De Boigne Had Quitted India In 1796, Long Before
This Rupture Took Place, And At That Time Scindiah Had A Fine Regular Army
Of Thirty Battalions Of 1,000 Men, Each Disciplined, Armed And Equipped In
The European Manner.
He had likewise sixty squadrons of regular cavalry and
a formidable train of artillery.
At Chambery I met with two French
voyageurs de commerce, who with that positiveness, which is often the
national characteristic, insisted that De Boigne owed his riches and
fortune to his treachery, in having betrayed and sold Tippoo Saib to the
English, when he was in Tippoo's service; and I find this is the current
report all over Savoy.
Now it is an accusation totally devoid of foundation, as I shall presently
show; and I took this opportunity of vindicating the reputation of De
Boigne, by simply stating that De Boigne could never have betrayd Tippoo,
since he was never in his service; 2dly, that he had, when in the service
of Scindiah, fought against Tippoo, when the Mahrattas coalesced with the
English against that Prince in 1792; and that had it not been for the
assistance given by the Mahrattas to the English (a most impolitic
coalition on the part of the Mahrattas, as it turned out afterwards),
Tippoo would not have been compelled to conclude so humiliating a treaty of
peace; 3dly, that De Boigne had quitted India in 1796, three years before
the second war and death of Tippoo in 1799. I stated, too, that I was
perfectly well acquainted with these particulars of De Boigne's career,
from having served six years in India, and from having been personally
acquainted with a gentleman of the name of Lucius Ferdinand Smith, who was
the ultimate friend of De Boigne and his lieutenant general in the service
of Scindiah; I added that I could not conceive how so unjust and unfounded
an aspersion on De Boigne's character could find currency.
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