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Fall of the Mughal Empire v4.c51: Chapter XLI. European Military Adventurers in India

Fall of the Mughal Empire v4.c51

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Chapter XLI. European Military Adventurers in India

§ 1. Guerilla Warfare of the Marathas—its defects

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The old Maratha method of fighting is usually called guerilla warfare; but it was quite different from the tactics followed by the Spanish guerrilleros against Napoleon's troops in the famous Peninsular War. Indeed, the Maratha fighters are best described by their Persian title of "predatory light horse" (*ghanimi fauj*.) Their chief characteristics were that they moved in large bodies—"myriads of horse" as Munro wrote to Wellington,—and they could cover long distances very quickly, being unencumbered with artillery, baggage, munitions and even food supplies, as they and their ponies lived on the country. But unlike the Spanish guerillas they had no muskets and could effect no ambuscade by small parties, such as terrorised the French armies in Spain. When forced into a battle in the open, their plan was to ride down the enemy by a tumultuous charge, enveloping him from all sides at once. Hence it followed that against artillery and walled posts held by trained musketeers, the Deccani light cavalry was powerless. No doubt, they did incalculable economic damage and in a single week's raid could destroy, like a locust swarm, the crops and trees and industrial plant of a whole district. It took a generation to fully repair the ravage of a single raid of the Marathas and to restore production to its former condition.

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The guerilla system of the Deccan had an inherent defect, and this became evident in the second half of the 18th century. Guerillas can operate best when they fight in an area where the people are friendly to them, and supply them with food and intelligence, thus enabling them to move in complete concealment from their enemy. But where such irregular horse is operating outside its homeland, it antagonises the local population by sucking the substance of the country, and this handicap lessens the secrecy and speed of its movements. Moreover, the predatory horse can only cut off small provision supplies and stragglers, but cannot drive away a regular army from the field or from a defensible post, if the latter has stored provisions in advance.

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Then, in the late 18th century, the European-led armies in India had an increased proportion of muskets to pikes in each battalion, and improved the number, mobility, and fire-rate of their light guns. The Maratha light cavalry felt itself more and more helpless in confronting such enemies; in fact the Marathas could operate successfully against the new model if the latter was on the march with cumbersome guns and baggage—as was the case with Cockburn at Talégaon and Goddard in the Borghat, where the Marathas were defending their own broken country. Here the superior arms and discipline of the European-led troops were neutralised by the failure of their supplies and the exhaustion of their munitions. But so long as the ammunition lasted, the predatory light horse durst not approach them.

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As was to be expected, the Maratha light horse refused to face the campoo* unless it was given fire-protection of its own. In the Lakheri campaign (1793) before the final battle was joined, Holkar’s men avoided battle and only tried to “go round the battalions” of De Boigne by carefully keeping out of the range of their enemy’s guns. The impotence of horsemen against musketeers was proved on the field of Panchilas, which preceded the battle of Lakheri by three days and determined beforehand the result of the latter battle. At Panchilas, the wild Malhar Rao Holkar II with his indigenous cavalry made a detour round one flank and threatened the rear of De Boigne’s army, but being confronted by steady musketeers and quick-firing light guns on that face, he broke and fled away; and then the rest of Holkar’s army, which had been waiting to profit by the success of this cavalry charge, left the field without striking one blow! [*Holk. Kaifiyat.* 62-63, “gherāgheri”.]

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∗ For the sake of convenience I use the word campoo for these European-trained brigades and the word fauj for the old type of Indian troops, mostly cavalry. Words like campoo, paltan, (battalion), kumedan (Fr. commandant), manjar (major), jarnal (General) have come from the French and become naturalised in our indigenous histories and despatches written in Persian and Marathi.

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When the fighting was not a skirmish but a grand field action or when the fate of a long campaign is considered, the worst defect of the indigenous type of Indian armies was found to be not its lack of superior fire-arms but the utter absence of integration among its various parts and the want of a brains trust among its leaders. As the French soldier-politician the Comte de Modave observed in 1776: “The army of an Indian prince does not form a regular whole as among us. The different bodies which compose them have no connection with one another. No staff officer, particular or general, is seen among them. Nor is there any subordination of the chiefs to the supreme chief of the army, or any connection or dependence of one to the other. . . Every individual body of soldiers provides itself as it can and as it pleases, with provisions and munitions. (*Journal du Voyage*, tr. by me in *Islamic Culture*, July 1937.)

§ 2. The European military system—why it ultimately failed under the Indian princes

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The superiority of the campoo over the indigenous troops in the actual clash of arms is obvious; but the new system had serious defects, which ultimately led to its failure in India. Many of these defects were noted by contemporary observers, like Thomas Munro and Arthur Wellesley. The root of the matter has been thus briefly put by Sir Alfred Lyall in his *Rise of the British Dominion in India*: “The armament and tactics of civilized nations imply high proficiency in the art of war, abundant supply of costly material, and a strong reserve of well-trained officers; they cannot be hurriedly adopted by an Indian chief whose people are totally unaccustomed to such inventions. Moreover, in proportion as the Marathas adopted the armament and tactics of European warfare, they lost the advantage that comes out of unanimity of national, religious, or tribal sentiment. The new system required professional soldiers, who must be enlisted wherever they could be found; and especially it needed foreign officers.” (2nd ed. p. 198.)

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The rock on which the campoo system broke hopelessly, was its cost. Its soldiers, whether musketeers or gunners, could be made efficient only after a long period of training in cantonments, and their skill and discipline could be kept unimpaired only by means of frequent exercises ever after. The Maratha horse, on the other hand, did not need any such elaborate education; their skill in arms and horsemanship often came from village exercises like school games or hunting and therefore did not interfere with their family profession of tillage.

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Next, fire-arms and munitions are a heavy and recurring charge; a costly transport and supply service has to be maintained for regular troops, who cannot live on the country, as dispersal for foraging would destroy the cohesion and prompt obedience which form the essence of campoo tactics in war. Hence, the campoo had to be paid much higher salaries and paid much more punctually than the light horse, who were always, kept in arrears of pay, sometimes for as long as three years, even by Mahādji Sindhia.

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The infantry of the campoo were almost exclusively men of Oudh, Rohilkhand, and the Doab, and the artillerymen were Upper Indian Muslims and Buxari Hindus, with a large proportion of Telegus and Goanese Christians. Thus, being foreigners in Rajputana and the Maratha dominions, they had to be attracted by a higher pay than the local fauj; they could not eke out their pay by plundering as the light cavalry did. The favour shown to them in the form of higher salaries and more regular payment, produced the bitterest jealousy in the hearts of the fauj, which the campoo repaid with contempt for the fauj as a mere rabble of armed rustics.

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We find evidence of this friction as early as the Maratha campaign of Panipat in 1760-61.

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The introduction of the campoo broke the homogeneity of the armies of the Indian princes who employed them. This foreign and favoured class stood proudly aloof from the local troops, and the latter retorted by throwing the brunt of the fighting on this corps and standing idly in the rear till all was over except the plundering of a defeated enemy. Hence, in its hour of need, the campoo never got the least help from the fauj. This was glaringly illustrated at Assaye and many other battles. The campoo knew that it must win or perish alone without the least hope of support from its comrades of the old type under the same flag.

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Worst of all, the employment of the campoo side by side with them took the heart out of the indigenous Indian soldiers. A hundred clashes between the two systems since the 24th of September, 1676, when Francois Martin had stormed the fort of Valdaour with only 42 Frenchmen and 60 locally levied sepoys, against tenfold odds, had convinced our indigenous type of soldier that it was suicide for him to advance against a campoo unless he was given equal fire support on his own side. The lesson was burnt into the memory of the Peshwā's generals as they watched the devastating effect of Tipu Sultān's French-worked artillery in the campaign of 1786. At Mertā (10 Sept. 1790) De Boigne gave the classic example of the superiority of science over muscles.*

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The inferiority complex thus bred in our old style of soldiers made them useless for retrieving the day when it began to go against them, in a well-contested field. As soon as the trained infantry and gunners on their side were shaken or turned back, the cry ran through the mass of indigenous cavalry in the wings and the rear, that the campoo was broken (paltan bar bād zhālā, campoo budilā), and it became impossible to rally the rest of the army. The British Indian army broke up hopelessly when the cry arose in the sepy ranks, "The whites are fleeing" (*gorā bhāgā hai.*)

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∗ Valdaour (Mémoires de F. Martin, ii. 56). Tipu (Khare, Lekh Sangrah, viii. 3030, 3042).

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An incurable cause of weakness in the campoo was its officer class. They were all foreigners, as the ignorant fighting castes of India could produce no leader capable of learning the European system of war. These foreign officers were not the regular servants of any European State, who would have been men chosen for intelligence and character and bound by a sense of responsibility to their Home Government (like the 200 officers sent out by Napoleon in Decaen's ships in 1803.) They were most of them typical mercenaries, deserters, sweepings of their country's armies, and the dregs of their society. These adventurers held the European soldier's belief that East of Suez the Ten Commandments did not exist. Their dissipated habits and unruly character made them a terror to the country where they operated and an ever-present anxiety to the General who hired them.*

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The campoo was reliable and loyal only under an ever-vigilant, strong, but sympathetic leader and liberal paymaster like De Boigne. All the other campoos had the usual vices of the condottieri of mediaeval Italy. The extraordinary efficiency of De Boigne's brigades was due to certain causes peculiar to it. Their organizer and head was a man of superior education, varied experience, and lofty character; he kept his men and officers joined together and submissive to discipline because he paid them high salaries without default, as he had secured an assured and regular income adequate for his needs from a territorial grant which he administered personally; he chose as far as possible pureborn European officers and gun-layers, in preference to the mestizzoes and black Christians of Goa who commanded other campoos; he was popular with the English, because being a Savoyard he did not share Perron’s French antipathy to the English, and thus he received help from his many friends in the British Indian services and modelled his corps in equipment and arms on the East India Company’s Bengal army; he had his own arsenal and gun-factory under European supervision.

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∗ "The General (De Boigne) told me that his chief difficulty now was in managing his European officers; in giving them authority enough to be useful, but not enough to be dangerous; in conciliating their attachment while keeping them at a proper distance; in establishing due limits to their intrigues; and in disconcerting without exposing their ambition". 11 Dec. 1794, Thomas Twining, *Travels in India*, p. 283). Faqir Khairuddin alleges a conspiracy by his Major, an Englishman named Hunter or Taylor, to murder De Boigne. (*Ibratnāmah*, iii. 245).

§ 3. Proved inferiority of our indigenous military system and warrior classes illustrated

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In the 17th century, the guerilla tactics of the Maratha light horse had stopped the advance of the heavy Mughal cavalry, encumbered with clumsy artillery and unwieldy camps. But their descendants at the end of the next century could make no stand against De Boigne’s brigades marching in a compact hollow column with musketeers guarding the four faces and portable guns firing grape-shot at each corner. Similarly, none could stop Lord Lake, when he marched in a column of three hundred thousand men, of whom only one-tenth were combatants, because of the vigilant fire-protection on each flank. Such modern armies could be rendered immobile only by the fear of starvation; but stores accumulated in fortified posts on the way and well-escorted food convoys, averted that risk. And the predatory horse of the Deccan was itself liable to night attacks by picked detachments from the European campoo with devastating effect. Thus, Bussy ignominiously routed the Peshwā Bālāji Bāji Rao by a surprise night attack during a lunar eclipse (21 Nov. 1751), Lake surprised and narrowly missed capturing the famous Jaswant Rao Holkar himself at Farrukhābād (on 17th Nov., 1804). Even the unfortunate Col. Monson had dealt one such smashing blow on his pursuer Jaswant Rao Holkar in the night of 21 July 1804 which thoroughly frightened the Holkar army for many days after. [Mohan S. f. 136.]

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So much for the vaunted efficacy of the indigenous Marathi system of warfare (ghanimi qāwā or light foray tactics)) against firearms and discipline under European leadership. The fact is that the Maratha army was palpably inferior to the British Indian army and even to De Boigne’s campoo, not only in armament but also in the character of its leaders and men. The Maratha officers lacked education, methodical habits, and the power of planning ahead and carrying their plans to completion by the concerted action of a number of able, obedient and punctual subordinates; while their men had no discipline, no orderliness, and no wish to improve themselves. Compare a Maratha military officer with his opposite number in the East India Company’s army; consider the early Indian career of Major David Price, a run-away Brecknockshire boy who came to India as a private, or the life of a common soldier like John Shipp, or even a civilian like Thomas Twining who entered his Indian service at the age of seventeen, and say if you can supply their match from the high-born Maratha ruling class. And the common soldiers of Maharashtra in spite of their personal bravery and lightness of movement, were no match for the steady disciplined sons of Oudh who formed the campoo infantry; the long spear and short sword of the Deccanis were no protection from the excellent muskets made for the campoo under European supervision. Even the muskets of the Maratha army were usually second-hand arms sold by the European Powers in India as useless and out of date; and their gunpowder had to be purchased from these enemies.

§ 4. Pre-requisites of the successful working of the European military system wanting in India

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Military discipline as cultivated in ancient Macedonia and Rome, or in modern Europe, requires certain qualities of character and nerve which the races forming the Maratha light horse or the Rajput tribal levies, utterly lack. Even parity of weapons could not have made these men the equals in fighting efficiency, of the Oudh sepoys of the East India Company’s army, or of the Sikh soldiers who have upheld England’s banner beyond the Indian frontier and across the sea. These Oudh men formed the bulk of Sindhia’s campoo with a small force of Ruhela cavalry for De Boigne’s personal guard.

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This intellectual and temperamental defect of the pure Indian military classes threw the artillery branch of the native princes from the days of the Mughal empire onwards, into the hands of Goanese and French half-castes with hardly any Indian fit to occupy any position of command or responsibility, such as that of gun-layers. The Indian element in our artillery in the 18th century were golāndāzes, i.e., mere transport coolies and occasionally third class gunners for firing salutes.

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The true superiority of the European armies lay in the education of the intellect and development of character, and not primarily in their more efficient weapons. These two qualifications were utterly wanting in our indigenous armies; most of our old style officers were illiterate and proud of their ignorance; even the few who could read, never improved themselves by studying new books as the European soldiers and civilians in India very often did. After all, there is no escape from the truth, emphasised in Elizabethan England that *Knowledge is Power*.

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Hence, neither the best arms of European manufacture nor the most colourful European military costume could convert the purely Indian armies into the equals of European troops or of Indian soldiers long trained and led in action by European officers,—while our national education was so defective and methodical life unknown in our society.

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The campoo system by putting a foreign head on a purely Indian body, ultimately rendered our armies of the new type helpless and dead when the foreign heads walked off to Europe, abandoning their men as soon as their heap of pagodas had grown sufficiently big to enable them to live at Home as “Nabobs”. This sad truth was learnt by the men of Perron and Avitabile alike.

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The new system was a valuable military growth no doubt; but it was an exotic and could not take root in the Indian soil, so long as the Indians did not heartily accept and universally spread western knowledge and the western spirit. From this fact follows the further need of modern India adopting western industrial methods and producing on the soil modernised officers and modern munitions, so as to possess within her own bosom an inexhaustible reserve of all that a New Model Army requires.

§ 5. Colossal fortunes made by European mercenaries in India

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René Madec, an illiterate Breton sailor, blossomed forth into a partisan captain in India, and even after many defeats and losses here he carried back with himself to France enough wealth to buy a patent of nobility from the French king and some landed estates (seigneuries) and to build a castle for his exalted residence. He came to be known as the Nawab. (É. Barbé, *Le Nabab René Madec*, 278.)

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Pierre Cuillier, better known as Perron, was the son of a weaver of Sarthe (S. France) and could write a few lines with difficulty. Starting his career in the Indian princes’ service as a common gunner, he spent the first nine years as a rolling stone, and was next taken by De Boigne into Sindhia’s service as the Captain of a battalion (1790). Here he rose to the command of a brigade in 1796, and the headship of Sindhia’s campoo in 1801, retiring in September 1803. The fortune that he could pile up in these thirteen years amounted to 135 lakhs of Rupees.* But only one-fourth of this (about 34 lakhs of Rupees) he could carry away to France, having had to give up the remainder to the English to ensure his safe retreat from India. Eight lakhs of Rupees he carried with himself in cash, jewels and indigo for sale, and the remaining 26 lakhs he recovered from the English bankers of Calcutta, with whom he had prudently deposited the amount while still in Sindhia’s service. His fortune at his death (in 1834) was valued at 15 millions of francs or 40 lakhs of Rupees.

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∗ Martin, *Wellesley Despatches*, iii. xxxi n. On his return to France he reported to the French Government that he had saved 50 million francs (which would be exactly 135 lakhs of Rupees, if we take the pound sterling as equal to 30 francs. The pound then exchanged for Rs. 8.) Martineau, *Le Général Perron*. Herbert Compton, *A Particular Account of European Military Adventuers in India*.

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Louis Bourquien, another partisan leader in Sindhia’s service, retired to France at the same time as Perron (1804) and was reported to have carried away “an immense fortune” comparable to Perron’s.

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De Boigne, in a shorter career of seven years (1789-1795), amassed 32 lakhs of Rupees (£400,000). As he used to say, “there was no reason why any European leader of mercenaries in India should not save eight lakhs of Rupees if he were not an idiot or a drunken sot.” (Compton, 92, 68.)

§ 6. The Failure of the Maratha princes to raise revenue from their dominions explained

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We may naturally ask how European generals in the Maratha service could pay their campoos regularly and yet build up such vast fortunes, even when they did not enjoy political supremacy like the English in Bengal. Our wonder is heightened by the fact that the Maratha princes when holding exactly the same territories, used to keep their soldiers in arrears for years together and also run into heavy debt to the bankers. The historical records of the time make the reason for it quite clear.

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The Maratha Government in Hindustan had no competent civil service, no stable administration, and no wise foreign policy. De Boigne and Perron, by constant tours in their jāgirs, put down lawless bands wherever they raised their heads, and thus they gave their lands the necessary peace and security for producing crops and paying revenue. That revenue was collected by a band of Indian civil officers, whose work was daily checked by their French masters, and thus slackness and peculation in the subordinates could be at once detected and punished. A British revenue officer noticed, "The Doab parganas having been under the management of General Perron and the others (viz. those on the right bank of the Jamunā) under that of Col. Hessing, the administration of both which officers was much superior to that of the native Governments." (Atkinson, *N.W.P. Gazetteer*, VII. 520.)

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The Sindhia and Holkar chiefs were illiterate or almost so, and quite incapable by education and habits, of checking the accounts of their civil servants. Nor would they undergo the drudgery of daily calling their collectors to account. The result was that their entire revenue administration was left to their Brahman diwans and Prabhu clerks; and these men were notorious for their love of peculation and ignorance of the economic law that the revenue cannot be increased simply by squeezing the peasantry. The rapacious and inefficient government of the Maratha agents in Hindustan kept lawlessness always raging in their jāgirs, and the desolated land could yield no produce for feeding the population or paying for the administration. Thomas Twining who travelled through the Upper Doab from Farrukhabad via Firuzabad to Agra, Mathurā and Delhi, and back from Delhi via Bulandshahar, Khurjā, Koil, Kāsganj, Dārāganj and Farrukhabad to Fathgarh, in November and December 1794, has left a sad picture of the ruin of agriculture, destruction of the population and widespread brigandage throughout the region; the only oases in this wilderness of anarchy were some villages peacefully cultivated under the strong protection of De Boigne's agents.

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On the other hand, the incompetence and venality of the Maratha civil officers were notorious. As De Boigne wrote in a private letter, in March 1794,—"The pandits who have the management of all business at Sindhia's Court, will never put aside the old way of embezzling the half of what is to pass by their hands, which is so familiar in every transaction that it is not thought so much as to take any notice of it."

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Finally the Frenchmen developed the economic resources of their fiefs to an extent inconceivable to the Marathas.

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De Boigne was the first to settle European indigo-planters in the Aligarh district. They were Monsieur Jourdan (at Khair), Mr. Orr (at Mendu), John Thornton (at Koil and Machhuā), T. Longcroft (at Koil and Jalali), and Robinson and Stewart (at Māloi and Allahdād-pur.) Indigo was then the chief export of the district and it used to be shipped at Farrukhabad down the Ganges for Calcutta.

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At the beginning of 1792 a European coming with an introduction from the British Resident at Lucknow, met De Boigne at Khurja and took from him a lease of the indigo production in Khurja, Jalesar and some other mahals for three lakhs of Rupees a year. Thomas Longcroft who managed the factory at Jalali, told Twining that in 1794 he produced 3,000 maunds of finished indigo, and in good seasons 5,000 maunds. The price of a maund of indigo in 1830 was Rs. 200 or a little more. If this rate obtained in 1794, then the single factory at Jalali used to earn from six to ten lakhs of rupees in one year. How much could a Maratha jāgirdār get out of the same district under this head?

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Next to indigo the most important export of De Boigne's district was saltpetre, in which India had a monopoly of the European market during the wars of the French Revolution. In 1856, the Aligarh district produced 50,000 maunds of refined saltpetre. Supposing that in 1794 the yield was the same, this commodity (of which the price in Calcutta was Rs. 6 a maund) alone fetched three lakhs of rupees a year. It went by boat from Farrukhabad to Calcutta for exportation to Europe.

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∗ Indigo in Aligarh, Atkinson *N.W.P. Gaz.*, ii. 472-473. Lease granted by De Boigne, *DY.* ii. 85. Longcroft, Twining's *Travels in India*, 285-288,—"I observed (to Longcroft) that with one or two good years he would be able to return to Europe with a fortune". Saltpetre, Atkinson, ii. 476; Twining, p. 218 (price).

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The remedy tried by the two Maratha chiefs in Hindustan to secure better revenue, made the disease worse. Mahadji Sindhia constantly changed his diwān in a vain attempt to collect a higher proportion of his dues from the ryots and the feudatories, but this policy only led to a greater desolation of the land and squeezing of the peasantry. It is admitted that his actual collection fell to one-tenth of the standard revenue in many places. [H.P. 607.] Tukoji Holkar followed the cruder method of putting his Brahman diwāns to torture, but even he could not draw blood out of stone. The dishonesty and incapacity of the Maratha civil servants and their masters' lack of far sight in administration and of statesmanship in policy, destroyed all chances of their repeating the financial successes of De Boigne or Perron.

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The effect of this financial stringency was aggravated by the short-sighted selfishness of every Maratha prince; he built up a private treasure-hoard of his own while letting his State go to the dogs for lack of the necessary income. As Captain Broughton wrote from Daulat Rao Sindhia's camp in May 1809,—"While Sindhia is daily submitting to these and similar insults [from his starving unpaid soldiery and servants], he possesses a privy purse, stocked, it is said, to the amount of fifty lakhs; which no distress either to himself or his troops is sufficiently powerful to induce him to violate, it being an established rule to put as much as possible into it, but never to take anything out." [Letters from a Maratha Camp, p. 106.]

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Even from the tributary princes of Rajputana, De Boigne and Perron could more easily realise the promised instalments, because these princes knew that the European generals were men of their words and would hold strictly to their engagements without trying to extort a rupee more as the Maratha agents usually did. And these foreign generals rendered to the Rajput Rajas valuable services in return for the tribute paid, by putting down their rebel nobles and recovering particular districts from the hands of usurpers. This fact is illustrated in extant Persian letters from De Boigne to the Raja of Jaipur and from Perron to the Regent of Kotā.

§ 7. De Boigne's Corps—its organisation fully described, its efficiency accounted for

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We possess the most correct description of the strength and organisation of De Boigne's corps, in an official note prepared for the Governor-General Sir John Shore in Nov. 1793, and printed by me in the *Poona Residency Correspondence* series, Vol. i. pp. 392-397.

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At that time the corps contained two brigades of regular infantry. Each brigade had ten battalions of which six were armed with muskets (*i.e.*, flintlocks.) and called Telingās, and four with matchlocks, called Najibs (an inferior class, composed of Pathans, dressed in the Persian style.) Eight companies, each of 68 men (namely 52 privates, 12 officers, two bandsmen and two *bhistis*) formed a battalion, which by adding 23 members of the staff (namely 10 officers, one surgeon, two clerks, three couriers, one *bhisti* major, five musket-stock makers and one *pandit*) gave a total strength of 567 men. Besides these, twenty-four recruits under four officers were attached to each battalion like apprentices, but they did not count in actions. (They drew two annas a day until incorporated in the rank and file at Rs. 5 a month.)

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Each battalion had two European officers, namely a Captain on Rs. 400 and a lieutenant on Rs. 200, and one European sergeant-Major on Rs. 60. The highest Indian officer was the subahdar on Rs. 40 a month.

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To each brigade, 1,000 Ruhelas were attached, in order to spare the regular troops the exertion of attacking hills, fortified villages, &c. They were called the *Ali-ghol*.

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The cavalry was made up of two distinct bodies: (i) the Guard Regiment or Regulars and (ii) the horsemen attached to each brigade.

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The Regiment of Regular Cavalry was mounted on good horses which were the property of De Boigne (almost exclusively of the bay colour, and each worth, on an average, from three to four hundred rupees—Twining 276.) It was a choice corps, magnificently equipped and mounted in imitation of the famous and costly Bengal Cavalry of the East India Company, and it really formed the guard of De Boigne for ceremonial occasions. This Regiment was made up of 300 men and officers, sub-divided into four *risālas* of four platoons each. By adding 75 irregular horse for skirmishing and 32 gunners for the four galloper guns attached to it, the full strength of the corps was raised to 407 men and horses. De Boigne, when leaving India, sold this cavalry regiment and its horses and equipment to the British for Rs. 1,60,000. [*P.R.C.* viii. 203.]

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To each brigade of infantry were attached two *risālas* of regular horse (150 men and officers) and 50 irregulars composed of the bravest and best mounted men for skirmishing, reconnoitring, &c. These were all *silahdārs*, *i.e.*, they had to provide and feed their own horses, for a higher pay (double for the officers and treble for the troopers) than the Guard Regiment. No European was employed in the cavalry.

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De Boigne's genius was best shown in the creation of his artillery and supply services, and his foresight in this field may excite our admiration even today. No other campoo had even a tenth of his efficient arrangement.

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Each infantry battalion had five guns attached to it, making a total of 100 field pieces for the 20 battalions of the two brigades. Four galloper guns (three pounders) were attached to the Regiment of Cavalry. In addition there was the great Park of Artillery with an establishment of a thousand men. The ammunition carried into the field was provided on a liberal scale unknown elsewhere in India, namely 45 rounds of grape and 12 shells for each howitzer, 400 rounds for each three-pounder and 300 rounds for each six-pounder field-piece. Each gun was drawn by eight bullocks, and its tumbril by 12 bullocks. The gallopers were drawn each by two horses. Eight mounted gunners worked a galloper; it was *never* unlimbered, so as to be ready for firing without a moment's delay. Four camels carried 240 rounds in all for each galloper.

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His army service branch was fully organized: Each battalion had two camels to carry 8 large bell-tents, principally intended for the sick; two other camels carried the tents of the *Golāndāzes*, *Khalāsis*, &c. attached to the guns, and 16 camels the sepoys' baggage,—a total of 20 camels; also two hackery carts to carry the arms of the sick, the tools of the sappers and wood-cutters, the foraging ropes, &c.

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In the campaign in Rajputana, camels carried large leather-bags full of water into the field for refreshing his soldiers. The Marathas had no such arrangement, and Holkar's troops at Lakheri suffered unspeakable agonies for this neglect.

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De Boigne's consideration for his soldiers was unapproached by any Indian prince. "Every officer and soldier when wounded, received a certain present, in proportion to his wound, from 15 days to 3 or 4 months' pay, without any stoppage of pay during the time of his cure. The disabled of his army had a pension for life to the amount of half their pay, and lands besides; and the relations of the killed and of those who died of their wounds, got the property of the deceased." (L. F. Smith, as quoted in Atkinson, ii. 113.)

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At Firuzabad De Boigne established his arsenal for making muskets. His gun-foundries were in charge of Sangster, originally a Scottish watch-maker who possessed great mechanical talent and had obtained the command of René Madec's corps, after it was sold to the Rana of Gohad; in 1784 he passed into Sindhia's service on the submission of the Rana.

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“Sangster was a Scotchman. . . . In the work of casting cannon and manufacturing small arms, he was an expert. The cannon he turned out could compare with the best the (E.I.) Company manufactured, whilst his muskets, produced at a cost of ten rupees each, were excellent in every respect, . . . superior to anything then in the hands of the native Powers, and almost equal in finish and durability to weapons made in Europe. De Boigne at first appointed him to the charge of the arsenal at Agra. . . . In process of time other arsenals and magazines were established at Mathura, Delhi, Gwalior, Kalpi and Gohad, of all of which he had the superintendence. (Twining mentions his musket factory at Firuzabad also, and the Chambery Mémoire of De Boigne, cannon foundries at Hodal and Palwal.) The cannon-balls were cast at Gwalior, where there were very fine iron mines; and gunpowder was manufactured at Agra, the saltpetre and sulphur being imported from Bikanir.” (H. Compton, 47 and 387. Twining, 187.)

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In the last decade of the 18th century the fire-power of the campoo was greatly increased by the constant drilling of the sepoys by De Boigne and his European officers and the use of brass screw-guns, devised and cast by European engineers, which excited the admiration of Wellington. That general wrote after his victory at Assaye, “We have got more than 90 guns, seventy of which are the finest brass ordnance I have ever seen.” The ordnance captured from Sindhia’s northern army after the battle of Delhi (11 Sep. 1803) are thus described—“The iron guns are of European manufacture; the brass guns, mortars and howitzers have been cast in India (at Mathurā, Ujjain, &c.), but the whole are evidently from the design and execution of an European artist. The workmanship is of as high a finish as any in the (E.I.) Company’s arsenal. . . . The whole of the pieces are furnished with well-made elevating screws; some are of the latest French improvement. . . . The (gun-) carriages are strong and good; some are neatly made according to the French pattern." (Wellington's *Suppl. Despatches*, iv. 180; *Wellesley Despatches*, iii. 668.)

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In the armament of our indigenous armies there was nothing approaching these guns in the rapidity, volume and devastating effect of their grape-firing.

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§ 8. De Boigne's service-history under Sindhia

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We can trace the growth of De Boigne's corps and of his military fiefs, with full details and exact dates, from the Marathi despatches and Persian news-letters, and thus correct the many errors found in the English and French books on that general, particularly Herbert Compton's *Particular Account of the European Military Adventurers in India*. De Boigne (Le borgne de Boigne) first joined Sindhia's army as an officer of his General Apā Khandé Rao at the end of 1784, and first saw service in the Bundelkhand campaign of that chief (1785). Along with Apā Khandé Rao he came to Sindhia's camp before Lālsot on 26th June 1787, at the head of two battalions of trained sepoys (1,300 bayonets in all.) He and his men fought for Mahādji most loyally during the reverses that followed the Lālsot campaign for a year. But on 17th June 1788 the tide turned. De Boigne's two battalions and one of Lesteneau greatly assisted in Sindhia's decisive victory over Mirzā Ismail Beg outside Agra on that day.

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Lesteneau was an older soldier than De Boigne and with a longer Indian experience gained in the armies of Najaf Khan and the Jat Rajah. While pursuing Ghulām Qādir (in December 1788) he captured that Ruhelā's saddle-bags stuffed with looted jewels, and on returning to Agra he drew his soldiers' pay from Sindhia but escaped to Europe with all that cash and his jewellery* (early in 1789).

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∗ Lesteneau (spelt also Loustenau and Lestineau) reappears in 1813 in the circle of Lady Hester Stanhope in Syria, as "a strange ragged individual, with grizzly uncombed hair, and wild burning eyes", who sponged on Lady Hester by persuading her that he was a religious mystic, a raving prophet with mad eyes, foretelling the doom of Europe. The Gallic cock crowed very much indeed in giving the following history of his life :—"A Bearnais adventurer, he had left home to seek adven-

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His deserted sepoys broke out in mutiny for their eight months' arrears of pay. Mahādji, by the advice of De Boigne compounded their claims for one-half in cash, and disbanded the battalion. But the officers were retained, and the best of the privates were re-enlisted by De Boigne to form a new battalion.

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Throughout the year 1789, Mahādji was heavily involved in financial difficulties. He was over head and ears in debt, and owed 34 months' salary to his Deccani troops. When, therefore, De Boigne asked for funds to expand his three battalions into a brigade, Mahādji refused, and the Savoyard General, unable to maintain his corps on mere credit, gave up Sindhia's service and retired to Lucknow, where he engaged in a profitable trade along with his friend Claud Martin. From March to August Mahādji's affairs were in confusion owing to his long illness followed by his quarrel with Ali Bahādur and Tukoji Holkar. But in the early winter of that year, he was fully recovered, and a rupture with Mirzā Ismail Beg and in consequence of it a renewal of war with the Mirzā's pay-masters, the Rajahs of Jaipur and Marwar, loomed nearer and nearer. So, Mahādji sent an agent to De Boigne begging him to return to his service and raise a full brigade on his own terms. De Boigne agreed, and promptly reached Mahādji's camp, (October 1789.) He set himself to enlisting men and officers, providing their arms and uniforms, and establishing an arsenal and cannon-foundry of his own. The three old battalions—two of his own and the third mainly made up of

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ture in the East. . . The Rajah (Sindhia) gave him the command of a regiment. His victories over the English (!!!) were so spectacular that in a few years he had become one of the wealthiest and most venerated men in the country. Pigeon-blood rubies and enormous diamonds were showered on him by a grateful Rajah. But in spite of being offered the pick of the Rajah's concubines, he married a French girl, who bore him several children, and as soon as they were old enough to travel, he returned to France, after an absence of 18 years, where he lost his all in the Revolution and speculations. On the way back to India, he fell seriously ill at Acre and the disease affected his brain. In 1820, his son, an ex-officer of Napoleon's Imperial Guard, came to Syria in search of his old father and became Lady Hester's lover. J. Haslip, Lady Hester Stanhope, Ch. 20 & 23.

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Lesteneau’s disbanded men—formed the nucleus of this brigade, and eight more battalions were composed of new recruits from the Doab and Oudh territory.* Five months of constant drilling by their European officers, often under De Boigne’s own eyes, turned them into first-class soldiers, and when they were sent to Rajputana under Gopāl Bhāu, they won the astonishing victories of Patan (20th June) and Mertā (10th September 1790.)

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After these unquestionable successes, De Boigne’s command was increased by adding a second brigade, and for their maintenance a military fief of the value of 12 lakhs of Rupees was granted to him by Sindhia as from the imperial Government. The grant is reported in a Marathi letter of 23rd August 1791, and it included Bāh-Panāhat in the Agra district and Jālesar (then attached to the Mathurā, but later to the Agra district.) *DY.* ii. 27, *HP.* 570.

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Still later, after his victory over Holkar at Lakheri (1st June 1793), De Boigne was commissioned to raise a third brigade, and his personal emoluments were more than doubled. So in July 1793, he was given a fresh military fief made up of 52 parganahs and worth 27 lakhs of Rupees a year, absorbing his first and smaller fief. The annual expense of the two brigades was 18 lakhs of Rupees.†

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† DY. ii. 95, 96, 101. Probably Hāpur and Garh-Muktesar were also included, as is hinted in DY. ii.

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His estate now consisted of two large areas, one in the central Doāb with Koil (Aligarh) for its headquarters, and another in Mewāt (Gurgaon district.) The following mahals are specially named—Firuzābād, Hathrās, Khurjā, and Koil (all in the Doāb) and Palwal, Hodal and Sohnā (all in the Gurgaon district.)

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∗ W. Palmer, the British Resident in Sindhia’s camp, on 28th January 1790, reported, “The corps formed by Mr. D. B. consists of nearly 5,000 sepoys and 350 Indostany horse” (PRC. i. No. 257). Nana Fadnis’s agent in Sindhia’s camp, reported early in March, “De Boigne has newly formed a campoo of eleven battalions.” (HP. No. 570). The number of battalions was evidently increased to 13 before the battle of Merta. Full history in Kālē Akh.

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⁶⁶ He held Jālesar in 1794, acc. to DY. ii.

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⁸⁵ PRC. i. No. 283 and 284. Atkinson, ii.

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¹¹⁴ Compton, 277. Martineau, p.

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¹⁵² The annual cost of a brigade was Rs. 6,72,000 when serving in Hindustan, and half as much again (as bātā) when serving south of the Chambal, which would raise it to ten lakhs. Besides this, De Boigne enjoyed a personal jāgir of Rs. 1,20,500 a year on both sides of the Jamunā.

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Perron raised a fourth brigade at the end of 1801 and a fifth in 1802. His total revenue collection in 1802 reached 80 lakhs of Rupees a year, the Doab mahals alone yielding 75 lakhs. At the moment of his submission to the English (Sep. 1803), he had under him 5 brigades, formed by 40 battalions of 700 men each, 5,000 cavalry, and 6,240 men in the artillery,—a total of 39,000 souls.

§ 9. De Boigne's character

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De Boigne's success was due to his character and education, which placed him far above every other European military adventurer in India. His admiring follower, L. F. Smith thus describes him: —

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"De Boigne was active and persevering to a degree which can only be believed by those who were spectators of his indefatigable labours. I have seen him daily and monthly rise with the sun, survey his arsenal, view his troops, enlist recruits, direct the vast movements of three brigades,—encourage manufactures for their arms, ammunition and stores ; harangue in his darbar, give audience to ambassadors, administer justice, regulate the civil and revenue affairs of a jāidād of twenty lakhs of rupees, listen to a multitude of letters . . . dictate replies, . . . superintend a private trade of lakhs of rupees, keep his accounts, his private and public correspondence, and direct a most complex political machine." He added to a complete mastery of Oriental intrigue the political subtlety of the Italian school. . . . All these multifarious occupations, military, political, administrative, and commercial, were conducted without assistance from others. . . . He never deputed authority, preferring to labour eighteen hours a day.

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"Above all stands De Boigne's staunch and unswerving loyalty (to Sindhia). . . . His manners were polite and elegant, his disposition affable and vivacious, and . . . he

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was modest and good-natured in his behaviour towards his subordinates. His sense of justice was singularly well balanced between severity and mildness. . . . As a general he he may take his stand amongst the greatest India has ever produced. In times of crisis and sudden danger his presence of mind was incomparable.” (H. Compton, 102-105.)

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“There was something in his face and bearing that depicted the hero, and compelled implicit obedience. He walked with the majestic tread of conscious greatness. The strong cast of his countenance and the piercing expression of his eyes, indicated the force and power of his mind. He was at once dreaded and idolised, feared and admired, respected and beloved.” (L. F. Smith.)

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Perron, in contrast with De Boigne, was a vulgar upstart, possessed no doubt of great military talent, tenacious industry and cunning, but without any noble trait or cultivated manners, or even tact in dealing with others. His one aim in India was to build up a fortune which would enable him to live the life of a Nabab on return home, and he monopolised power solely as a means to that end. A Persian memoir written by a clerk in Delhi about 1830, gives an almost incredible picture of his licentiousness. (Mafātih-ur-riyāsat, by Sy. Md. Riza, Br. Mus. ms. Or. 1752, vi.) He died with the infamy of being regarded as a traitor to his Indian master and to his French homeland. (H. Compton, 221-335. Martineau, Le Général Perron, Paris, 1931.)

§ 10. Begam Samru’s Corps

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The largest body of such foreigner-trained sepoys after the campoo of Mahādji Sindhia was the Sardhānā army, originally raised by Walter Reinhard and administered after his death (in May 1778) by his long-lived widow, the Begam Samru. As early as 1776, the Comte de Modave had noticed Reinhard’s aversion to fighting lest he should lose any soldier. And his corps did not earn a better reputation for courage under his successors. This is the character given to them by a European observer: “Samru’s party was never famed for their military achievements. They never gained a gun, and never lost one until they were defeated by the British at Assaye. Samru was distinguished for his excellent retreats. He was accustomed to draw up his men in line, fire a few shots, form a square, and retreat, so that if his corps gained no laurels, they preserved their reputation. His troops were the most mutinous in India, and are said to have frequently attacked their own officers and beaten them with clubs.” (Modave, tr. by me in *Bengal Past and Present*, Apr. 1936. Atkinson’s *N.W.P. Gazetteer*, vol. II. p. 96.)

§ 11. The Peshwa’s Europeanised force

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The campoo touched the lowest depth of degradation in the “Europeanised” corps of the Peshwa. Its composition in 1787 was made up of one captain and 32 European soldiers, and 44 Goanese Christians, together with 183 *gardis* or trained Indian musketeers, a total of 260 men. In addition there was a Portuguese artillery captain, miscalled *Musa Naras* in Marathi, *i.e.*, Senor Noronha, who served the Peshwa from before 1779 till after 1798, and distinguished himself in the fight with the English at Talegaon (in January 1779.) Two other captains in this service are known, namely Boyd the American and William Tone the Irishman. The miserable condition of the Peshwa’s campoo is graphically described by Major Dirom, who saw them in the train of Hari Pant Phādké and Parashuram Bhāu Patwardhan in Cornwallis’s war with Tipu in May 1791. He writes, “The Maratha infantry is composed of black Christians, and despicable poor wretches of the lowest caste, uniform in nothing but the bad state of their muskets, none of which are either clean or complete; and few are provided with either ammunition or accoutrements. They are commanded by half-caste people of Portuguese and French extraction, who draw off the attention of the spectators from the bad clothing of their men, by the profusion of antiquated lace bestowed on their own; and if there happens to be a few (pure) Europeans among the officers and men, which is sometimes the case, they execrate the service and deplore their fate."*

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∗ In 1787—*Aiti. Patravyavahār*, No. 363. In 1779—*Aiti Tipané*, i. p. 77. Boyd—*Dictionary of American National Biography*. From the Haidarabad service, he went over to the Peshwā in 1796, with his corps of 1800 men. (H. Compton). Tone joined soon after, but passed on to Holkar's service in which he fell in 1802. He is the author of a valuable book on *Some Institutions of the Maratha people* (in the form of letters from Punā, 18 June—19 Dec. 1796). Dirom's *Narrative of the Campaign in India*, (1793 ed.), p. 11. In October 1796, "the corps of J. P. Boyd comprehends the whole of the regular infantry of the [Peshwa's] sarkār." [Tone's letter in *As. An. Register* for 1803, Misc. Tr. p. 67].