After the young writers had seen the native town, they returned to the
beach, and spent the afternoon watching the progress of landing the
cargo of the Lizzie Anderson. They were pleased to see their own
luggage safely ashore; as it would have been greatly damaged, had the
boat containing it been swamped; a misfortune which happened to
several of the boats laden with cargo. It was very amusing, each time
that one of these boats arrived, to see a crowd of natives rush down
into the water, waist deep, seize it, and drag it up beyond the next
wave. Many of them would be knocked down, and some swept out by the
retreating wave, only to return on the next roller. All could swim
like fish, and any of these events were greeted with shouts of
laughter by the rest.
When the packages were landed a rope was put round them, and through
this a long bamboo pole was inserted, which would be lifted on to the
shoulders of two, four, or six porters, according to its weight; and
these would go off, at a hobbling sort of trot, with their burden to
the factory.
Their own baggage was taken up to the quarters allotted to them, and
at the hour named for dinner the newcomers met, for the first time,
those with whom they were to be associated. All were dressed in white
suits, and Charlie was struck with the pallor of their faces, and the
listless air of most of them. The gentleman to whom they had first
been introduced made them acquainted with the others.
"How refreshingly healthy and well you look!" a young man of some six
and twenty years old, named Johnson, said. "I was something like that,
when I first came out here, though you'd hardly think it now. Eight
years of stewing, in this horrible hole, takes the life and spirits
out of anyone.
"However, there's one consolation. After eight or ten years of quill
driving in a stuffy room, one becomes a little more one's own master,
and one's duties begin to be a little more varied and pleasant. One
gets a chance of being sent up, occasionally, with goods; or on some
message or other to one of the native princes, and then one gets
treated like a prince, and sees that India is not necessarily so
detestable as we have contrived to make it here. The only bearable
time of one's life is the few hours after dinner, when one can sit in
a chair in the veranda, and smoke and look at the sea. Some of the
fellows play billiards and cards; but if you will take my advice, you
won't go in for that sort of thing. It takes a lot out of one, and
fellows that do it are, between you and me, in the bad books of the
bigwigs. Besides, they lose money, get into debt, and all sorts of
mischief comes of it."
The speaker was sitting between Charlie and Peters, and was talking in
a tone of voice which would not be overheard by the others.
"Thank you," Charlie said. "I, for one, will certainly take your
advice. I suppose one can buy ponies here. I should think a good ride
every morning early, before work, would do one good."
"Yes, it is not a bad thing," Johnson said. "A good many fellows do
it, when they first come out here. But after a time they lose their
energy, you see, though some do keep it up.
"What appetites you fellows have! It does one good to see you eat."
"I have not the least idea what we are eating," Charlie said,
laughing; "but it's really very nice, whatever it is. But there seems
an immense quantity of pepper, or hot stuff of some kind or other;
which one would have thought, in this tremendous heat, would have made
one hotter instead of cooler."
"Yes," their new friend answered. "No doubt all this pepper and curry
do heat the blood; but you see, it is done to tempt the appetite. Meat
here is fearfully coarse and tasteless. Our appetites are poor, and
were it not for these hot sauces, we should eat next to nothing.
"Will you have some bananas?"
"They are nice and cool," Peters said as, having peeled the long fruit
as he saw his companion doing, he took a bite of one; "but they have
very little taste."
"Most of our fruit is tasteless," Johnson said, "except, indeed, the
mango and mangostine. They are equal to any English fruit in flavour,
but I would give them all for a good English apple. Its sharpness
would be delicious here.
"And now, as you have done, if you will come and sit in the veranda of
my room, we will smoke a cigar and have something cool to drink; and I
will answer, as well as I can, the questions you've asked me about the
state of things here."
When they had seated themselves in the extremely comfortable cane
chairs, in a veranda facing the sea, and had lit their cigars, their
friend began:
"Madras isn't much of a place, now; but you should have seen it before
the French had it. Our chiefs think of nothing but trade, and care
nothing how squalid and miserable is the place in which they make
money. The French have larger ideas. They transformed this place;
cleared away that portion of the native town which surrounded the
factory and fort, made wide roads, formed an esplanade, improved and
strengthened the fortifications, forbade the natives to throw all
their rubbish and offal on the beach; and made, in fact, a decent
place of it. We hardly knew it when we came back, and whatever the
Company may have thought, we were thoroughly grateful for the French
occupation.
"One good result, too, is that our quarters have been greatly
improved; for not only did the French build several new houses, but at
present all the big men, the council and so on, are still living at
Fort Saint David, which is still the seat of administration. So you
see, we have got better quarters; we are rid of the stenches and
nuisances of the native town; the plague of flies which made our life
a burden is abated; and we can sit here and enjoy the cool sea breeze,
without its being poisoned before it reaches us by the heaped up filth
on the beach.
"It must have wrung Dupleix's heart to give up the place over which
they expended so much pains, and after all it didn't do away with the
fighting. In April we sent a force from Fort Saint David--before we
came back here--four hundred and thirty white soldiers and a thousand
Sepoys, under the command of Captain Cope, to aid a fellow who had
been turned out of the Rajahship of Tanjore. I believe he was a great
blackguard, and the man who had taken his place was an able ruler
liked by the people."
"Then why should we interfere on behalf of the other?" Charlie asked.
"My dear Marryat," their host said compassionately, "you are very
young yet, and quite new to India. You will see, after a time, that
right has nothing at all to do with the dealings of the Company, in
their relations to the native princes. We are, at present, little
people living here on sufferance, among a lot of princes and powers
who are enemies and rivals of each other. We have, moreover, as
neighbours, another European colony considerably stronger than we are.
The consequence is, the question of right cannot enter into the
considerations of the Company. It may be said that, for every petty
kingdom in Southern India, there are at least two pretenders, very
often half a dozen. So far we have not meddled much in their quarrels,
but the French have been much more active that way. They always side
with one or other of these pretenders, and when they get the man they
support into power, of course he repays them for their assistance. In
this manner, as I shall explain to you presently, they have virtually
made themselves masters of the Carnatic, outside the walls of Fort
Saint David and this place.
"Well, our people thought to take a leaf out of the French book, and
as the ex-rajah offered us, in payment for our aid, the possession of
Devikota, a town at the mouth of the river Kolrun, a place likely to
be of great use to us, we agreed to assist him. Cope, with the land
forces, had marched to the border of the Tanjore territory, and the
guns and heavy baggage were to go by sea.
"But, unfortunately, we had a tremendous gale just after they sailed.
The admiral's flagship, the Namur, of seventy-four guns; the Pembroke,
of sixty; and the hospital ship, Apollo, were totally lost; and the
rest of the fleet scattered in all directions. Cope entered the
Tanjore territory, but found the whole population attached to the new
rajah. It was useless for him, therefore, to march upon Tanjore, which
is a really strong town, so he marched down to Devikota, where he
hoped to find some of the fleet. Not a ship, however, was to be seen,
and as without guns Cope could do nothing, he returned here, as we had
just taken possession again.
"Then he went to Fort Saint David, and there was a great discussion
among the bigwigs. It was clear, from what Cope said, that our man had
not a friend in his own country. Still, as he pointed out, Devikota
was a most important place for us. Neither Madras nor Fort Saint David
has a harbour; and Devikota, therefore, where the largest ships could
run up the river and anchor, would be of immense utility to us.
"As this was really the reason for which we had gone into the affair,
it was decided to repeat the attempt. By this time Major Lawrence, who
commands the whole of the Company's forces in India, and who had been
taken a prisoner in one of the French sorties at the siege of
Pondicherry, had been released. So he was put at the head of the
expedition; and the whole of the Company's English troops, eight
hundred in all, including the artillery; and fifteen hundred Sepoys,
started on board ship for Devikota. I must tell you that Lawrence is a
first-rate fellow, the only really good officer we have out here, and
the affair couldn't have been in the hands of a better man.
"The ships arrived safely at the mouth of the Kolrun, and the troops
were landed on the bank of the river opposite the town, where Lawrence
intended to erect his batteries; as, in the first place, the shore
behind the town was swampy, and in the second the Rajah of Tanjore,
who had got news of our coming, had his army encamped there to support
the place. Lawrence got his guns in position and fired away, across
the river, at the earthen wall of the town. In three days he had a
breach. The enemy didn't return our fire, but occupied themselves in
throwing up an entrenchment across the side of the fort.
"We made a raft and crossed the river, but the enemy's matchlock men
peppered us so severely that we lost thirty English and fifty Sepoys
in getting over. The enemy's entrenchment was not finished, but in
front of it was a deep rivulet, which had to be crossed.
"Lawrence gave the command of the storming party to Clive. He is one
of our fellows; a queer, restless sort of chap, who was really no good
here, for he hated his work and always seemed to think himself a
martyr. He was not a favourite among us, for he was often gloomy and
discontented, though he had his good points. He was straightforward
and manly, and he put down two or three fellows here, who had been
given to bully the young ones, in a way that astonished them.
"He would never have made a good servant of the Company, for he so
hated his work that, when he had been out here about a year, he tried
to blow out his brains. He snapped the pistol twice at his head, but
it didn't go off, though it was loaded all right. Strange, wasn't it?
So he came to the conclusion that he wasn't meant to kill himself, and
went on living till something should turn up."
"Yes," Charlie said; "Doctor Rae spoke to us about him during the
voyage. He knew him at the siege of Fort Saint David, and
Pondicherry."
"Yes," Johnson said. "He came out there quite in a new light. He got
transferred into the military service, and was always in the middle of
the fighting. Major Lawrence had a very high opinion of him, and so
selected him to lead the storming party. It really seems almost as if
he had a charmed life. Lawrence gave him thirty-three English
soldiers, and seven hundred Sepoys. The rest of the force were to
follow as soon as Clive's party gained the entrenchments. Clive led
the way with his Europeans, with the Sepoys supporting behind, and got
across the rivulet with a loss of only four men. He waited on the
other bank till he saw the Sepoys climbing up, and then again led the
English on in advance towards the unfinished part of the entrenchment.
"The Sepoys, however, did not move, but remained waiting for the main
body to come up. The enemy let Clive and his twenty-nine men get on
some distance in advance, and then their cavalry, who had been hidden
by a projection of the fort, charged suddenly down on him. They were
upon our men before they had time to form, and in a minute twenty-six
of them were cut to pieces. Clive and the other three managed to get
through the Tanjore horsemen and rejoin the Sepoys. That was almost as
narrow a shave for his life as with the pistol.
"Lawrence now crossed with his main body and advanced. Again the
Tanjore horsemen charged; but this time we were prepared, and Lawrence
let them come on till within a few yards, and then gave them a volley
which killed fourteen and sent the rest scampering away. Lawrence
pushed forward. The garrison, panic stricken at the defeat of their
cavalry, abandoned the breach and escaped to the opposite side of the
town, and Devikota was ours.
"A few days later we captured the fortified temple of Uchipuran. A
hundred men were left there, and these were afterwards attacked by the
Rajah of Tanjore, with five thousand men; but they held their own, and
beat them off. A very gallant business, that!
"These affairs showed the rajah that the English could fight; a point
which, hitherto, the natives had been somewhat sceptical about. They
were afraid of the French, but they looked upon us as mere traders. He
had, too, other things to trouble him as to the state of the Carnatic,
and so hastened to make peace. He agreed to pay the expenses of the
war, and to cede us Devikota and some territory round it; and to allow
the wretched ex-rajah, in whose cause we had pretended to fight, a
pension of four hundred a year, on condition that we kept him shut up
in one of our forts.
"Not a very nice business on our side, was it? Still, we had gained
our point, and, with the exception of the ex-rajah, who was a bad lot
after all, no one was discontented.
"When the peace was signed, our force returned to Fort Saint David.
While they had been away, there had been a revolution in the Carnatic.
Now this was rather a complicated business; but as the whole situation
at present turns upon it; and it will, not improbably, cause our
expulsion from Southern India; I will explain it to you as well as I
can.
"Now you must know that all Southern India, with the exception of a
strip along the west coast, is governed by a viceroy, appointed by the
emperor at Delhi. He was called the Subadar of the Deccan. Up till the
end of 'forty-eight, Nizam Ul-Mulk was viceroy. About that time he
died, and the emperor appointed his grandson, Muzaffar Jung, who was
the son of a daughter of his, to succeed him. But the subadar had left
five sons. Four of these lived at Delhi, and were content to enjoy
their life there. The second son, however, Nazir Jung, was an
ambitious man, who had rebelled even against his father. Naturally, he
rebelled against his nephew.
"He was on the spot when his father died, while the new subadar was
absent. Nazir, therefore, seized the reins of government, and all the
resources of the state. The emperor has troubles enough of his own at
Delhi, and Muzaffar had no hope of aid from him. He therefore went to
Satarah, the court of the Mahrattas, to ask for their assistance.
"There he met Chunda Sahib. This man was the nephew of the last nawab
of the Carnatic, Dost Ali. Dost Ali had been killed in a battle with
them, in 1739; and they afterwards captured Trichinopoli, and took
Chunda Sahib, who commanded there, prisoner; and had since kept him at
Satarah. Had he been at liberty he would, no doubt, have succeeded his
uncle, whose only son had been murdered; but as he was at Satarah, the
Subadar of the Deccan bestowed the government of the Carnatic upon
Anwarud-din.
"Chunda Sahib and Muzaffar Jung put their heads together, and agreed
to act in concert. Muzaffar, of course, desired the subadarship of the
Deccan, to which he had been appointed by the court of Delhi. Chunda
Sahib wanted the nawabship of the Carnatic, and advised his ally to
abandon his intention of asking for Mahratta aid, and to ally himself
with the French. A correspondence ensued with Dupleix, who, seeing the
immense advantage it would be to him to gain what would virtually be
the position of patron and protector of the Subadar of the Deccan, and
the Nawab of the Carnatic, at once agreed to join them.
"Muzaffar raised thirty thousand men, and Chunda Sahib six
thousand--it is always easy, in India, to raise an army; with a
certain amount of money, and lavish promises--marched down and joined
a French force of four hundred strong, commanded by D'Auteuil.
"The nawab advanced against them, but was utterly defeated at Ambur,
the French doing pretty well the whole of the work. The nawab was
killed, and one of his sons, Maphuz Khan, taken prisoner. The other,
Muhammud Ali, bolted at the beginning of the fight. Arcot, the capital
of the Carnatic, surrendered next day.
"Muzaffar Jung proclaimed himself Subadar of the Deccan, and appointed
Chunda Sahib Nawab of the Carnatic. Muzaffar Jung conferred upon
Dupleix the sovereignty of eighty-one villages adjoining the French
territory. Muzaffar, after paying a visit to Pondicherry, remained in
the camp with his army, twenty miles distant from that place. Chunda
Sahib remained, as the guest of Dupleix, at Pondicherry.
"On the receipt of the news of the battle of Ambur, Mr. Floyer, who is
governor at Fort Saint David, sent at once to Chunda Sahib to
acknowledge him as nawab; which, in the opinion of everyone here, was
a very foolish step. Muhammud Ali had fled to Trichinopoli, and sent
word to Mr. Floyer that he could hold the place, and even reconquer
the Carnatic, if the English would assist him. I know that Admiral
Boscawen, who was with the fleet at Fort Saint David, urged Mr. Floyer
to do so, as it was clear that Chunda Sahib would be a mere tool in
the hands of the French.
"When Chunda Sahib delayed week after week at Pondicherry, Mr. Floyer
began to hesitate, but he could not make up his mind, and Admiral
Boscawen, who had received orders to return home, could no longer act
in contravention to them, and was obliged to sail.
"The instant the fleet had left, and we remained virtually
defenceless, Chunda Sahib, supplied with troops and money by Dupleix,
marched out from Pondicherry and joined Muzaffar Jung, with the avowed
intention of marching upon Trichinopoli. Had he done this at once, he
must have taken the place, and it was a question of weeks and days
only of our being turned altogether out of Southern India. Nothing,
indeed, could have saved us.
"Muzaffar Jung and Chunda Sahib, however, disregarding the plan which
Dupleix had marked out for them, resolved, before marching on
Trichinopoli, to conquer Tanjore, which is the richest city in
Southern India. The rajah had, only a few weeks before, made peace
with us; and he now sent messengers to Nazir Jung, Muzaffar's rival in
the Deccan, and to the English, imploring their assistance. Both
parties resolved at once to grant it, for alone both must have been
overwhelmed by the alliance between the two Indian princes and the
French; and their only hope of a successful resistance to this
combination was in saving Trichinopoli.
"The march of these allies upon Tanjore opened the road to
Trichinopoli; and Captain Cope, with a hundred and twenty men, were at
once despatched to reinforce Muhammud Ali's garrison. Of this little
force, he sent off twenty men to the aid of the Rajah of Tanjore, and
these, under cover of the night, passed through the lines of the
besiegers and into the city, which was strongly fortified and able to
stand a long siege.
"The English at once entered into a treaty with Nazir Jung, promising
him six hundred English troops; to assist him in maintaining his
sovereignty of the Deccan, and in aiding to place Muhammud Ali in the
nawabship of the Carnatic.
"Tanjore held out bravely. For some weeks the rajah had thrown dust in
the eyes of Chunda Sahib, by pretending to negotiate. Then, when the
allies attacked, he defended the city for fifty-two days, at the end
of which one of the gates of the town had been captured, and the city
was virtually at the mercy of the besiegers. He again delayed them by
entering into negotiations for surrender. In vain Dupleix continued to
urge Chunda Sahib to act energetically, and to enter Tanjore.
"Chunda Sahib, however, although he has a good head for planning, is
irresolute in action. His troops were discontented at the want of pay.
The French contingent also was demoralized, from the same cause. The
troops feared to engage in a desperate struggle, in the streets of a
town abounding with palaces, each of which was virtually a fortress;
especially as it was known that Nazir Jung was marching, with all
speed, to fall upon their rear. So at last the siege was broken up,
and the army fell back upon Pondicherry.
"Meanwhile Cope's detachment of a hundred men, with six thousand
native horsemen, escorted Muhammud Ali to join Nazir Jung at Valdaur,
fifteen miles from Pondicherry. Lawrence was busy at work at Fort
Saint David, organizing a force to go to his aid. Dupleix saw that it
was necessary to aid his allies energetically. The army, on its return
from the siege of Tanjore, was reorganized; the French contingent
increased to two thousand men; and a supply of money furnished, from
his private means.
"The army set out to attack Nazir Jung and his ally at Valdaur. When
the battle began, however, the French contingent mutinied and refused
to fight; and the natives, panic stricken by the desertion of their
allies, fell back on Pondicherry. Chunda Sahib accompanied his men.
Muzaffar Jung surrendered to his uncle, the usurper.
"In three or four days the discipline of the French army was restored,
and on the 13th of April it attacked and defeated a detachment of
Nazir Jung's army; and a few days later captured the strong temple of
Tiruvadi, sixteen miles from Fort Saint David.
"Some months passed before the French were completely prepared; but on
September the first, D'Auteuil, who commanded the French, and Chunda
Sahib attacked the army of the native princes, twenty thousand strong,
and defeated it utterly, the French not losing a single man. Muhammud
Ali, with only two attendants, fled to Arcot, and the victory rendered
Chunda Sahib virtual master of the Carnatic.
"Muzaffar Jung, after his surrender to his uncle, had been loaded with
chains, and remained a prisoner in the camp; where, however, he
managed to win over several of the leaders of his uncle's army. Gingee
was stormed by a small French force, and the French officer there
entered into a correspondence with the conspirators, and it was
arranged that, when the French army attacked Nazir Jung, these should
declare against him.
"On the 15th December the French commander, with eight hundred
Europeans, three thousand Sepoys, and ten guns, marched against Nazir
Jung, whose army of twenty-five thousand men opposed him. These,
however, he defeated easily. While the battle was going on, the
conspirators murdered Nazir Jung, released Muzaffar Jung, and saluted
him as subadar. His escape was a fortunate one, for his uncle had
ordered him to be executed that very day.
"Muzaffar Jung proceeded to Pondicherry, where he was received with
great honors. He nominated Dupleix Nawab of the Carnatic and
neighbouring countries, with Chunda Sahib as his deputy, conferred the
highest dignities upon him, and granted the French possession of all
the lands and forts they had conquered. He arranged with Dupleix a
plan for common action, and agreed that a body of French troops should
remain permanently at his capital."