On the Coromandel Coast/Chapter 24
CHAPTER XXIV
CUDDALORE AND PONDICHERRY
Beware of becoming attached to any country which is not your own, or of serving any master who is a foreigner ; and leave a guru, who can do you no good.–Sloka.
On the Coromandel Coast is an old seaport town called Cuddalore. It is in the district of South Arcot, about a hundred miles south of Madras. Near it a river runs out into the sea over a broad shallow bed full of sandbanks ; and the sea breaks upon the shore with a violence that has proved more than once an effectual protection to the town when enemies have attempted to land.
The locality is full of interest. The ground round Cuddalore has been bathed in the blood of Europeans and natives, shed during the many struggles that took place for supremacy. The contests, in which Europeans took a part, began at an early date in the history of British India. The first conflict arose over two officers belonging to the Company's garrison. They were taken prisoners by the reigning Rajah of the district and carried off to Gingee, an old fortress inland that figures often in the history of South Arcot. The outcome of the incident was a collision between the Company's troops and the army of the Rajah. It was a novel experience for the Europeans. They went out in regular formation, armed with pikes and guns. The army that opposed them was composed of a rabble mob, wearing no uniform and carrying a motly variety of weapons--bows and arrows, Elizabethan blunderbusses, curved Oriental swords, daggers, lances, and loaded staves. This disorderly crew rushed upon the enemy with yells and screams. Each man acted on the initiative, without any regard to his companions or to his leader. The manœuvres of the army seemed to be comprehended in the one word, 'Charge!' The English withstood the charge, and were left masters of the field with two officers and a dozen of the rank and file killed. The enemy lost a hundred and fifty killed (1711).
Barely half a century after the founding of Fort St. George at Madras the Company's servants decided that a settlement was desirable at or near Cuddalore. The cotton materials manufactured in the villages of South Arcot were greatly in demand at that period in Europe, and commanded a good price. They were not procurable in Madras, and could only be bought at Cuddalore, Porto Novo, and Pondicherry. An attempt was made to open a factory at Porto Novo, but it failed. The French were in possession at Pondicherry, which town they purchased from the native ruler (1672). The Dutch had established themselves in premises which they rented at Cuddalore. The attempt to hire a similar block of buildings in Cuddalore that might be adapted proved ineffectual, owing to Dutch jealousy and intrigue, and the English were obliged to look elsewhere. In their search they discovered an old disused fort near the mouth of the river, on the opposite bank to Cuddalore, but further down.
The fort had been built by a rich Hindu merchant named Chinnia for the purpose of trade. When Aurungzebe advanced southward intent on conquering the whole Peninsula the Hindu merchant gathered together his family and his treasure and sailed away. The fort was left empty and deserted. The reigning Rajah was ready to sell to the foreigner that which was neither his own property nor of any use to him. Elihu Yale was Governor of Fort St. George at the time. He quickly came to terms, and entered into possession forthwith in the name of the Company (1689). He gave it the title of Fort St. David, whether after his own Welsh patron saint or after the little son whom he had so lately lost history does not say.
It was conveniently situated, being out of sight of the Dutch and having a waterway connection with the sea by means of the river which washed the fortifications. In addition to the buildings and earthworks, the English purchased the land on which they stood. The extent of the settlement was to be decided by the firing of 'random shott' from a cannon, a truly Oriental method, which still obtains in the north among the frontier tribes. When the wild tribesman was asked why he was so eager to obtain the latest pattern of rifle, being already in possession of a good weapon, he replied: "Surely the Sahib knows that by this means alone can we enlarge our village boundaries.
There was some excitement in the gunroom at Fort St. George when the order was received for the gun of the longest range and for the best gunner to be sent to Fort St. David. The range of the different guns was tested, and a careful selection made. The chosen cannon was despatched by sea with the most expert gunner. The cannon-balls were thrown out from the ramparts in a semicircle from north to south and carefully marked down. The line included some villages and intersected others. One wonders how the villagers liked this method of demarcation for themselves as well as their wandering cattle and goats. No complaint is recorded as having been made, so it may be presumed that no casualties Occurred. The villages thus obtained are known to this day as 'the cannon-ball villages.' The origin of the trouble between the English and natives, which resulted in the first battle, occurred through those divided villages. The Rajah demanded rent and kist for the portions that belonged properly to the English. The matter was finally settled by the purchase of the whole by the Company.
The boundary line was marked by the planting of a hedge some thirty feet wide. The fortifications were repaired; warehouses, dwellings, and barracks were built, and the earthworks were tunnelled to make powder-chambers and store go-downs for merchandise. The buildings have disappeared, but the earthworks remain. They are described thus in the Manual : 'The curious little barrack-yard with the wretched casemates where the European soldiers were quartered, and some of the subterranean Roman ways, alluded to by Orme, are in good preservation. The latter seem to have gone completely round the fort under the glacis, and to have formed a means of communication for the garrison ; while at short intervals other little galleries, running off at right angles and terminating in powder-chambers, served as mines. At the south-east corner of the fort the gallery ran down to the water's edge.'
The river is a sleepy backwater near the fort; but inland it forms an important watercourse. At a certain time in the year the torrent rushes down from the Mysore plateau in a great body, sweeping everything before it. Occasionally the bridges of both road and railway are carried away. The flood comes suddenly and may catch the unwary dhoby asleep on the sands. At such a time he has to run for his life, with barely time to snatch at his money and jewels hidden in the sand by his pillow. When the river is not in flood, it is a peaceful stream that meanders over the gleaming yellow sands like a blue ribbon. Buffaloes wallow in its shining pools, and the dhobies spread their white garments to dry on the warm sand of its bed. Fishermen wade waist-deep in the stream and cast their nets with inimitable skill. The shoals of small fish look like living bits of silver as they are drawn out of the water. They are of a muddy flavour, but much sought after by the natives for curry. Gulls fly over the surface of the pools with melancholy cry. Sandpipers run over the shining mudbanks lower down, where the water is brackish and where the reeds grow, and tiny sunbirds flaunt their metallic tints in the brilliant sunshine on the banks.
There had been a 'wash-out,' as the railway people familiarly term a flood, a short time before I paid a visit to Cuddalore. The road bridge, a fine erection with many arches, bad been broken in the centre and the heavy masonry piers partly demolished. Enormous blocks of stone and brickwork were found some distance down the bed when the waters abated, showing how great had been the strength of the flood. On my way from the station I had to cross in a boat, as there had not been time to repair the bridge.
In one of these floods a passenger train on the South Indian Railway was feeling its way along the line in the hands of a careful European driver. He arrived at one of the bridges. The water, breaking all former records, was just beginning to flow over the top. As his engine passed on to it he felt a strange trembling of the structure. It was the work of a moment to reverse the engine and back off. No sooner did he regain the embankment than the bridge was carried away with a dull roar of crumbling masonry, and the river rushed on its way unimpeded by arch or pier; it was a narrow escape for the unconscious passengers.
When I visited the fort it was nothing but a group of deserted mounds, overgrown with coarse grass and those tough milky-juiced plants that come under the order of Euphorbiacea. The juice is sticky to touch and acrid to taste. The name is said to have been derived from Euphorbus, a physician to Juba, King of Mauritania. If the character of the man of medicine was in keeping with the character of the plant, he must have been an extremely disagreeable person. The black goats do not seem to object to the Euphorbia. They poke their long noses in among the plants and emerge chewing. Whether they eat the objectionable plants or find something more palatable underneath I cannot say.
On the glacis of the fort facing the river a bungalow had been built. It was occupied by the European missionary. Fortunately for himself he was away in the district a good deal; otherwise be must have felt the loneliness of the situation. Trees have been planted and a garden laid out round the house. Beyond the compound boundary the vegetation is rough and thorny. There is an old piece of the fort wall near the bungalow which has been utilised as a support for steps down to the river. The desire to explore is strong, but the thought of snakes kills the desire at its birth. If any warning is necessary it may be found in the monument put up by Dr. Busteed, C.I.E., to the memory of his little dog Nettle. The dog was bitten by a snake among the ruins.
In its palmiest days the fort was never strong; and it was too small for the force that was required to protect the property of the Company at Cuddalore. There was no room for enlargement or further strengthening. As long as attacks from natives only were expected, it sufficed; but when the French, under Lally, brought their guns to bear upon it (1758) it easily fell into their hands. The best of the troops had been withdrawn to protect the interests of the Company in Bengal under the leadership of Clive, and the remnant left to garrison the fort were for the most part invalids, veterans, and pensioners.
The French settlement of Pondicherry is on the coast, a few miles north of Cuddalore. This town and Cuddalore were made the unfortunate objects of retaliation between the two nations. When Lally took Fort St. David he gave the inhabitants three days to clear out, and then blew up the place with gunpowder, destroying three gateways and making breaches in the ramparts. A few years later the English took Pondicherry (1761). They revenged themselves for the demolition of their fort by razing the French town to the ground by the same means. It was done under the direction of Josiah Dupré. Mr. Garstin says in the Manual of South Arcot that according to Voltaire, Dupré was the grandson of a Frenchman, who was a refugee after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. When one of the Roman Catholic priests remonstrated with Dupré and accused him of severity, his reply was to the effect that Lally had given the inhabitants of Fort St. David only three days to turn out, whereas he had given the people of Pondicherry three months.
Between the fort and the Company's garden-house was a room built by the Danish missionaries, and used for a school during the week and for services on Sunday. It stood in a garden, and on the top of the roof was a little cross. Some Roman Catholic fugitives took refuge in the room, hoping that they might be spared, as they were of the same religion as the conquerors. The French were told that the chapel was a Protestant building, and that the refugees were not Roman Catholics. Without further inquiry they set fire to it and burned it to the ground, their native allies cutting the unfortunate people to pieces as they tried to escape.
With the proclamation of peace the damaged towns of Pondicherry and Fort St. David were restored to their respective owners. Fort St. David was repaired to a certain extent, but a great portion of it was too much injured to be capable of restoration. Pondicherry was rebuilt on lines laid down by the ambitious Governor, Dupleix, which would have made it the handsomest city in India. Sonnerat, the naturalist and friend of Buffon, was there at the time. He speaks of the beauty of the new town that rose on the ashes of the old Pondicherry, and says that it surpassed anything that had yet been seen on the Coromandel Coast. It was barely completed when war broke out again. Under the plea of assisting Haider Ali, the French appeared before Fort St. David and Cuddalore town, where the English had entrenched themselves as well as in the fort. The English made a counter attack on Pondicherry. They took the new town and utterly destroyed it (1778). It cost them a large sum of money to demolish the handsome buildings, and one cannot but regret the necessity of its destruction. The French captured Fort St. David for the second time (1782), and in return for what the English had done to their town they completed the work of demolition and left the fort a heap of ruins beyond possibility of repair. Then came peace with the usual restitution of property.
For the third time war broke out, and Pondicherry was again taken (1793). It was, however, a very different town, poor and insignificant compared with its short-lived predecessor. It was occupied by British troops for some years, and restored to the French at the signing of the treaty of peace in 1816.
Perhaps the most cruel of all the acts of the French was the handing over to Haider Ali of a large number of English officers and men—soldiers and sailors—taken by the French Admiral Suffrein in a sea fight off Cuddalore. It must have been known by that time what kind of fate they would meet with at the hands of Haider. They were marched on foot in the heat of June from Cuddalore to Seringapatam, their wounds undressed and their supply of food and water utterly inadequate. At Seringapatam they were put into irons, the officers fettered indiscriminately to some of the roughest and coarsest of their men. Their scanty food was of the very worst kind. Many succumbed to their inhuman treatment as Haider intended that they should. The remnant that survived were released in 1785, after three years of terrible suffering, with others who had been taken prisoners many years previously. The wonder is that they had strength to live through such an ordeal. Nearly all were naked when they were released, and many of the earlier prisoners had long been given up as dead.
Among other treasures lost in the destruction of the second Pondicherry was a fine collection of natural history specimens made by Sonnerat. He had travelled as far as New Guinea for the purpose of forming the collection, and had brought it to Pondicherry to be shipped to Paris. Pennant, in his 'Eastern Hindoostan,' relates a curious incident connected with this collection. He says: 'On January, the first, 1779, the Deux Amis, a small French Indiaman, was wrecked near my house. Among other letters found in it was one from M. Sonnerat, containing a sum total of all the plants, animals, birds, &c., which he had collected, and full of exultation in his good fortune. I lent it to a friend, who took it into his head to forward it by post to Le Jardin de Roy [at Paris] as an insult on the French nation, and so [he] deprived me of what I should have esteemed an interesting piece of history.'
Lally's fate was sad, and calculated to raise pity even in the breast of his enemies. He was recalled to France and tried for mismanagement of the campaign. He was imprisoned, and finally beheaded. When he heard the sentence he threw up his hands in despair, demanding of his judges if this was to be his treatment after forty-five years of faithful service for his nation in the East. He broke out into imprecation and abuse of the men who had passed the sentence. It was of no avail. He was led to the scaffold, and, lest he should address the people on his way there and endeavour to enlist their sympathy on his behalf, he was gagged and bound.
Dupleix, the Governor of Pondicherry, a man of unbounded ambition, and who would undoubtedly have become the master of the Coromandel Coast had he been properly supported, suffered from the ingratitude of his superiors. He was recalled, and his place was taken by a man who was utterly incapable of standing at the helm in such troublous times. Poverty and disgrace were his reward, and we may surmise a broken heart as well. It was at Fort St. David that Bernadotte, afterwards King of Sweden, was taken prisoner. He belonged to the garrison when the fort was in the hands of the French. The English attacked it under General Stuart. The garrison made a sortie, and he was one of the party sent out. Bernadotte had a romantic career, although he was himself of an unromantic turn of mind. He was the son of a French lawyer of Pau, and was destined by his father to follow the law. A spirit of adventure prompted him to run away and enlist. He went to India, and became a sergeant in the Regiment of Acquitaine. In the sortie he was wounded as well as taken prisoner. The commandant of the Hanoverian regiment, Colonel Wagenheim, took a fancy to him and invited him into his own camp, where he treated him with great kindness. When he had recovered from his wound Bernadotte was released in exchange for English prisoners. He rejoined the French army and rose rapidly from the ranks. When only twenty-eight years old he was made a colonel, and a year later he was put in command of a brigade. He distinguished himself at Austerlitz and was created Prince of Ponte Corvo.
When he entered Hanover with the victorious French troops under Napoleon he met his host of Cuddalore days at the levée. He recognised Colonel Wagenheim and greeted him warmly, repeating his expressions of gratitude for the kindness shown to the unknown French sergeant.
At this time Sweden was full of trouble, which involved the loss of Finland (1809). A year later Europe was electrified by a request from the heirless Charles XIII., backed by the Diet, that Marshal Bernadotte might be made heir to the throne. The honour was accepted, and he was given the title of Prince Charles John of Sweden. He was not idle in his exalted position. Through the force of his arms Norway was conquered and came under the Swedish crown. There it remained until recently, when by a bloodless revolution the monarchy of Norway was restored. Bernadotte arranged the constitution of the government of the two kingdoms under one ruler (1814-5), and when Charles XIII. died the French Marshal was crowned king as Charles XIV. He married Désirée Clery, & lady of the same family from which General Cornelius Francis Clery was descended. Henry Clery, the great uncle of the General, migrated to France, where he entered into the wine trade at Marseilles. One of his daughters married Joseph Buonaparte and became Queen of Spain. The other was Désirée, and she was the grandmother of the present King of Sweden. It is said that Désirée refused the great Napoleon when he was a young and unknown officer in the French army.
The house in which I stayed was the old garden or factory house of the Company. Originally it was without an upper storey. The walls were seven feet thick and the roof domed so as to render it bomb-proof. Lord Valentia mentioned it in his 'Travels.' He went through South India just after the country had come under the rule of the Company.
The natives never quite understood what was meant by that mysterious Board of Directors on the other side of the globe. When Lord Valentia came to India they were under the impression that the Company was an old woman and that the Governor-General was one of her numerous family. The arrival of the noble traveller was announced to the Vizier of Oude as The Lord Wellesley's sister's son and the grandson of Mrs. Company.' Lord Valentia wrote thus of the Garden House: The factory house is a chaste piece of architecture built by my relative, Diamond Pitt, when this was the chief station of the British on the Coromandel Coast. It has a noble portico, and had a terraced roof that pleased Mr. Lally so much that he carried it away to Pondicherry.'
If the house was built by Pitt it is probable that he laid out the garden as well. He was a great gardener, and frequently mentioned his horticultural experiments in his letters home. As I wandered among the flowers with my kind hostess I thought of the redoubtable old Pirate Pitt,' as he was once termed by the Company before he became their zealous servant. At the time when he directed the familiar mâli, or Molly, as some people call the garden coolie, the forest was close to the house and required cutting away. When cleared of jungle the soil was good and only needed water to be productive. From his letters we learn that vegetable-seeds were sent out from England. Country ships brought plants and seeds from China and the Straits. Men like Sonnerat, Bulkley, Anderson, Roxburgh, and Jerdon were always ready to help in experimental agri- and horticulture.
We dined in the large central room over which there are now a drawing-room and bedrooms. The story was told of how the French surprised some English soldiers, who with their officers were quartered in the house. They were taken prisoners, disarmed, and placed under a guard. The Frenchmen then proceeded to explore the building. They discovered a quantity of Madeira and brandy in the storeroom and forthwith refreshed themselves. Half an hour later they were all completely intoxicated, including the guard that had been set over the prisoners. One of the Englishmen managed to free himself from the rope with which he had been bound and set his companions free. They recovered their weapons and took their captors prisoners, disarming them in their turn, and tying their hands. As soon as the Frenchmen were sober enough to walk, they were marched off to the fort, where they were held as prisoners until they were exchanged.
There is another and more gruesome story of the assassination of seventeen Frenchmen in the dining-room by the English. It was said by the native servants that the ghost of one of these men walked, but I could not hear that the spectre had shown himself to any European.
The old town of Cuddalore is about a mile from the fort. The factory and warehouses of the Company were fine buildings, and a great number of troops were crowded into the barracks. One of the streets is named after Clive. It was the scene of a quarrel between Clive and Fordyce, the chaplain, who for some reason had abused the other behind his back. The words were uttered in the house of a Dr. Belsches who lived in the street; they were repeated to Clive, and he gave his traducer a thrashing just outside the house. Fordyce complained to the council, and an explanation was demanded. When both sides had been heard the council blamed Fordyce and reprimanded him. He was annoyed at their hostile attitude and left the council chamber with disrespectful remarks, for which they suspended him. Clive was exonerated from all blame in the matter. It was in Fort St. David that the gambling incident occurred when Clive refused to pay losses which he averred were due to cheating on the part of the men who were playing with him.
When the wars were ended the barracks at Cuddalore were used for the Invalid Battalion. Here the old soldiers of the Company found rest from their labours. They 'married into the country' and lived comfortably on their pensions. There were Hanoverians and Swiss as well as English. When the De Meuron Regiment of Swiss mercenaries was disbanded many of the men went into the Company's Coast Artillery. Like the English, they married the women of the country, as the register books testify, and settled there permanently.
It was at Cuddalore that Forjett (or Forgett), the man who saved Bombay from disaster in the Mutiny, was educated as a boy. His father was a pensioner. He died and left his boy to the care of an old friend and comrade named Hillier, who sent the child to the barrack school. It was a good school, and had a reputation for giving its pupils a better education than was to be obtained from others of the same class in India. Forjett profited by it, being of a studious disposition. General Conway happened to be passing through Cuddalore and remembering Hillier, who had served under him, he went to look up his old sergeant-major. There he saw young Forjett. The appearance of the boy pleased him, and he offered to take him to Bombay, where he was going, and to find an appointment of some kind for him. Hillier accepted the offer gratefully, and shortly afterwards Forjett entered the police service at Bombay. He rose in course of time to a high position in the force. Douglas, in his 'Western India,' tells the story at length of how Bombay was saved from the horrors that overtook other towns through the promptness and foresight of Forjett. He was the prototype of Kipling's 'Strickland Sahib,' the man who could speak the language and assume the garb of a native without detection. It came to Forjett's ears that the sepoys were holding seditious meetings at a certain house in the town belonging to a native. The officers of the regiment, like many others similarly situated, were not only unsuspicious, but they reposed absolute faith in their men. To convince them that they were wrong, Forjett arranged that they should overhear what passed at one of these meetings. The result was that timely arrests were made and the town was saved. The merchants and tradesmen of Bombay recognised their indebtedness to Forjett and showed their gratitude by the gift of a substantial sum of money.
The town of Cuddalore, that once hummed with military life and shook at the cannon's roar, has sunk into quietude. It has its bazaar with stalls of vegetables and meat, shops of brass, copper, and tin ware of rough country make, a 'Europe goods' emporium, where ribbons, sardines, cheap looking-glasses, &c., may be bought, and its toddy shops. Groups of placid natives haggle and bargain as though time had no value. Marriage processions pass through the streets, and the dead are carried out to the burial-ground. Over all shines the wonderful tropical sun, turning the yellow sand to gold and the whitewashed walls to gleaming marble. In the azure of the sky, Garuda circles, calling for his deity as his eye is cast earthwards in search of a meal. Happily there is no battlefield with stricken horse and bullock to bring him down and tempt him to forget his sorrows in the terrible feast.
A few tough old pensioners occupy the bungalows in the old town that were once the residences of the English officers. They find recreation in fishing, and in an occasional spree when they brew trouble for themselves. The race will die out, but their reputation will last long after the old fellows are gone. The memory of the wars of a century or more ago is green among the natives of the south, and they have a wholesome respect for the British soldier. When he is drunk they fear him more than a little. The uproarious laugh that follows the joke as he strolls along with a boon-companion is a sure sign to the timid Hindu that Tommy Atkins has had too much of the fiery arrack in the toddy shop.
There was an old pensioner at Trichinopoly who occasionally found himself in trouble. He used to send to the chaplain praying him to come and extricate him from his difficulties. He had a Eurasian nephew who tried to keep the old man in order by hiding his trousers. On recovery from one of his sprees,' as he called them, he wrote a pitiful letter begging for an old suit. His disrespectful nephew had deprived him of his clothes, and he was 'left in a condition not fit for a gentleman. It was impossible to walk abroad like a dirty Mohammedan in pyjamas.'
A pair of white ducks was sent, and a day or two later a visit was paid to the old Irishman. He was repentant and excused himself on the score of having received his pension. He had had a few glasses of drink, and feeling rather merry and light-hearted, he had fastened a brass pot round his neck with a bit of string, and had played a little tune on it with the door-key. As he walked along the bazaar, sure, he thought he would give 'em a bit of song to cheer 'em up. But the natives had got no music under their black skins. They took offence at his song, and the police locked him up. When he had paid his fine and had gone home his rascally nephew took away his trousers. His reverence really must speak to the boy seriously. It was not the proper way to treat his old uncle. ‘Sure, sir, there was not the leastest bit of harrum in the song at all, at all. It was a very good song, all about ould Oireland. I'll just sing you a verse of it that you may see for yerself.'
A Eurasian boy in the school at Trichinopoly thus described the British soldier in an essay:
‘The soldier has to learn how to fight and how to shoot and how to drill. He works all the morning in the guard-room. When he is not on duty, he and five other soldiers take a carriage and drive round the town. This is their favourite amusement. They stop many times to drink, and at the end of the afternoon they are quite drunk. Then they fight the natives in the bazaar until the police take them away. It takes many police-peons to catch and hold them. Ten peons on each side are hardly sufficient for one English soldier when he is drunk. When his time is up in this country he returns to England and is made a lord.'