DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.25987#0214
1^6 VIEW OF THE ORIGIN AND CONDUCT
good fortune to surmount the difficulties of such a situation, and
a tedious and disastrous war might have ensued. But, after the
army was once equipped, the depots established, and the arrange-
ments made for the advance of convoys and reinforcements, it is
altogether erroneous to suppose that the success of the enterprize
was any other, than the pure and natural result of those measures
which had been taken to ensure it.
In regard to the equipment of the army of Madras, it was
evidently not so tedious an operation as the Governor-general,
soon after his arrival in India, had been taught to believe. It
may therefore be inferred that those radical defects, which he had
occasion to notice in his correspondence, were neither of that
extent, nor importance, that was at first imagined.
How much the Marquis Wellesley was satisfied with the
government of Fort St. George, and its army, has appeared in the
subsequent parts of his correspondence; and, with respect to the
administration of that government, which immediately preceded
the late important events in India, he has borne the most ample
testimony of the sense he entertained of Lord Hobart's constant
attention to the improvement of the military establishment, and to
the cultivation of that spirit of activity, zeal, and discipline, from
which such happy effects resulted when the army was called into
the held. *
* The sword of the KiHedar of the fort of Seringapatam, which was delivered
up to Major Allan, by the KiHedar himself at the gates of the Sultaun's palace, on
the 4th of May, was sent by the Marquis Wellesley to Lord Hobart, accompanied
by a letter, wherein the Marquis expresses himself in these words.
" I beg you will accept it" (the sword) " as a testimony of my sense of your
good fortune to surmount the difficulties of such a situation, and
a tedious and disastrous war might have ensued. But, after the
army was once equipped, the depots established, and the arrange-
ments made for the advance of convoys and reinforcements, it is
altogether erroneous to suppose that the success of the enterprize
was any other, than the pure and natural result of those measures
which had been taken to ensure it.
In regard to the equipment of the army of Madras, it was
evidently not so tedious an operation as the Governor-general,
soon after his arrival in India, had been taught to believe. It
may therefore be inferred that those radical defects, which he had
occasion to notice in his correspondence, were neither of that
extent, nor importance, that was at first imagined.
How much the Marquis Wellesley was satisfied with the
government of Fort St. George, and its army, has appeared in the
subsequent parts of his correspondence; and, with respect to the
administration of that government, which immediately preceded
the late important events in India, he has borne the most ample
testimony of the sense he entertained of Lord Hobart's constant
attention to the improvement of the military establishment, and to
the cultivation of that spirit of activity, zeal, and discipline, from
which such happy effects resulted when the army was called into
the held. *
* The sword of the KiHedar of the fort of Seringapatam, which was delivered
up to Major Allan, by the KiHedar himself at the gates of the Sultaun's palace, on
the 4th of May, was sent by the Marquis Wellesley to Lord Hobart, accompanied
by a letter, wherein the Marquis expresses himself in these words.
" I beg you will accept it" (the sword) " as a testimony of my sense of your