XXVI.] PLAN OF THE GOORKHA CAMPAIGN. 291 would have produced the most disastrous effect on the campaign if he had not submitted to the humiliation of soliciting a second crore, which was granted with no little reluctance. Plan of the Goorkha campaign, 1814. With regard to the plan of the campaign, Lord Hastings considered it highly impolitic to confine our operations to the defence of an immense length of frontier, which it would be found impossible to guard effectually against the inroads of a hostile, vigorous, and rapacious neighbour. He felt confident that our military character could be sustained only by a bold and successful assault on the strongest of the enemy's positions in the hills. With a view to distract the attention of the regency, he planned four simultaneous attacks on four points—the western on the Sutlege, the eastern on the capital, and two others on intermediate positions. Of the Goorkha army, one-third, under Umur Sing, guarded the fortresses on the Sutlege; two thousand were distributed between the Jumna and the Kalee rivers, and the remainder protected the capital and its neighbourhood. Four British armies were accordingly assembled in the field, comprising in all about thirty thousand men with sixty guns. General Gil 1814. The division under General Gillespie, who had lespie's division, acquired a brilliant reputation in quelling the mutiny at Vellore and in Java, was the first in the field. He advanced at the head of 3,500 men into the Dhoon valley to lay siege to the fortress of Nahun. On the route he came upon the fortified position of Kalunga, defended by six hundred Goorkhas, under the command of Captain Bulbuddur Sing. On receiving the summons to surrender late in the day, the Goorkha chief coolly replied that it was not customary to carry on a correspondence at such an hour, but he would pay his respects to the General the next morning. Lord Hastings had repeatedly enjoined General Gillespie to avoid storming works which required to be reduced by artillery, but this order was totally disregarded, and in the impetuosity of his reckless courage, he determined to carry the fort by assault. His 292 DEFEAT AND DEATH OF GEN. GILLESPIE. [CHAP. men were staggered by the murderous fire which the Goorkhas skilfully directed against them as they advanced up to the wicket, when the General, irritated by the repulse, placed himself at the head of three companies of Europeans and rushed up to the gate, but was shot through the heart as he waved his hat to his men to follow him. A retreat was immediately sounded, but not before twenty officers General Gillespie killed, and two hundred and forty men lay killed and Oct. 31, 1814. wounded. A month was lost in waiting for heavy ordnance from Delhi. On the 27th November a breach was reported practicable, and a second attempt was made to storm the fort, but after two hours' exposure to a galling fire the troops were withdrawn, with a loss of six hundred and eighty in killed and wounded. The sacrifice of men in these two futile assaults exceeded the whole number of the garrison, and it was at length resolved to bring the mortars into play. The place was little more than an open space surrounded by a stone wall. Three days of incessant shelling rendered it untenable, and reduced the garrison from six hundred to seventy, when the brave Goorkha commander sallied forth at the head of the survivors and escaped. If the positive orders of Lord Hastings had been obeyed in the first instance, the Government would have been spared a lamentable loss of life and the disgrace of two failures, which, at the opening of the campaign, disheartened their own troops as much as it emboldened the enemy. The reputation of this division was not retrieved by General Martindell, who succeeded to the command, and laid siege to Jytuk at the end of December. It was situated on a lofty and almost inaccessible mountain, and strengthened by extensive and substantial stockades and breast works. The whole district was under the command of Colonel Runjoor Sing, the son of Umur Sing. Two powerful detachments were sent to occupy two important positions, but owing to the blunders of the General, they were both overpowered and cut up. With a force of 1,000 Europeans and 5,000 natives he allowed himself to be held at bay XXVI.] INCOMPETENCE OF GEN. WOOD. 293 by 2,300 natives, and despairing of success turned the siege into a blockade, in which the rest of the campaign was unprofitably consumed. Division of his The division under General J. S. Wood was appointed to re-take Bootwul, and penetrate Nepal through Palpa, but its efforts were paralyzed by similar imbecility. After much unnecessary delay the General took the field in the middle of December, and, without making any reconnoissance, allowed himself to be brought unexpectedly on the stockade of Jeetpore by the treachery of a brahmin guide, on the 14th January, 1814. It might have been expected, however, that a British army of 1,500 men, fully equipped, would have been a match for 1,200 Goorkhas, but the General, after fighting his way to a position which commanded the entrenchment, and placed it within grasp, sounded a retreat just as the enemy had begun to abandon it. The opposition he had encountered, although insignificant, made so deep an impression on his feeble mind that he retired within the British frontier, and confined his exertions to an attempt to defend it; but the Goorkhas, emboldened by his pusillanimity, penetrated it in every quarter, and scarcely a day passed in which some village was not pillaged and burnt. Reinforcements were sent to him without delay, but he had neither the spirit nor the skill to employ them, and his division was rendered worse than useless throughout the season. The chief reliance of Lord Hastings for the successful issue of the campaign was placed on the army entrusted to General Marley, 8,000 ley's division, strong, which was destined to march directly on the capital, only a hundred miles from our frontier, but he proved to be more incompetent than even Wood and Martindell. After reaching Puchroutee on the 20th December, he lost a month in devising the best mode of advancing to Catmandoo. Two detachments were sent to two points, east and west, twenty miles distant from head-quarters, without any support. No military precautions were adopted in these General Mar 1815. 234 GEN. MARLEY'S PUSILLANIMITY AND FLIGHT. [CHAP. isolated positions, and the Goorkhas simultaneously surprised both corps on the 1st January. The officers were deserted by the sepoys, but fell fighting with their usual valour, and all the guns, stores, and magazines fell into the hands of the enemy. The skill and audacity manifested by the Goorkhas in these encounters confounded the wretched General, and he made a retrograde movement to guard the frontier against an enemy, magnified by his fears to 12,000 men, but who never exceeded even a tenth of that number. As he declared that his army was inadequate to the object assigned to it, Lord Hastings strained every nerve to reinforce him, and, including two European regiments, raised its strength to 13,000-a force sufficient to have disposed completely of the whole army of Nepal. But General Marley could not be persuaded to enter the forest, and on the 10th February mounted his horse before day light, and rode back to the cantonment of Dinapore, without delegating the command to any other officer, or giving any intimation of his intentions. General George Wood was then sent to assume the command. An encounter was accidentally brought on with the Goorkhas, in which four hundred of their number perished, and their comrades, dismayed by this reverse, abandoned all their positions in the neighbourhood, and left the road to the capital open; but General Wood had as little spirit as his predecessor, and this division was likewise lost to the object of the war. Effect of these reverses in India, 1815. This was the first campaign since the Company took up arms in India in which their own troops outnumbered those of the enemy, and in the proportion of three to one. The plan of operations appears to have been skilfully and judiciously adapted to the novel character of this mountain warfare. It was the unexampled incompetence of four out of five of the generals which rendered it abortive, and enabled the enemy to hold our armies in check outside the forest from the frontier of Oude to the frontier of Bengal. "We have met," wrote Mr. Metcalfe, the Resident at Delhi, "with an enemy who decidedly XXVI.] EFFECT OF THESE REVERSES. 295 shows greater bravery and steadiness than our own troops. In some instances Europeans and natives have been repulsed with sticks and stones, and driven for miles like a flock of sheep." "The successes of the Goorkhas," wrote Lord Hastings, "have intimidated our officers and troops, and with a deeply anxious heart I am keeping up an air of indifference and confidence; but were we to be foiled in this struggle, it would be the first step to the subversion of our power." The reverses which our arms had sustained were published throughout India, and served to revive the dormant hopes of the native princes. For several months the country was filled with rumours of a general confederacy against us. Mahrattas, Pindarees, and Patans appeared for a time to suspend their mutual animosities, under the impression that the time had come for a united effort to extinguish our supremacy. The Peshwa took the lead in these machinations, and sent envoys to all the Mahratta courts, not overlooking the Pindaree chiefs. A secret treaty of mutual support was concluded, the first article of which bound the princes to obey and serve him in this crusade. The army of Sindia was organized on our frontier to take advantage of our difficulties, Ameer Khan, with a body of 25,000 horse and foot, thoroughly organized and equipped, and one hundred and twenty-five guns, took up a position within twelve marches of our own districts, and insulted our distress by offering to march to Agra, and assist us in combating the Goorkhas. Runjeet Sing marched an army of 20,000 men to the fords of the Sutlege, and 20,000 Pindarees stood prepared for any opportunity of mischief. To meet the emergency Lord Hastings ordered the whole of the disposable force of the Madras Presidency up to the frontier of the Deccan, and despatched a Bombay force to Guzerat. The Court of Directors were importunate for retrenchment and reductions, but he considered the public safety paramount to obedience, and raised three additional regiments of infantry, enlisted bodies of irregular horse, remodelled the whole of the Bengal army, and by these and |