SIR THOMAS MUNRO.

CHAPTER I.

BOYHOOD AND EARLY YEARS IN INDIA.

THOMAS MUNRO was born at Glasgow on the 27th of May, 1761. His father, Mr. Alexander Munro, was a Glasgow merchant trading with Virginia. Thomas Munro attended the Grammar School at Glasgow, and at the age of thirteen entered the College and University of that city. He was considered at school not particularly studious, but decidedly clever, always maintaining a high place in his classes, though he studied but little out of school hours. At College he developed a taste for reading, which he appears to have retained to the end of his life. His favourite studies were history, especially military history, mathematics, and chemistry. While still a mere lad, he commenced the study of political economy. He was at the same time a keen reader of poetry and romance, and had a turn for languages which stood him in good stead in after-life. At the age of sixteen, with the help only of a grammar and dictionary, he acquired a sufficient knowledge of the Spanish language to enable him to read Don Quixote' in the original. He had also made some progress in French and Italian. He was an adept at all athletic sports-a good swimmer and a skilful boxer. With reference to the latter

accomplishment, it was said of him by one of his schoolfellows, that he beat every boy in the school he fought, 'but he never sought a quarrel and was never in the 'smallest degree insolent or domineering; on the contrary, 'he was remarkably good-natured and peaceable, and his 'superiority in fighting became known only in consequence 'of his resisting unprovoked attacks of quarrelsome boys of 'superior age and strength, and beating them by his cool'ness, his courage, and his unequalled endurance. He was 'the protector of the weak against the strong, and at the 'same time he was so inoffensive that he had no enemies.'

With such qualities Munro was naturally a popular boy; but even in boyhood a certain degree of prudence and reserve, which seem to have characterized his disposition throughout his life, somewhat narrowed the circle of his school friendships. Among his most intimate friends at that period were the two Moores-Sir John, who was killed at Corunna, and Sir Graham, a naval officer, with whom he kept up a correspondence to the end of his life. Munro's views on the subject of school friendships were such as are seldom expressed, although, perhaps, more often entertained than is commonly supposed. Writing on the subject to one of his brothers some years after he went to India, he remarked:

Our attachment to early acquaintances is as frequently owing to chance placing us together, to being engaged in the same studies or amusements as to worth or merit of any kind. Such friends are not selected; and therefore men, as they advance in years, drop them for others they think better of; and if they retain an affection for any of them, it is perhaps only for one or two who may possess those qualities which they would wish chosen friends to possess, though it may have been circumstances very different from those qualities that formed the first attachment. If among your school friends there are many who are worthy of a warm friendship, you have been more

fortunate than I; for though I was happy with my companions at home, when I pass them in review, and recollect their habits, tempers, and dispositions, I can hardly see more than one or two whose loss I can with reason regret. Whatever you may think now, you may be assured that those who have now the first place in your esteem, will give way to objects more deserving, because chosen when your discernment was more mature. It must be confessed that there is a satisfaction in the company of men engaged in the same pursuits as ourselves; but it does not follow that they alone are deserving of our friendship, and that there is no happiness in the society of other men. I like an Orientalist, a politician, a man that walks and swims or plays fives, because I like all these things myself; but I at the same time have, perhaps, a greater friendship for a man who cares for none of these amusements.

At the age of sixteen Munro left College and entered the counting-house of Messrs. Somerville and Gordon, West India merchants at Glasgow, for the purpose of being trained for the mercantile profession. He remained in this employment for two years, when, his father's affairs having become involved, in consequence of the American War, it was found that it would be impossible to establish Thomas Munro in business, and an appointment was accordingly procured for him in the maritime service of the East India Company, which was shortly afterwards exchanged for a cadetship of infantry at the Presidency of Madras. Munro sailed for India in the same ship (the Walpole) to which he had been posted as a midshipman previous to his nomination to a military cadetship, and arrived at Madras on the 15th of January, 1780.

The period at which Munro reached India was one of the most critical periods in the history of British rule in that country. On the western side of the peninsula the English had been engaged for five years in a war with the Mahratta chiefs of Poona, Gwalior, and Indore. Towards the close of the previous year a confederacy had been

formed between the chiefs in question, the Rájá of Berár the Nizam of Hyderabad, and Hyder Ali Khán, the rule of Mysore, the avowed object of which was the expulsion of the English from India. The aspect of affairs at Madras was most critical. The especial danger to that Presidency lay in the direction of Mysore, whose able and warlike chief was already engaged in preparations for a second invasion of the Carnatic. Hyder Ali's first inroad into that country, just eleven years before, when he had carried fire and sword through the districts immediately adjoining Madras, and had dictated a treaty under the walls of Fort St. George, was still fresh in the memories of the English residents. Nor was the condition of the British administration in any part of India such as to justify confidence in its power to overcome the dangers which threatened it. At Calcutta the Supreme Government was convulsed by divisions among its members, which for a time paralyzed the efforts of the able statesman who presided over it. At Madras, where, only a few years before, the Governor* had been violently deposed from his office and placed in confinement by a majority of his Council, the local Government was incapable of adequately realizing or effectively dealing with the crisis in which it was placed. The Madras authorities had received ample warning of Hyder Ali's hostile intentions, and had some months previously communicated their apprehensions to the Government of Bengal; but as the time drew near for those intentions to be carried into execution, they seem to have lost all thought of the necessity for preparation, and to have been only awakened to a sense of their real position when Hyder's army was within a few days' march of Madras. In the course of the months of January and February, 1780, troops which could ill be spared from the defence of the Carnatic, were sent to Bombay to the assistance of General * Lord Pigot.

Goddard, and in the latter month the Governor of Madras, who was about to leave India, placed on record a Minute expressing his satisfaction at the perfect tran'quillity of the Carnatic' and of the Company's northern possessions, and his expectation that, in consequence of 'the arrival of the fleet with the King's troops,' that part of India would 'remain quiet.' Even as late as the 17th of July the new Governor and the Commander-inchief declared that there was no danger of an immediate invasion. Four days later, Hyder entered the Carnatic.

At Bombay the local administration appears to have been free from internal divisions; but it had given signal proof of incapacity in its management of the Mahratta War, which, but for the energy of Hastings and the strategic ability of General Goddard,† must have ended in disaster.

*Sir Thomas Rumbold.

Just a year before Munro reached India, General Goddard had made a march which, until a few years ago, was unexampled in the annals of Indian warfare. In the early part of the first Mahratta War, Hastings despatched across the continent of India a small force of 4000 men, of whom only 600 were Europeans, to the aid of the Government of Bombay. It was a bold undertaking, for up to that time no British force had ever crossed that part of the Indian continent. The command was entrusted in the first instance to Colonel Leslie, an officer of good reputation, but who was in bad health and made such slow progress, that Hastings deemed it necessary to supersede him, and to appoint General (then Colonel) Goddard to the command. Goddard marched from Burhanpur to Surat, a distance of 300 miles, in 19 days, or at the rate of about 15 miles a day, eluding by the expedition of his movements a force of 20,000 horse, which the Mahrattas sent to intercept him. The march was through a country then utterly unknown, and of which no maps existed. It was denounced by Mr. Dundas, the India minister of the day, as 'one of the frantic military exploits of Hastings.' It is natural, at the present time, to compare with General Goddard's achievement the brilliant feat performed by Sir Frederick Roberts, in his march from Cabul to Candahar, which, when it was undertaken, was denounced in some quarters in language not very dissimilar to that used a century ago regarding Goddard's march. The rapidity of Roberts's march was somewhat less than that of Goddard's, the distance marched by the former having been 322 miles and the