they resolved on reinstating Ragoba in spite of the treaty to the contrary just concluded by the Supreme Council of Calcutta.
A force of 3,900 men, of whom only 600 were British, landed accordingly at Panwell, and advanced to attack the capital of the Mahratta empire. The march of an army in that country, incumbered with baggage, bullocks, and other beasts of burden, is always slow; but the tardiness of this movement was altogether unprecedented. In eleven days they had not proceeded above eight miles. A week more brought them, on the 9th of January, 1779, to the village of Tullygaom, where they found in their front a mass of about 50,000 men, who began to skirmish in their usual desultory manner; but though they had not yet ventured on a serious attack. Colonel Cockburn, who commanded the British troops, and Mr. Carnac, a member of the Bombay Government, joined with him in authority, determined on an immediate retreat.
The night of the 11th of January, 1779, constitutes a dark epoch in the history of British India. On that night the British detachment, which was moving forward in the proud hope of shortly giving a ruler to the Mahratta state, turned its back in flight upon the men whose power it had so recently defied: the heavy guns were thrown into a tank; the stores burnt; and without an effort to achieve the object for which the army had advanced, without an act that could in the slightest degree soften the disgrace which involved this ill-fated expedition, the British force commenced its retrograde march. Such a step in the face of a Mahratta host, with clouds of cavalry, was more perilous than the boldest advance. The English troops had scarcely begun to fall back, when their rear-guard was assailed by the whole force of the enemy. Fortunately it was commanded by Captain Hartley, a young officer of high and rising reputation, who gallantly withstood several most furious charges; and the Mahrattas were finally unable to make a serious impression on any part of the line.
