Page:Our Indian Army.djvu/403

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OUR ANGLO-INDIAN ARMY.
379

inspired by this encounter that the Goorkhas hastily retreated, into the hills, abandoning every position which they had established in the Terraie.

Major-General Wood succeeded General Marley in the command of the division, which he joined on the 20th of February, 1815; but though it had been augmented to upwards of thirteen thousand regular troops, the new commander did nothing to redeem the incapacity of his predecessor. The division did not march to Catmandoo, nor did it make any attempt to do so. The army under General Martindell also remained inactive before Jyetuck; after the unfortunate termination of his double attack, that officer having determined to attempt nothing further until the arrival of reinforcements, and not knowing what to do with them when they did arrive. In fact, during this period of moral paralysis, the only activity that prevailed was amongst some corps of irregulars, headed by enterprising officers, which scoured the valleys and clambered the mountains with great energy, till some disciplined body of Goorkhas fell foul of them, when they melted away like the snow in the hot season on the lower ranges of the Himalaya mountains, leaving their British officers in the hands of the enemy.

These events produced an alarming sensation at Calcutta, but were received with the highest exultation in all the native courts, which were anxiously watching for an opportunity to effect the downfall of British power in India. Lord Moira, however, considering that to obtain some decisive success over the Nepaulese and compel them to sue for peace was the only mode by which the evil could be remedied, augmented and concentrated those forces which had been too widely scattered in the first defective plan of the campaign, and judiciously conferred the sole command on Major-General Ochterlony. This officer, though hitherto checked by the losses of the division that was to act in combination with him, had already, as we have seen, compelled Ummeer Sing to retire from the heights of Bamgurh to those of Maloun,