NAM.2009-07-31-2

Typed transcript of the journal of an unidentified private soldier of the 100th Regiment of Foot, 1780-1786. The journal concerns the soldier’s military adventures which began in August 1780 when he was press ganged into naval service, during a journey to London. Obtaining a discharge with the help of a friend he completed his journey only then to be tricked, imprisoned and forced into joining the Army. The soldier was put aboard the ship ‘Pondicherry’, as part of a force under Maj Gen William Meadows, which sailed to India on 11 March 1781, for active service in the 2nd Mysore War. Their intermediate objective was the capture the Cape of Good Hope. However, on 16 April, at Porto Praya, in the Cape Verde Islands, the fleet was intercepted by a French fleet, which was also bound for the Cape. The engagement was indecisive but enabled the French get to the Cape first. When the British arrived they decided that it could not now be taken and so the fleet continued onwards to India, arriving in Bombay in January 1782. The 100th Regiment formed part of a force under Col Humberstone, which was deployed to the area around Calicut on the Malabar Coast in April. Here, it twice defeated larger Mysorean forces. A further expedition was mounted in September but achieved little and was forced to fall back to Ponnani when a much larger force under Tipu Sultan arrived. Here, under Colonel Macleod, the British force made a stand and achieved a notable defensive victory. The campaign culminated in April the following year at the Siege of Bednore, where the author was taken prisoner, in which state he remained until British Forces sued for peace the following year. The journal contains the soldier’s observations on the Hindu and Muslim people he encountered and the country through which he passed. It also is also contains details of the treatment of the British prisoners at the hands of Tipu Sultan’s troops. It ends with a description of the soldier’s first attempt at returning to England, in which his ship, the ‘Hinchenbrooke’, sank off Calcutta. He was rescued from the wreckage, and eventually returned to England in July 1786, where he was discharged. At the back is a ‘memorandum of the distances from Indies to England taken from the ship’s log-book’. Associated with the Siege of Mangalore, 2nd Anglo-Mysore War (1780-1784) 1783.

Mangalore, Siege of, 1783 (2nd Mysore War 1780-1784), Bednore, Siege of, 1783 (2nd Mysore War 1780-1784)