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FORE:CHAPTER XIX A BAFFLING DISCOVERY"Miss McLane will go, I suppose?" asked Felipa.

FORE:Bright, black eyes peered down from crevasses and branches. An Apache lurked behind every boulder and trunk. But only the squaws and the children and twenty-six bucks in war toilet, naked from shoulder to waist, painted with blood and mescal, rings in their noses, and heads caked thick with mud, came down to the conference.VIEW IN THE OLD TOWN, WARSAW.

FORE:Hastings then mustered fresh regiments of sepoys; demanded and received three battalions from Cheyte Sing, the Rajah of Benares; armed cruisers; laid up stores of ammunition and provisions for three months in Fort William; enrolled a thousand European militia at Calcutta, and stood ready for any French invasion from sea. He then despatched Colonel Leslie with a strong force into the very heart of the Mahratta country. Leslie appeared to have lost his energy, made four months' delay in the plains of Bundelcund, and the next news was that he was dead. Colonel Goddard was sent to take his command, and advanced into Berar; but there hearing that successive revolutions were taking place at Poonah, he waited the result of them. Meanwhile, the presidency of Bombay, desirous of anticipating the expeditions from Calcutta, now undertook to reinstate Ragunath Rao, a deposed peishwa, whom they had lately left to his fate, and taking him along with him, the British commander, Colonel Egerton, marched into the Mahratta country with four thousand men. The army, when it had reached within sixteen miles of Poonah, was surrounded by hosts of Mahratta cavalry, and was compelled to surrender. The Mahrattas, as conditions��which the British were in no position to decline��insisted on the restoration of all the territory won from them by the British since 1756, and the surrender to them of Ragunath Rao. But Hastings refused to recognise this treaty. He ordered Colonel Goddard to advance. The title of general was conferred on him, and he well justified the promotion. In that and the succeeding campaign he won victory on victory; stormed Ahmedabad; took the city of Bassein; gained a splendid victory over forty thousand of the combined forces of Holkar and Scindia, and, in a great measure, retrieved all the losses, and restored the fame of the British arms. In another quarter the success against the Mahrattas was equally decisive. Captain Popham with a small body of troops stormed and took the city of Lahore, and the huge fortress of[330] Gwalior, which the Mahrattas deemed impregnable.On the 28th of September the combined army of French and Americans came in sight of York Town, and encamped about two miles from the outworks. The next morning they extended themselves towards the left of Cornwallis, but cautiously; and the English pickets slowly retired within the outer lines at their approach. That evening Cornwallis received a despatch from Sir Henry Clinton, dated September 24th, which gave the cheering expectation that he was duly sensible of the imminence of the danger, and of his responsibility. He said:��"At a meeting of the general and flag officers held this day, it is determined that above five thousand men, rank and file, shall be embarked on board the king's ships, and the joint exertions of the navy and army made in a few days to relieve you, and afterwards to co-operate with you. The fleet consists of twenty-three sail of the line, three of which are three-deckers. There is every reason to hope that we start on the 5th of October." On this promising intimation of speedy aid, Cornwallis immediately drew in his small force from the extended outworks, and concentrated them within the entrenchments round the town. Undoubtedly it was a measure calculated to save much life, which must have been lost in defending outworks too widely extended for the enclosed force; but it encouraged the Americans, who did not expect to gain them thus easily. Two thousand men took up their ground before Gloucester. Round York Town itself Washington, Rochambeau, Lafayette, and St. Simon concentrated their forces. On the night of the 1st of October, the French on the right and the Americans on the left drew nearer, and commenced breaking ground. Six days were then spent in bringing from the ships fifty pieces of cannon, some of them very heavy, ammunition, and other military stores; in fact, as much preparation was made for carrying this single post as if it had been a regular and first-rate fortress. On the night of the 6th of October the French and Americans began casting up their first parallel within six hundred yards of Cornwallis's lines. By the 9th of October their trenches and batteries were completed, and that afternoon they opened a tremendous fire on the town. Cornwallis replied to them with vigour,[283] but he found many of his guns on the left silenced, and his works greatly damaged. On the night of the 11th the enemy began their second parallel within three hundred yards of the lines. In its progress, for three days, Cornwallis committed much havoc amongst them by opening fresh embrasures for guns, and pouring an incessant shower upon them of balls and shells. Two redoubts on the left flank of the British more particularly annoyed them, and Washington determined to carry these by storm. Of course they were carried, and their guns then turned on York Town.

FORE:The session of Parliament closing on the 26th of May, George took his annual trip to Hanover, leaving, as usual, the queen to act as Regent. She found her duties this year by no means light. Everyone is acquainted with the Porteous Riots, as they are described by the inimitable pen of Sir Walter Scott in "The Heart of Midlothian." The simple historic facts are these:��Two noted smugglers from Fife, Wilson and Robertson, were condemned to death for a robbery, and were confined in the Tolbooth of Edinburgh. They made a determined effort to effect their escape before the day of execution. Wilson, who would go first, being a man of a corpulent though very powerful build, wedged himself fast in the window, and could neither get out nor draw back again. He was found thus in the morning, and the two prisoners were again secured. Wilson lamented that by his own eagerness he had prevented Robertson from going first, who, from his slenderer person, could easily have escaped. Before execution it was the custom at that period in Scotland to conduct the prisoners about to suffer, under a strong guard, to church. This being done in the case of these two men, just as the service was concluded, Wilson suddenly laid hold of two of the four soldiers who guarded them, called out to Robertson to run for his life, and detained the third soldier by seizing him by the collar with his teeth. He escaped, and was never seen in Edinburgh again. This daring scheme, so cleverly executed, raised the admiration of the bravery and magnanimity of Wilson to the highest pitch. At his execution the soldiers were attacked with stones. Porteous, who commanded the guard, fired upon the mob. For this he was condemned to death, but was reprieved by Queen Caroline after full inquiry. The people in fury attacked the Tolbooth, the magistrates and the[67] commander of the troops were afraid to act, the prison was broken open, and Porteous hanged on a barber's pole. All attempts to discover the perpetrators of the outrage failed.The English having deposed Suraja Dowlah, the nabob of Bengal, and set up their tool, the traitor Meer Jaffier, who had actually sold his master, the nabob, to them, the unfortunate Nabob was soon assassinated by the son of Meer Jaffier. But Meer Jaffier, freed thus from the fear of the restoration of the Nabob, soon began to cabal against his patrons, the English. Clive was absent, and the government conducted by Mr. Henry Vansittart, a man of little ability in his course of policy. All discipline ceased to exist amongst the English; their only thought was of enriching themselves by any possible means. Meer Jaffier was not blind to this. He saw how hateful the English were making themselves in the country, and was becoming as traitorous to them as he had been to his own master. Early, therefore, in the autumn of 1760, Vansittart and Colonel Caillaud marched to Cossimbazar, a suburb of Moorshedabad, where Meer Jaffier lived, at the head of a few hundred troops, and offered certain terms to him. Meer Jaffier appeared to shuffle in his answer; and, without more ceremony, the English surrounded his palace at the dead of night, and compelled him to resign, but allowed him to retire to Fort William, under the protection of the British flag; and they then set up in his stead Meer Cossim, his son-in-law.

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FORE:He struck his pony with the fringed end of the horse-hair lariat that hung around his pommel, and cantered on in the direction of the post. The pony had been found among the foot-hills, without any[Pg 218] trouble. That, at any rate, had been a stroke of luck. He had led it into the fort just at the end of guard-mounting, and had met a party of riders going out.

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