The Army of the Indian Moghuls: Its Organization and Administration c11.s2.6

c11.s2.6

To the end of the Moghul period the fire arm in ordinary use was the matchlock. The flint lock was little known to them, and, of course, the percussion weapon was never seen, not having been introduced even into European armies until the 19th century (H. Wilkinson, *Engines of War*, 67). The flint lock itself does not seem to have been generally adopted in Europe until the end of the 17th century (id. 67 ¹), and it could hardly have become generally known in the East until a hundred years later. It was not until regular battalions armed and drilled in the European manner, were entertained by the Mah-rattas and the Nawab Wazir, that the flint lock could have got into the hands of Indian troops to any appreciable extent. This seems borne out by the fact that of some sixty fire-arms catalogued by W. Egerton, fifty are match-locks, and only five fitted with the flint lock. A passage in M. Wilks, “South India”, i, 278, note, also shows that in 1751 the flint lock was an absolute novelty to the native armies of Southern India. Fitzclarence, 256, writing so late as 1818 confirms this opinion. He says “The flint-lock, an introduction of the Europeans, is far from being general, and I may even say is never employed by the natives: though the Telingas, armed and discipled after our manner, in the service of Scindiah and Holkar, make use of it. Some good flint locks, are, however, made at Lāhor”. It is true that Khair-ud-dīn, *‘Ibratnāmah*, i, 105, writing of 1173 H. (1759), declares that when Rām Narāyan, deputy governor of Patnah, was defeated by Shāh ‘Ālam, he left on the field among other things six thousand flint muskets (*bandūq-i-chaqmāqī*). This can be only partially true, and even then it must be remembered that, by that time, the importation of arms through the ports on the Hugli must have become active; and what might be true of Bengal and Bahār in the above year, did not represent the condition of things in places farther from the seaboard. In the Dakhin the introduction of the flint-lock weapon, owing to intercourse with the French and English, may have been somewhat earlier. At any rate, it is said that the 12 battalions of Gārdī, or infantry drilled and armed in imitation of the French sepoys, and commanded by Ibrāhīm Khān, Gārdī, at the battle of Pānīpat in Jannary 1761, carried flint-lock muskets (Ḥusain Shāhī, fol. 34b). And, if we may trust Ashob's memory, writing 58 years after the event, the artillery soldiers taking part in the riot of 1141 H. (1729) at the Jāmiʿ Masjid in Dihlī, were armed with flint-lock (chaqmāqī) muskets.