The successor of Lord Minto was Lord Moira, better known as the marquis
of Hastings, who governed India for the long period of nine years, from
1814 to 1823. This period was marked by two wars of the first magnitude,
the campaigns against the Gurkhas of Nepal, and the third and last
Mahratta War. The Gurkhas, the present ruling race in Nepal, are Hindu
immigrants who claim a Rajput origin. Their sovereignty dates only from
1767, in which year they overran the valley of Katmandu, and gradually
extended their power over all the hills and valleys of Nepal. Organized
upon a sort of military and feudal basis, they soon became a terror to
all their neighbours, marching east into Sikkim, west into Kumaon, and
south into the Gangetic plains. In the last quarter their victims were
British subjects, and at last it became imperatively necessary to check
their advance. Sir George Barlow and Lord Minto had remonstrated in
vain, and nothing was left to Lord Moira but to take up arms. The
campaign of 1814 was little short of disastrous. After overcoming the
natural difficulties of a malarious climate and precipitous hills, the
sepoys were on several occasions fairly worsted by the unexpected
bravery of the little Gurkhas, whose heavy knives or kukris dealt
terrible execution. But in 1815 General Ochterlony, who commanded the
army operating by way of the Sutlej, stormed one by one the hill forts
which still stud the Himalayan states now under the Punjab government,
and compelled the Nepal darbar to sue for peace. In the following year
the same general advanced from Patna into the valley of Katmandu, and
finally dictated the terms which had before been rejected, within a few
miles of the capital. By the treaty of Segauli, which defines the
English relations with Nepal to the present day, the Gurkhas withdrew on
the one hand from Sikkim, and on the other from those lower ranges of
the western Himalayas which have supplied the health-giving stations of
Naini Tal, Mussoorie and Simla.
Pindaris.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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