DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.25988#0379
1816-17.
Kirkee.
355
whicli we tried, with little success hitherto, to intercept. There
is a body of troops, first foot and now horse—forming under
Trimhukjee, near the Pagoda of Mahadeo. . . . Remonstrating
with the Peshwa and making preparations for more effectual
measures. This last business is the leading event of the time ;
it has in a great measure repelled former thoughts. I read
Thucydides, and do Greek exercises with Jefferys, with some
profit, but small. I read Ellis’s specimens, and letters of
Swift.’
‘ Night.—I have had much information about Trimbukjee
this evening, and, like all the intelligence I have received of
late, it is full of notices of plans to assassinate me. This is
probably the result of a design to try to intimidate me into
listening to proposals for Trimbukjee’s pardon, after tempta-
tions and prayers have failed. I have always expected this
part of the game to come in its season, and must take care not
to be annoyed at it, now it has come. No one could ward off
such designs, if really entertained ; and caring about them
would probably harass one in the end. I must entirely dis-
regard them,«and not allow them to attract my attention. I
should be ashamed if they even gave me an uneasy hour.’
4 March 3.—I have now plenty of business with Trimbukjee
and the Peshwa, and remonstrances and military arrangements,
no time for blue devils; scarce enough for agreeable reflections.
I combine a good deal of varied interest with a proper pro-
portion of ov ^povrh^ and am happy enough. I wrote a long
2 This phrase (or as fully quotecl, ov ppovrls 'Itu-okA<ei8??), recurs again ancl
again in his journal at this time, and is explained in the following extract
from a letter to Strachey of a somewhat later date :—
‘Poona, June 27, 1817.
‘I have had a very busy, active, interesting time lately, but it is all over,
and I have my choice to sink into ennui ancl blue clevils, or to enter into the
joy of study and tranquillity. I am too olcl and too wise to hesitate between
them, though somewhat vexecl by repinings at the want of any opportunity for
exertion, when so fine a fielcl is opening in Inclia. I allude to the Pindarree
war, which must encl in a general war. Malcolm and Sir T. Hislop are to have
the Deckan part of it, and the Residencies of course are, for the time being,
overshadowed and shorn of their beams ; ov ppovTls 'hnroKAelSii, a proverb I
a a 2
Kirkee.
355
whicli we tried, with little success hitherto, to intercept. There
is a body of troops, first foot and now horse—forming under
Trimhukjee, near the Pagoda of Mahadeo. . . . Remonstrating
with the Peshwa and making preparations for more effectual
measures. This last business is the leading event of the time ;
it has in a great measure repelled former thoughts. I read
Thucydides, and do Greek exercises with Jefferys, with some
profit, but small. I read Ellis’s specimens, and letters of
Swift.’
‘ Night.—I have had much information about Trimbukjee
this evening, and, like all the intelligence I have received of
late, it is full of notices of plans to assassinate me. This is
probably the result of a design to try to intimidate me into
listening to proposals for Trimbukjee’s pardon, after tempta-
tions and prayers have failed. I have always expected this
part of the game to come in its season, and must take care not
to be annoyed at it, now it has come. No one could ward off
such designs, if really entertained ; and caring about them
would probably harass one in the end. I must entirely dis-
regard them,«and not allow them to attract my attention. I
should be ashamed if they even gave me an uneasy hour.’
4 March 3.—I have now plenty of business with Trimbukjee
and the Peshwa, and remonstrances and military arrangements,
no time for blue devils; scarce enough for agreeable reflections.
I combine a good deal of varied interest with a proper pro-
portion of ov ^povrh^ and am happy enough. I wrote a long
2 This phrase (or as fully quotecl, ov ppovrls 'Itu-okA<ei8??), recurs again ancl
again in his journal at this time, and is explained in the following extract
from a letter to Strachey of a somewhat later date :—
‘Poona, June 27, 1817.
‘I have had a very busy, active, interesting time lately, but it is all over,
and I have my choice to sink into ennui ancl blue clevils, or to enter into the
joy of study and tranquillity. I am too olcl and too wise to hesitate between
them, though somewhat vexecl by repinings at the want of any opportunity for
exertion, when so fine a fielcl is opening in Inclia. I allude to the Pindarree
war, which must encl in a general war. Malcolm and Sir T. Hislop are to have
the Deckan part of it, and the Residencies of course are, for the time being,
overshadowed and shorn of their beams ; ov ppovTls 'hnroKAelSii, a proverb I
a a 2