from one side, the advanced guard of the Mahratta army, of whose approach they had, till a few minutes before, been unaware, swarmed in from the other (the river side), and the contest began when a few yards only separated the leading combatants. The Peishwa took up his position on an eminence at a little distance, and through the livelong day one body after another of his choicest troops, Arabs and others, were sent to overwhelm the handful of British Sepoys. The enemy moved up under cover of the mud walls, and more than once succeeded in seizing our guns; but each time the Sepoys, advancing with the bayonet, as long as an English officer remained to lead them on, drove their foes back. Here, we were told, fell Pattinson, the gigantic adjutant. He was the son of a Cumberland clergyman, and was greatly beloved by his men. Early in the day he had been shot through the body, and otherwise sorely wounded, and the men thought he was dead; but when he heard the guns were taken by the enemy, he struggled to his feet, and, clubbing the musket of a fallen Sepoy, struck down an Arab, and led his men once more with a rush to recover the guns. At length every combatant European officer in that part of the position was killed or disabled, and then the young Assistant-Surgeons Wylie and Wingate, leaving their wounded in the temple, took their swords, and, calling the almost exhausted men to follow them, twice led them to the charge, retook the precious guns, and restored the fortune of the day. In one of these charges Wingate fell mortally wounded.
The greatest sufferings of the Sepoys were from thirst; the villagers had depended on the sacred waters of the Bheema, and our men could see the clear stream running within a hundred yards of them; but it was death to drink it, for those hundred yards were swept by the fire of the whole Peishwa's army, and no man could live to cross that space and return.
At length night closed on the unequal combat. The Peishwa, utterly dispirited by his failure to overwhelm even such a handful of British Sepoys unsupported by any body of Europeans, withdrew, and never again attempted to try the fortune of war in the field. The surviving remnant of the victors made good their retreat, carrying with them, among their other wounded, their gallant adjutant, to die and be laid in a soldier's grave at Seroor.[1]
Almost every hill-fort and large village round Poona has some tradition, not only of the days of Alumgeer, Sivagee, and of early Mahratta history, but of the campaigns of Wellesley in 1802 and of the last great struggle in 1817-18; and many were the tales, like those above referred to, that still survive, mingled with recollections of Elphinstone's wisdom and noble generosity, and Malcolm's frankness; which it was pleasant to hear and verify in these days of cynical scepticism which affects to doubt alike the power of unsupported European heroism, and the existence of courage, unselfish fidelity, and real gratitude among the natives; and which too often really does doubt the possibility of holding and governing India by the same means and in the same spirit by which our empire was acquired. Do we not, by such disbelief, sometimes risk the power to do such deeds as the last generation witnessed?
NOTE B.
Anna's remarks on the contrast between the present dearth and the 'good old times' of cheap bread, when the rupee went so much further than it does now, are very characteristic. The complaint, too, is very universal, and is to be heard in the household of public functionaries, the highest as well as the lowest, in every grade of native society, and more or less in all parts of India. It is a complaint which deserves far more attentive consideration than it has hitherto received. Economists and statisticians are well
- ↑ For a full account of the military operations of this eventful period, see Grant Duff's admirable History of the Mahrattas.
