Major-General Duff was a man of a powerful frame of body; anecdotes of his strength are told to the present day; on one occasion, a leopard sprung suddenly upon him, but seizing the animal by the throat, they rolled over and over, the general never relinquishing his grasp until the animal was fairly powerless, when he was easily put an end to. On another occasion, finding a sentry asleep over the park, he took a 6–pounder[41] off its carriage and carried it under his arm (_doorbien ke mooafik_, as an old native officer, at that time his orderly, described it) “like a telescope.” Major-General Duff returned to Europe in December, 1797—Major-General G. Deare succeeding him in the command at the Presidency, and as the vice-president of the Military Board, in the absence of the Commander-in-Chief; Colonel Hussey, the commandant of artillery, acting in the latter capacity till his arrival. Colonel Hussey had but a short tenure of the command, for his promotion to major-general being known in India in September, 1798, it was declared in orders, “that Colonel Hussey having attained the rank of major-general, came under the influence of the Minutes of Council, 5 June, 1797,” and “Lieutenant-Colonel C. Green, the senior officer of artillery, under the rank of a general officer,” was ordered to “conduct the regimental duties and details, until further orders.” The unsettled state of the great Mahratta powers, and the threatening aspect of Zeman Shah, with whom the deposed Nawab of Oude, Vizier Ali, had been corresponding, rendered the assembly of an army of observation necessary to the defence of British India; a considerable force was assembled under Sir James Craig at Anopsheher, with which were five companies of artillery under Lieutenant-Colonel Woodburn; but this force appears to have been very ill equipped with ammunition, a circumstance noticed by Sir J. Craig to Lord Mornington:—“Our proportion of musket ammunition is 120 rounds per man, and that for the small-arms of the cavalry is 40; with this, I certainly would not venture to stir a step from the Ganges, and how we are to gut up more, in the time in which I think it is probable that it may be requisite for us to do so, I know not: I have written in strong terms to the Commander-in-Chief on the subject. For our artillery, we have 300 rounds; but that is, if possible, still less equal to what we ought to have, at least, in a depôt to which we could have a much more ready access than we have to Chunar or Allahabad. The latter should be our grand depôt, in which should be lodged a quantity of stores of every species, equal to every possible emergency; while a field-depôt, fed continually from it, should move successively from post to post as we advance, and be always at hand to renew our deficiencies.”