The Army of the Indian Moghuls: Its Organization and Administration c14.3

c14.3

There are other scattered notices about Europeans employed in the artillery. Bernier, 217, (Horn, 32) says “But the artillerymen receive great pay, particularly all the Farangīs or Christians; Portugueze, English, Dutch, German, and French, fugitives from Goa and from the Dutch and English companies. Formerly, when the Moghols were little skilled in the management of artillery, the pay of the Europeans was more liberal, and there are still (1658) some remaining, who receive two hundred rupees a mouth, but now the king (ʿĀlamgīr) admits them with difficulty into the service and limits their pay to thirty two rupees" ¹. Bernier also mentions, 73, 93, that the garrison of Bakkar in Sind had, in 1658, artillerymen who were Portuguese, English, French and German. They had been entertained by Dārā Shukoh. And in describing the battle of Ḥasanpur in 1133 H. (1721) Khūshḥāl Chand, Berlin Ms. 495, fol. 1015a, speaks of the "skilful Europeans" (*Farangiyān-i-chābuk-dast*) who worked the guns. Later again, in 1750, the principal artillery officer of Nāzir Jang, *ṣūbahdār* of the Dakhin, was an Irishman (Cambridge, "War", 67); We learn also from the *Ḥusain Shāhī*, fol. 34b, that in 1760-1 most of Sendhiah's gunners were Europeans (*Naṣārī-i-Farang*); and Gentil, "Mémoires", 285, asserts that at the battle of Katrah in 1774, Ḥāfiz Raḥmat Khān's artillery was commanded by a Spaniard. So late as 1815 the Nizām had some Portuguese artillerymen in his service. "They had a Portuguese who levelled each gun himself, and appeared to have the direction of the attack. If by chance a shot struck any part of the wall, so as to raise a dust, the air resounded with acclamations in praise of the old Portuguese, who seemed in no small degree flattered thereby" (Lake, "Sieges", 16, note).