FORE:On the 12th of February, 1843, Outram persuaded the Ameers, who were in deadly fear of Napier, to sign the treaty. But the negotiator, who continued to place implicit confidence in the pacific professions of the Ameersthey being anxious to gain time till the hot weather should come, and give them an advantage against their enemieswas convinced of his mistake by a treacherous attack made on the British residency; the Ameers boasting that "every man, woman, and child belonging to the British army in Scinde should be collected on the field of battle, and have their throats cut, except the general, who should be led, chained, with a ring in his nose to the durbar." Outram's garrison consisted only of 100 soldiers, with forty rounds of ammunition each, with which he had to defend himself against 8,000 men with six guns. The British fired with effect from behind a wall till their ammunition was exhausted, when they slowly retired till they got safe on board the British steamers, protected by their guns, which swept the flank of the enemy. The war had now come in earnest, and so Sir Charles Napier resolved to show the Ameers what British troops could do. The odds were greatly against him, for he had but 8,600 men, of whom only 400 were Europeans, with which he was to engage an army 22,000 strong, with 5,000 horse, and fifteen guns, all well posted in a strong position at Meeanee. It required marvellous hardihood in the veteran warrior of the Peninsula to enter upon such an unequal contest. But it was the first time that the ambition of his life was realisedin being placed in a position of supreme commandand he longed to show the world how worthily he could have filled it long ago. The officers who fought under him in that memorable battle deserve to be mentioned. Major Lloyd commanded the Artillery, Captain Henderson the Sappers and Miners; next to them stood the 22nd, commanded by Colonel Pennefather; Colonel Teesdale led the 25th Sepoys; Colonel Read the 12th Native Infantry; Major Clibborne the Bengal Engineers; Colonel Pattle the 9th Bengal Horse; and Captain[592] Tait the Poonah Horse. The plain between the two armies was about 1,000 yards in breadth. The space was rapidly passed over. Napier's men rushed forward, and crossing the bed of a river which intervened, they ran up the slope, while the artillery of the Beloochees fired over their heads. Reaching the summit, they beheld, for the first time, the camp of the enemy, which was carried by the 22nd. The Native Infantry also behaved well, and while the little army was doing terrible execution upon the enemy, the artillery swept their ranks with shot and shell. Nevertheless, they fought bravely, and held their ground for three hours in a hand to hand encounter with their assailants. The chasms which were repeatedly made by the guns in the living mass were quickly filled up by those behind rushing forward to the conflict. The pressure of numbers bearing down the hill seemed more than once on the point of overwhelming the British, and obliterating their "thin red lines." Nearly all the officers were killed or wounded. Everything now depended upon the cavalry, which were commanded by Colonel Pattle, who was ordered to charge instantly. They went at full gallop through the jungle: fifty were thrown off their horses, but the rest pressed on, ascended the ridge of the hill, dashed into the thick of the enemy's ranks, fiercely cutting their way with their swords right and left, trampling down the men under their horses' feet, never ceasing till they had traversed the whole camp. The confusion and wavering thus occasioned gave courage to the infantry. The Irish and the Sepoys, raising the cry of victory, pressed on with fury, drove the enemy back down the hill, and compelled them to retreat, abandoning their guns, their ammunition, and their baggage, leaving their dead on the field, and marking their course by a long train of killed and wounded. Their loss was estimated at 5,0001,000 bodies being found in the bed of the river. The British loss was almost incredibly small: six officers and fifty-four privates killed, fourteen officers and 109 men wounded.VIEW IN OLD PARIS: THE PORTE AU BL, FROM THE END OF THE OLD CATTLE MARKET TO THE PONT NOTRE DAME. (From a Print by De l'Espinasse in 1782.)
THREE:There were three or four more of these utterly unequal fights, in which the Americans succeeded in capturing small British vessels when at the point of sinking. Such was the case with the Macedon, which, with a crew of two hundred and sixty-two men and thirty-four boys, fought the United States, with more and heavier guns, and with a crew of four hundred and seventy-seven men and one boy. The Macedon was a complete wreck before she struck. Similar cases were those of the Java frigate, Captain Lambert, which struck to the Constitution, and the British eighteen-gun brig-sloop the Frolic, which struck to the American brig-sloop Wasp, of eighteen guns. Here the arms were equal, but the crews most unequal, for the Frolic had a small crew, very sickly from five years' service in the West Indies, and the ship itself was in bad condition. Within a very few hours the Frolic was re-captured by the British seventy-four gun-ship, the Poictiers, which carried off the American vessel too. In none of these cases was there anything like an equal fight, the Americans being too shrewd to risk that if they[38] could avoid it. In all cases a large proportion of the crews was made up of British deserters. The accounts, however, which the Americans published of these affairs were as usual of the most vaunting character.
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THREE:
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THREE:It was at this crisis, when Hastings was just recovering his authority in the Council, that the news arrived in India, and spread amongst the native chiefs, that in Yenghi Dunia, or the New World, the Company Sahibfor the East Indians could never separate the ideas of the East India Company and England itselfthere had been a great revolution, and the English driven out. This, as might be expected, wonderfully elated the native chiefs, and especially those in the south. There the French of Pondicherry and Chandernagore boasted of the destruction of the British power, and that it was by their own hands. Hastings, who was as able and far-seeing as he was unprincipled in carrying out his plans for the maintenance of the British dominion in India, immediately set himself to counteract the mischievous effects of these diligently-disseminated rumours, and of the cabals which the French excited. These were most to be feared amongst the vast and martial family of the Mahrattas. The Mahrattas had risen on the ruins of the great Mogul empire. They now extended their tribes over a vast space of India from Mysore to the Ganges. The Peishwa, as head of these nations, held his residence at Poonah. Besides his, there were the great houses of Holkar and Scindia; the Guicowar, who ruled in Guzerat; the Bonslah, or Rajah of Berar, a descendant of Sivaji. The Mahrattas were, for the most part, a rude, warlike race, rapacious and ambitious, and living in the most primitive style. To destroy the confidence of these fierce warriors in the French, Hastings gave immediate orders, on receiving the news of the proclamation of war in Europe, for the seizure of the French settlements. This was on the 7th of July, 1778; on the 10th he had taken Chandernagore, and ordered Sir Hector[329] Munro to invest Pondicherry. That was soon accomplished, and the only remaining possession of France, the small one of Mah, on the coast of Malabar, was seized the next spring.
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THREE:The Bills were highly necessary, and, on the whole, well calculated to nip in the bud those ever-growing abuses of India and its hundred millions of people which, some seventy years later, compelled Government to take the control out of the hands of a mere trading company, whose only object was to coin as much money as possible out of the country and the folk. But it needed no sagacity to see that the means of defeat lay on the very surface of these Bills. Those whose sordid interests were attacked had only to point to the fact that Parliament, and not the Crown, was to be the governing party under these Bills, in order to secure their rejection. This was quickly done through a most ready agent. Thurlow had been removed by the Ministry from the Woolsack, where he had remained as a steady opponent of all the measures of his colleagues; and it required but a hint from the India House, and he was at the ear of the king. Nothing was easier than for Thurlow to inspire George III. with a deep jealousy of the measure, as aiming at putting the whole government of India into the hands of Parliament and of Ministers, and the effect was soon seen.
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