He strove hard to obtain a respite, and urged that he was most willing to accept the terms, but could no longer control his troops, who prevented him from coming to the residency; so time passed on till nine in the morning, when Brigadier Doveton began to advance on the city, after putting his troops in the following order : Two regiments of native cavalry and six horse artillery guns were on the height; on its left was Lieutenant-Colonel Norman Macleod's brigade, composed of a wing of his own regiment (the 1st Royal Scots), four battalions of native infantry, and the flank companies of another sepoy corps; Lieutenant Colonel Neil McKellar's brigade, consisting of a division of his regiment (1st Royal Scots), a battalion of sepoys, and four horse artillery guns; on its left, Colonel Scott's brigade, another division of the Royal Scots, a battalion of Sepoys, with foot artillery, sappers, miners, and two guns. In rear of Macleod's brigade was the principal battery of artillery. On the left of the position was an enclosed garden; beyond it was the Nayah Nudder; a small river ran from thence past the enemy's right, and three parallel ravines terminating in the bed of the river crossed the space between the infantry and the enemy, but in front of the cavalry; and on their right the country was open. The enemy's position was masked by irregularities of the ground and clusters of houses and huts, by a thick plantation of trees, with ravines and a large reservoir. On this ground the rajah had formed an army of 21,000 men, 14,000 of whom were horse, with seventy-five guns. Such was the locality on which the battle of Nagpore was fought. Beyond the river lay the city, from the walls of which the movement of both armies could be perceived.* Doveton's advance, in the order described, thoroughly intimidated the rajah, who rode with a few attendants to the residency; but the affair was not yet ended, as the guns were yet to be given up. Apa Sahib pleaded for delay; but, as there was every reason to apprehend their clandestine removal in the interval, it was bluntly refused. Ultimately it was arranged that his troops should be withdrawn and their artillery abandoned to us by noon. Ramchunder Waugh, who had come to expedite the affair, reported that all necessary steps had been taken; but Brigadier Doveton, instead of sending in a detachment only to receive over the guns, suspecting some deception, continued to advance steadily with his whole line on the 16th of December. After taking possession of thirty-six guns in the arsenal south of the city, leaving Scott's brigade to * "Records, 1st Royal Scots." 495 take charge of them, he was advancing south-east towards the Sakoo Duree Gardens, where he knew there were several batteries, when a heavy cannonade and sharp musketry fire was suddenly opened on his front and right flank. The columns deployed at the double, and the brigades of Macleod and McKellar carried battery after battery with great valour; the supporting troops were routed, the enemy was driven from all his positions, and pursued to a distance of five miles. The camp equipage, with forty elephants and seventy-five guns, was captured, but not until 142 of our men had fallen. The blame of all this would seem not to have rested with Apa Sahib, but rather with his Arabs, who were determined to make the best terms they could for themselves. Accordingly, uniting with another body of mercenary Hindostanees, to the number of 5,000, they retired into the city and occupied the fortress, within which were the rajah's palace and other strong buildings; and there they resolved to defend themselves to the last. There was no alternative now but a siege, and it was begun immediately. On the 23rd of December a breach was made at the Jumma Durwazza Gate, and an assault was at once resolved on. One company of the Royal Scots, under Lieutenant Thomas Bell, and five of native infantry and due proportion of sappers and miners, were detailed for this service; and two other companies of the Royal Scots, under Captain Henry C. Cowell, were destined to attack the city at another gate, and the remaining five Scottish companies were kept for the protection of the batteries. At half-past eight a.m., on the 24th of December, the bugles sounded the "advance," when the stormers, led by Bell, sword in hand, rushed from the trenches and gained the breach, but were instantly assailed by such a heavy matchlock fire from adjacent buildings, that they reeled, for they could neither return it nor come to close quarters. Sheltered closely behind walls, the Arabs, with fatal aim and perfect impunity, marked each his destined victim; and the fire of their heavy matchlocks was destructive at a distance beyond that which European musketry could then reach. Lieutenant Bell, who, though a young officer, was a Peninsula veteran, fell dead in the breach, which was found untenable; so the troops fell back, while the stormers at the other point were also compelled to retire, with a total loss of ninety killed and 179 wounded. On the following day the stubborn Arabs renewed their offer to surrender, and their terms being acceded to, they marched out of the city on New Year's Day, 1818, with permission to go where they pleased except Aseerghur. In the breach of Nagpore, the Royal Scots, who were more immediately under the command of Major Fraser (his seniors having brigades), lost sixty men, including Lieutenant Bell; and to their 2nd battalion was accorded permission to bear the word "Nagpore" on its colours. Manifestations of hostility in other parts of the State followed the revolt at Nagpore, and these assumed such formidable proportions in the eastern part of the Nerbudda Valley and in the extensive district of Gondwana, the country of the Gondsmountainous, woody, and unhealthy, but famous for its diamond mines-that several small British detachments deemed it prudent to concentrate at Hoshungabad on the 20th December. At this time, Colonel Hardyman, quartered in Rewa, received orders from the Marquis of Hastings to enter the Nerbudda Valley; and accordingly he marched thither, at the head of a regiment of native cavalry, and another of European infantry, with four guns. On the 19th he halted at Jubbulpore, a fortress in the province of Berar, where he found the Mahratta Governor ready to give him battle, at the head of 3,000 horse and foot. These had taken post on some strong ground, having a rocky eminence on the right, and Jubbulpore, with a large tank, on the left. Opening the combat by a cannonade, Hardyman led a charge of bayonets, swept away the enemy's left wing, and soon cleared the whole field, inflicting a severe loss on the foe. He now turned his guns on the fort and town, both of which surrendered. He was about to continue his course southward, when a despatch from Mr. Jenkins intimated to him that his services were no longer required in that direction; therefore he established his head-quarters in Jubbulpore. Throughout the State of Nagpore, hostilities being now ended, all that remained to be done was to settle our future relations with Apa Sahib on some solid basis. The proposals laid before him by Mr. Jenkins, and the faith on which he claimed to have yielded, had already defined them to a certain extent. Though he had permitted the guaranteed time to expire, and a battle to be fought, ere his guns were given up or his troops dispersed, still, as his capitulation had been accepted, and his subsequent conduct had been satisfactory, to have dethroned him would have been, perhaps, a harsh measure. Mr. Jenkins therefore, on his own responsibility, prepared the draft of a treaty, by which Apa Sahib, All while being permitted to retain his royal rank and state, was to cede large territories, and to submit to British control in every department of his administration at home and abroad-in short, to become a tributary vassal. But before this treaty could be definitely arranged, the instructions of the Governor-General, which had been delayed in transmission, arrived, and were found to differ very materially from the views of the Resident. reconciliation with the rajah was peremptorily forbidden, and his musnud was to be conferred on a grandson of Ragojee Bhonsla, by a daughter. As he was an infant, a regency of British selection was to have the administration of affairs; but feeling sensible that he was committed too far to give effect to instructions so severe, Mr. Jenkins entered into a treaty, the terms of which were to be subject to the approval of the Marquis of Hastings. By this treaty, Apa Sahib was to retain his throne, but engaged that his native ministry should be solely of British selection; that the introduction of British garrisons into his forts should be discretionary, besides giving up the Seetabuldee Hills, and a portion of the adjacent ground, for the erection of a fortress and bazaar; to pay all arrears of subsidy; to reside in his capital, under our protection; and to cede districts yielding yearly twenty-four lacs of rupees for the subsidiary force; and so ended a treaty that reduced him to a mere puppet. It would, however, appear that the scheme of placing Ragojee Bhonsla's grandson on the throne could not have been carried out, as the child, together with his father Gooja Apa, had, previous to the arrival of Brigadier Doveton, been forcibly dispatched to the strong fort of Chanda in Gondwana. The new arrangement with Apa Sahib proved to be of brief continuance; but before proceeding to narrate in detail the other events of the Pindaree and Mahratta war in 1818, it may be proper to glancebut briefly-at the important mission which took place in the two preceding years. Lord Amherst was sent as our ambassador to China; but his embassy was not more successful, in attempting to change the exclusive policy of that strange country for more than 1,000 years, than had been that of Lord Macartney, or the Russian embassy of Count Golowkin. On the 8th February, 1816, Lord Amherst sailed on board the Alceste frigate (Captain Maxwell); and in July the embassy was off the coast of China, and proceeded up the Yellow Sea, having been joined by Sir George Staunton (who had accompanied Lord Macartney to China), a message having arrived to announce that the new embassy would be received with every attention. On the 9th of August, Lord Amherst disembarked safely in the Gulf of Pe Chili, not far from the capital. During his journey thither every effort was made by the Mandarins to compel him to comply with the Tartar ceremony of Ka-tow, which he resisted. This degrading ceremony of kneeling and "knocking the head" (the literal Chinese expression) nine times against the ground, is not only demanded from the ambassadors of all tributary kings (as all the sovereigns in the world are called), but likewise on receiving any message from the emperor, and on broken victuals being sent to them from his table; and these humiliations were submitted to by the Dutch in 1795. The Chinese were extremely anxious to extort the performance of this absurdity from Lord Amherst, but in vain; hence the embassy, probably, was useless. The emperor, a man of impetuous and capricious disposition, which his intemperate habits materially affected, seemed in his cooler moments to regret the mode in which the embassy was treated, and even to fear the consequences of its abrupt dismissal, as appeared by his sending after it to request some exchange of presents, and expressing himself satisfied with the respectful duty of the King of Britain, who had sent so far to pay him homage, attributing all the errors to the ambassador who refused to "knock-head." The delivery of the emperor's letter for the Prince Regent into the hands of the ambassador, terminated the official intercourse of the latter with the viceroy at Canton, and with all the other officials of the Chinese Government.† The Alceste, which had brought out the ambassador, was lying at anchor among the Indiamen, to carry him to Britain, and on the 21st of January, 1817, she got under weigh to commence her homeward voyage. As the impertinent opposition, which was made by the Chinese, to the frigate ascending the river, with the gallant manner in which it was punished by Captain (afterwards Sir Murray) Maxwell, forms an interesting feature in the story of this futile embassy, we can scarcely omit a brief reference to the transaction. The banks of the river on which Canton is situated are high and strongly fortified; more than 800 pieces of cannon were mounted on the different "Narrative of a Journey to China, 1816-17," by Clarke Abel. 497 batteries, and when the Alceste passed them, they were garrisoned by about 1,200 men. A messenger came from the Mandarins in command, to inform Captain Maxwell that if he attempted to pass their batteries he would be sunk. To this intimation, Captain Maxwell replied calmly, "I shall first pass the batteries, and then hang you at the yard-arm for daring to bring on board a British man-ofwar so impudent a message!" The messenger was forthwith made a prisoner, and then the war-junks, with which the Alceste was now surrounded, commenced firing; but a single shot, fired by Maxwell's own hand, quickly silenced them, and all continued quiet, while the frigate, from the want of wind, lay at anchor. But the moment she resumed her upward course, the junks beat their gongs, fired guns, and threw up sky-rockets, and in an instant the batteries were completely illuminated, displaying lanterns as large as moderately-sized balloons-the finest of all marks for the guns of the Alceste, while those of the enemy opened a hot but ill-directed fire from both sides of the river. Steering a steady course, the ship maintained a slow but regular cannonade; and when she got abreast of the largest battery, she poured in a broadside of thirty-two pounders, and as the crew gave three cheers, they could hear the stones of the works crashing about the terrified Chinese. After this, all opposition ended; the Mandarins, with their usual dissimulation, announcing that the affair at the river's mouth was only a friendly salute; and thus, on her return downward, the frigate was saluted-but without shot-by all the batteries in succession.† In the Straits of Gaspar she struck upon a sunken rock, on the 18th February; after which, Lord Amherst and his suite had to proceed in the barge to Batavia, a distance of 200 miles; and in the interval the wreck was attacked and burned to the water's edge by sixty piratical proas. Maxwell, with his crew, kept a fortified hill on the coast, and after many daring and romantic adventures, the whole were rescued by the Ternate, Company's cruiser. Captain Maxwell, a native of Leith, died in 1831, Lieutenant-Governor of Prince Edward's Island; and of Lord Amherst we shall have more to record in future chapters. + Macleod's "Narrative of the Alceste's Voyage." CHAPTER XCIII. BATTLE OF MAHEDTORE-CHOLERA MORBUS-LEGEND CONCERNING IT- PROGRESS OF THE could be pursued. His favourite mistress, Toolasi Baee, who had been originally a singing-girl, had attained such an ascendency over him, especially during the time of second infancy that preceded his death, as to secure the succession to a boy named Mulhar Rao. He was a son of Jeswunt, and Toolasi, having no child of her own, had adopted him, and thus contrived to continue in possession of the regency; she was a woman of great personal attractions and winning manners, and with considerable tact and talent, the position might have been secure enough, had not her profligacy excited there not been those who wished to make political profit out of it. One of the first moves in this matter was the suggestion to form a new Mahratta Confederacy, with the usual view of overthrowing the British. Doubtful, by past experience, of its success, her advisers were careful not to commit themselves too much, and sent a vakeel to Mr. Metcalfe, our Resident at Delhi, to assure him of the friendly disposition of the regent, and a treaty similar to that which had been concluded with Scindia was proposed; for, by this time, Toolasi and her lover had become convinced that, without British support much as they hated it-they could not make head long against a mutinous army, led by discontented chiefs. The latter, who were opposed to her and British intervention, no sooner discovered the unexpected course the negotiation was taking, than they resolved to resort to strong measures; thus, on the morning of the 20th December, 1817, young Mulhar Rao was artfully enticed from a tent in which he was playing, and carried off. At the 499 a junction, and having a two days' halt at Oojein, had advanced, on the 14th December, towards the Holkar camp. On approaching Maheidpore, on the 21st December, the very day subsequent to the assassination, Hislop's column, when marching along the right bank of the river, where now the headless body of the regent was the sport of the current, saw the enemy drawn up in line, as if about to dispute the passage of the Seepra at the only practicable ford. Their right was protected by a deep ravine, their same time, a guard was placed over Toolasi Baee; and, suspecting that she was to be put to death, she refused all sustenance. This process proved too slow for her enemies, who thrust her into a palanquin, bore her to the bank of the Seepra, cut off her head, and tossed it, with her body, into the river. The Patan chiefs, and all opposed to British interests, having now the whole power in their hands, clamoured to be led to battle against us, and lost no time in preparing to meet the columns under Sir Thomas Hislop and Sir John Malcolm; who, thinking to further and strengthen their negotiations with the regent, Toolasi Baee, after forming left by a bend of the river and an abandoned village. The bed of the Seepra afforded some cover for our troops; and, as their flanks were all but impregnable, it was resolved to attack the enemy generally in front. Sir John Malcolm ad vanced, with two brigades of infantry, to attack their left, and a ruined village, which was situated on an eminence near their centre. No sooner had these troops crossed the ford and begun to emerge from the cover of the bank beyond and a ravine, than they were received by a dreadful cannonade from two double batteries, armed by seventy pieces of cannon. In the face of these, though men fell, torn to pieces, every |