Birds of Passage

by Henrietta Clive

  I have had several leaves of trees drawn for you. I cannot say I have done them myself. It is very fatiguing to the eyes, and the glare is so disagreeable, that they require great care, and the delicacy of Botanical Drawing requires a great deal of attention. I had no more drawing paper left; therefore you shall have more bye and bye, when I meet with any of an extraordinary shape. You have heard so much of the Bread Fruit that I thought the Leaf would be worth sending, though it is of such an unreasonable size. I have tasted the fruit of it, which did not answer my expectation. None of the fruits here please us. We are told the ripe mangoes are excellent, but those I have already tasted are not pleasant, from being like turpentine. The custard apple and guava are the best … In short I do not find anything that is better than in England, except the moon. She is certainly brighter and gives more light early, than in England. The moonlight nights are beyond all ideal, and Signora Anna allows they are superior to Italy. You know Cassaicoli said, ‘La Lunard e Italia e puis brilliante cheil sole d’Ingliterra.’† I think he might say so here most truly. I have not been more than nine miles distant from hence and from the Mount there is an appearance of hills at a distance, but here you know it is very flat, sandy, and not pretty, yet everybody that comes from Bengal says we have the advantage.

  Lord Mornington and Lord Clive go on in great friendship, which you will be pleased to hear, as that is not always the case with the governors of these places. We are in hope of great news in about two months from the army. I am now watching for letters from England, as I find we shall not have any more for many months. That is a most dismal thought. We are all at a frightful distance from one another. Butler and the coachman have been ill and are alarmed and return with this letter to their own land. The following is an account of the army, which I thought would interest you. Active infantry – 11, 061; European division – 4,608; Cavalry – 912; Active division – 1,766; Artillery Men – 576; Lascars – 1,726; Pioneers – 1,000; Colonel Robert’s Detachment – 6,785; Colonel Brown’s Detachment – 3,817; Nizam’s Cavalry – 7,000; Nizam’s Infantry – 6,000; 12 Field Pieces and Battery Train; 57,000 Bullocks provided by Government; About 90,000 followers of different description, besides women and children.

  February 20th, postscript to above letter

  Since I wrote the above, I find that the Princess of Wales is a single ship and therefore it is best not to send my things by her. Therefore, my Leaves will wait a straight journey or three weeks for the next ships from Bengal.

  Once more, adieu.

  February 15th, Henrietta to George Herbert, 2nd Earl of Powis

  My dearest brother – I believe as to public affairs, all goes on well. Lord Clive is much liked. The idea of his management is much diminished. He is thought a useful man by Mr Webbe. Yet I understand that he is not thought better of in regard to principle and that Webbe has spies over him and that he cannot do any harm. He made great advances to Lord Mornington, which have not succeeded.

  Lord Mornington is so much afraid of his person that notwithstanding he has a guard of a company of infantry and twenty of the Body Guard, which is as much as is ever employed as a rear guard to the whole army. He has taken fright and is going into the fort where there is a bad house, though large and chiefly occupied by the writers and public offices except for a few rooms. He has added that all there are to be turned out and all the papers and records to be removed which can only be done to the Admiralty where by his arrangement with Lord Clive we were to go in case of any siege or attack which though improbable is not impossible. Now we are left out. He says the walls we have round the yard, which Lord Clive has just built, is a sufficient security for us. It has occasioned great confusion. All the ladies whose husbands are gone with the army who are living in the country houses are taking fright and going into the Fort, which is very hot, and people cannot get rooms. You can see by this he is not likely to be very popular and the removal of papers and offices is by no means an easy thing to settle.

  When I think of you at Edinburgh and myself many thousand miles off with all sorts of heat and the idea of the river, which will put itself before my eyes, I am not gay nor is Lord C more so than myself internally. We are, however, perfectly comfortable in our selves and both mutually wishing ourselves at home again.

  General Harris, our Commander in Chief, is a poor fool, extremely good and all that, but has neither much knowledge nor much activity. That is the only thing that is alarming about the war. Everything else is in high order. This is my private dispatch and will be sent with more that are to go overboard if they are taken.

  God help you my dearest brother.

  I long so much to see you again, that I hardly dare hink of it.

  Your ever affectionate, H. A. C.

  February 15th

  On February 22nd Charly noted that ‘the mosquitoes bite us most shockingly. I think they are much more troublesome than they were when we first came here.’ From March 4th to March 25th the whole of the Clive family and servants contracted a fever beginning with pains in the bones and ending in an eruptive rash. Lord Clive speculated that the causes of the fever were somehow connected to the failure of the rains. The stagnation of the water in the river emitted smells that were particularly offensive between the Garden House where the Clives resided and the fort.

  In April, Henrietta and the girls were allowed to make small excursions near Madras. They visited a Malabar pagoda, where they were forbidden to enter for fear of their polluting it. At Bonansalie, they were once again barred from entering a Hindu temple: ‘Friskey ran into it,’ Charly wrote. ‘Some man ran after her, and pulled her out.’ They went to a feast in honour of Vishnu at the village of Sydrapet, where they got out of the carriage and were given flowers and fruit: ‘After the devotees had said their prayers, they brought out Vishnu with his wife on one side and his brother, Ramswamy on the other. Vishnu had golden hands and his wife had a golden rod to chastise the wicked.’ In Madras the Clives gave a ball and climbed to the top of the Mount where Charly undertook to count the steps. Once they visited a bungalow twenty-one miles from Madras where Henrietta thought she saw the print of a tiger’s foot and was told that three tigers were about in the hills. The amateur theatrical group produced Shakespeare’s King Henry the Fourth and their physician Mr Thomas acted the part of Sir John Falstaff.

  * Very small weaverbirds native to Southeast Asia but often kept as caged birds

  † ‘The moon in Italy is brighter than the sun in England.’

  Miserable in Madras

  ‘A most indescribable wish to go and see.’

  Charly’s journal entry of May 10th reported the end of the War with Tipu Sultan: ‘The news of the fall of Seringapatam is confirmed. It was taken on the 4th May. Tipu is killed; Major Allen found his body, it is said, covered with the slain. He was trying to escape to the palace. His sons and wives have been taken prisoners; the eldest, Futteh Haidar surrendered himself, and the army commanded by Coomer ud Deen to General Harris, a few days after. His throne is said to be worth three lacs of pagodas, which in English money is £120,000! We went to the fort to see the feu de joie; first the ships fired twenty-one guns each, then the troops fired, and lastly the guns of the fort, and Black Town.’

  Henrietta, too, seemed to be caught up in British self-congratulation.

  May 16th, Henrietta to Lady Clive

  My dear Lady Clive – We are in great joy at the taking of Seringapatam, which was done in a most competent manner on the 4th May and happily with the loss of very few men on our side. You know by this time that Tipu was killed on the breach. His sons are prisoners and the other chiefs have surrendered. The war is therefore quite at end and most gloriously without the town being pillaged or any insult to the inhabitants. [Whether Henrietta actually initially thought this, or if she was protecting her mother-in-law from from the reality of the post-battle destruction and pillage, is not clear. The truth of the matter was that Colonel Wellesley had to put martial law into effect to bring orde
r to Seringapatam.] Lord Clive and Lord Mornington are going to settle all their affairs at Seringapatam and I am in great hopes of going too. They are to proceed first, and if all is safe, we are to follow therefore you will probably have long accounts by our next letters of that place. I confess I have a most indescribable wish to go and see in the first place a victorious army of 40,000 and besides that a real native Indian city with all the chiefs and potentates that will accompany us assembled in great state upon the occasion.

  You will have pleasure in knowing that everything goes well here. Lord Mornington and Lord Clive are as much together as possible in friendship and acting in complete harmony, which has not always been the case between these governments. I am happy to say it.

  Daily life continued: Harry stepped upon a snake in the garden in the dark and Charly was so frightened that she threw down her lantern and ran screaming into the house. The snake charmers played their pipes and out crawled a snake, said to be ‘the very one’, which was immediately killed.

  Undated, Henrietta to George Herbert, 2nd Earl of Powis

  My dearest brother – I wrote to you by the last over land dispatch on the 12th May and again sent a few words with an account of the taking of Seringapatam and all the Gazettes by a ship. The plunder of Seringapatam is immense. General Harris will get between £150,000 and £200,000. Two of the privates of the 74th have got £10,000 in jewels and money. The riches are quite extraordinary. Lord Clive has got a very beautiful blunderbuss that was Tipu’s and much at Seringapatam. Some of the soldiers have got 20,000 pagodas; some have ten thousand pagodas, and one a large box of pearls. I should like to have the picking of some of the boxes. There was a throne of gold, which I am sorry to say they are breaking to pieces and selling by parts. Lord Mornington has presented me with one of the jewelled tygers from the throne.

  We have been in expectation of going to Seringapatam. Lord Mornington and Lord Clive are to go together and I am to follow with my ladies. But Lord Mornington has people about him that did not like to go and frightened him about his health so that the journey was put off several times and now seems quite at an end. I believe it will be better for us as we may go in a cooler season and move at once. But the climate is so cool that it was very tempting to us who are expiring with heat. The thermometer is at 91 in my room.

  The colours from Seringapatam are expected every day. They are to be received in form on the King’s birthday and we are to have a great ball, which I hate. It is very dull and I long for a little human converse very much. I have written to Robert about many affairs and have enclosed it to you.

  I have seen Major Allen, whose name you will see in the Gazette as one of the principal people at the Storm of Seringapatam. His account of the town and palace is very wretched. The multitude of people in it immense owing to Tipu’s having obliged the families of all his chiefs to remain there as a pledge not daring to trust any of them. When his sons heard he was dead and believed to be found under a heap of bodies, the eldest who was one of the hostages in the last War* went to see the body and without showing any emotion said ‘It is my Father.’ The younger ones showed more feeling.

  The room he slept in was small and grated with iron like a prison and he locked himself in every night. What a wretched being he must have been in continual dread of everybody. There were about 30 Europeans and native soldiers taken in some of the attacks and whose heads he cut off deliberately the day before the Storm took place.

  May 30th, Charly’s journal

  It was decided that Papa and Lord Mornington should not go to Seringapatam.

  June 4th, Fort St George, Madras, Henrietta’s journal

  At 5 in the morning I presented the colours to the Madras Militia, and made a speech or rather recited it, as I had no hand in its composition, it being done by Lord Clive I think most awfully well. Then at half past 5 in the morning, in the square of Fort St George, the officers of the Presidency met Lord Mornington, Lord Clive, and the principal officers of the Supreme and Local Governments. His Majesty’s 10th Foot, a part of the 51st Foot, and the Madras Militia, with their respective Bands, were paraded at the same place. Lord Mornington received the Standard of the late Tipu Sultan and the Colours of the French Corps in the service of Tipu, which had luckily arrived two days before with Lieutenant Harris of his Majesty’s 74th regiment from Seringapatam. Lord Mornington, with great joy and feeling laid his hand upon the Standard, bending it towards the earth. He then made a very good speech. Afterwards he embraced Lieutenant Harris and congratulated him. Then the Standard and Colours were carried into the church and deposited in the chancel. A Royal salute was fired from the Fort Battery and three volleys of musketry were fired by the troops on the Grand Parade. Later Lord Clive gave a public breakfast. At night we had a great ball.

  It was one of the most pleasant and fatiguing days I ever had in my life. Lord Mornington said something to me that pleased me much. It was that it seemed appropriate there should not be a great victory in this country without a Clive being concerned with it. It was very handsome of him to say so.

  Charly described the evening of June 4th in her journal: ‘At night Mamma gave a great ball at the Admiralty to celebrate the King’s birthday. At supper, the gentlemen drank the King’s health, and gave six cheers. Mrs Harris sang “God Save the King”.’

  On June 14th Henrietta and the girls continued their pursuit of Indian religious celebrations. They went to Triplicane to see the Hussein Hassan feast where they got out of their palanquins to see a great many people (with sticks) grotesquely dressed, dancing round an immense fire, calling out ‘Hussein Hassan’. In Charly’s words, ‘They seemed to be fighting with the fire, dashing their swords and sticks into it; they were painted white, and some had masks, and seemed quite mad. Captain Grant says they do not know themselves the origin of this ceremony; at least no Mahometan he has conversed with could give him any explanation. The ceremonies of the Mohurrum, vary in different countries and depend a good deal upon whether the sect is a Shia or a Sunni, the liberality of the Sovereign, and the proportion of the followers of Ali. Tipu Sultan, a strict Sunni, had curtailed the ceremonies much. At Hyderabad, it seems that the Shia’s are numerous, and although the Nizam is a Sunni, he does not appear to trouble himself about these ceremonies, which they carry on in that city, to a great pitch in pomp and splendour.’

  July 3rd, Henrietta to George Herbert, 2nd Earl of Powis

  My dearest brother – Lord Mornington was praised for his successes at Seringapatam. He in turn acknowledged the ‘honourable, generous, and disinterested support’ that he had received from Lord Clive. I have something to say to you, which is only at present between us. Our lives are so very dark here and so really triste. Lord Clive does not dislike it, you know. He does not mind it for himself. He sees how very bad it is for me. There is an idea, spread about that we do not like company and therefore nobody comes near us except at my dull assemblies and his dinners. I believe they dislike me a good deal from Mrs White, a Salop lady having written a long history of my pride and formality, which makes people avoid me, though nobody was ever so civil to them before. Upon talking of this to Lord Clive, he very fairly said he saw how uncomfortable it is to me from the confinement to the house which the heat obliges you to and the dullness of that house and that if I felt, upon a little longer trial, unhappy or uncomfortable he would not wish me to remain here. This was said so kindly and his behaviour has been such that I will not do it till the last extremity, but really the solitude, the confinement and heat make me at times so low that I can scarcely support it.

  I think there is no apprehension of our health being very injured. He is well. The girls grow fast and are well indeed much, much better than I had any expectation they could be from the first setting out. I am thinner and nervous but that is all. Lord Clive’s situation would be sad without us. I certainly will not go till I can bear it no longer and he expresses himself satisfied on that subject. I mention all this to you because at this terrible
distance from one another I sit alone and think like this and I make myself quite uncomfortable. There are some pleasant people here but many very vulgar indeed and that is not a very good thing for your nieces. When there are things to be done out of this house, they go to them. The people here are in general in a state much like Ludlow. In two months more we shall have finished the first year of our banishment.

  On July 8th Charly stated in her journal that it was her Uncle Powis’ birthday, ‘so Mamma gave a ball’.

  July 11th, Henrietta to George Herbert, 2nd Earl of Powis

  My dearest brother – The weather is what is called cold. The thermometer is at 6 in the mornings at 66 degrees, the lowest it almost ever has been at Madras. It agrees with us. Your nieces grow tall and increase in weight and I do not now grow thinner. Signora Anna is the only one who is very often unwell. She has lately had a bilious attack with very low spirits, which is usually the case. I wish Lord Clive did not expose himself so much to the weather as he does. I am afraid he will suffer, but there is a new farm yard in addition to the garden which he attends as much as he can morning and evening.

  You will be surprised to hear that Mr Thomas besides his other perfections has one that a person never dreamt of before. He is really a very good actor. There is a little theatre and plays enacted by gentlemen … in women’s clothes most extremely well.