A History of the Mahrattas v2.c59.1

v2.c59.1

A.D. 1818.—IN the preceding chapter we were drawn forward to mention the last event of the war, whilst the reduction and settlement of the Peishwa’s territory remains to be briefly explained. By the 10th of April, the strong forts of Singurh,¹ Poorundhur and Wassota, with many others, had been taken by the besieging force, under General Pritzler. Though places of that remarkable strength, which has been already described, none of them made a good defence, none stood the assault, and as their previous history was scarcely known, their capture excited less interest, even among the besiegers, than it otherwise was calculated to produce. An exception must be made in regard to Wassota; the wild country, through which the troops advanced for about twenty miles, far exceeded in sublimity and grandeur any pre-conceived ideas the British officers might have formed of those vast mountains, dells, and forests, which they were told existed in the Ghaut-Mahta. The necessary artillery was transported with extraordinary labour through thick jungles and deep valleys, where natural barriers presented themselves in every succeeding hill, at which a handful of men might have arrested a host; and when at last brought to the point of bombardment, intense interest was excited for the two officers, Cornets Hunter and Morrison, who, the reader may recollect, were taken prisoners at the commencement of the war, and were now in confinement in this fortress. The wives and families of the Raja of Satara and his brothers were also in Wassota, and these princes were present in the British camp. The obstinacy of the Killidar, who at first would listen to no terms of surrender, was, in this instance, a cause of general regret. At length the mortars opened; and though the peal of every salvo as it reverberated from the surrounding rocks, carried with it an anxiety for the fate of the prisoners, the bombardment was kept up for about twenty hours, with such effect that the Killidar capitulated, and fortunately none of the captives suffered. The two British officers were found in a dress of coarse unbleached cotton, made into a form neither European nor Indian, but partaking of the nature of both; their beards had grown, and their appearance was, as may be imagined, extraordinary; but their health was perfectly good. They had been kept in ignorance of the advance of their countrymen, or the state of the war; the firing, in driving in the outposts, was represented by their guard as the attack of some insurgents in the neighbourhood; the bursting of the shells over their heads was the first intimation of approaching deliverance, and the most joyful sound that had reached their ears for five weary months. They had been at first used very harshly in the fort of Kangooree; but they were removed to Wassota by Gokla’s orders, and a letter, in his own handwriting to the Killidar, desiring him to treat the two poor Europeans well, was one of several instances of a like generous character, tending to prove that Gokla had no participation in the cruelties of his master; and at that moment excited some feeling of pity for his fate. On most occasions the captive officers had been humanely treated by the native soldiery; and they met with some remarkable acts of disinterested kindness and sympathy.