A history of the Sikhs, from the origin of the nation to the battles of the Sutlej.

122

HISTORY OF THE SIKHS

CHAP. V

1787-97. the command of Daulat Rao Sindhia's largest regular force,
General in the year 1797, and he was soon after appointed the
Perron Maharaja's deputy in Northern India. His ambition surappointed
Sindhia's passed his powers; but his plans were nevertheless sysdeputy in tematic, and he might have temporarily extended his own,
NorthLern
India, or the Maratha, authority to Lahore, had not Sindhia's
1797. influence been endangered by Holkar, and had not Perron's
Sindhia's own purposes been crossed by the hostility and success ofand Per- the adventurer George Thomas.l This Englishman was bred
ron's views
crossed by to the sea, but an eccentricity of character, or a restless love
Holkar and of change, caused him to desert from a vessel of war at
George
Thomas, Madras in 1781-2, and to take military service with the
petty chiefs of that presidency. He wandered to the north
1787-97. of India, and in 1787 he was employed by the well-known
Begum Samru,2 and soon rose high in favour with that lady.
In six years he became dissatisfied, and entered the service
of Appa Khande Rao, one of Sindhia's principal officers,
and under whom De Boigne had formed his first regiments.
While in the Maratha employ, Thomas defeated a party of
Sikhs at Karnal, and he performed various other services;
but seeing the distracted state of the country, he formed the
George not impracticable scheme of establishing a separate authority
Thomas of his own. He repaired the crumbling walls of the once
important Hansi, he assembled soldiers about him, cast guns,
1 [For an excellent sketch of the life of this adventurer see the
article 'A Free Lance from Tipperary' in Strangers within the Gates,
by G. Festing. Edinburgh and London, 1914.-ED.]
2 [This remarkable woman, whose origin is wrapped in mystery,
was said to have been a dancing-girl in Delhi. She subsequently
married 'Somru', a European adventurer, who had entered the
service of the Emperor and had received the Jagir of Sardhana, a few
miles from Delhi. 'Somru '-whose real name was Reinhard-was
a man of the foulest antecedents, and among his other exploits he had
been principally concerned in the murder of the English prisoners at
Patna in 1763. Upon her husband's death the Begum succeeded to
his estate and to the leadership of the disreputable band of cutthroats who formed his army. After the battle of Assaye she submitted to the English, embraced Christianity about 1781, and was
publicly embraced by Lord Lake, to the great horror of the spectators.
She ended her days in great sanctity, and was buried in the Roman
Catholic Cathedral at Sardhana which she herself had built. See
also Sleeman, Rambles and Recollections, ed. V. A. Smith, chap. 75.
Oxford University Press, 1915.-ED.]