ONE:Following his words by acts, he set off himself, attended only by a few score sepoys, for Benares. Cheyte Sing came out as far as Buxar to meet the offended Governor, and paid him the utmost homage. He continued his journey with the Rajah in his train, and entered the Rajah's capital, the great Mecca of India, the famed city of Benares, on the 14th of August, 1781. He then made more enormous demands than before; and the compliance of the Rajah not being immediate, he ordered Mr. Markham, his own-appointed resident at Benares, to arrest the Rajah in his palace. Cheyte Sing was a timid man, yet the act of arresting him in the midst of his own subjects, and in a place so sacred, and crowded with pilgrims from every part of the East, was a most daring deed. The effect was instantaneous. The people rose in fury, and pouring headlong to the palace with arms in their hands, they cut to pieces Markham and his sepoys. Had Cheyte Sing had the spirit of his people in him, Hastings and his little party would have been butchered in half an hour. But Cheyte Sing only thought of his own safety. He got across the Ganges, and whole troops of his subjects flocked after him. Thence he sent protestations of his innocence of the meute, and of his readiness to make any conditions. Hastings, though surrounded and besieged in his quarters by a furious mob, deigned no answer to the suppliant Rajah, but busied himself in collecting all the sepoys in the place. But the situation of Hastings was at every turn becoming more critical. The sepoys, sent to seize Cheyte Sing in the palace of Ramnuggur, were repulsed, and many of them, with their commander, killed. The multitude were now more excited than ever, and that night would probably have seen the last of Warren Hastings, had he not contrived to escape from Benares, and to reach the strong fortress of Chunar, situated on a rock several hundred feet above the Ganges, and about seventeen miles below Benares. Cheyte Sing, for a moment, encouraged by the flight of Hastings, put himself at the head of the enraged people, and, appealing to the neighbouring princes as to his treatment, declared he would drive the English out of the country. But troops and money were speedily sent to Hastings from Lucknow, others marched to Chunar from their cantonments, and he found himself safe amid a sufficient force commanded by the brave Major Popham, the conqueror of Gwalior, to defy the thirty thousand undisciplined followers of Cheyte Sing. From the 29th of August to the 20th of September there were different engagements between the British and the forces of Cheyte Sing; but on every occasion, though the Indians fought bravely they were worsted, and on the last-named day, utterly routed at Pateeta. Cheyte Sing did not wait for the arrival of the British troops; he fled into Bundelcund, and never returned again to Benares. Hastings restored order, and set up another puppet Rajah, a nephew of Cheyte Sing, but raised the annual tribute to forty lacs of rupees, or four hundred thousand pounds a year, and placed the mint and the entire jurisdiction of the province in the hands of his own officers.[589]
ONE:When these letters were published in America, their real character was concealed, and every means taken to represent them as official despatches to the officers of Government in England. The public rage was uncontrollable. A committee was formed to wait on Governor Hutchinson, and demand whether he owned the handwriting. Hutchinson freely owned to that, but contended very justly that the letters were of a thoroughly private character, and to an unofficial person. Notwithstanding, the House of Assembly drew up a strong remonstrance to the British Government, charging the Governor and Lieutenant-Governor with giving false and malicious information respecting the colony, and demanding their dismissal. This remonstrance, accompanied by copies of the letters themselves, was immediately dispatched over the colonies, and everywhere produced, as was intended, the most violent inflammation of the public mind against us. The Bostonians had for some time established what was called a Corresponding Committee, whose business it was to prepare and circulate through the whole of the colonies papers calculated to keep alive the indignation against the British Government. This Committee quickly was responded to by other committees in different places, and soon this plan became an organisation extending to every part of the colonies, even the most remote, by which intelligence and arguments were circulated through all America with wonderful celerity.
ONE:The great maritime struggle of the year was at Toulon. The south of France was then in active combination against the Convention and the Jacobin faction. There was a determination in Toulon, Marseilles, and other places on the coast to support the Royalist party in Aix, Lyons, and other cities. For this purpose they invited the British to co-operate with them. Lord Hood, having obtained from the people of Toulon an engagement to surrender the fleet and town to him, to be held for Louis XVII., arrived before that port in July, with, however, only seven ships of the line, four frigates, and some smaller vessels. Nearly all the old Royalist naval officers were collected in Toulon, and were so eager for revenge on the Jacobin officers and sailorswho had not only superseded them, but had persecuted them with all the savage cruelty of their factionthat they were all for surrendering their fleet to Lord Hood, and putting him in possession of the forts and batteries. There was a firm opposition to this on the part of the Republicans, both in the fleet and the town, but it was carried against them. Besides the Royalist townsmen, there were ten thousand Proven?als in arms in the town and vicinity. As General Cartaux had defeated the Royalists at Marseilles, taken possession of the town, and, after executing severe measures on the Royalists there, was now in full march for Toulon, there was no time to be lost. Lord Hood landed a body of men under Captain Elphinstone, to whom the forts commanding the port were quietly surrendered. Lord Hood was thus at once put into possession of the best French port in the Mediterranean, and a great fleet, with all the stores and ammunition. But he knew very well that the place itself could not long be maintained against the whole force of Republican France. He resolved, however, to defend the inhabitants, who had placed themselves in so terrible a position with their merciless countrymen, to the utmost of his power. He therefore urged the Spaniards to come to his assistance, and they sent several vessels, and three thousand men. He received reinforcements of ships and men from Naplesthe queen of which was sister to Marie Antoinetteand from Sardinia. Fresh vessels and men also arrived from England. Lord Mulgrave arrived from Italy, and at Lord Hood's request assumed command, for the time, of the land forces.
