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The army of Hindustan, under Perron, consisted of 16,000 to 17,000 regular infantry, and from 15,000 to 20,000 horse, with not less than twenty pieces of artillery." It may be added, on the authority of Major Thorn, that his army was commanded by about three hundred European officers, of whom all but forty were French. In this estimate must be included the forces of the Begam Sumroo.
He sent to the Begam Sumroo, and urged her to hasten to the Emperor's assistance; but the prudent lady was not willing to undertake a task from which, with his vastly superior resources, she saw him shrink. He likewise sent a confidential Brahmin, who arrived on 10th July, and five days after, appeared a force of 2,000 horse under Rayaji, a relation of Sindhia's.
Suddenly, however, our Indian discussions were brought to a close by the following incident. My uncle had brought with him to England some Arabian horses, and amongst them a beautiful young Persian mare, called Sumroo, the gentlest of her race. Sumroo it was that he happened to be riding, upon a frosty day. Unused to ice, she came down with him, and broke his right leg.
The infantry deployed with the gun in the centre, and threw in a brisk fire of musketry and grape, which checked the sortie, and gave the Imperialists time to form. He soon after opened negotiations through the inevitable Manzur Ali; and, the Begam Sumroo joining in his favour, he was admitted to the presence and fully pardoned.
In the centre of the dominions swayed by the Dictator-Beadle were quartered two who had attained to almost royal state in the persons of General de Boigne and the Begam Sumroo: the one at Sardhana, the other at Aligarh.
The officers of the Begam's little army had never recovered the taint thrown over the service by its original founder, the miscreant Sumroo, and the merits of the gallant young Irishman, tall, handsome, intrepid, and full of the reckless generosity of his impulsive race, soon raised him to distinction.
He left a family, of whom the Begam Sumroo at first took charge, but their descendants have now become mixed with the ordinary population of the country. This extraordinary man was largely endowed by Nature, both morally and physically.
This was none other than the notorious Sumroo, who had wisely left his late protector the Nawab of Audh, at the head of a battalion of Sepoys, a detail of artillery, and some three hundred European ruffians of all countries.
This is a species of peril to which persons in his position seem to have been peculiarly open; and it is related that the infamous Sumroo was sometimes seized by his soldiers, and seated astride upon a heated cannon, in order to extort money from him.
He shortly afterwards, however, returned, reinforced by the regulars and guns under Sumroo; but by this time the Mirza was returned from Rohilkand, and after the rains of 1774, marched against them, aided by a chief from Hariana, named after himself Najaf Kuli Khan, who brought into the field some 10,000 troops.
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