NEGAPATAM, which signifies the "city of the serpents," as the district abounds with those reptiles, which the natives deemed holy, and an inexpiable crime to destroy, is a considerable seaport town in Tanjore, and was the capital of the Dutch possessions in India. It was well fortified, with a regular citadel of a pentagonal form, having wet ditches. On the north of this lies the town, beyond which towers a gigantic pagoda, which, tradition asserts, was built by the devil in a single night; but thereon now flies the British flag, which may be discerned by the telescope, at the distance of seven leagues at sea. Negapatam was taken in 1660 from the Portuguese by the Dutch, in whose hands it soon became a flourishing city, and such it was when our armament appeared before it in 1781.

On the 20th of October Sir Edward Hughes arrived at Nagore, a few miles north of Negapatam, with the fleet consisting of eight sail, five being of the line, and carrying in all 392 guns; his own flag being on board the Superb (seventy-four).

Sir Hector Munro was already before it with 4,000 men, blocking up a garrison consisting of 8,000 men, about 500 of whom were Europeans, 700 were Malays, 4,500 sepoys, and 2,300 cavalry of Hyder Ali.

On

After driving the Dutch out of Nagore, the marines and troops, with a battalion of seamen, were landed to reinforce Sir Hector Munro, while the heavy artillery was brought on shore by Captain Ball, of the Superb, through a dreadful surf that was boiling snow-white along the beach, occasioning incredible fatigue to the seamen, who exhibited a spirit and perseverance equal to the occasion. the night of the 29th some strong lines, flanked by redoubts, which had been thrown up to defend the approach to the town, were stormed brilliantly by the troops, seamen, and marines. On the 5th of November the admiral brought the squadron nearer to the citadel, on the flank of the captured lines, and a strong battery, armed with eighteen-pounders, was ready by the 7th, to open within 300 yards of the walls, when the admiral and Sir Hector summoned the governor to surrender; but he replied, "That, being obliged by his honour and oath to defend the place, he could not enter into any agreement for its capitulation; but should defend it to the last."

The siege was now pressed with greater vigour than ever; thus, by the 10th, the governor, seeing the futility of further defence, substituted a white flag for that of Holland; the terms asked were acceded to, and the city was delivered up to his Majesty's arms. Our precise loss is not exactly given; but that of the squadron was twenty seamen and marines killed, and fifty-eight wounded. Most of the latter died of fatigue. Immediately after this success, the setting in of the monsoon causing danger to the fleet, the naval brigade was re-embarked, and the squadron sailed for Ceylon, where it captured Trincomalee, on the 11th of January, 1782. Eventually, the ap pearance of five of the Company's ships, which had been at Bencoolen, off Penang, "alarmed the Dutch governor to such a degree, that he instantly surrendered that place, and gave directions for all the other Dutch settlements on the coast to be delivered up to the British.”*

For more than a hundred years the Dutch had most jealously guarded all access to the island of Ceylon, for they highly valued Trincomalee, as one of the most important towns and ports in India, and the most secure place of refuge for ships when surprised by the storms and tempests peculiar to those seas. It was the great depôt, too, of the sugar-cane, of cinnamon, and of valuable pearls. The resistance it made to our arms was most feeble, and the value of the conquest was great.+

Though Sir Eyre Coote still persisted in his intention of resigning, and was suffering from delicate health, he determined to undertake the relief of Vellore, which was still besieged. Thus on the 2nd of January, 1782-the same day on which the fleet sailed from Negapatam―he rejoined the army then encamped near Tripassore. On the 6th he had a stroke of apoplexy, which rendered him senseless; yet on the following day this energetic and fine old soldier was so far recovered, as to admit of his being borne in a palanquin, and in that he went to the front, with the troops for Vellore. Three days after, when Hyder came in sight, he found that Coote had made such arrangements that an attack was hopeless, and he fell back; thus on the 11th, the day which the Naval Chron. + Barrow's "Life of Lord Macartney."

1782.]

Commandant Lang declared was the last to which he could hold out-the fortress was victualled anew for three months more, and Coote, with the army, returned to Tripassore.

While these events were in progress, Colonel Braithwaite, a brave officer, who, to assist at the siege of Negapatam, had sent all his available troops, under Colonel Nixon, and then returned to his command at Tanjore, fell into a calamity singularly like that which overtook Colonel Baillie at Perambaucam. On reaching Tanjore, he had in view the recovery of some of the strengths of that province, which the subtle Hyder and the fiery Tippoo had obtained by bribery rather than the sword; and by the same art Braithwaite became a victim. In February he was encamped on the left bank of the Cauvery, in a plain, one of those pieces of flat alluvial soil in Tanjore, where rice, cocoanuts, and indigo abound, but which at that season are usually swamps. He had with him only 100 British bayonets, 1,500 sepoys, and 300 native horse, when having been deceived and misled by his guides and spies-he was suddenly attacked by Tippoo at the head of 20,000 Mysoreans, and 400 Frenchmen, under Colonel Lally. Of the former 10,000 were cavalry, with twenty pieces of cannon. Long, mad, and desperate was the conflict that ensued, and notwithstanding the awful odds, it was the French who actually decided the matter by rushing on the exhausted sepoys with the bayonet, as the struggle had lasted from sunrise

to sunset.

A general massacre of all the survivors was prevented alone by the humanity and generosity of the French officers, who, in many instances, risked their own lives by stabbing and cutting down the savages of Tippoo, to save the wounded and defenceless British soldiers. The few survivors of this disastrous surprise-including Colonel Braithwaite-were cast into the dungeons of Seringapatam, where Captain Baird and the Highland prisoners of Baillie's detachment were still lingering in misery. It was the fortune of Colonel Lally to be present on both these fatal occasions, to seek to arrest the carnage and give succour to the helpless. The regular light cavalry of Madras, latterly clad in French grey, with pale buff facings, and consisting of eight regiments, to which we shall have to refer at a later period, and which were the first arm we had of the kind in India, were originally raised by Mohammed Ali, the Nabob of the Carnatic. The first of these corps, the rissalas, or troops, of which formed one regiment under British officers, had served in the Mysore campaign in 1768; but though augmented during the subse

227

quent ten years, the force fell away, eventually, in numbers and efficiency, and hence, perhaps, the many advantages that occurred to Hyder and Tippoo, by escaping a cutting up after defeat. Towards the close of the war we have now to narrate, these light cavalry were improved and increased, and by 1784, when the strife was ended, they were formally transferred, with all their European officers, from the service of the nabob to the more permanent establishment of the East India Company.

"From that moment all the mutinies among them, caused by the intrigues of a venal court and irregular payments, ceased, and for a period of more than sixty years (says a writer in 1853) their career has been one of faithful service and brilliant achievements. Among their brave soubahdars who live in the tradition of our native armies, and whose name and fame are preserved in the history of British India, Secunder Beg, Cawder Beg, and Sheik Ibrahim, were the most remarkable.”

In detailing the disaster which befell Braithwaite's troops, we have omitted to mention the success of the Company's forces on the coast of Malabar, from whence, in the year 1780, Hyder had detached a column for the reduction of Tellicherry, the commerce of which, in sandal-wood, pepper, and spices, was then great. Though very imperfectly fortified and garrisoned, that place was enabled to make a long defence, and, by the arrival of reinforcements under Major Abingdon, to raise the siege a brilliant achievement, which resulted in the capture of all the enemy's guns and baggage, with 1,200 Mysorean prisoners, including Sirdar Khan, their general.

It chanced that in the early part of the preceding year, an expedition under Major-General William Medows and Commodore Johnstone had sailed from Portsmouth, intended to attack the Cape of Good Hope. It consisted of twenty-six sail (exclusive of the Company's ships), five of which were of the line. The troops on board were the 2nd Battalion of the Black Watch (afterwards numbered as the 73rd Highlanders), the 98th and 100th Regiments, with one company of each of the following corps-namely, the 8th, 9th, 20th, and 47th Foot, and a party of the Royal Artillery under Lieutenant Hislop. On the way out, when at anchor in Port Praya Bay, the expedition was suddenly attacked by the French fleet under M. de Suffren, en route to reinforce Hyder. He was repulsed, but with the loss of 166 killed and wounded, including eleven officers of both services. The attack on the Cape was abandoned, as M. de Suffren was there before Commodore Johnstone,

SINGHALESE OF THE COAST.

gold; the taking and destroying the ships in the Bay of Saldanha, estimated at sixty-three tons of gold; the Dank Baerheid, from Bengal, likewise captured in Saldanha Bay, worth, together with its cargo, at least fourteen tons and a half of gold; the Croordbeck, on its way to Europe, also taken, and valued at one ton of gold; finally, the ships Groenendaal and Canaan, captured in the Bay of Trincomalee, whose joint cargoes might be worth above five tons of gold; so that the loss in ships cannot be less than 103 tons of gold, or 10,300,000 florins; which, added to the loss sustained by the capture of our settlements, make together the excessive total of 20,750,000 florins!"*

Scurvy having attacked the troops, they were compelled to put into the Island of Joanna, one of the Comorro Group, on the east coast of Africa, where provisions were abundant; but on landing to refresh, the men caught a local fever, and many died of it; thus, by many delays, it was not until the 5th of March, 1782, that, after a twelvemonth's voyage, the expedition reached Bombay, and on the following month sailed for Madras, after landing the troops, of whom 121 officers and men died at sea.

General Medows having remained on board, *Polit. Mag., 1783.

229

the actual command of the troops now devolved upon Colonel Mackenzie-Humberstone, of the 100th Regiment, who had raised that corps for the king's service, and belonged to the house of Seaforth, but assumed the name of Humberstone on succeeding to an estate so called in Lincolnshire. Under his orders, an expedition was now formed to attack the Malabar coast, but chiefly Palacatcherry, which was considered of importance to Hyder Ali. The troops consisted of 1,000 Europeans (formed of seven companies of the 42nd Highlanders, and some of the 100th Regiment), with 2,500 sepoys. Early in September, 1782, he took the field in the kingdom of Calicut, which had belonged to the Tamuri rajahs till it was invaded by Hyder in 1760. When Cheraman Permal resolved to end his days at Mecca, he divided the Malabar country among his nobles; but having nothing left to bestow on the ancestor of Tamuri, he gave that chief his sword, and all the territory in which the crow of a cock could be heard from a certain temple; and hence the name of the territory-Calicuda, or "the land of cock-crowing." Storming several forts in his march, Humberstone reached his destination on the 19th of October, when, on a full examination, the fort was found to be of greater strength than was supposed; at the same time intelligence came that Hyder's son, Tippoo, was marching with a large