Fall of the Mughal Empire v4.c51.s2.11

v4.c51.s2.11

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.