miss the present, it will be entirely your own fault. Don't forget
some small chelingoes--offer great rewards. I expect 17,000 Mahrattas
in four days; in short, risk all! attempt! force all! but send us
some rice, should it be but a half garse at a time.
"Lally.
"Pondicherry, 2nd January, 1761."
The British fleet suffered considerably; many vessels which had to
cut their cables, were totally dismasted, and the _Queensberry_,
_Newcastle_, and _Protector_ were driven on shore; while _Le Duc
d'Acquitaine_ of sixty-four guns (French prize), commanded by Sir
William Hewitt, Bart., and the _Sunderland_ of sixty guns, commanded
by the Hon. James Colville, both foundered, and all on board perished.
Captain Colville was the son of Lord Colville, of Culross, a Scottish
peer, who died on the Carthagena expedition in 1740, and brother of
Alexander Lord Colville, who in 1764 was Commodore in North America.
On the reappearance of Admiral Cornish with more of the fleet, the hope
of the French sank again, and Lally, enraged at what he considered
the mutinous repining of his soldiers, met their remonstrances with
turbulence and contempt, and by an unwise, and perhaps over-strained
exercise of authority, at this fatal and desperate crisis, most
unfortunately contrived to render himself unpopular with the Governor,
the Council, and the proud chevaliers of old France, who officered his
little band of troops.
Still, however, the siege was pressed, and still the defence went on.
On the 5th January, Coote attacked the redoubt of San Thomé, sword
in hand, at the head of a body of Scottish Highlanders and English
grenadiers, and won it, thus silencing four 28-pounders; but two days
afterwards, Lally retook it by 300 grenadiers, from the sepoys who were
left in charge of it.
On the 13th Coote sent 700 Europeans, 400 Lascars, and a company
of pioneers under a major, to erect another battery of eleven guns
and three mortars. Under the clear splendour of an Oriental moon,
these works were carried on within 500 yards of the walls; and this
_Batterie Royale_ was permitted to be erected without molestation,
for in their sullen despair the garrison never fired a shot at it. On
the 14th the _Hanover Battery_ ruined the north-west bastion, and on
the following day the _Batterie Royale_ beat down the ravelin at the
Madras gate; thus by the 15th of January a great and practicable breach
was effected, and the cannon of the gallant Lally were silenced or
dismounted.
In the evening a parley was beat, and four envoys came from the ruined
walls towards the British trenches. These were Colonel Duré (Durie?) of
the French Royal Artillery, Father Lavacer, Superior of the Jesuits,
and two civilians. These were unprovided by "any authority from the
Governor," says Vicomte de Vaux; but Colonel Coote, in his dispatch to
Mr. Pitt, affirms that they came direct from Lally with proposals for
delivering up the garrison. In the town, at that moment, there were
only three days provisions of the wretched kind described; thus the
extremity of famine would admit of no hesitation. Rendered ungovernable
by what they had endured, Lally's officers declared the defence to be
frantic obstinacy, and murmuring aloud, also averred that illness,
pride, and the climate had disordered his imagination; and that it was
criminal rather than valiant to defend an untenable fortress.
The following were the proposals of Lally, presented by Colonel Duré to
Colonel Coote:--
"The troops of the king and Company, by want of provisions, will
surrender themselves prisoners of war to his Britannic Majesty, on
terms of the cartel, which I claim equally for all the inhabitants of
Pondicherry, as well as for the exercise of the Roman religion, the
religious houses, hospitals, chaplains, surgeons, serjeants, reserving
and referring myself to the decision of our two Courts, in proportion
to the violation of a treaty so solemn. (He refers to the treacherous
capture of Chandernagore.)
"Accordingly M. Coote may take possession of the Villenour Gate at
eight o'clock to-morrow morning; and after to-morrow, at the same
hour, that of Fort St. Lewis.
"I demand, merely from a principle of justice and humanity, that the
mother and sisters of Raza Sahib may be permitted to seek an asylum
where they please, or that they remain prisoners among the English,
and not be delivered into the hands of Mohammed Ali Khan, which are
still red with the blood of the husband and father, which he has
spilt, to the shame of those who gave them up to him; but not less to
the shame of the commander of the English army, who should not have
allowed such a piece of barbarity to be committed in his camp.
"As I am tied up by the cartel, in the declaration which I make to
M. Coote, I consent that the Council of Pondicherry may make their
own representations to him with regard to what may concern their own
private interests as well as the interests of the inhabitants of the
colony.
"Done at Fort Lewis, Pondicherry, 15th day of January, 1761.
"Lally."
To these the Colonel replied briefly by stating that the capture
of Chandernagore was beyond his cognizance, and had no relation to
Pondicherry; that he merely required the soldiers of its garrison to
yield as prisoners of war, promising that they should be treated with
every honour and humanity; that he would send the grenadiers of his
own regiment to receive possession of the Villenour Gate, and that of
Fort St. Lewis; and that according to the kind and humane request of
M. Lally, the mother and sisters of Raza Sahib should be escorted to
Madras, and on no account be permitted to fall into the hands of their
enemy, the Nabob Mohammed Ali Khan.
To eight articles proposed by Father Lavacer, Superior of the Jesuits,
requiring that the inhabitants should be treated in every respect
like subjects of his Britannic Majesty; that they should have full
liberty to exercise the Catholic religion; that the churches should be
rejected; that all public papers should be sent to France; and that
forty-one soldiers of the Volunteers of Bourbon should be permitted to
return to their homes--Colonel Coote declined to make any reply.
At eight o'clock on the morning of the 16th July, Lally with a bitter
heart ordered the standard of France to be hauled down on Fort St.
Lewis, and at that hour Coote's grenadiers received the Villenour
Gate from the Regiment de Lally, while those of the 79th Regiment
took possession of the citadel.[2] Thus fell Pondicherry after a
blockade and siege which Lally's skill and valour had protracted under
a thousand difficulties for the long period of eight months, against
forces treble in number to those he commanded.
Notwithstanding his fallen condition and the severe effects of a long
illness, aggravated by the sultry climate, by bodily sufferings and
anxiety, Lally marched out of the citadel with the air of a conqueror.
"He is now as proud and haughty as ever," says an officer (who beheld
him) in a letter to a periodical of the time; "but his great share of
wit, sense, and martial ability are obscured by a savage ferocity, and
an undisguised contempt for every person below the rank of general."
This writer was ignorant of the high qualities of Lally, and the
difficulties with which he had contended, or he would never have
written thus.
According to the "_exact state of the troops of his most Christian
Majesty, under the command of Lieutenant-General Arthur Count de Lally,
when he surrendered at discretion on the 16th of January, 1761,_"
he marched out with the following--a miserable and famished band,
hollow-eyed and gaunt--the few survivors of the Indian war:--
Artillery of Louis XV., officers and men 83
The Regiment de Lorraine, ditto 327
The Regiment de Lally, ditto (of the Irish Brigade) 230
The Regiment of the Marine, ditto 295
Artillery of the French India Company 94
Cavalry of ditto 15
Volunteers of Bourbon 40
The Battalion d'India 192
Invalides 124
In all there were only 1400. One of their first acts was to cut their
commissary to pieces. Among the officers of the king's artillery was
Jean Baptiste Louis Romée de l'Isle, the celebrated crystallographer,
who was then secretary to a corps of engineers. The quantity of
military stores delivered over by Lally to Coote is almost incredible.
There were 671 brass and iron cannon and mortars; 438 mortar-beds and
carriages; 84,041 shot and shell, round, double-headed, and grape;
230,580 lbs. of powder; 538,137 rounds of cartridge for arquebuses,
muskets, carbines, pistols, and gingals; 910 pairs of pistols; 12,580
other firearms; 4895 swords, bayonets and sabres; 1200 poleaxes, and
every other warlike munition in proportion. Tidings of the fall of
Pondicherry occasioned the utmost joy in Britain; and on Sunday, the
2nd August, there were prayers and thanksgiving in all the English
churches.
On that day Lally arrived at Fort St. George a prisoner of parole. He
had begged to be sent to Cudalore that he might have the attendance of
French as well as British surgeons; but the Governor of Madras insisted
upon his removal to that place, whither he conveyed him in his own
palanquin.
A regiment of Highlanders garrisoned Pondicherry, and as Lally had
destroyed many of the British fortifications, Colonel--afterwards
Sir Eyre--Coote retaliated by blowing up the works and hurling the
glacis into the ditch. The plunder acquired amounted to 2,000,000_l._
sterling. The quantity of lead discovered in the stores was immense.
Lally found means to convey his own cash and Valuables (200,000 pagodas
of eight shillings each) out of the garrison, but he was deprived of it
by Coote's orders.
The plunder of the magnificent palace was a subject for regret to the
officers who beheld it. It had been built by M. Dupleix, a former
resident, at the cost of one million. On the same day that Lally
surrendered, his Scottish compatriot, M. Law, on whose assistance he
had for a time mainly relied, was defeated by Major Carnac.
M. Law was a nephew of the famous financial projector, John Law, of
Lauriston, near Edinburgh, who, in 1720, was Premier of France, and
Comptroller-General of Finance--the same whose desperate schemes
brought the kingdom to the verge of bankruptcy. M. Law had made himself
useful to the Schah Zaddah, son of the late Mogul, in supporting the
young prince's hereditary claims, and enforcing his authority on the
provinces of the empire. With 200 Frenchmen (principally fugitives
from Lally's outposts) he persuaded the schah to turn his arms against
Bengal; and accordingly the young and rash prince entered that rich and
fertile province at the head of 80,000 Indians, whose operations were
directed by Law, and certain chevaliers his friends. In the eye of the
British (who had then become the arbiters of Oriental thrones), the
presence of the Scottish refugee and his followers was more prejudicial
to the title of Zaddah than any other objection, and they joined the
Subah of Bengal to oppose his progress. A battle ensued at Guya, when
Major Carnac, with 500 British, 2500 sepoys, and 20,000 blacks, cut the
vast force of the young prince to pieces, and took prisoner M. Law,
with sixty French officers.
Soon after the fall of Pondicherry, the French settlement of Mahé,
on the coast of Malabar, was reduced by Major Hector Munro, of the
89th Highlanders, who captured there 200 pieces of cannon, and thus
the whole commerce of the mighty peninsula of India, from the point
of the Carnatic to the banks of the Ganges, fell under the dominion
of Britain, together with the extensive trade of the vast and wealthy
provinces of Bengal, Behar, and Orixa.
On the 3rd February, the nabob made his triumphal entry into
Pondicherry, seated in a wooden castle on the back of a gigantic
elephant, accompanied by twelve of his wives, escorted by British
troops and by his own guards armed with lances, bows, and matchlocks.
Ultimately Lally received back his property, to the amount of
100,000_l._ in cash, and being brought to Britain a prisoner of war
in H.M.S. _Onslow_, landed in September, 1761. He was confined for a
time to a certain limit in Nottinghamshire; and on obtaining leave of
George III. to depart, most unfortunately for himself, turned his steps
towards France, the land of his father's adoption.
Having given his parole of honour to return whenever the British
Government should require his presence, the count, on the 14th October,
"after having discharged all his debts to tradesmen and servants" (as
the London papers of the time state), sailed for France.
Notwithstanding the long and gallant defence he had maintained at
Pondicherry, thus affording the highest proofs of firmness and
fidelity, bravery and activity, he was arrested soon after his return,
and committed to that prison of so many terrible memories--the
Bastille--accused of many grievous things by the Government, which
now instituted a severe inquiry into the conduct of the civil and
military officials who had commanded in Canada, the Carnatic, and other
possessions taken by Britain.
Among the charges brought against Lally were, betraying the interests
of King Louis and of the French East India Company; abusing the high
authority with which he had been invested; unwarrantable exactions
from the subjects of his most Christian Majesty, and from foreigners
resident in Pondicherry; for _permitting_ that place to fall into the
hands of the British; and generally for mismanaging the public affairs
committed to his care.
In vain did this brave and unfortunate officer urge his many services,
his many wounds, his grey hairs, his health broken by toil, by anxiety,
and by a torrid clime, in the cause of France. In vain did he urge
the numerous remonstrances he had sent to Paris, and Count d'Aché's
detention of M. de Lequille's military chest; that at Madras he had
resigned a desperate command, which the Chevalier des Soupirs declined
to accept; in vain was the _protest_ signed in the hall of Fort St.
Lewis adduced to show how his efforts had been baffled, and rendered
more than futile, by the insubordination of Count d'Aché; in vain did
he explain how the Marquis de Bussy had loitered in Arcot; that he had
long and frequently been without pay and without provision for his
troops; how the Rajah of Mysore had failed in his promises; how his
soldiers had deserted, and how famine in the streets of Pondicherry
was a source of deadlier fear than the British cannon-shot; how his
detachment sent to Gingi had been cut off to a man; how Chandernagore
had been taken by treachery, contrary to the faith of treaties and
that neutrality which had subsisted between the French and British
in India, and immediately after the former had rendered the latter a
signal service in not taking part with the Nabob of Bengal. The weak
Government of Louis XV. required a victim to satisfy the people; thus
his defence was useless. Brigadier-General the Marquis de Bussy and
Admiral Count d'Aché, whose honour and safety were chiefly interested
in his condemnation, were the principal witnesses examined against
him. He was detained for four years in a close prison, and, according
to the cruel and barbarous laws then existing in France, "the bequest
of ages of violence and anarchy," was _repeatedly tortured_. Though
his infamous judges were convinced of his perfect innocence, yet it
was stated that, in consequence of the severe conclusions of the
Procureur-General against the Count de Lally, on the night of Sunday,
the 4th May, 1763, he was removed from the Bastille to the prison of
the Conciergerie, which adjoined the Court of Parliament.
"Though it was but one o'clock in the morning when he arrived at the
Conciergerie (to quote the report of his condemnation), he refused to
go to bed; and about seven he appeared before his judges. They ordered
him to be divested of his red riband and cross, to which he submitted
with the most perfect indifference; and he was then placed on the stool
to undergo a new course of interrogation."
At that crisis a pang of bitterness shot through his heart; clasping
his hands, and raising his eyes--
"My God!" he exclaimed; "oh, my God! is _this the reward_ of forty
years faithful service as a soldier?"
The interrogatory lasted six hours, and D'Aché and De Bussy were
successively examined against him. By nine in the evening the
examination was over, and the count was re-conducted to the Bastille,
surrounded by guards and several companies of the watch of Paris.
At six o'clock next morning the judges delivered their opinions, which
were so various, that the clock of the Conciergerie struck four in the
afternoon before they came to a conclusion and pronounced their _arrêt_
or decree, which contained a brief recital of the charges against De
Lally, without specifying the facts on which they were respectively
founded; but for the reparation of which it was declared that he should
be stripped of all his civil titles, his military rank, and dignities;
that all his property should be confiscated to the king; and that his
head should be struck from his body on the public scaffold.
Without emotion the count had heard their sentence, and with the utmost
resolution prepared to die; yet he was detained, hovering as it were
between life and death, until the morning of the 9th May, 1766, when
he was drawn on a hurdle to the _Place de Grève_, and hastily, almost
privately, beheaded, with his mouth filled by a wooden gag, to prevent
him addressing the people--thus adding another to the many barbarous
judicial murders which disgrace the annals of France.
His son, Trophine Gerard, who had been kept at the College of Harcourt
in entire ignorance of his birth and of the proceedings against his
father, only learned all these secrets when the public interest and
commiseration became too great to conceal them longer. On the 9th the
poor boy learned that the great General Lally, who was to die, _was
his father_. He rushed, as he tells us, to the place of execution to
bid this father, so recently found, "an eternal adieu--to let him hear
the voice of a son amid the voices of his executioners, and embrace
him on the scaffold when he was about to perish;" but he arrived only
in time to see the axe descending and his father's blood pouring from
a dismembered trunk upon a sanded scaffold. Overcome with horror,
Trophine--afterwards the great Count Lally Tollendal--swooned in the
street, and was borne away insensible to the College of Harcourt.
Thus in his sixty-fourth year terminated the eventful career of Count
Lally, the victim surrendered by a weak and tyrannical ministry to
popular clamour, affording by his fate a memorable instance of the
injustice, ingratitude, and barbarity of the Court of Versailles.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: The MS. original of these interesting instructions was
presented to Charles Grant, Viscount de Vaux, by the directors of the
English East India Company.]
[Footnote 2: The 79th, or Draper's Regiment, lost in this siege, and
encounters before it, thirty-four officers, whose names were inscribed
on a beautiful cenotaph, erected on Clifton Downs by Colonel Sir W.
Drapes and which he dedicated as,
"Sacred to the Memory of those departed Warriors,
Of the Seventy-ninth Regiment,
By whose Valour, Discipline, and Perseverance
The French land Forces in Asia were first withstood and repulsed."]
JOHN CAMERON, OF FASSIFERN,
K.T.S.,
COLONEL OF THE GORDON HIGHLANDERS; SLAIN AT QUATRE-BRAS, 1815.
From among the many distinguished Scottish officers who served under
Wellington, if we could select one for the delineation of his career,
it would be John Cameron of the House of Fassifern and Locheil.
This brave soldier was the eldest of the seven children of Ewen
Cameron, Laird of Fassifern (_i.e._ the Point of Alders), and his wife,
Lucy Campbell, of Barcaldine, whose father succeeded to the estate of
Glenure on the death of her uncle, Colin Campbell, who was shot at the
Ferry of Ballachulish, in Appin, by Allan Breac Stewart, otherwise
known as _Vic Ian_, _Vic Alaster_,--a crime for which the Laird of
Ardsheil was judicially murdered by the Duke of Argyle at the Castle of
Inverary.
Ewen Cameron was the son of John _the Tanister_, a younger brother of
the great Locheil, who commenced the insurrection of 1745; and it is
said that this powerful chief, on being summoned by Prince Charles
to attend his memorable lauding in Moidart on the 25th July, was
predisposed to warn him against the projected rising of the clans.
"If such be your intention, Donald," said John of Fassifern, "_write_
your opinion to the Prince, but do not trust yourself within the
fascination of his presence. I know you better than you know yourself,
and foresee that you will be unable to refuse compliance."
But Locheil preferred an interview with the Prince, and the event
proved the truth of Fassifern's prophecy. He joined him immediately
with all the clan Cameron, and the gallant revolt of the clans
immediately followed. Fassifern was taken prisoner after Culloden,
and was long detained in the Castle of Edinburgh; there he was kept
so close that the year 1752 arrived, yet he heard nothing of the
barbarous execution of his brother, the amiable and unfortunate Dr.
Archibald Cameron, until one evening a soldier brought him a kettle
with hot water. He took off a paper which was twisted round the handle,
and found it to be the "last speech and dying confession, &c., of
the traitor Archibald Cameron." He immediately ordered a suit of the
deepest mourning, and on appearing in it before the authorities was
brutally upbraided by the Lord Justice Clerk for putting on mourning
for a traitor.
"Alas!" said Cameron, "that traitor was my dear brother!"
"A rebel!" retorted the judge, scornfully. He was exiled, but
afterwards returned to die at Fassifern.
Colonel John Cameron, the grand-nephew of the Jacobite chief, was born
in Argyleshire, at the farm of Inverscaddle (a house which belonged to
his family before the acquisition of Fassifern), on the 16th of August,
1771, only twenty-five years after the battle of Culloden, and while
those inhuman butcheries, for which the name of Cumberland is still
abhorred in Scotland, were fresh in the memory of the people. According
to the old custom, common to Scotland and Ireland, he was assigned to
the care of a foster-mother named M'Millan, who dwelt in Glendescherie,
on the shore of Locharkaig. Thus, born and bred among the Gael, while
the clans were unchanged and uncorrupted, and when the glens were
full of that gallant race, with all their old traditions and historic
memories, their military pride, and peculiar prejudices, Cameron was
reared as thorough a chieftain as if had lived in the days of James IV.
Educated among his native mountains, sharing in the athletic sports of
the people, and those in which his foster-brother, Ewan M'Millan, who
was a fox-hunter in Croydart, and a year his elder, excelled, young
Cameron grew up a handsome and hardy Highlander, and early became
distinguished by that proud, fiery, and courageous temperament for
which he was so well known among the troops of Lord Hill's division,
and which sometimes caused him to set the rules of discipline, and
the aristocratic coldness of Wellington, alike at defiance, if they
interfered with his native ideas of rank and self-esteem.
In the "Romance of War," a work which has made his name familiar to the
reading public, a faithful description of him will be found. He was
above the middle height, had a pleasing, open countenance, curly brown
hair, and bright blue eyes, which, when he was excited, filled with a
dusky fire.