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Fall of the Mughal Empire v4.c56: Chapter XLVII. General Perron's Indian Career

Fall of the Mughal Empire v4.c56

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Chapter XLVII. General Perron's Indian Career

§ 1. His early history

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Pierre-Francois Cuillier (who in India changed his name to Cuillier Perron, by which he is known) was born in Southern France and baptised on 6th August, 1753. Driven by poverty he enlisted in the French Royal service, first as a soldier, and later as a sailor in the East Indies. After running away from his ship when it touched at Pondicherry, he travelled to North India in search of fortune, and at first (in 1781) entered the corps which René Madec had raised and sold to the Rānā of Gohad. Its commandant at that time was a Scotsman named Sangster, a good mechanic. Perron had learnt the technique of casting guns, when a youth in France, and his first office was that of an artilleryman or at best an overseer in Sangster's cannon foundry.[*] When the Rānā of Gohad was crushed by Mahādji Sindhiā (in 1783), this corps was broken up, and Perron found employment in Lesteneau's battalion in the Bharatpur Raja's service, as a quarter-master sergeant on Rs. 60 a month (1784). When in January 1789, Lesteneau fled away with Ghulām Qādir's saddle-bags crammed with jewels looted from the Delhi palace, his sepoys mutinied for their

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[*] On 16 Dec. 1782 Perron married at Agra, Madeleine (aged 14) the daughter of the late Louis Déridan, a French Eurasian of Pondicherry. (Elle tenatt de ses parents plus de sang indien que de sang francais, Martineau, 97, 211-213.) Another daughter of Déridan, named Anne, was married to the Dutch colonet John W. Hessing (d. at Agra, 21 July 1803), whose son was George Hessing. The brother of these ladies, also named Louis Déridan, gave his daughter in marriage to Sutherland, a Scotsman. Another Miss Déridan, was married to the Eurasian J. B. Filose. We know of two Armenians in Sindhia's army, Jacob (whom Perron could not create a Captain in 1795, because his European officers refused to admit an Asiatic to their mess, and who then came away from Puna to Agra, where Hessing gave him a Captaincy), and Aratoon. We find both of them in Sindhia's service in 1813. (St. Genis, 367. PRC. xv.)

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arrears of pay, and the corps was broken up. But Perron found a new patron in De Boigne, whom Mahādji Sindhiā had authorised (in August 1789) to raise a brigade of infantry, and who had formed a favourable opinion of him. So, Perron was appointed commandant (styled captain-lieutenant in those days) in one of the new battalions. "Perron soon ingratiated himself with his chief by his courage, activity and great punctuality in his duties. He was a subordinate after De Boigne's heart, being diligent, energetic and indefatigable, taking a pride in bringing his battalion to the highest pitch of efficiency and discipline." (H. Compton.) His administrative capacity, industry, and cool calculating habits made him stand apart from the common run of European military adventurers in India, whose boisterous life of vice made them "a disgrace to any service."

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In April 1792, while Sindhiā's troops were besieging Kanud, Perron acted as De Boigne's deputy in receiving the surrender of Mirzā Ismail Beg (Ch. 39 § 2.) Thus, when a second brigade was raised for Mahādji Sindhiā by De Boigne (in 1793), Perron was appointed its brigadier (called major in those days.) Col. Frémont, an ex-officer of the French Royal service, who commanded Sindhiā's first brigade, was the senior officer under De Boigne; but he died on 8th July 1794, and the way was cleared for Perron's rise to the top.

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Towards the end of the year 1794, when a trial of arms with the Nizām was decided upon by the Peshwā, Daulat Rao Sindhiā called up Perron with his brigade to Punā, and this French general took the decisive part in the defeat of the Nizām at Khardā (11th March 1795.) So, it was only natural that when De Boigne resigned at the end of that year, Sindhiā gave Perron the independent command of the First Brigade, while the Second Brigade, (so long under Perron), was placed under Sutherland, but at first no commander-in-chief of the two Brigades was appointed to take De Boigne's place. (PRC. viii. No. 27, vi. 20.)

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Perron was created Colonel in 1796, and stayed with Daulat Rao Sindhiā at Punā till 22nd August 1797, when he was sent off to Northern India to take charge of the military jāgirs which Mahādji had assigned for De Boigne’s corps. As yet he was not viceroy of Sindhiā’s Hindustan dominions, the Agra—Delhi—Doab country, for that post was held by Lakhwā Dādā, whom Perron had to obey. We have seen in Chapter 43 the part played by Perron in the Widows’ War against Daulat Rao. After the first dismissal of Lakhwā Dādā, Sindhiā rewarded Perron’s loyalty by authorising him to wrest the fort of Delhi (and with it the custody of the Emperor) from Lakhwā’s agent Bhāu Bhāskar Tātyā, which Perron effected through his lieutenant Pedron, in October 1798. [PRC. viii. p. xv. Nos. 74-78. Martineau 61.]

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In October 1798, Daulat Rao Sindhiā nominated Ambāji Inglé as his viceroy of Hindustan in the place of the rebel Lakhwā Dādā, and Perron acted in loyal co-operation with Ambāji. His reward was that Daulat Rao raised him to the same status that De Boigne had enjoyed, with the title of General. At the same time Sindhiā influenced the puppet Shah Alam II to confer on Perron (on 12th February 1799) the rank of a commander of 7,000 (haft-hazāri mansabdār) with the hyperbolical oriental titles, of Nāsir-ul-mulk, Intizām-ud-daulah, Bahādur, Muzaffar Jang. His military fiefs at this time, had an annual income of 27 lakhs of rupees. (Martineau, 65-66. PRC. viii. No. 123.)

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General Perron’s first task was to gain possession of the Sindhian forts in the North still held by Lakhwā Dādā’s partisans. Thus, on 16th April 1799, he succeeded in taking delivery of Agra fort from Vishrām Bhāu by paying the dues of the garrison, and of Aligarh fort on the 27th of the same month.* Perron now made Aligarh his head quarters.

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∗ Agra, PRC. viii. 131-135. Aligarh, Ibid. 136-137. Khurjā, the last fort held by the Widows’ party, submitted to Ambāji Inglé on 1st May. Ibid.

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¹⁴² Perron’s Doab campaign, Ibid. 141-153.

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Leaving Aligarh on 2nd May, Perron joined Ambājī Inglé near Siyānā on the 8th, and the two marched together subduing the refractory zamindārs of the middle Doab—Siyānā, Parichitgarh, Sāharanpur, &c., and even trying to force Begam Samru to acknowledge herself as his vassel. But this last attempt was given up, on the strong objection of the Emperor and Sindhiā. So they retired to their bases at the end of June.

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But Lakhwā Dādā returned to Sindhiā’s favour and was restored to his office of viceroy of Hindustan, on 15th September. Perron was now called upon by Daulat Rao to co-operate with him in the projected campaign for exacting tribute from Rajputana.

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Near the end of September Perron followed by Ambājī arrived at Delhi and had his audience with Shah Alam II. Early next month the two marched from Delhi, first to settle the Rewāri-Narnaul district belonging to the military fief of Filose, and then to advance to Jaipur and meet Lakhwā Dādā for concerting the means of collecting its Raja’s tribute long overdue to Sindhiā. Perron offered to effect a reconciliation between Lakhwā Dādā and Ambājī, his displaced predecessor in the viceroyalty of Hindustan. On 27th October, the three chiefs met together at Muazza-mābād, and their quarrel was settled on terms which have been described in chapter 43, § 6. Thus Perron was allowed to keep the forts of Delhi, Agra and Aligarh, until Daulat Rao’s final decision should be known.

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Perron next made a journey to Jaipur (c. 10 Nov.), visited the Raja and held a parley about the tributes due to his master, receiving paper orders for their payment. Leaving Jaipur on the 22nd of that month, he returned to his head quarters at Aligarh.*

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In December 1799, Perron had to detach a force which defeated and expelled the Ruhelā raiders from the Sāharan-pur district in his jāgir. A large detachment from his army, under Pohlmann supported Lakhwā Dādā in defeating the Jaipur Raja in the battle of Mālpurā on 15th April 1800. (Ch. 43 § 8.)

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∗ Perron at Rewāri (11 Oct. 1799), Mālpura (21 Oct.), Muazzamābād (27 Oct.), Jaipur (10-22 Nov.). PRC. viii. 171-188.

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Less than a month after this victory, Lakhwā Dādā fell out of Sindhiā's favour and went into rebellion. The final eclipse of such an able and patriotic chief had the effect of leaving Perron without a rival as the most powerful servant of Daulat Rao in North India, though he was not yet invested with the office of Viceroy. On 15th April 1800, Perron left Aligarh on a tribute-collecting expedition to Rajputana and gathered the fruits of Lakhwā's victory at Mālpurā.

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Next year (1801), Perron personally marched south of the Chambal and crushed Lakhwā Dādā in the battle of Seondha, on 3rd May. (Ch. 44 § 5.) Soon afterwards he gained the fort of Ajmer from Lakhwā's partisan, through his lieutenant, Louis Bourquien (8th May). The result was that this French adventurer now held the seven most important forts in Sindhiā's northern territories,—Agra, Ajmer, Delhi, Aligarh, Khurjā, Sāharanpur and Firuzābād. Added to this, in July he was appointed subahdār of the Delhi province, an office which he exercised through his deputy Drugeon. The last three months of this year saw Perron's hard-won triumph over George Thomas, and the extinction of that Irish adventurer's dream of planting the British flag on the bank of the Satlaj. (Ch. 46. § 14.)

§ 2. Perron becomes supreme commander

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Early next year (1802) Perron was summoned by his master to his court at Ujjain. He had his first audience of Daulat Rao Sindhia in that city on 29th March.* He was hailed by Sindhia almost as a deliverer, because there was all but civil war between Daulat Rao’s prime minister Jādav Rao Bhāskar and his father-in-law Sharzā Rao Ghātgé, each of them guarding his own house with many hundreds of armed followers. Sutherland was accused of collusion with Ghātgé in a plot for “cutting off Jādav Rao and several other sardārs of rank,” and Brownrigg of “having been a party in the intrigues of Sutherland”. But Perron sternly reasserted his authority over his army by arresting Brownrigg and threatening to court-martial Sutherland whose brigade was changed and he sent off from Sindhia’s side to Agra. Above all, Perron secured from his master a confirmation of his power, emoluments, and jāgirs and the custody of the seven most important forts in Hindustan by presenting 15 lakhs of Rupees to the insolvent Sindhia at his audience of leave-taking at Ujjain.

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∗ A full account of this interview and others that followed it was given by James Skinner, some 35 years later, to his biographer Fraser (i. 241-246). An absolutely contemporary and far more reliable account is found in the despatches of Resident Collins (present at Ujjain at the time), as printed in PRC. vol. ix, Nos. 47-54. H. Compton expresses his disbelief in Skinner's narrative, p. 273. Gulgulé D. silent. Perron left Ujjain on his return journey on 23rd April, and reached Aligarh at the beginning of May.

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This conference with his employer at Ujjain, marks a turning point in Perron’s life. Returning to his headquarters at Aligarh, he set himself solely to the task of ensuring his own retreat to France with all his hoarded millions. Perron was remarkable for his cool calculating nature and a business capacity more worthy of a tradesman than of a fighting general. He was very early convinced of the precarious nature of Sindhia’s Government and his own status as the head of Daulat Rao’s Europeanised army. He knew that in a conflict with the English, the bloated military power of Sindhia would burst like a bubble in a few weeks. Therefore during the sixteen months (from May 1802 to September 1803) that he continued in Sindhia’s service, his policy was secretly to complete his money-collection in Rajputana and Eastern Panjab, transfer his hoarded wealth to British banks, and negotiate with the English for his safe return to Europe. At the same time he continued publicly to give his master anti-British counsels, and to order his subordinates to fight the English to the last.

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For, even at the height of his power, Perron could not forget for a moment that his power had no real basis, and that every Maratha sardār was his natural enemy, and would seize every opportunity to poison their master’s ears against him and hurl this overgrown foreign instrument down. While the Durrāni menace lasted, they had per force to humour the master of the campoo, but that menace ended with the year 1798, and just after this Perron’s power and resources began to increase rapidly as he was the one loyal and thoroughly dependable servant of Daulat Rao* during the civil war in the Sindhia family.

§ 3. Perron secretly turns against Sindhia

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When Perron returned from Ujjain to Aligarh in May 1802, he was seemingly at the height of his power. But he had already received at Sindhia’s capital clear proof that he could expect neither consistency nor gratitude from such a master, and that every Maratha minister and noble was his jealous enemy. Within a month of his return he received from Daulat Rao Sindhia peremptory orders to give up all the *mahals* in his possession not appertaining to his *jāidād*. Such an order highly displeased the General and he immediately sent in his resignation to Sindha (early in June), saying, “If Daulat Rao so wished he might reduce the military establishment of his 44 battalions, which cost 50 lakhs annually, . . . and likewise assign a *jāidād* for the payment of the same to some other officer who might be deemed competent to the command.” But Daulat Rao was in no position to part with such an army chief at a time when he was sinking deeper and deeper into the quick sand of his war with Jaswant Rao Holkar. [PRC. ix. 64, 65.]

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So, Perron continued to govern Sindhia’s northern dominions, and utilised the respite to pile up the fortune to be carried home. In May next year, when Daulat Rao had marched to Burhanpur and his war with the English loomed close ahead, Perron sent him a formal letter seeking permission to resign his office and return to France. At the same time he obtained the British commander-in-chief’s permission to proceed to Lucknow. In British official circles it was well-known in July that Perron “anxiously desired to retire to Europe with his wealth and to dispose of his actual command and of his territorial possessions to some person.” [*As. An. Reg.* for 1804, Country News, p. 7, *PRC.* ix. 119 and 221.]

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∗ “Sindhia’s repeated acts of treachery towards his sardārs have so completely disgusted and alarmed the old adherents of his family that, were it not for the support of the brigades commanded by the European officers, . . . his power would be soon annihilated.” Res. Collins to G.G., 9 June 1800. PRC. ix. 15.

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§ 4. Perron was no agent of the French Government

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Marquess Wellesley and his British admirers were not tired of saying that Perron was building up “a French State in the heart of India” with the aim of “extending it to the Satlaj and beyond”.* Such a theory ignores the practical, mercenary character of Perron and the basic facts of Indian geography. With all the Indian sea-ports under British control and the British navy dominating the Indian Ocean, Perron’s army isolated in the heart of North India, however initially supplied with European officers and military engines, would have had to live “in the air” and ultimately die of inanition.

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Napoleon and the Chauvinistic school of French writers have denounced Perron as a traitor to his native land. He was nothing of the kind. He had never written to the Government in France or to its representatives in India, offering himself as an instrument of French imperialist ambitions on the Indian soil, as René Madec had done repeatedly 25 years earlier. No official letter of the French ministers, no emissary of the Government of France, had succeeded in reaching Perron up to his surrender to the English (7 September 1803), while René Madec was in frequent correspondence with the ministers in Paris and the governors of the French settlements in India.* Marquess Wellesley himself admitted in a letter to Lord Hobart (20th November 1803), that Perron “had not yet been formally connected with the present Government of France.” [MM. iii. 467.]

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∗ Perron’s alliance with the Cis-Satlaj Sikh chieftains who hired his armed aid against George Thomas and their domestic enemies, was a purely mercenary contract. The idea that he was planning to found a French dominion in the Panjab beyond his Agra-Delhi charge is chimerical. After the fall of George Thomas (end of the year 1801), “Bourquien’s brigade overawed the Sikh country, and that bold brigadier was engaged in levying tribute from his recent allies [Sikhs], under the guise of collecting a contribution towards the expenses of the [late] war, so that the cost of expelling Thomas was defrayed by the chiefs of Patiala, Jind and Kaithai.” (Compton, p. 271.)

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In 1794 Pondicherry passed under English occupation and the French had not a single port left in India which could have enabled them to communicate with any Maratha court either directly or through anti-British States. In Dec. 1802 Tipu was dead, and the Nizām and the Peshwā were British vassals. Aboukir Bay had annihilated the French naval power in the Eastern waters (Aug. 1798); Napoleon’s land-route to India had been closed by Sir Sidney Smith at Acre (May 1799). Napoleon’s plan of smuggling a body of French trainers, munition-manufacturers, captains and gun-layers *viâ* Pondicherry to Sindhia’s camp, came too late for Perron, and it was nipped in the bud by the alertness of the British Governor of Madras and the sagacity of Marquess Wellesley.† No French governmental force in India could have been kept supplied with reinforcements of *matériel* and provisions from Home, so long as the English supremacy at sea was not broken,—and of breaking it there was not the faintest hope.

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∗ Full details of these intrigues are given with the texts of the letters in E. Barbé’s extremely valuable biography, *Le Nabab René Madec* (Paris, 1894).

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† On 11th July 1803, a French squadron arrived at Pondicherry from Brest, having on board General De Caen with a military force reported to number between 600 and 700 European troops. The officers were really designed for training and commanding new brigades for Sindhia, and the skilled mechanics for gun-casting and gun-laying; there was also a smail corps of administrative officers to look after the supply and other interests of the projected army. On 12th July one of these ships, the *La Belle Poule* landed at Pondicherry 24 military and 9 administrative officers and 160 white soldiers out of this corps. But in the night of the 13th, De Caen suddenly sailed away with the remainder of the force, on getting secret news of the rupture of the Peace of Amiens. The officers and men who had been landed were detained by the English as prisoners of war, and on 1st October the British again took over the control of Pondicherry and sent these French prisoners back to France. Lake had already stormed Aligarh fort on 4 September. MM. iii. 465, 659, iv. 660.

§ 5. Perron's duplicity

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Perron had been waiting to find out the best means of giving up Sindhia's service and returning to Europe with his wealth intact, when he learnt that on 7th August 1803 General Lake had begun his march with the main British army from Cawnpur towards the Maratha frontier near his headquarters at Aligarh. This forced him to make a choice between surrender and war. He had once dreamt of making an advantageous bargain like that of De Boigne in 1796, who then pocketed 1½ lakhs of Rupees by selling his Cavalry Regiment to the British. Perron now opened negotiations with General Lake for his own retirement, but lost all by his half-hearted and hesitating action. The political situation had entirely changed since the time of De Boigne's resignation. Instead of the pacific Sir John Shore, the imperious Marquess Wellesley, in the full flush of his unbroken triumphs, wielded the government of British India. The only terms offered to Perron were the guarantee of his *proved* private property and personal safety, with a little compassionate gift from the English Company.* This put Perron on the same footing as any other European adventurer in the Maratha service who would surrender under the Governor General's proclamation. Wellesley was determined to destroy Sindhia's French-trained battalions and remove all their European officers. He held that such a force if allowed to remain intact would have continued as a standing menace to the security of British India and to the peace of the entire country.

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∗ Wellesley's instructions to Genl. Lake, 27 July 1803—"An agreement for the security of M. Perron's personal interests and property, accompanied by any reasonable remuneration from the British Government which shall induce him to deliver up the whole of his military resources and power, together with his territorial possessions, and the person of the Mughal [Emperor] into your Excellency's hands." M. Martin, iii. 221.

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Even before the war broke out, General Lake converted the Governor-General to his own opinion that “the early defeat of Perron in the field” should be the primary object of the war, in view of “the effect which this would produce on the minds of the native princes” who believed the French-trained campoo to be invincible.* Therefore Perron could have averted an armed conflict only by the unconditional surrender of himself and his vast army to the British. But apart from Daulat Rao being the lawful master of these troops, would the sepoys of his campoo have agreed to such a mass-suicide?

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Perron knew that he could not stand up to the British Indian army, because all the English and Scottish officers under him had resigned, refusing to bear arms against their own country, and he had been, by his own admission, unable to enlist any competent French officers to replace them, so that his only European officers were half-castes from Goa and Pondicherry, whom he knew to be worthless. Besides this, in his private life, Perron was burdened with a sickly wife and a two-year old daughter, the sole remnant of a family of ten children, nine of whom had already fallen victims to the Indian climate in their infancy.†

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† In a letter to his brother, wr. in March 1803, Perron gives these figures. Martineau is wrong in saying that 8 children had perished in India [Martineau, p. 184 corrected from p. 94.] His wife died on 23rd August 1804 at Chinsura aged 36, after giving birth to an eleventh child (Joseph) on 25th July.

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Perron was determined in his heart of hearts not to fight the English, and yet with incredible cowardice and treachery, while he was secretly higgling for better terms from General Lake, he publicly made fiery declarations against the English, calling upon his lieutenant, Col. Pedron the commandant of Aligarh fort, to resist General Lake to the utmost, and promising to come himself with “a large army on the plains of Aligarh, . . . to send back the English General as fast, or perhaps faster than he came." [M.M. v. Maratha War Sup. 75-77 = iii. 367-368. Letters to Pedron in As. An. Reg. for 1804, State P. 258-260.]

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∗ This was proved true by the event. After the flight of Perron from his camp at Koil, Lake wrote to Wellesley, on 29th August: “This day has had a most wonderful effect upon the minds of the natives, who always thought M Perron invincible. It always was (as your Lordship knows) my opinion that the moment Perron was beat, no one would come to him.” MM. iii. 190, 284.

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One result of Perron's cowardice and duplicity was the massacre of thousands of sepoys—men braver and more honourable than himself—who had trusted him but whom he betrayed by his flight. Another was the draining out of India of an incalculable amount of wealth by the British army as prize-money gained in war.

§ 6. Perron's treachery analysed

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Perron was no doubt a traitor,—but to Sindhia alone. He never deceived himself into the belief that his four brigades of blacks officered by mestizoes, could stand up to the British Indian army stiffened by six thousand white troops from Home,—the veterans of American and Continental warfare. And yet he did not warn Daulat Rao to avoid war with the English, as De Boigne had done throughout his Indian career. A man of honour would have given Sindhia this advice at the first sign of an anti-British plot being hatched at his Court, and if his advice had been rejected, he would have at once resigned. Perron never really meant to fight the English, and yet he humoured Daulat Rao in pursuing a policy which was sure to lead to a fatal conflict with the British, while concealing his real intentions. He clung to his post till the very outbreak of the war with the English, in order to get more time for piling up his private fortune.

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It was reported to Resident Collins by Sindhia's ministers in 1802 that Perron annually collected 80 lakhs from the Hindustan territory entrusted to him, but accounted for only 40 lakhs to his master. Thus he made a net profit of 40 lakhs every year, to which he added his lawful salary, commission on tribute collection and other emoluments,—another gain of 18 lakhs. Every month that he continued in Sindhia's service meant an increase of five lakhs in his hoard, and from this sordid motive he ruined his master and left his soldiers in the lurch to be butchered by the English, without giving them time to form and accustom themselves to an indigenous body of commanders in the place of the mercenary foreigners who had run away. The fabulous wealth which enabled a French weaver's son to buy a seigneurie at Fresne, live as a Nawab, and marry his daughters to French noblemen bearing historic names like Montesquiou, Oudinot, and Rochefoucauld,—was acquired by dishonourable means. His treachery was only exceeded by his cowardice.

§ 7. Deterioration of De Boigne's army under Perron

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The splendid army which De Boigne had shaped for Mahādji Sindhiā had undergone a great change of form and spirit in Perron's hands. It had expanded from the three brigades of 1793 to four in 1802, while a fifth was in course of formation in 1803. But it had sadly declined in quality. First, the veteran Europeans of René Madec's corps whom De Boigne had found so useful in officering his newly raised battalions, were mostly dead by 1802. The Savoyard general used to give preference to English and Scotch officers, and lived in personal amity with the British power in India. In contrast with him Perron had a Frenchman's jealousy of the English, and in 1802 his home land was at war with England. Moreover, his meanness of character and avarice made him prefer servile lieutenants to the British subordinates who stood on their own dignity as gentlemen. Thus it came to pass that he made a purge of English and Scotch officers from his army in 1802. In some biographical notes dictated by him after his return to France he gave the following explanation of his action:

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"Sindhia, wishing to reassure himself of men on whom he could count in the case of a rupture [with the English], gave me orders to administer to all his officers without distinction, . . . the oath to serve him faithfully against all the

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enemies with whom he desired or might happen to be at war, and to dismiss all who refused. I sent to all the commandants an order to administer the oath demanded by the prince in their respective brigades. The order was carried out in the 2nd and the 3rd brigades,—the only ones a little close to me, and nearly all the Englishmen and sons of Englishmen took their dismissal. Colonel Dudrenec, however, did not administer the oath in his own brigade, fearing (as he wrote to me) to lose his officers. But as the object of the prince was really to find a decent pretext for expelling them [the British officers] from his army, I enjoined on Mons. Dudrenec to administer the oath strictly. . . . But after that time I did not hear of him again, nor had I any knowledge of his movements.” [Martineau, 166-167.]

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The strength and organisation of De Boigne’s corps in 1793 have been described in Chapter 41, § 7. The condition of Sindhia’s European-trained army in 1802 is thus described by Perron:—“The force which I commanded in the service of Sindhia consisted of four brigades, each of eight battalions. Each battalion had eight companies, each company being 65 infantry in strength. There was a small body of cavalry, from 2,500 to 3,000 horse, [forming the General’s guard.] Each brigade ought to have been commanded by a Colonel, a Major, eight captains and 16 lieutenants. But the difficulty of getting reliable Europeans led to the corps of officers being rarely complete. The cavalry was commanded by a captain and a lieutenant.

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“By reason of the difficulty in getting European officers,—above all Frenchmen, whom the English prevented, as much as lay in their power, from travelling to the princes of the country, we were obliged to accept nearly every [white candidate] who presented himself. And the greater number of my Majors, Captains, and lieutenants were English and the natural sons of English fathers and native women.

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“The four brigades were thus commanded in 1803,—the First by Colonel Pohlmann, the Second by Col. George Hessing (the Eurasian son of Col. John Hessing, a Dutchman), the Third by Louis Bourquien, and the Fourth by Col. Chevalier Dudrenec. The Cavalry was under Captain Fleury.” [Martineau, 165.]

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“Thus every Englishman in the force, . . . was debarred from superior employment, although the British subject; in the brigades numbered no less than forty. Country-borns—a very large factor in the force—who could boast a British origin, fared no better.” [Compton, 277.]

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There were under the Delhi Empire, two other corps affiliated to Perron’s command, by virtue of Sindhia being the official commander-in-chief (*Bakhshi-ul-mamālik*) of the Emperor, but they were paid and controlled independently of Perron; these were the brigade of Jean Baptiste Filose and that of Begam Samru.

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Thus it happened that when the long foreseen clash with the English at last took place, Sindhia’s trained battalions were officered by Frenchmen of a low type (unlike the cultured and aristocratic Frémont or Dudrenec), uneducated Eurasian lads run away from school,* Portuguese mestizoes and even black Christians from Goa.

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The description of Perron’s army given by Resident Collins from information supplied by a British officer in Sindhia’s service, in April 1802, refers to its sanctioned strength and not its actual muster numbers. Collins himself makes this correction in subsequent reports, such as, “The battalions are very incomplete at present, both with

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* James Skinner himself had received so little education that he preferred to write in Hindustani. His father could not afford to keep him in a boarding school in Calcutta. He writes that when Jaswant Holkar defeated Hessing’s corps at Ujjain (17 July, 1801), “Sixteen country-born officers, who were all my school-fellows, were killed at their guns. They had all entered the service within a month of each other.” [i. 171.]

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The condition of Perron’s Eurasian officers as seen by Bishop R. Heber in 1825:—“Scattered up and down in the towns of Koil, Aligarh and Etawa . . . were several elder persons, who had been in the Maratha service during Perron’s time, of European extraction, but who knew no language but Hindustani. One of these Indo-Europeans is an old Colonel, of French extraction, very rich, but completely Indian in colour, dress, language, and ideas.” (*Narrative of Journey*, 2nd ed. 1828, ii. 342.) Probably M. Péche.

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respect to European officers and sepoys. . . . Perron’s infantry brigades are not yet regularly formed into ten battalions each.” Subject to the above qualification, Perron’s force in April-May 1802, was reported by Collins to be made up of four brigades of infantry, each of ten battalions with a bayonet strength of 716 men, four field-pieces and one howitzer to each battalion. Each brigade had, in addition to its battalion field-pieces, a general park consisting of 16 large-calibre guns, The risāla of regular cavalry (inflated by Collins’s correspondent to 4,000 sabres) was supplied with galloper guns. The scale of pay for service in Northern India is given below, to which an addition of 50 p.c. (bata) was made when posted south of the Narmadā:—Major (corresponding to the modern Brigadier) Rs. 1,200 a month; Captain (i.e., colonel commandant of a battalion) Rs. 400; Lieutenant (i.e., company commander) Rs. 200; sepoy infantryman, Rs. 7. [PRC. ix. 50, 50.]

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CHAPTER XLVIII

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WAR PREPARATIONS OF THE ENGLISH AND THE MARATHAS, 1803

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§ 1. Maratha reaction to the Treaty of Bassein

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The Treaty of Bassein bound the English to restore Bāji Rāo II to his throne at Punā. The Governor-General performed this task by his masterly statesmanship, without having to strike a blow. He made a wise distribution of the British forces in the east, north and west, where the loosely scattered dominions of Sindhiā touched the British frontier, and he won the South Marātha barons over to his side by guaranteeing the possession of their estates. Mysore, abutting into the south end of Mahārāshtra, was made a convenient depot of British arms under Arthur Wellesley. The news of these steps struck terror into Sindhiā and Bhonslé.

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The Governor-General knew that the great Marātha sardārs felt an unspeakable aversion to the Treaty of Bassein, and would annul it by force if they had the least hope of success. But he also knew that Bhonslé’s army was contemptible, that Sindhiā would not stand up to English troops unless he was joined by Holkar, and that a union of hearts between Sindhia and Holkar, which alone could threaten danger to the British Power and disturbance to the British protectorate of Haidarabad, was an impossibility. But, while holding firmly on to his legal position of vantage, he avoided making a declaration of war as long as possible, in order to throw the guilt of aggression on Sindhiā. Daulat Rao’s imbecile political manœuvres and the cowardly selfishness of his advisers, made him lose seven months in hesitation and secret intrigue, and then go to war at the wrong time, like a moth that long buzzes round a candle and at last blindly rushes into the flame only to destroy itself.

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When the news of Jaswant Rao Holkar’s victory at Punā reached Ujjain, there was consternation in the Court of Daulat Rao Sindhiā. A reporter in that city wrote, “All here are stunned and taking counsel together. We are wanting in money, wanting in troops. Our forces in the Deccan, both cavalry and trained infantry, have been totally ruined. Daulat Rao has issued letters calling his detachments in Hindustan to his side as he intends to go to the Deccan in person.” But his progress was so slow that even on 7th February 1803 he was still on the north bank of the Narmadā, and arrived near Burhānpur as late as the 24th of that month, exactly four months after the battle of Hadapsar. The question of restoring Bāji Rao to his throne was in agitation in his council and he appealed to the English for help in this task. But the news reached him that the Peshwā had already made a defensive alliance with the English. This meant that Sindhiā’s proud office of the Peshwā’s regent and protector was taken away from him by the force of circumstances which he could not control. He had invited the English as a party to the old friendly treaty of Salbāi to join him in marching to Punā and restoring Bāji Rao to his throne. Wellesley replied that the English could do that work with their unaided strength, and that the best service that Sindhiā could do to his master was to remain at peace within his own dominions and avoid every step that might disturb the Peshwā’s territory. It was only on 28th May that Daulat Rao first read the terms of the momentous treaty from the Persian and Marathi translations supplied to him by the British Resident.*

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∗ The artful Bāji Rao had written to Daulat Rao from Bassein vaguely stating that he had made a friendly alliance with the English, and was sending to him an agent who would discuss the matter with Sindhiā. This envoy, Bāloji Kunjar moved so slowly that he reached Daulat Rao’s camp only at the end of April, and even then he did not bring a copy of the Treaty with him. Resident Collins, who had the text and translations of the treaty with him, justly said that as Sindhiā’s ministers were not prepared to discuss the treaty with him before

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Sindhia's first plan was to gather as many allies as possible, march on Punā, expel Holkar's garrison from it, restore Bāji Rao, and thus recover his own ascendancy as the Peshwā's regent. Wellesley's occupation of Punā in April, killed this plan. In the meantime Daulat Rao had been intriguing with Raghuji Bhonslé of Nagpur and trying to win Jaswant Rao Holkar as an ally in a grand Marātha confederacy to rescue the Peshwā from English vassalage and annul the Treaty of Bassein. Every move in this game was reported to the English by their numerous spies. Marquess Wellesley ordered the Resident Colonel John Collins, who reached Sindhia's camp on 27th February 1803, to demand a categorical reply from Daulat Rao whether he accepted the Treaty of Bassein or objected to it, and at the same time to invite him to join in a general subsidiary alliance with the English as his sovereign had done.

§ 2. Daulat Rao Sindhia's hesitation and folly

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At an interview on 24th March 1803, Sindhia's ministers admitted that there was nothing hostile to their master's interests in the Treaty of Bassein, but added that they must hear from the Peshwā directly before giving their assent to the treaty. The Peshwā's special messenger arrived at the end of April; and then Daulat Rao shifted his ground and declared that he must take counsel with the other great Maratha feudatory, Bhonslé of Nagpur, before deciding on his attitude to the treaty.

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Daulat Rao's object was to gain time for completing an anti-British coalition before making a rupture with the English. It was a futile policy, considering the unbridgeable gulf between himself and Jaswant Rao Holkar, and his own blind greed in clinging to all his gains from the

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learning of the Peshwā's wishes from his expected envoy Bāloji Kunjar, he considered it useless to supply them with his copy of the treaty before Kunjar's arrival. So he supplied it only at the interview of 28th May. [MM. iii. 159.]

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House of Holkar, till the last moment. The Peshwā had gone over to English protection in November 1802, and it was 4th June 1803 before Raghuji Bhonslé joined Daulat Rao, and 9th July before the late Malhar Rao Holkar's heir was released from Sindhiā's prison and delivered to Jaswant Rao's agents. By this last date Resident Collins had already presented his ultimatum. But the negotiations were prolonged for three weeks more by Sindhiā making fresh but insincere proposals of a peaceful settlement. At last Collins withdrew from his camp on 3rd August and the war began.

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The needless presence of Daulat Rao Sindhiā and Raghuji Bhonslé with two vast predatory armies at Jamner, within ten miles of the Nizām's frontier, was a standing threat to the Nizām and to his protectors the English. Collins, by order of the Governor General finally called upon them to separate their forces and march back to their own capitals. This ultimatum was openly rejected on 1st August, and Collins took his departure on the 3rd of that month.

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The different ways in which the two sides prepared for the trial by combat which they knew to be inevitable, present by their contrast a lesson of the profoundest instruction to us.

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The whole course of Daulat Rao Sindhiā's actions leading up to the war with the English, was marked by folly, indecision and delay, as if mere deception and theatrical demonstration could decide the fate of nations. The futility of his policy was patent to all. The Kotā agent in his camp reported, "Daulat Rao at first alienated General Perron, now he is flattering him. He first destroys and then he has to humiliate himself (to undo the mischief). Such is the way in which he works," (7 March 1803.) And again, five days later, "Sindhiā and his ministers practise only deception and lying. People have lost all trust in them; they say one thing and do another. No sign of their reassuring any body's mind." On 23rd June this was the condition of their camp, "They have no strength to ascend the Ajanṭā pass, and have no money. Here horses and men are dying of hunger; many soldiers are going away. A campaign is ahead and (yet) the scarcity is great. We know not what God has ordained for us."*

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After Raghuji Bhonslé had come to Daulat Rao's camp, there were endless discussions between the two allies, but no action. Jaswant Rao Holkar though appealed to for joining a pan-Marātha confederation against the English, knew the weakness of Sindhiā's council and army and had no faith in Daulat Rao's promise of restoring the Holkar possessions. So, like the realist in politics that he was, he withdrew to his own capital, after getting hold of his nephew, the child Khāndé Rao, and left Sindhiā to his fate.

§ 3. British preparations—acquisition of the north-western frontier of Oudh

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While such incredible folly, weakness and discord paralyzed the Marātha leaders in the face of the threatened British subjugation, we find on the English side the most amazing sagacity and efficiency in preparing for the coming contest. The Governor-General, Marquess Wellesley, was a statesman of marvellous vision, organising power, and skill in choosing the fittest instruments for his purpose. His dominating will made him take the initiative, cut red tape, and seize the quickest way to success, regardless of official conventions and the frowns of the distant Home authorities.

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The keynote of Wellesley's Indian policy was the destruction of "the French State now formed on the banks of the Jamunā."† as he called Perron's viceroyalty of Northern India nominally under Sindhiā. In the pursuit of this policy, framed in his mind even before he landed in India, he had already extinguished Tipu Sultan and emasculated the Nizām, and thus the Marāthas stood without any possible ally. The next step in his scheme was to induce the Peshwā to accept the protective vassalage of the English. This proposal had been repeatedly declined by Bāji Rao II, but Holkar’s victory on 25th October 1802, brought it to fulfilment before the year was out.

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∗ Repeated in a letter of 11th August, after the war had started,—"There is an urgent need of our setting out on march, but we have no money. He is daily urging, but no soldier will go out. If God wishes to preserve the Brāhman rāj and performs some miracle, then only will it be well."

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† MM. iii. 215, 211 ("an independent French State on the most vulnerable part of the Company's frontier.")

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But long before this unexpected and bloodlessly-achieved success Wellesley had been perfecting his preparations for the inevitable war against Bāji Rao’s overgrown feudatories and their European-led armies. His first step was to create a belt of British territory on the western flank of Oudh, so as to intercept any Maratha invasion from Sindhia’s part of Hindustan and also to enable British forces to penetrate into “Perron’s French kingdom” without delay. By a treaty forced on Nawab Sādat Ali Khan (on 10th November 1801), he secured for occupation and administration by the British the nine districts of Rohilkhand, Mainpuri, Etawa, Cawnpur, Allahabad, Azamgarh, Basti, Gorakhpur, and Farrukhabad (this last being ceded by its Bangash Nawāb a year later.) This territorial gain enabled the English to make a large addition to their forces kept ready on that frontier, at the expense of the Oudh Nawab.

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The moral effect of this transfer was even greater than its military gain. In this Ceded Province—the germ of the N.W.P. and U.P. of later times—the Indian world was given an unmistakable object-lesson of the superiority of British administration and the immense increase of the people’s prosperity by the change from indigenous rule to English government. A most efficient system of administration was set up in this Ceded Province, and it worked wonders in the year and a half that intervened before the outbreak of the war. The first Lieutenant Governor, Henry Wellesley, was a political genius like his two brothers, Marquess Wellesley and the Duke of Wellington, and he worked with unfettered powers and liberal financial support. Under him was placed a band of 23 British covenanted civil servants, picked up for their ability and knowledge of oriental languages, and they worked with the greatest zeal and success under their chief's active leadership and sympathetic support.*

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It was "an unsettled and discontented province with a population greatly debased and impoverished by long years of misrule" under the Oudh Nawābs. But in a short time the banditti who had hitherto ravaged the land were effectively suppressed; guard-boats patrolled the rivers and checked the pirates who had obstructed the natural and extensive trade down the great river-highway of the Jamunā and the Ganges. Periodical fairs were established to open up the different districts to mutual intercourse. The currency was reformed by restricting the minting of rupees to the two chief towns. Over-powerful zamindars, like Balwant Singh of Sāsni, who on the strength of their mud-forts and armed retainers, used to enforce arbitrary exactions from travellers and traders, and withhold the proper revenue from the Nawāb's officials, were crushed by strong British detachments. A new city named Wellesleyganj, with a ghāt, a sarāi, a market-place and offices was founded within three miles of Hardwār, where the British, Gurkhā and Marātha frontiers met, and thus the wilderness between Bareilly and Hardwār (200 square miles) began to be thrown open to cultivation and trade.

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This pacification, effected before the outbreak of the war with Sindhiā, tempted merchants from Hathrās and other places in Sindhiā's portion of the Doāb to remove with their families to the new province; a general cotton-market was established at Etāwā. The city of Allahabad, from being a mere pilgrim resort, rapidly grew into a flourishing commercial capital, where 600 new warehouses were built, and served as the chief emporium in upper India for piece-goods, sugar, opium, and raw cotton. The revenue of the Ceded Districts—which had fallen from 2½ crores in Mughal times to 135 lakhs under the Nawābi, increased by 40 lakhs after the first year of British rule, and this amount was willingly paid.*

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∗ In an address presented to him on the eve of his retirement, they thanked him for his "liberal and unwearied endeavours and his indefatigable personal exertions in an arduous task... in a newly acquired territory where everything yet remained to be done." *Asiatic An. Reg.* for 1807, pp. 17-30. *Ibid* for 1804, Sup. to Chronicle, p. 11. *Diary and Correspondence of H. Wellesley*, pp. 36-41.

§ 4. How General Lake trained his army for the Maratha war

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On the British side, the military preparations for the coming war were worthy of a race that deserves to win an empire, because it provides for everything that can be thought of beforehand and leaves very little to be clumsily improvised under the stress of actual conflict. In Northern India the Commander-in-chief, General Lake, was in the full vigour of body and mind. From his 17th year he had received the best apprenticeship in war by serving close to Frederick the Great, and since then he had gathered experience in a successsion of Continental and American wars. More recently he had proved himself an active and clever leader, by the ruthless energy with which he had crushed the Irish rebels of Vinegar Hill (1798.) After landing in Calcutta on 31 January 1801, he set up his head-quarters at Cawnpur, then the frontier station of the Company's territory, and here he spent the winter of 1802-3 in personally training his men and officers in the new tactics that would ensure success against an enemy like the Marāthas.

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During winter Lake's headquarters were located at Kanauj, 50 miles north-west of Cawnpur. In the vast plain on the bank of the the Ganges here, the various cavalry regiments, British and Indian, were assembled and exercised together, according to a uniform system under the eyes of the Commander-in-chief himself, throughout the winter months of 1802-1803. Chief among the exercises was the use of galloper guns,* the efficiency of which was proved shortly afterwards in this war, by the terror which they produced on the Marātha horse. "Two of these guns, six-pounders, were attached to each regiment of horse, and nothing could exceed the speed and exactness of the manoeuvres made with them at full speed by this large body of cavalry, whose combined movements were conducted with the most perfect order and in a spirit of rivalry. Such continuous training gave Lake an opportunity of testing the capacities of his officers and men, and inspiring them with much of his fearless and confident spirit." (Thorn, 80, Pearse, 151.) At the same time he won his officers' hearts by frequently joining them at table and the hunting field, while his soldiers loved and admired him for his personal touch with them, his good humour and his sharing their hardships in campaigning. His principle of war was always to attack and attack with impetuous vigour, at the same time that he maintained strict discipline in the ranks and cohesion among the different divisions. (Pearse, 132, 416, 151-154 ; Pester, *War and Sport* ; Shipp's *Memoirs*, ch. 6-8.)

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∗ As H. Wellesley wrote, "The farmers, soon found the advantage of living under our mild system, free from the extortions and oppression to which they had before been subjected, and it is incredible how soon the country began to assume an appearance of greater prosperity." (Diary, p. 39).

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While the cavalry at Kanauj was thus preparing itself for the next war, the infantry regiments in Cawnpur, Fathgarh, and other stations in Oudh were being provided by General F. St. John with an organisation of light infantry† companies (*i.e.*, sharp shooters), similar to those introduced about the same time into the army in England. The French Revolutionary soldiers had shown what sharp-shooting light infantry could do, and that lesson was here taught to the British Indian army.

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