The Press. — London, England, 1858-02-06 00:00:00

from the enemy, I . don't despair of their being very useful. Malcolm is indefatigable, and leads the life of a canister at a dog's tail. The total defeat of Tippoo at Mallevelly, where Colonel Wellesley particularly distinguished himself, rapidly followed, and the investment of Seringapatam was the result. Here oc curved, on the night of the bth of April, 1799, the well.known repulse the colonel met with in his attack on the Sultaun-Pettah-tope. Writing to his brother on the 18th of April, all mortification at his repulse seems then to have passed off. Indeed, he appears to have attributed no particular importance to the affair, except that it taught him a practical lesson of war : On the night of the sth we made an attack upon the enemy's outposts, which, at least on my side, was not quite so successful as could have been wished. The fact was that the night was very dark, that the enemy expected us, and were strongly posted in en almost impenetrable jungle. We lost an officer killed, and others and some men wounded (of the 33rd) ; and at last, as I could not find out the post which it. was desirable I should occupy, I was obliged to desist from the attack, the enemy also having retired from the post. In the morning they re-occupied it, and I attacked it again at daylight, and carried it with ebbe and little loss. In the course of the night of the sth and the (lay of the 6th the general was enabled to occupy a 1 n,, of posts which gave complete security to his camp till the Bombay army joined, at the same time that they enable him to commence his operations for the siege with athamage. I got a slight touch on the knee, from which I have felt no in !onvenience, on the night of the sth ; and I have some to a determination, when in my power, never to suffer an attack to be made by night upon an enemy who is prepared and strongly posted, and whose posts have not been reconnoitred by daylight. With the capture of Seringapatam on the 4th of May, 1799, ended the Mysore war. The whole country submitted to our rule, and Colonel Wellesley, appointed Go vernor of Seringapatank and commander in chief of the army of occupation, entered upon the administrative duties of his high post. The present volume, which is only an instal ment, brings down events to June, 1800, when Colonel Wellesley, after having admi nistered the Government of Seringapatam with great success, was about to set out upon a cam. paign to punish a rebel, Doondhia Waugh, who had raised a powerful force and was plundering the country. We shall return to that particular period embracing his adminis tration of the government of Seringapatam at a future opportunity, and meanwhile ex tract a few illustrations of the character istics of the Duke, and of his Indian expe rience, as exhibited in these interesting me moranda. There is no trait in the character of the Duke more remarkable than the immense im portance he attached to subordination, and, as he enforced implicit obedience to orders, ho ever exhibited due submission himself to su perior authority. A remarkable instance is given in this volume. When the expedition to Manilla, proposed by Colonel Wellesley, but recalled at the moment of starting by Lord Hobart, Governor of Madras, was on the point of sailing, Major-General St. Leger in com mand issued an order " that the soldiers whet "embarked should be placed under the direc " tion of the officers commanding the ships, "in the event of their engaging the French fri " gates cruising in the Eastern Seas " Against this Colonel Wellesley protested in the warmest manner to Sir John Shore, then Governor-General, but concluded his letter wi►h the following passage : However, sir, uneornfirtable as I feel it embarking under such circumstances, I shall do every thing in my power, and shall make those under me do everything in their power, to forward the service ; and I hope that you will find that those whose ambitious claims have been com plied with will du the same. This is an exact illustration of the sincerity of those principles he ever acted upon, viz., obe dience to the orders of his superior officer. But rigid disciplinarian as he was, no one knew better than the Duke, at all periods of his career, to distinguish between those cases which called for direct punishment and those where an appeal to the honour of an officer or aman might he made with benefit to the ser vice. Here is a case in point. A subaltern is placed under arrest for disrespect to his supe rior officer. The ounamender•in-ohief at Seringapatam writes privately to the colonel of the offender's regiment desiring that is letter may be shown to the prisoner;— THE PRESS, FEBRUARY 6, 1858. I should certainly order a court-martial to assemble immediately for the trial of Lieutenant Ritso upon the charge which you have given against him, only that I am in hopes that he will become sensible of his error, and that he will make a proper ap dog', to yon, as his com• manding officer, for his disrespectful behaviour to you, and o the head surgeon of the army for the insinuation con veyed against him in the papers which you have sent me. I beg that you will communicate this letter to him ; and whin I hear from you that he has made apologies such as I have above described, I shall request of you to release him from his arrest. Military discipline in India ho considered likely to be relaxed by the centralisation in the Governor-General of all power of promotion. The petty interference of Lord Clive with General Harris drew from him an expression of opinion strongly against the absorption by the civil power of military patronage : The rules of patronage ought to be the same at Madras as they are in Bengal, where the Governor-General, although probably the most powerful subject in the world, cannot in the ordinary course of business make a corporal. Here the commander-in chief, by the encroachments of Lord Hobart, first upon General Brathwaite, and lastly upon Sir A. Clarke (and by the operation of throwing all the business of the army into the Military Board, where he debates with the officers who ought to execute his orders), has no more power over the army than if he were a common soldier. The whole establishment look to the Governor for favour and promotion instead of to their legal head ; and thus it is that the commander-in-chief becomes contemptible to the army which he is to lead. I told Lord Clive all this long ago, and particularly stated to him the necessity of giving the general credit at least for the ap pointments of the diNerent commissaries, if he did not allow him to make them. It was impossible to make him too respectable, or to hold him too high, if he was to be placed at the head of the army in the field. Next to want of men, the greatest impedi ment thrown in the way of Sir Cohn Campbell has been want of transport. In a memoran dum respecting the necessity of preparation for the war with Tippno in 1799, Colonel Wel lesley lays down the following rules regarding transport : It is impossible to oarry on a war in India without bul locks, and yet the expense of an establishment at all ade- quate to the purposes fur which it is intended is so great that [ cannot recommend one. You wish, however, to be in such a state as to be able to strike a blow at all times, and I know no means of making you so, excepting you order that the collectors of the different districts under the Company's Government should endeavour to ascertain the number of bullocks they have in their districts, and what number they could collect without doing much injury to the cultivation of the country. They ought to make a report to Government upon this subject occa sionally. In the districts belonging to the Nabob and to the Rajah, the commanding officers of the troops to make the inquiries, and reports above recommended to be required from the collectors. Thns Government will at all times know where to look for bullocks, and what number can be taken with ease from every part of the country. To collect them afterwards will not be very difficult. Draught•bullo'ka for the artillery are the most essential, and it takes a great length of time to train them. It might be a question whether you ought not to keep up an establishment of them. The peculiar value he attributed to ample ar tillery transport in the conduct of campaigns is also shown in the first letter published in this volume, replying to a memorial from Major-General St. Leger respecting light ar tillery. Colonel Wellesley writes : Without being regularly bred to artillery, it is not diffi cult to perceive the advantages which would attend such an establishment as it proposes in this country. There are certain principles in artillery, the truth of which is undeliable in all countries, and which the light artillery would bring into effect in this. One of these is, that the more speedily and the greater ease with which the gun is transported the better, provided there is equal weight of metal and equal strength of carriage. The want of speed in the artillery of this country has been the cause that ninny advantages have been missed, many opportunities of bringing the enemy to action have not been taken because the artillery could not be brought tip in time; and, for some unaccountable reason, the native armies, having had better draught-bullocks and larger establishments, have been able to draw off their artillery when that of the British army could nut be moved. The only objection to light artillery is the scarcity of horses in India I pat the expense out of the question, as, if the establishment is necessary, the expense of it is not to be considered. lam afraid that scarcity will be fatal to what is proposed in the memorial, although I think that an establishment adopting some of its great principles may be had without difficulty and at a trifling expense, and that it will render as effectual service in this country as that proposed, which, I think, must be rejected un account of the want of the necessary supply of horses. "However," he adds in conclusion,— to have some artillery which can be moved with celerity will be attended with such advantages, that I cannot readily give up tho idea merely because there is a difficulty attending the original purchase of horses, and beeetpie their future supply would be impractical°. I 137 should therefore propose that there should be an establish• ment of horses for eight guns and four howitz• ill, with harness. kc., at all times ready at the Park, in adiliiion to their usual establishment of bullocks, &c. &C. It is un necessary at present to enter into a detail of all that would be nenessary for such an establishment; but my idea is that the horses should never be used excepting when it is desirable, on account of being near an enemy, to move the artillery at a quick rate ; and that all the ordinary duties of transport should. be done as usual by the bullocks. When Zemaun Shah threatened to invade Hindostan, and advanced to the Indus, Colonel Wellesley writes unon the defence of our north-west frontier, and his observations, alluding to places whose names are familiar to us now, are especially interesting : So little is known of the north-west frontier, notwith- standing that it has been so long in our bands ' that it is impossible to give even a general opinion of what line it would be best to pursue; whether to ccnfine ourselves to the defence of Lucknow and Allahabad, or to prevent the enemy from crossing the Jumna. I should prefer the latter as tne most certain method of defence ; and it must be recollected that Abdallah beat the Mahrattas by driving them from the Doab over the Jumna. It is a most fertile spot, and ought not to be given up in a hurry. Whatever plan is followed, Allahabad must be secured, and quanities of stores and grain must be thrown into it. If the passage of the Jumna be prevented, as long as the Ganges is navigable the army in the Drab can be sup plied with ease from thence by means of boats. The value he placed upon the fortress of Allahabad is illustrated on several occasions. It is curious to observe that the plan of de fence he approved of for Oude against any invasion from the northward is exactly that since adopted by the natives : I send a memorial, which I have received from Colonel Kydd, upon the defences of Oude, which. I believe, is the only paper which exists upon that subject. The plan appears to be well calculated to answer the purposes for which it is intended, and the principal part of it has been already put in execution : I mean that we have obtained possession of Allahabad and the fort at Futtyghur, and that a plan has been formed for strengthening both these posts. It requires a local knowledge of the country lying between the Jumna and the Ganges, and of the positions at Calpee, Etawa, and Anopaheer, to be able to decide whether the part of the memorial which relates to them be as well grounded as the first part. As, however, the attack which is to be apprehended is from cavalry, generally speaking, there is no method of annoying them and of preventing them from doing mischief so effectual as the establish. ment of the small fortified posts which Kydd recommends. I don't mean that they should be made so strong as to stand a siege, or in case of our omitting to occupy them, or if we should lose any of them, that we should find any difficulty in retaking them; but that they should be of the nature of the mud forts in the Carnatic, which afford pro• tection to a small body of infantry against a large one of cavalry, and enable officers proceeding with convoys to put them in security almost every night. • • • • • • • In the meantime Allahabad should be filled with stores and grain. Some of both should be thrown into the fort at Futtyghur. Kydd says that Allahahad can now defend itself, and the proposed alterations will make it very strong indeed. Upon the oft•debated question of European settlers in India, Colonel Wellesley held ad verse opinions. Regarding India as the appa nage of a company, he was opposed to the en • couragenient of European colonisation, both on physical and political grounds. " There are," he writes, " objections to the measlre " which arise partly from the (diameter of the " natives, and partly from the effect which the " climate has upon European constitutions" : The natives hold every European in the greatest awe, and therefore it is imagined that, if these were allowed to settle in such parts of the country as they might think fit, they might be induced to tyrannise over the former, who would fear to complain, and thus the British name and character would become an object of detestation to the Hindoes But the climate he held to be the principal objection to an unconstrained resort of British subjects to India:— Those who have not been in Bengal are not aware of the effects which its climate has upon the European constitu tion ; but they are so great, and those who have been there for any length of time become so enervated, that it is doubted whether those benefits which are expected would result from their residence. A European cannot with safety expose himself to the sun : how then can he hope to superintend 012 various operations of husbandry with success ? His generation, even supposing him to be married to a European woman, dwindles and falls off to such a degree that the third generation from the original settler is but little removed, in manners and disposition, from the old inhabitants of the country ; and therefore, excepting by a constant drain from the mother country, the full benefits of this colonisation cannot be expected. His political objections resolve themselves into grave doubts whether, in times of public excitement, the allegiance to the Company's Government of any largo British population of landed proprietors could be depended upon. %Wish- f mends. g as to tem, or Id any of the •rd pro• one of to pub . • stores he ft ort defend strong ,pears 1 ad- ippa- ke en • both There as ire pt' the h the s' : st awe, Awed to - link fit, r, who me and to the neipal ritish ? of the institu- • there st it is would )t, with e hope ry with to be off to original 4 ovition, F' erefore, :ountry, !.ted. selves nubile )any'd lation upon. 1