division of General Marley, 8,000 strong, destined to march A.d. directly on the capital, only 100 miles from our frontier; 1815 but he surpassed the others in imbecility. Two detachments were sent east and west without any precautions, and were fiercely assailed by the enemy. The sepoys fled, but the officers fell fighting with their usual valour, and guns, stores, and ammunition were captured by the enemy. The wretched general made a retrograde movement, and, though reinforced by two European regiments, could not be persuaded to enter the forest; and one morning, at early dawn, mounted his horse, and, without even delegating the command to any officer, galloped back to the cantonments at Dinapore. General George Wood, who succeeded him, was equally devoid of spirit, and the services of the division were lost. verses. This was the first campaign, since the Company took up arms in India, in which their troops outnumbered those of the enemy. Our non-success was owing entirely Effect of to the exceptional incompetence of the generals. these reLord Hastings regarded his position with extreme anxiety, and, in his diary, stated that if we were to be foiled in this struggle, it would be the first step to the subversion of our power. These reverses were diligently promulgated throughout India, and revived the dormant hopes of the native princes, who began to make military demonstrations. Under the auspices of the Peshwa, who sent envoys to all the courts in India, not omitting even the Pindarees, a secret treaty of mutual support was concluded against the British Government. The army of Sindia was organised on our frontier. Ameer Khan, with 25,000 horse and foot, took up a position within twelve marches of our territories. Runjeet Sing marched 20,000 men to the fords of the Sutlej, and 20,000 Pindarees stood ready for any opportunity of mischief. To meet this emergency, Lord Hastings ordered up the whole of the disposable force of the Madras army to the frontier of the Deccan, and raised additional regiments of infantry, enlisted irregular horse, and increased the strength of the army to 80,000. But the Company's ikbal, or good fortune, as the natives observed, was still in the ascendant. Runjeet Sing was recalled by a threatened inroad of the Afghans. Sindia's two commanders, after long discord, attacked each other; the Pindaree leaders quarrelled among themselves; Ameer Khan found more immediate employment in the plunder of Joudpore, and the cloud A.D. was completely dispelled by the brilliant success of General Ochterlony. The division of this general was appointed to dislodge 1815 the Goorkhas from the territories they had acquired on Operations the higher Sutlej, where Umur Sing was in of General command, and the ablest of the Goorkha generals Ochterlony. was pitted against the ablest of the English commanders. The scene of operation was a wild and rugged region, presenting successive ranges of mountains rising one above another to the lofty peaks of the Himalaya, broken by deep glens and covered with thick forests. The general had formed a correct estimate of the bold character of his opponent and of the advantage he enjoyed in his position, and pursued his object by cautious but steady advances. He opened the campaign by the capture of the important fortress of Nalagurh, after a bombardment of thirty hours, with the loss of only one European soldier. During the next five months the valour of the British troops was matched by the gallantry of the Goorkhas, and the skill of British engineers was repeatedly foiled by the tact and resolution of their opponents. The service was the most arduous in which the Company's army had ever been engaged. At an elevation of more than 5,000 feet above the level of the sea, at the most inclement season of the year, amidst falls of snow often of two days continuance, the pioneers were employed in blasting rocks and opening roads for the eighteen-pounders, and day after day the men and the elephants were employed in dragging them up those alpine heights; but the energy of the general, and the exhilarating character of the warfare, diffused a feeling of enthusiasm throughout the army. By a series of bold and skilful manoeuvres every height was at length surmounted and every fortress captured but that of Malown. Before General Ochterlony reached it, Lord Hastings had despatched some irregular corps raised by Colonel Gardner, an officer of great merit who had been in the Mahratta service, to occupy the province of Almora. That gallant officer and his new levies speedily cleared it of the Goorkhas, and effectually cut off Umur Sing's communication with the capital, and deprived him of all hope of reinforcements. The Goorkha officers entreated him to make conditions with the general, but the stern old chief spurned their advice, and they passed over to the English camp. He retired into the citadel with 200 men, but when the batteries were about to open upon it he hesitated to sacrifice in a forlorn conflict the lives of the brave men who had nobly adhered to him to the last, and accepted the terms offered by his generous foe, who, in consideration of the skill, bravery, and fidelity with which he had defended the country, allowed him to march out with his arms and colours and personal property. campaign. 1815 The discomfiture of their ablest general, and the loss of their most valuable acquisition, took away from the regency all confidence in their fastnesses, and Second induced them to sue for peace. Commissioners Goorkha came down to Segowlee and signed a treaty on the 2nd December, under an engagement to deliver the A.D. ratification of it within fifteen days, and a royal salute was fired in Calcutta in honour of the peace. But the ratification was never sent. Umur Sing and his son had in the meantime arrived at Katmandhoo, and successfully urged the to continue the war and to dispute every inch regency of ground. Another campaign became inevitable, and Lord Hastings had to assemble an army with all speed to strike a blow at the capital before the rains commenced. A force of 20,000 men was collected on the frontier, and placed under the command of General Ochterlony, who advanced with his usual caution and promptitude. Finding the Goorkha works in the first pass unassailable, he determined to turn the flank of the enemy, and on the night of the 14th February marched in dead silence through a 1816 narrow ravine, where twenty men might have arrested a whole army. The force bivouacked for two days and nights without food or shelter, awaiting the arrival of the second detachment, and then advanced to Muckwanpore, within fifty miles of Katmandhoo, where the Goorkha army sustained a signal defeat. The regency lost all conceit of fighting; the treaty duly ratified, was sent down in hot haste, and peace was concluded on the 2nd March on terms singularly moderate. The Goorkhas were not only the most valiant but the most humane foes we had ever encountered in India, and they also proved to be the most faithful to their engagements. Unlike other treaties with Indian princes, this of 1816 has never been infringed; and instead of taking advantage of our embarrassments during the mutiny of 1857, they sent a large force to assist in quelling it. A.D. SECTION II. LORD HASTINGS'S ADMINISTRATION-TRANSACTIONS WITH NATIVE THE policy of Lord Wellesley had been steadily repudiated by the Court of Directors, but its wisdom was amply Patans and vindicated by the misery which followed its Pindarees. abandonment, and by the desolation of Central India for ten years by the Patans and the Pindarees. Ameer Khan, the Patan, had established a regular government, but the predatory element was always predominant in it. His army was estimated at 10,000 foot and 15,000 horse, with a powerful artillery, and as it was his plan to levy contributions from princes and states, he marched about with all the appliances for the siege of towns. The object of the Pindarees was universal and indiscriminate plunder, and they swept through the country with a degree of rapidity which rendered it impossible to calculate their movements, and baffled all pursuit. On his arrival, Lord Hastings found 50,000 Patans and Pindarees in the heart of India subsisting by plunder, and extending their ravages over an area as large as England. Representa- 66 One of his earliest acts was to point out to the Court of 1814 Directors, in language more emphatic than that of Lord Minto, the increasing danger of this predatory He asserted that India could not prosper power. until the Government "became the head of a "league embracing every power in India, and was placed in a position to direct its entire strength against the disturbers of the public peace." But this course of policy was systematically opposed by the two members of his Council. Mr. Edmonstone combined official talent of a high order with long experience, but lacked the endowments of a statesman, and clung to the retrograde policy of Sir George Barlow. Mr. Dowdeswell had all the narrow mindedness of Sir George without a tithe of his ability. In reply to Lord Hastings's represen1815 tation, the Court, still clinging to the non-intervention policy, forbad him to engage "in plans of general confederacy or of offensive operations against the Pindarees, "either with a view to their utter extirpation, or in "anticipation of expected danger." They enjoined him to 66 undertake nothing that could embroil them with Sindia, and to make no change in the existing system of political relations; to maintain the course of policy pursued by Sir George Barlow, to reduce the strength of the army, and practise a rigid economy. alliances. Before this communication reached Calcutta, Lord Hast- A.D. ings, in the hope of preventing the Pindarees from crossing 1814 the Nerbudda, had entered into negotiations for Proposed a subsidiary alliance with the raja of Nagpore, native which the Court had sanctioned five or six years before, but the raja persisted in resisting the proposal. Lord Hastings then proposed a similar alliance with Bhopal, with the view of holding the Pindarees in check. Bhopal was a small principality in Malwa, in the valley of the Nerbudda, lying between the British territories and the head-quarters of the Pindarees. The prince was the only chief in Central India who gave any support to the expedition of General Goddard in 1778, and the testimonials granted by him on that occasion are still carefully preserved in the archives of that noble house. In 1813, Sindia and the raja of Nagpore formed a confederacy to absorb its territories, and brought a force of 60,000 men against its renowned minister, Vizier Mahomed, which besieged the capital successively for two years. implored the interference of the British Government, and Lord Hastings considered that in the existing circumstances of Central India, it was of no little importance to protect a state situated like Bhopal from extinction, and the two Mahratta powers were informed that it was under 1813 the protection of the Company. The raja of Nagpore, after some hesitation, withdrew his army, but Sindia assumed a lofty tone-it was at the time of the three failures in the Nepaul war-and declared that Bhopal was one of his dependencies, with which the Government was debarred from interfering by Sir George Barlow's treaty of 1805. But the vigorous preparations made by Lord Hastings to enforce his requisition, and more especially the success of General Ochterlony, staggered him; his two generals attacked each other under the walls of Bhopal, and the siege was raised. But the projected alliance with Bhopal fell to the ground. He Bajee Rao, the Peshwa, was about this time brought into conflict with the Government, which eventually ended in his ruin. He had none of the talents for government which had distinguished his pre Affairs at |