carbines, pistols, and swords; they were drilled in the European fashion.[1]
I propose now to consider the personnel of these battalions and brigades. Of the first on the list, Colonel Fremont, I have been unable to collect any interesting details. He would seem to have been amongst the first Frenchmen who joined de Boigne, for I find him commanding a brigade of six battalions in 1792, and storming at their head the hill fort of Báláhárá, sixty miles to the east of Jaipúr. Again, in 1794, he commanded a brigade of eight battalions at an action which took place at Datiá in Bandalkhand. It is probable that he died shortly after that action, for in the year following it, the command of his brigade devolved on Perron, and his name ceases to be mentioned.
Perron was a very remarkable adventurer. He came out to India in the year 1774 as a common sailor on board the French frigate the Sardaigne. Being a man of energy, ambition, and strength of will, he quitted the naval service and strove by various means to make a fortune in the country. It was not, however, till he made the acquaintance of de Boigne, in 1789, that he very decidedly ameliorated his condition. De Boigne had just then acceded to the urgent solicitations of
- ↑ I have taken all these details from a curious old book, entitled A Sketch of the rise, progress, and termination of the regular corps formed and commanded by Europeans in the Service of the Native Princes of India, by Lewis Ferdinand Smith, late Major in Daolát Ráo Sindia's service. The book was published at the beginning of the century and is very scarce.
