The Army of the Indian Moghuls: Its Organization and Administration c12.10

c12.10

The following account of Mahratta ways in 1791 may be taken as applicable to the Moghul artillery of the same period. “A gun is loaded, and the whole people in the battery sit down, talk and smoke for half an hour, when it is fired, and if it knocks up a great dust, it is thought sufficient: it is re-loaded and the parties resume their smoking and conversation. During two hours in the middle of the day, generally from one to three, a gun is seldom fired on either side, that time being, as it would appear, by mutual consent set apart for meals. In the night the fire from guns is slackened but musquetry is increased on both sides” (E. Moor, “Narrative”, 30). Colonel Hector Munro, the victor of Baksar, speaking of the period 1763—1772, held that the Indian princes got their artillery from England, Holland and France. “There is hardly a ship that comes to India that does not sell them cannon and small arms; the most of the gunpowder they make themselves. They cast shot in abundance, but there is no black prince that casts cannon but the king of Travelcore (Travancore). The cannon and military stores are smuggled into the country” (Carraccioli, “Life of Clive” iii, 276, and “Minutes of Select Committee, H. C.”, sitting of 14th May 1772.