_G. Salisbury._ Marching Order. Review Order. PRIVATES, 1824–1829.] [Sidenote: 1817.] The new year brought the regiment to more serious service in the field, namely, the Pindari War. These Pindaris in their early days had been merely the scavengers of the Mahratta armies; but they had been increasing in numbers and power in the south of Hindostan and the north of the Dekhan since 1811. Their most celebrated chiefs were two men named Kurreem and Cheettoo, who had been captured by Dowlat Rao Scindiah, but were released by him for a ransom in 1812. The Pindaris then came out as an independent body, and began incursions on a large scale. [Sidenote: 1817.] They invaded a country in bands of from one to four thousand men apiece, which on reaching the frontier broke up into parties of from two to five hundred. They earned little but their arms; they were admirably mounted, and thought nothing of marching fifty or sixty miles in a day. They lived, themselves and their horses, on plunder, and what they could not carry off they destroyed. In 1812 they were bold and strong enough to cross the Nerbuddha and invade the territory of the Rajah of Nagpore, and in 1813 they actually set fire to part of his capital. As they threatened further depredations in the Gaikwar’s territory, a force of 600 native infantry and three troops of the Seventeenth were sent to disperse them; and these repressive measures had a good effect for the time. By 1814 their numbers were reckoned at 27,000 men, “the best cavalry commanded by natives in India,” with 24 guns; and in the two following years they became more and more dangerous and troublesome. Holkar and Scindiah, being afraid of them, had both made an alliance with them, and encouraged them secretly. Moreover, the British Government was hampered in any attempt to put them down by an engagement with Scindiah, which prevented it from entering into any negotiations with the Rajpoots under Scindiah’s protection. Unless British troops could follow the Pindaris into Rajpoot territory it was of no use to advance against them, for the only way in which the Pindaris could be suppressed was by hunting them down to a man.