In the year 1817 I was encamped in a grove on the right bank of the
Ganges below Monghyr,[4] when the Marquis of Hastings was proceeding
up the river in his fleet, to put himself at the head of the grand
division of the army then about to take the field against the
Pindharis and their patrons, the Maratha, chiefs. Here I found an old
native pensioner, above a hundred years of age. He had fought under
Lord Clive at the battle of Plassey, A.D. 1757, and was still a very
cheerful, talkative old gentleman, though he had long lost the use of
his eyes. One of his sons, a grey-headed old man, and a Subadar
(captain) in a regiment of native infantry, had been at the taking of
Java,[5] and was now come home on leave to visit his father. Other
sons had risen to the rank of commissioned officers, and their
families formed the aristocracy of the neighbourhood. In the evening,
as the fleet approached, the old gentleman, dressed in his full
uniform of former days as a commissioned officer, had himself taken
out close to the bank of the river, that he might be once more during
his life within sight of a British Commander-in-Chief, though he
could no longer see one.
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