The Story of Wellington. Harold Wheeler
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To drive in the advanced outposts before definitely besieging the place was Harris’s first object. This duty was intrusted to Wellesley and Colonel Shaw respectively, each having charge of a detachment. It was the task of the former to carry a tope, or thicket, and a village called Sultanpettah. He failed, for reasons explained in the following letter:
“On the night of the 5th, we made an attack on the enemy’s outposts, which, at least on my side, was not quite so successful as could have been wished. The fact is, that the night was very dark, that the enemy expected us, and were strongly posted in an almost impenetrable jungle. We lost an officer, killed, and nine men of the 33rd wounded, 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 we attacked it again at day-light, and carried it with ease and with little loss. I got a slight touch on the knee, from which I have felt no inconvenience, and I have come to the determination never to suffer an attack to be made by night upon an enemy who was prepared and strongly posted, and whose posts had not been reconnoitred by daylight.” It should be added that twelve soldiers were taken prisoner and executed by the brutal method of nails being driven through their heads, and that Wellesley had previously given it as his opinion that the projected attack on the thicket would be a mistake. The operation undertaken by Colonel Shaw was successful.
The siege now proceeded in earnest, but a breach was not made in the solid walls surrounding Seringapatam for three days. On the 4th May the place was stormed by General Baird. General Sherbrooke’s right column was the first to ford the Cauvery River. His men speedily scaled the ramparts, and engaged that part of the Sultan’s 22,000 troops stationed in the immediate vicinity. The defenders fought with the fatalistic energy and determination so characteristic of the natives of India. The left column followed, but found the way more difficult. Tipú, mounting the ramparts, fired at the oncoming red-coats with muskets handed to him by his attendants. It was his last battle; his body was afterwards discovered in a covered gateway, together with hundreds of others. Wellesley, with his corps, occupied the trenches as a first reserve.
“About a quarter past one p.m.,” says an eye-witness, “as we were anxiously peering, telescope in hand, at the ford, and the intermediate ground between our batteries and the breach, a sharp and sudden discharge of musquetry and rockets, along the western face of the fort, announced to us that General Baird and the column of assault were crossing the ford; and immediately afterwards, we perceived our soldiers, in rather loose array, rushing towards the breach. The moment was one of agony; and we continued, with aching eyes, to watch the result, until, after a short and appalling interval, we saw the acclivity of the breach covered with a cloud of crimson,—and in a very few minutes afterwards, observing the files passing rapidly to the right and left at the summit of the breach, I could not help exclaiming, ‘Thank God! the business is done.’
“The firing continued in different parts of the place until about two o’clock, or a little afterwards; when, the whole of the works being in the possession of our troops, and the St George’s ensign floating proudly from the flagstaff of the southern cavalier, announced to us that the triumph was completed.”
On the 5th, Wellesley took over the command from Baird, who had requested temporary leave of absence, and without delay began to restore some kind of order among the British troops, whose one object after victory was plunder, in which matter they showed little delicacy of feeling. The city was on fire in several places, but the flames were all extinguished within twenty-four hours, and the inhabitants were “retiring to their homes fast.” Having stopped, “by hanging, flogging, etc.,” the insubordination of the troops and the rifling of the dead by the camp followers who had flocked in, Wellesley proceeded to bury those who had fallen.
During the four weeks of the siege the British lost 22 officers and 310 men, and no fewer than 45 officers and 1164 men were reported as wounded and missing.8 The Commander mentions that jewels of the greatest value, and bars of gold, were obtained. As the prize agents assessed the treasure taken at £1,143,216, the wealth of Seringapatam must have been astounding. Wellesley’s share came to about £4000.9 Hundreds of animals were required to carry the rich stuffs, plate, and richly-bound books from this city of opulence. A little humorous relief to so much sordidness is afforded by Wellesley’s difficulties regarding some of the late Sultan’s pets. “There are some tigers here,” he writes, “which I wish Meer Allum would send for, or else I must give orders to have them shot, as there is no food for them, and nobody to attend to them, and they are getting violent.” Tipú’s 650 wives gave less trouble than the wild beasts. They were removed to a remote region and set at liberty.
Wellesley’s next appointment was as Commander of the Forces in Mysore. He proved himself to be particularly well fitted for the post, which obviously required a man of infinite tact, who could be lenient or severe as circumstances demanded. It was Wellesley’s testing-time, and he did not fail either in administration or the rough and tumble of the “little war” so soon to fall to his lot. He had already served on a commission appointed to go into the question of the partition of the conquered Dominions, a small part of which was made over to the Peshwá, and larger shares to the Nizám and the East India Company respectively. The dynasty overturned by Tipú’s father was restored. As the new Rájá of Mysore was only five years of age, he was scarcely able to appreciate the fact that his territory was so greatly diminished.
We now come to a story worthy of a place in the Arabian Nights. It concerns an adventurer who, later, assumed the truly regal title of King of the World. Dhoondia Waugh, to give him the name by which those who were unfortunate enough to make his acquaintance first knew him, was the chief of a band of robbers whom Tipú had captured and thrown into prison. Recognizing in him a brave man, the Sultan remitted the sentence of death and gave him a military appointment, thus turning his acknowledged abilities into a less questionable channel, for a thief must needs be fearless and daring if he is to succeed. For some reason not altogether clear, Dhoondia Waugh was again imprisoned, and he did not regain his liberty until the fall of Seringapatam, when he was liberated, together with a number of other gaol-birds. The old thieving instinct reasserted itself, and as he encountered no difficulty in collecting a band of the late Tipú’s cavalry, he speedily resorted to means and measures which alarmed the inhabitants of every place he visited. When pressed by the troops sent after them the horde took refuge in the territory of the Peshwá, the nominal head of the Marhattá confederacy. There they received anything but a cordial welcome, although it seems probable that reinforcements were obtained among the malcontents. However that may be, Dhoondia Waugh duly appeared near Savanore. Having the safety of the Mysore Dominions very much at heart, for he had supreme civil and military control, Wellesley started in pursuit of the freebooter. Several fortresses held by Dhoondia’s unlawful bands were stormed, his baggage taken, and a number of guns captured.
An affray which took place near the Malpurda River at the end of July 1800, not only reduced the chief’s forces, but caused many of his followers to forsake the cause, although their strength in the following September was considerably more than that at Wellesley’s command; in actual figures, some 5000 against 1200. The operation on the 10th of that month, which proved decisive, was extremely difficult, for the enemy was strongly posted at a village called Conahgull. The Colonel charged with such cool daring and so determined a front, that after having stood firm for some time the enemy made off, closely pursued for many miles by the British cavalry. A dire and just retribution was exacted; those who were not killed “were scattered in small parties over the face of the country.” The King of the World had fought his last battle. He was found among the slain.
It is frequently asserted that Wellesley held but a low opinion of the troops which he commanded, and he certainly passed harsh judgment on those who shared his later campaigns. Not so in this particular instance, however. In the dispatch detailing “the complete defeat and dispersion” of the forces of Dhoondia, he expressly remarks on the “determined valour and discipline” of the soldiers, the patience and perseverance displayed in “a series of fatiguing services,” and the excellent organization of the commissariat department.
Wellesley also showed that a kind heart is not necessarily the attribute of a weak nature. With
Sir Herbert Maxwell, p. 35.
Gleig (p. 26) says £7000, Roberts (p. 11) £7000 in money and £1200 in jewels. Sir Herbert Maxwell (p. 39) calls attention to a letter, dated the 14th June 1799, in which Wellesley “gives it as 3000 pagodas in jewels, and 7000 in money; in all, 10,000 pagodas, equal to about £4000.”