The colonel began his march, pursuing a route which for 200 miles led through the most difficult passes in the territories of the Nizam and of Hyder, who had both avowed their resolution to bar the way; a fact which the Madras Government not only utterly ignored, but even omitted to ask permission to make the movement, on the singular plea that friendly states might always march their armies through each other's territories. The consequence of all this folly was, that when Colonel Harper's force entered a narrow and tortuous valley between gloomy and precipitous hills, he found his further progress barred by a great abattis of felled trees, with their branches thrown outward, and lined with musketry, while along the heights on each flank, were troops moving collaterally with his line of march, and another force was closing up his rear. Out of this terrible snare he had barely time to escape by a precipitous and rather ignominious retreat, on which he was immediately reinforced from Madras, while a remonstrance was sent to Hyder on his "unfriendly behaviour." He replied, by intimating his resolution not to allow any British force to reach Adoni, which was then a town of considerable strength in the Balaghaut territories; nor would he permit his inveterate enemy, Mohammed Ali, to obtain possession of Guntoor, the jaghire of • Bassulet Jung, on any conditions whatever. And this intimation he enforced by sending troops who ravaged the country of Adoni up to its very walls. Bassulet then found himself in an awkward predicament; he had drawn upon himself the With his fierce heart fired alike by pride and the promptings of revenge, Hyder beheld this great host, with its myriad camp-followers, pouring through the wild passes down upon the plains of the Carnatic from the high table-land of Mysore, that great kingdom of his own creation, and ere long, for a time, he was everywhere triumphant. Of Hyder's invasion one of the most eloquent men of the age spoke thus : "Having terminated his disputes with every enemy and rival, who buried their mutual animosities in their common detestation, he drew from every quarter whatever savage ferocity could add to his new rudiments in the art of destruction; and compounding all the materials of fury, havoc, and desolation into one black cloud, he hung for awhile on the declivities of the mountains. Whilst the authors of all these evils were idly and stupidly gazing on this menacing meteor which blackened all their horizon, it suddenly burst, and poured down the whole of its contents upon the plains of the Carnatic. Then ensued a scene of war the like of which no eye had seen, no heart conceived, and which no tongue can adequately tell. All the horrors of war before known or heard of were mercy to that new havoc. A storm of universal fire blasted every field, consumed every house, destroyed every temple. The miserable inhabitants * Colonel Wilks. fleeing from their flaming villages, in part were slaughtered; others, without regard to sex, to age, to the respect of rank or sacredness of functionfathers torn from children, husbands from wivesenveloped in a whirlwind of cavalry, and amid the goading spears of drivers, and the trampling of pursuing horses, were swept into captivity in a hostile and unknown land. Those who were able to evade this tempest fled to the walled cities; but in escaping from fire, sword, and exile, they fell into the jaws of famine." * So Hastings resolved to suspend the incapable Colonel Braithwaite, commanding in Pondicherry, was ordered to advance on Madras by the way of Chingleput. Colonel Cosby, commanding at Trichinopoly, was ordered to join the main army collecting under Sir Hector Munro. But meanwhile, many fortified places were falling as stated, into the hands of Hyder, and chiefly through the treachery or cowardice of the killedars of the There is more of eloquence, perhaps, than of Nabob Mohammed Ali. Lord Macleod (who had accuracy in this quotation; for the object of Hyder served under the Pretender at Culloden, and now, was to conquer not destroy the fertile Carnatic; as a soldier of fortune, had become a Swedish but in too many instances he was incapable of lieutenant-general), arrived in Madras Roads on repressing the ferocity and marauding propensities the 20th of January, 1780, at the head of his own of his troops. To meet this immense force so care- regiment, the Macleod Highlanders (now the 71st fully developed and carefully prepared by Hyder, of the Line), 1,000 strong, and the last act of the the presidency of Madras had an empty treasury, effete Council was to the effect that he should a factious and divided Council, an army only some command in the field, and take post at Madras. But 6,000 strong, including their sepoys, all wholly Sir Hector Munro, with less judgment, it is averred, unarranged for a campaign, and scattered over the insisted that the place for battle should be Conwide tract of country around Trichinopoly, Pondi- jeveram, and he carried his point in this movement, cherry, Arcot, and Madras, some cantoned and which was strongly condemned by Colonel Baillie, some in forts, but all far apart, and ill supplied then pushing on from Guntoor. with provisions and all the munition of war. No reliance whatever could be placed upon the troops of our ally, the Nabob of the Carnatic, and this was soon proved by their taking to flight in masses, or deserting also in masses to Hyder Ali. It was difficult to collect the scattered forces of Madras, and nowhere were they strong enough to check the overwhelming columns and rapid advance of the Mysoreans, to whom some places were surrendered by treachery, and others through despair; but Sir Hector Munro was advancing at the head of one body of troops, and his countryman, Colonel Baillie at the head of another; but ere this, once again from Mount St. Thomas, near Madras, the flames of rapine could be seen by night, and the black columns of smoke towering skyward by day, before orders were given to get our troops in motion; and once more, as in the previous war, blacks and whites gathered in trembling crowds under the guns of Fort St. George, as being the only place where they could find safety. Colonel Harper's little column at Guntoor, on the command being taken by Colonel Baillie, was the first that began to move southward, while a fast sailing-ship, flying with all her canvas spread before the south-west monsoon, brought the terrible tidings to Calcutta, imploring from Warren Hastings men and money, or Madras would be lost, and a death-blow struck to the British Empire in India. * Edmund Burke, On the 20th of July, 1780, Hyder, after issuing through the pass of Chingama, dispatched his second son, Kurreem Sahib, with 5,000 cavalry to plunder Porto Novo (called by the Hindoos Paranguipet), thirty-six miles from Pondicherry, off which a French armament was then hovering, while a large body of horse spread over the country to pillage and devastate it. On the 21st of August, Hyder was before Arcot, where he learned the British forces had begun their march for Conjeveram, forty-two miles distant, where Munro halted on the 29th, the same day that Hyder quitted Arcot. By incredible exertions Munro had collected a force of 5,209 men, of whom the only Europeans were the Highlanders of Lord Macleod, and one battalion of the Company's service, with the European grenadiers of another corps. He had with him eight days' rice, and was anxiously waiting to form a junction with Colonel Baillie, who was coming on with a force stated by one authority to be 3,000 strong, by another 2,813. This junction Hyder resolved to prevent, and sent his son, the terrible Tippoo Sahib, with fully 5,000 horse, 5,000 infantry, a large irregular force, and sixty heavy guns, with orders to destroy, if he could do so, every man of Baillie's little column. On the 25th of August the colonel, in ignorance of what was in store for him, reached the river Cortelaw, and as it was almost dry, encamped on its northern bank. That evening the stony nullah 1780.] THE AMBUSH. became filled and swollen by the sudden mountain rains, and next morning it was utterly impassable. Six days did the unfortunate officer wait there anxiously for some indication that the fatal river was about to subside; but seeing none, he wrote to the Government, proposing to descend to its mouth at Enore, and there cross it by means of boats. This letter was never answered; but on the 4th of September he contrived, by a subsidence of the waters, to reach Perambaucam, within fifteen miles of Munro's camp, where he was compelled to halt and take up a position, on finding that Tippoo, who had been watching all his movements, had made certain dispositions to attack him. Though the disparity between the strength of the forces was great, a three hours' contest ensued, during which the British troops, while weary by a long and forced march, and weakened by hunger, fought with matchless bravery, and the action was indecisive, though Tippoo would have given way but for the fiery energy of his French staff-officers. The result was, that Baillie wrote to Munro, stating that in the exhausted state of his troops he was unable to join him, and hoped to be succoured on his present ground. At the same time Tippoo wrote to his father Hyder, saying that without fresh troops success was impossible. For some unaccountable reason the general failed to comply with the colonel's request at once, and meantime Hyder, whose camp was only six miles distant, made a movement which gave him command of the very road by which any succours must come. Munro, who was afraid to risk the loss of his chief stronghold, the great and stately pagoda of Conjeveram, wherein lay his provisions, baggage, and heavy guns, after a delay of three days-days of dreadful anxiety to Baillie's little force-reinforced him by the grenadier and light companies of the Macleod Highlanders, under Captains John Lindsay and Baird (afterwards Sir David Baird), and two companies of European grenadiers, the whole being under the command of Colonel Fletcher, an officer whose great sagacity enabled him to reach his destination by suddenly adopting a route of his own, and thus baffling his treacherous guides, who were in the pay of Hyder. By this dexterous movement he effected his junction with Baillie, whose force, thus augmented, mustered 3,720 men --but small as opposed to the army of Mysore. Baillie, full of confidence that now he should be able to cut a path to Conjeveram, started for that place on the night of the 9th September. Hyder, on hearing of all this, gave way to one of his usual tempests of rage; but fearing that he might be attacked in front and rear, did not attempt to move 215 till informed by his spies that Munro was apparently remaining quietly at Conjeveram, on which, as soon as darkness fell, he sent on the greater portion of his infantry and cannon to cut off the doomed column, which had not marched a mile from Perambaucam when it fell into a terrible ambuscade prepared for it in a dense jungly grove, through which Hyder knew it must pass, and where he had raised three great batteries—one in the front, and one on each flank-armed with fifty-seven pieces of cannon. Hyder's masses, lurking amid the dark jungle, allowed our weary troops, toiling on in the dark, though kept on the alert by occasional shots from vedettes, and flights of rockets, to come almost within pistol-shot of the masked works, when a roar, as if the earth had been rent asunder, shook the place, and the gloomy grove became filled with flashes and smoke, as all the guns opened on every side with round shot and grape, while the rattle of musketry in a fourth quarter, announced that they had been attacked in rear. Baillie had with him ten guns, but as he was moving in a kind of hollow square, with his sick, wounded, baggage, and stores in the centre, there was great difficulty in using them. In this attack were thirty battalions of sepoy infantry, with 400 Europeans under Colonel Lally and other French officers, who, we are told, when day dawned, were struck with admiration at the manner in which the Highlanders, led by Captain Baird, a man of great stature, "performed their evolutions, in the midst of all the tumult and peril, with as much coolness and steadiness as if on parade." So stern was the resistance, that by six a.m., victory was actually declaring for our little band, when, after many bloody repulses-no less than thirteen in succession-the flower of the Mysore horse gave way, and Colonel Lally, with his Europeans, was ordered to cover the retreat. But a sudden change took place; two of our tumbrils blew up, destroying several lives and most of the ammunition at a time when the pouches of those who struggled and staggered onward over the dead and dying were almost empty; and now the whole, crowded into a helpless mass, were mowed down by sabre, or shot in hundreds. The whole of the sepoys were soon annihilated, and the Europeans, now reduced to four hundred men,. fought in a kind of square, or mob, the men with their bayonets, and the officers with their swords. Waving a white handkerchief, Colonel Baillie sought quarter, and believing it was granted, gave the order to ground arms, and the moment this was done, the Mysoreans rushed on them to indulge in |