The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company

by William Dalrymple

Over the course of Wellesley’s days in the Cape, the two remained cloistered as Kirkpatrick briefed his new boss on his perceptions of the French threat, and what steps the new Governor General could take to contain it.

Benoît de Boigne.

General Pierre Perron,

Battle of Khardla.

Wellesley was especially alarmed to hear about the degree to which the army of Tipu Sultan, the Company’s most implacable and relentless enemy, had fallen into the hands of a body of 500 Revolutionary French mercenaries, advisers, technicians and officers.

At the end of the ceremony, the French corps marched to the Srirangapatnam parade ground, where the Citizen Prince awaited them.

The junction which might thus be effected between the French officers, with their several corps in the respective services of the Nizam, Scindia and Tipu, might establish the power of France upon the ruin of the states of Pune and of the Deccan.8

8 June,

By early August,

Raymond

James Achilles Kirkpatrick,

25 March 1798,

Six months later,

22 October,

For thirty minutes the French corps remained undecided. Two thousand Company cavalry massed on the right flank of the French camp; 500 more waited on the right.

The operation had been carried out with great skill and Wellesley was delighted. ‘You will enjoy my gentle conquest of an army of 14,000 men under the command of French officers in the service of the Nizam,’ he wrote to Dundas later that month. ‘My despatches do not mention a curious fact, that the standard of this army was the Tricolour flag: the first of that description erected on the Continent of India. This standard has fallen into my hands; and I shall send it home as the best comment upon the whole policy of making an effort to crush the French influence in India.’19