Forbes, James, 1749–1819, James Forbes letter, Hyder-abad, 1775 May 6, copied between 1794 and 1800
- Call Number:
- Folio A 2023 69
- Holdings:
- [Request]
- Creator:
- Forbes, James, 1749–1819
- Title(s):
- James Forbes letter, Hyder-abad, 1775 May 6
- Date:
- copied between 1794 and 1800
- Classification:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Series:
- Series I: A voyage from England to Bombay with descriptions in Asia, Africa, and South America
- Part of Collection:
- volume 7, page 169-179
- Provenance:
- Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
- Conditions Governing Access:
- The materials are open for research.
- Conditions Governing Use:
- The collection is the physical property of the Yale Center for British Art. Literary rights, including copyright, belong to the authors or their legal heirs and assigns. For further information, consult the Curator of Rare Books and Manuscripts.
- Scope and Content:
- Forbes, embedded with the English detachment sent to aid Ragobah’s (Raghunathrao) army, now joins the troops as they engage the opposing Maratha forces. The pursuit begins at sunrise, with the English in pursuit of the enemy along the banks of the Sabermathy (Sabarmati). Early attacks inflict only minor casualties on the English, but many of the opposing forces “to make use of one of their oriental expressions, drank the Sherbett of Death.” The company’s allies, under Ragobah’s generals, do not take part in the fighting. Forbes watches from afar: he sends a camp attendant to climb a tree for a better view, and the boy is promptly killed by cannon-fire. The English camp in a village destroyed by their enemies before their retreat. The following morning the English again march towards the enemy, only to find themselves ambushed by their opponents. It is, again, an event that harms the enemy more than the British and their Indian allies. Forbes notes in particular the capture of one of Ragobah’s elephants, saying, “I am the more particular in mentioning the loss of elephants, as the Asiatics deem them a valuable and honorable spoil; almost as much so as the cannon & standards of European armies.” Forbes then takes a break from describing the conflict to discuss the town and country towards which the army marches. Kairah is a fortified town, surrounded by land filled with fruit trees. Yet now, “all is laid waste and desolate!” Forbes idealizes the inhabitants of the area, saying, “they seldom quite their own village; there their fathers were born and died; and there they follow their peaceful example.” The villagers “seldom visit the cities, except those who carry the grain to market; their manners are therefore generally innocent and uncorrupted.” Forbes is wary of those who might critique him for being too soft of the regions inhabitants, but he insists this is the case, comparing the lives of Hindu women to the “pastoral lives of Rebecca, and the damsels in Mesopotamia,” and quoting Thomas Gray’s “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” and the song of Deborah (Judges 5:2-31) in defense of this way of life, and in mourning for its destruction. The country is now “reduced to ashes by a savage & merciless Banditti.” Forbes resumes the story of the conflict. The army is fighting the heat as much as the enemy, and one time “the intense heat obliged us to encamp on the spot.” Soon, another battle begins, and Forbes, “knowing I was not the object of their enemies’ resentment when so great a prince was in the Elephant’s Houdah,” fled to a nearby grove, only to be followed by a good number of the Ragobah’s troops, making a similar getaway. Forbes ends the letter as the enemy troops approach, only saying that he does not want to include every detail of every battle as, “in every engagement I experience too many [painful particulars] for my feelings.” He ends with examples: “in this action, within a few yards of me, a cannon ball tore the horns of an ox entirely out of his head; and another, passing a young woman who was suckling her infant, carried it off from her breast!” Portions of this text appear in <title>Oriental Memoirs</title>, volume 2, chapter 18.
- Physical Description:
- 11 pages
- Genre:
- Correspondence , Botanical illustrations, Ornithological illustrations, Travel sketches, Maps, Watercolors (paintings), Drawings (visual works), Engravings (prints), and Portraits
- Subject Terms:
- Forbes, James, 1749-1819. Descriptive letters and drawingsForbes, James, 1749-1819. Oriental memoirs
- Associated Places:
- EnglandItalyScotlandWales
- Associated People/Groups:
- East India CompanyForbes, James, 1749-1819
- Finding Aid Title:
- James Forbes archive
- Collection PDF:
- https://ead-pdfs.library.yale.edu/11734.pdf
- Archival Object:
- https://archives.yale.edu/repositories/3/archival_objects/3199716
- Metadata Cloud URL:
- https://metadata-api.library.yale.edu/metadatacloud/api/aspace/repositories/3/archival_objects/3199716?mediaType=json&include-notes=1&include-all-subjects=1