ALARM OF THE AUTHORITIES. 269

yielded the enemy some advantage from the attack, notwithstanding its failure.

The alarms of the civil authorities of Tirhoot had produced a similar diversion in that quarter, and it was not until the beginning of March, that the division destined for the main attack was augmented to the full strength proposed for it.

CHAPTER XII.

THE WAR CONTINUED.

THE uniform success which had hitherto attended the Nepaulese, produced in the beginning of 1815 an effect on the public mind, in the independent portion of India, which is more easily imagined than described, although naturally jealous of our preponderance and suspicious to a degree of any relinquishment of our pacific policy, the generality of the native powers had so little knowledge of the strength and resources of the Nepaulese, that the war at first excited but little attention, they regarding it as a mere affair with a troublesome frontier Rajah. As

THREATENING ASPECT.

271

one reverse, however, followed another, speculation became more rife, and the events of the campaign became a subject of greater interest, until at last more than one of the then independent native courts began seriously to think the time had arrived for taking advantage of our reverses.

Runjeet Sing, the ruler of the Punjaub, kept a large army at Lahore, and seemed to threaten us on the N. W., while Ameer Khan collected his Pitan battalions, and made an ambiguous offer of his services from a point only a few marches from Agra. The tone, morcover, assumed in Scindia's Durbar and at Poonah, was anything but conciliatory, and the intrigues then set on foot throughout the whole independent parts of India, and which led eventually to such important results, date their commencement from this period; and in proportion as their existence manifested themselves, it became the more necessary that we should conquer the subsisting difficulty in the hills, for the supremacy of the British

government was now felt to be committed on the issue. The Marquis of Hastings, however, never once doubted the ultimate success of the campaign, and despite the unfavourable aspect of affairs at the commencement of 1815, there were abundant reasons for a just confidence with those who looked beyond the surface, for every check our arms had experienced was clearly owing to a want of due precaution in those who directed the operations, and this was an error as surely remedied as felt. Our several encounters although often unfavourble in their result brought more strength in the lessons of prudence they inculcated than any physical loss we sustained. It must be remarked, the Sepoys at this time had been for a considerable period unused to war, and although open to the influence of panic occasionally from the strangeness of the scene, and the novelty of their situation amidst the forests and mountains of this extraordinary region, soon recovered their want of nerve. The Nepaulese, on the other hand, were

SALUTARY LESSONS.

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perfectly satisfied with repulsing an attack or cutting off an outpost; they never pushed heir success beyond this, and were too deficient in military science as well as in physical means to assume a superiority in the campaign, or even act offensively on a large scale against any one of our divisions; their tactics in their hills were entirely defensive, so much SO that however severely their assailant might suffer from the indiscretion of his first attack, they left him ample time to re-collect his force and approach again with more caution. To the officers of the Bengal army, in particular, the lessons taught in this war were very salutary; precipitancy and want of caution were qualities bred in them by an uninterrupted course of victory, from the days of Clive to those of Lord Lake, they had only to shew themselves and march straight against their enemy to ensure success; they consequently carried into the hills the same contempt of the foe, which their victories in the plains had engendered, and were taught only by dear