Page:Final French Struggles in India and on the Indian Seas.djvu/256

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FOREIGN ADVENTURERS IN INDIA.

describes Fidele Filoze as having been "a good, ignorant man, a much better character than his faithless and treacherous father, who had all the bad qualities of a low Italian, and none of the good points which Italians possess." The Filoze family ultimately settled at Gwáliár.

A great deal might be written regarding the careers of adventurers who were not foreigners but Englishmen, and some of whom displayed the highest qualities. Prominent amongst these stand the names of Sutherland, Smith, Shepherd, Gardner, Skinner, Bellasis, Dodd, Brownrigg, Vickers and Ryan. The first five of these accepted the terms offered by Marquess Wellesley in 1803, and with upwards of thirty other officers renounced the service of native chiefs; the last five were murdered or killed in action.

Of other Frenchmen who did good service to Sindia and Holkar, may be mentioned Captain Plumet, of whom Major Smith records that he was a "Frenchman and a gentleman, two qualities which were seldom united in the Maráthá army. He was a man of respectable character and sound principles." Plumet commanded four battalions for Holkar in the attack on George Hessing at Ujjén (June 1801), and he shared in the defeat inflicted upon Holkar by Major Brownrigg at Barkésar in the July following. Finding Jeswant Ráo Holkar a master difficult to serve, cunning, capricious, and ungrateful, Plumet left him, and returned to the Isle of France.