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by William Dalrymple

40 OIOC, Kirkpatrick Papers, F228/1, p.107, Hyderabad, 29 January, William Kirkpatrick to Gibson [agent] in Calcutta.

  41 Bodleian Library, Russell Papers, Ms Eng Letts C151, p.8, Henry Russell to Charles Russell, 2 March 1811.

  42 Sayyid Abd al-Latif Shushtari, Kitab Tuhfat al-’Alam (written Hyderabad, 1802; lithographed Bombay, 1847), p.156.

  43 The uniforms are well illustrated in the great pair of panels of Nizam Ali Khan and his court setting off hunting, in the Salar Jang Museum, Hyderabad.

  44 Archives Départmentales de la Savioe, Chambéry, de Boigne archive, bundle AB IIA, Lieutenant William Steuart to ‘Mac’, Paangul, 30 October 1790.

  45 OIOC, Kirkpatrick Papers, F228/1, p.113, William Kirkpatrick to Kennaway, Camp near Bedar, 11 February 1794.

  46 De Boigne archive, Chambéry, bundle AB IIA, Lieutenant William Steuart to ‘Mac’, Paangul, 30 October 1790.

  47 M.A. Nayeem, Mughal Administration of the Deccan under Nizamul Mulk Asaf Jah (1720-48) (Bombay, 1985), p.87. For the reporting of illicit parties see Lala Mansaram, ‘Masir i-Nizami’, in P. Setu Madhava Rao, Eighteenth Century Deccan (Bombay, 1963), p.112.

  48 Nayeem, op. cit., p.95.

  49 OIOC, The Hardinge Album, Add Or. 4396-4470.

  50 James Achilles Kirkpatrick, ‘A View of the State of the Deccan, 4th June 1798’, Wellesley Papers, BL Add Mss 13582 f.33.

  51 OIOC, Diary of Edward Strachey, Mss Eur F128/196, ff16v-38, p.25v, 17 October 1801.

  52 Kennaway Papers, Devon Records Office, Exeter. B961M/M/B9, Kennaway to Cherry, 14 December 1788.

  53 Shushtari, op. cit., p.160.

  54 Gobind Krishen to Nana Phadnavis, 20 February 1794. Quoted in Sarkar, English Records of Mahratta History, op. cit., p.ix.

  55 Quoted in Lafont, Indika, op. cit., p.179.

  56 OIOC, Kirkpatrick Papers, F228/3, p.27, William Kirkpatrick to Kennaway, 3 September 1794.

  57 OIOC, Kirkpatrick Papers, F228/4, p.3, Kumtaneh, William Kirkpatrick to Shore, 3 December 1794.

  58 For the Women’s Battalion, see Gavin Hambly, ‘Armed Women Retainers in the Zenanas of Indo-Muslim Rulers: The Case of Bibi Fatima’, in Gavin Hambly (ed.), Women in the Medieval Islamic World (New York, 1998), esp. p.454. For the Nizam’s zenana on campaign in their covered howdahs see William Hollingbery, A History of His Late Highness Nizam Alee Khaun, Soobah of the Dekhan (Calcutta, 1805), esp. p.54.

  59 The details about the bribes, and of Mir Alam’s treachery, come from the Gulzar i-Asafiya, Chapter 3. The Gulzar was written by Ghulam Husain Khan, whose father, as Nizam Ali Khan’s personal physician, accompanied the Nizam to Khardla; this gives some credence to the information.

  60 OIOC, Kirkpatrick Papers, F228/3, p.30, William Kirkpatrick to Jack Collins, 2 October.

  61 OIOC, Kirkpatrick Papers, F228/4, p.11, Camp Khurdla, 13 March; also p.15, 21 March, to James Duncan.

  62 Quoted in G. Kulkarni and M.R. Kantak, The Battle of Kharda: Challenges and Responses (Pune, 1980), p.59.

  63 K. Sajun Lal, Studies in Deccan History (Hyderabad, 1951), p.87.

  64 OIOC, Kirkpatrick Papers, F228/4, p.11, Camp Khurdla, 13 March.

  65 Ibid., p.15, 21 March, William Kirkpatrick to James Duncan.

  66 Lal, Studies in Deccan History, op. cit., pp.80-3.

  67 OIOC, Kirkpatrick Papers, F228/4, p.20, 30 March, Khurdlah, William Kirkpatrick to Collins (?).

  68 Khan, Gulzar i-Asafiya, Chapter 3, notice of Aristu Jah, pp.158-78.

  69 OIOC, Kirkpatrick Papers, F228/4, p.28, 13 May, William Kirkpatrick to Shore.

  70 OIOC, Kirkpatrick Papers, F228.5, p.2, 24 November 1795, William Kirkpatrick to James Duncan.

  71 See Gurbir Mansingh, ‘French Military Influence in India’, in his Reminiscences: The French in India (New Delhi, 1997), p.58. Also Jadunath Sarkar, ‘General Raymond of the Nizam’s Army’, in Mohammed Taher, Muslim Rule in the Deccan (New Delhi, 1997), pp.125-44. Also Compton, op. cit., pp.382-6.

  72 Quoted by Anne Buddle in The Tiger and the Thistle: Tipu Sultan and the Scots in India (Edinburgh, 1999), p.33.

  73 Kate Brittlebank, Tipu Sultan’s Search for Legitimacy: Islam and Kingship in a Hindu Domain (New Delhi, 1997), p.28. Also Kate Teltscher, India Inscribed: European and British Writing on India 1600-1800 (Oxford, 1995), p.252.

  74 OIOC, Kirkpatrick Papers, F228/7, p.43, 16 December 1796, William Kirkpatrick to Shore.

  75 OIOC, Kirkpatrick Papers, F228/6, p.14, 9 May, William Kirkpatrick to Shore.

  76 Shore cited the India Act of 1784 as the reason for his refusal, explaining that it prohibited alliances in all but a few circumstances. He held that an alliance like that the Nizam sought was illegal under British statute.

  77 OIOC, Kirkpatrick Papers, F228/15, p.33, 3 September 1797, William Kirkpatrick to Shore.

  78 Ibid.

  79 OIOC, Kirkpatrick Papers, F228/12, p.136, 14 August 1797, James Kirkpatrick to William Kirkpatrick.

  80 Ibid., p.226, 25 October 1797, James Kirkpatrick to William Kirkpatrick.

  81 OIOC, Kirkpatrick Papers, F228/15, p.33, 3 September 1797, William Kirkpatrick to Shore.

  82 OIOC, Kirkpatrick Papers, F228/27, p.26, 11 February 1798, William Kirkpatrick to Lieutenant Colonel John Collins at the Cape.

  83 OIOC, Kirkpatrick Papers, F228/10, p.87, 4 October 1797, James Kirkpatrick to William Kirkpatrick.

  CHAPTER 3

  1 J. Pieper, ‘Hyderabad: A Qu’ranic Paradise in Architectural Metaphors’, in A. Peruccioli (ed.), Environmental Design, pp.46-51.

  2 S. Sen, Indian Travels of Thevenot and Careri (New Delhi, 1949), p.135.

  3 William Methwold, ‘Relations of the Kingdome of Golchonda and other neighbouring Nations and the English Trade in Those Parts, by Master William Methwold’, in W.H. Moreland, Relations of Golconda in the early Seventeenth Century (London, 1931).

  4 Sir Jadunath Sarkar, ‘Haidarabad and Golkonda in 1750 Seen Through French Eyes: From the Unpublished Diary of a French Officer Preserved in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris’, in Islamic Culture, Vol. X, p.240.

  5 See Omar Khalidi, Romance of the Golconda Diamonds (Ahmedabad, 1999), p.66.

  6 Many of the items made by Hyderabad jewellers can be seen in Manuel Keene, Treasury of the World: Jewelled Arts of India in the Age of the Mughals (London, 2001).

  7 James Mackintosh, Memoirs of the Life of The Rt Hon Sir James Mackintosh (2 vols, London, 1835) Vol. 1, p.515.

  8 Sarkar, ‘Haidarabad and Golkonda in 1750 … ’, op. cit., p.243.

  9 De Boigne archive, Chambéry, bundle AB IIA, Lieutenant William Steuart to ‘Mac’, Paangul, 30 October 1790.

  10 Server ul-Mulk (trans. Nawab Jiwan Yar Jung Bahadur), My Life, Being the Autobiography of Nawab Server ul Mulk Bahadur, (London, 1903), p.91.

  11 Ali Akbar Husain, Scent in the Islamic Garden: A Study of Deccani Urdu Literary Sources (Karachi, 2000), p.31.

  12 Ibid., pp.26-7.

  13 Server ul-Mulk, op. cit., p.92.

  14 Sarkar, ‘Haidarabad and Golkonda in 1750 … ’, op. cit., p.244.

  15 Arthur Wellesley to Colonel Close, 22 September 1800. I have been unable to trace the whereabouts of the original letter, only small portions of which are reproduced in Wellington’s printed Despatches, but a copy made by Barbara Strachey in the mid-1980s exists in the archives of the Strachey Trust.

  16 OIOC, Mountstuart Elphinstone Papers, Mss Eur F88, Box13/16[b], Elphinstone’s diary f.93, 23 August 1801, for the henna, mustachios and belching.

  17 Ghulam Imam Khan, Tarikh i-Khurshid Jahi, pp.713-14.

  18 For Raymond see Mansingh, ‘French Military Influence in India’, op. cit. For Piron’s wish to convert see OIOC, Kirkpatrick Papers, F228/10, p.98, 9 October 1798.

  19 Saksena, op. cit., pp.171-85.

  20 The large numbers of Hyderabadi women left husbandless after the French were expelled from the city was a major problem for Kirkpatrick, who said he had ‘no means of ascertaining now how many wives, concubines or children belong to the Party’, but
that there were clearly a large number. See OIOC, Kirkpatrick Papers, F228/10, p.165, 4 December 1798.

  21 OIOC, Mountstuart Elphinstone Papers, Mss Eur F88, Box13/16[b], Elphinstone’s diary, f.92, 23 August 1801.

  22 OIOC, Bengal Political Consultations, -P/117/18, 3 June, No. 1: The Residency, Hyderabad, 19 October 1800, James Kirkpatrick to Sir George Barlow. Also OIOC, Kirkpatrick Papers, F228/59, p.36, 24 October 1800, James Kirkpatrick to Sir John Kennaway.

  23 OIOC, Edward Strachey’s Diaries, Mss Eur F128/196, f.16v.

  24 OIOC, Kirkpatrick Papers, F228/12, p.163, 29 August 1800, James Kirkpatrick to William Kirkpatrick.

  25 OIOC, Kirkpatrick Papers F228/56, p.14, 10 January, James Kirkpatrick to William Palmer, for the complaint on zenana size, and p.26, 1 February 1802, James Kirkpatrick to John Tulloch, for the number of women in William Palmer’s suite. For Kirkpatrick’s own mahal having a large staff of aseels and maidservants see for example New Delhi National Archives, Secret Consultations, Foreign Department, 1800, 15 May, No. 20, ‘Translation of a Letter from Moonshee Meer Azeez Ooolah to Lieut Col Kirkpatrick’, 7 March 1800.

  26 OIOC, Mountstuart Elphinstone Papers, Mss Eur F88, Box13/16[b], Elphinstone’s diary, 31 August and 16 October.

  27 Scottish Record Office, Edinburgh, GD135/2086, The Will of Lieut Col James Dalrymple, Hussein Sagar, 8 December 1800.

  28 Fanny Parkes, Wanderings of a Pilgrim in Search of the Picturesque (London, 1850), Vol. 1, pp.417-18.

  29 Gardner Papers, National Army Museum 6305-56, Letter 6, 5 March 1820; Letter 49, Saugor, 6 January 1821, p.131.

  30 Cambridge, South Asian Studies Library, Gardner Papers, Letter from W.L. Gardner to his Aunt Dolly Gardner, 25 May 1815.

  31 Parkes, op. cit., Vol. 1, p.231.

  32 Russell Papers, Bodleian Library, Ms Eng Letts C155, p.15, 9 June 1802.

  33 OIOC, Mountstuart Elphinstone Papers, Mss Eur F88, Box13/16[b], Elphinstone’s diary, entry for 13 September.

  34 For Mrs Ure’s appetite see OIOC, Kirkpatrick Papers, Mss Eur F228/11: p.134, 23 April; p.140, 23 April; p.154, 8 May.

  35 New Delhi National Archives, Secret Consultations, Foreign Department, 1800, 15 May, No. 23, ‘Moonshee Azeez Oolah’s Report of a Conversation with Azim ul Omrah and of what passed at the Durbar of His Highness the Nizam on the 9th of March 1800’.

  36 Russell Papers, Bodleian Library, Ms Eng Letts D151, p.96, 31 May 1810, Henry Russell to Charles Russell.

  37 OIOC, Mountstuart Elphinstone Papers, Mss Eur F88, Box13/16[b], Elphinstone’s diary for 15 November 1801, p.111.

  38 OIOC, Edward Strachey’s Diaries, Mss Eur F128/196, 13 November, p.29.

  39 OIOC, Mountstuart Elphinstone Papers, Mss Eur F88, Box13/16[b], Elphinstone’s diary for 15 November 1801, p.112.

  40 Ibid.

  41 OIOC, Kirkpatrick Papers, F228/11, p.192, 5 August 1799, James Kirkpatrick to William Kirkpatrick.

  42 Sarojini Regani, Nizam-British Relations 1724-1857 (New Delhi, 1963), pp.32-4.

  43 Kirkpatrick, ‘A View of the State of the Deccan’, op. cit., f.37.

  44 As was in fact often the case in Islamic societies: for the power of post-sexual women in the Imperial Ottoman harem see for example Leslie P. Peirce, The Imperial Harem: Women and Sovereignty in the Ottoman Empire (New York, 1993), Chapter 1, esp. p.23.

  45 New Delhi National Archives, Hyderabad Residency Records, Vol. 26, pp.46-7, 23 May 1803.

  46 Compton, op. cit., pp.382-6.

  47 OIOC, Kirkpatrick Papers, F228/10, p.21, 24 August 1797, James Kirkpatrick to William Kirkpatrick.

  48 Compton, op. cit., pp.382-6.

  49 OIOC, Kirkpatrick Papers, F228/10, p.21, 24 August 1797, James Kirkpatrick to William Kirkpatrick.

  50 Wellesley, op. cit., pp.100-1.

  51 The full translations of Raymond’s correspondence can be found in Sarkar, ‘General Raymond of the Nizam’s Army’, op. cit., pp.125-44.

  52 Shushtari, op. cit., p.169.

  53 Khan, Gulzar i-Asafiya, Chapter 3, notice of Aristu Jah, pp.158-78.

  54 Ibid.

  55 Nani Gopal Chaudhuri, British Relations with Hyderabad (Calcutta, 1964), p.64.

  56 Richard Wellesley (ed. M. Martin), The Despatches, Minutes and Correspondence of the Marquess Wellesley KG during his Administration of India (London, 1840), Vol. 1, pp.220-1.

  57 James Dalrymple, Letters & Relative To The Capture of Rachore (Madras, 1796).

  58 New Delhi National Archives, Hyderabad Residency Records, Vol. 15, 19 December 1797, p.15.

  59 For Nizam ul-Mulk’s use of Sufis, see Rao, op. cit., pp.95-6, 114-15.

  60 For the Nizam’s intelligencers in villages and Delhi see Dr Zeb un-Nissa Haidar, ‘The Glimpses of Hyderabad in the Light of the Tarikh i-Mahanamah’ (research project for UGC Grant, Hyderabad, 1998-99). For intelligencers and newswriters in general see the excellent Bayly, Empire and Information, op. cit.

  61 New Delhi National Archives, Political Consultations, 3 February 1844. No. 182, paras 3-4.

  62 I am grateful to Professor Sarojini Regani for this information.

  63 OIOC, Mss Eur F228/11, p.287, 25 November, James Kirkpatrick to William Kirkpatrick.

  64 OIOC, Mss Eur F228/10, p.4, 7 August 1797, James Kirkpatrick in Hyderabad to William Kirkpatrick.

  65 For the spy in the Residency daftar see OIOC, F228/11, p.192, 5 August 1799.

  66 OIOC, Mountstuart Elphinstone Papers, Mss Eur F88, Box13/16[b], Elphinstone’s diary, f.93, 25 August 1801.

  67 OIOC, Kirkpatrick Papers, F228/10, p.75, 26 September, James Kirkpatrick to William Kirkpatrick.

  68 OIOC, ‘Capt GE Westmacott’s Ms Travels in India’, Mss Eur C29, f.289, 24 December 1833.

  69 Compton, op. cit., p.379. See also Bayly, Empire and Information, op. cit., p.146.

  70 Kirkpatrick, ‘A View of the State of the Deccan’, op. cit., f.48.

  71 John W. Kaye, The Life and Correspondence of Sir John Malcolm GCB (2 vols, London, 1856), Vol. 1, p.78n.

  72 This information comes from a sheet, ‘Finglas Family Records’, kindly lent to me by Bilkiz Aladin and given to her by one of Finglas’s descendants. There is some dispute as to when Finglas entered Hyderabadi service, with some secondary authorities assigning him a role at Khardla in 1795. This appears to be an error: no primary source mentions him in Hyderabad before 1797, and it seems likely that he came to the city with Aristu Jah after his return from captivity. See also Kirkpatrick, ‘A View of the State of the Deccan’, op. cit., f.50.

  73 OIOC, Kirkpatrick Papers, F228/10, p.121, 11 November, James Kirkpatrick to William Kirkpatrick.

  74 Ibid.

  75 For Gardner’s American childhood see Narindar Saroop, A Squire of Hindoostan (New Delhi, 1983). For James’s view of him see OIOC, Kirkpatrick Papers, F228/10, p.72, 27 September 1798.

  76 See The Dictionary of American Biography and Compton, op. cit., p.340.

  77 OIOC, Kirkpatrick Papers, F228/10, p.19, 22 August 1798, James Kirkpatrick to Ulthoff.

  78 Compton, op. cit., pp.354, 340.

  79 Ibid., p.382.

  80 See Saksena, op. cit., p.288; also John Lall, Begam Samru: Fading Portrait in a Gilded Frame (Delhi, 1997), p.127.

  81 OIOC, Sutherland Papers, Mss Eur D547, p.8, 1801, Pohlmann to Sutherland.

  82 OIOC, Kirkpatrick Papers, F228/11, p.75, 26 September 1798, James Kirkpatrick to William Kirkpatrick.

  83 OIOC, Sutherland Papers, Mss Eur D547, p.35, undated.

  84 OIOC, Kirkpatrick Papers, F228/12, p.166, 31 August.

  85 Wellesley, op. cit., Vol. 1, p.209. See also Jac Weller, Wellington in India (London, 1972), pp.24-5.

  86 OIOC, Kirkpatrick Papers, F228/10, p.75, 26 September, James Kirkpatrick to William Kirkpatrick.

  87 Quoted by Andrew Roberts in Napoleon and Wellington (London, 2001), pp.16-17. The second quotation in fact dates from 1812, when Napoleon was flirting with launching a second Eastern expedition; but no doubt reflects the ease with which he saw India fallin
g into his hands on the earlier expedition.

  88 Quoted in Sir John Malcolm, Political History of India (2 vols, London, 1826), Vol. 1, p.310.

  89 Louis Bourquien, ‘An Autobiographical Memoir of Louis Bourquien translated from the French by J.P. Thompson’, in Journal of the Punjab Historical Society, Vol. IX, Pt 7, 1923, p.50. For the proposal to land a French force at Cuttack see Iris Butler, The Eldest Brother (London, 1973), p.311.

  90 OIOC, Kirkpatrick Papers, F228/10, p.92, 6 October, James Kirkpatrick to William Kirkpatrick.

  91 For Malcolm see Butler, op. cit., p.157 and J.W. Kaye, op. cit., Vol. 1, Chapter 5. Captain Malcolm was later knighted, and is better known as Sir John Malcolm. James later accused him of exaggerating his role in the disarming of the French troops. See OIOC, Kirkpatrick Papers, F228/59, p.6, 16 August 1803 to Petrie.

  92 OIOC, Kirkpatrick Papers, F228/10, p.98, 9 October, James Kirkpatrick to William Kirkpatrick.

  93 Ibid., p.110, 16 October, James Kirkpatrick to William Kirkpatrick.

  94 For the mutiny, see OIOC, Kirkpatrick Papers, F228/11, p.325. For the bullock traces see OIOC, Kirkpatrick Papers, F228/10, p.87, 4 October, 22 February 1799.

  95 J.W. Kaye, op. cit., Vol. 1, p.75.

  96 Rt Hon. S.R. Lushington, The Life and Services of Lord George Harris GCB (London, 1840), p.233.

  97 Ibid., p.235.

  98 J.W. Kaye, op. cit., Vol. 1, p.78.

  99 Ibid., p.78n.

  100 OIOC, Kirkpatrick Papers, F228/10, p.195, 25 December, James Kirkpatrick to William Kirkpatrick.

  101 OIOC, Kirkpatrick Papers, F228/7, p.7, 17 October, William Kirkpatrick to Wrangham.

  102 The date of Mehdi Yar Khan’s death is not known, but he is never referred to in the records of the 1790s, so presumably had died sometime before. His family and his marriage to Sharaf un-Nissa are discussed in the Nagaristan i-Asafiya under the entry for Aqil ud-Daula. It is possible that Sharaf un-Nissa never left Bâqar Ali’s deorhi, and that Mehdi Yar Khan came to live with Bâqar Ali Khan: Karen Leonard’s work on the Kayasths of Hyderabad has shown that high-status men would arrange their daughters’ marriages with promising and ambitious younger men who would then enter the household as in-married sons-in-law, khana damad. Syliva Vatuk has told me in correspondence that she has found the same pattern among the high-status Muslim families she has worked upon. This would help explain why it was Bâqar Ali Khan who arranged his granddaughters’ marriages rather than Mehdi Yar Khan’s male relations, and especially his elder brother, Mir Asadullah.

 

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