elaborateness of the design, expressed a wish to purchase the palace, and offered a million sterling for it. The King’s death occurring shortly after put an end to the negotiations; and the General dying before the building was finished, directed Mr. Joseph Quieros, the Executor of his Will, to complete it out of the funds be left to endow a College there. This gentleman accordingly took in hand the completion of the three upper stories of Constantia which were left unfinished at the time of the General‘s death, 13th September, 1800.[1]
The College was opened in 1840, and is entirely supported out of funds bequeathed by the founder, who is buried in a Vaulted chamber in the basement, eighteen feet below the central tower.
His tomb is a sarcophagus standing on the floor of the vault and originally had, at each angle, the life size figure of a soldier, in uniform, standing with musket reversed in an attitude of grief.
During the Mutiny these figures were destroyed by the rebels, who also dug up the tomb and scattered the bones, which were afterwards, however, restored to their original resting-place.
In the central vault is to be seen the great bell (see para 23), cast by the General in 1786.
Diameter of bell, 3 feet.
Circumference of the rim. 9 feet.
Height from crown to rim, 212 feet.
In the garden on the west side of the main building is a bronze cannon having the words “The Lord Cornwallis" inscribed on it. This gun was cast in the year 1786 in General Martin‘s foundry and lent to the British Government, Lord Cornwallis using it at the storming of Seringapatam, in the third Mysore war, (A. D. 1792), against Tippu Sultan. During the year 1872, by permission of His Excellency Lord Northbrook, Governor-General of India, this cannon was set up in the College garden as a Memorial of the founder.
To the south, on the roadside, are the tombs of Captain Da Costa, of the Ferozepore Sikhs, and Major Hodson,[2] of Hudson's Horse (captor of the King and
- ↑ General Martin died at the Farhat Buksh Place, now the Station Library, which was built by him, and which was originallv his residence, but according to previous instructions, his body was removed and interred in Constantia (La Martiniere College) as a precaution against probable confiscation of the building by nativ rulers.
- ↑ William Stephen Raikes Hodson. Captain and Brevet-Major 1st E. B. Fusiliers, and Commandant, Hodson‘s Horse, third son of the Venerable George Hudson, Archdeacon of Stafford and Canon of Lichfield, was born at Maisemore Court, near Gloucester, on 19th March, 1821.
