FRASER'S MILITARY MEMOIR OF JAMES SKINNER. * No one who has

read many books relating to Hindostan and its wars but must have met with some striking traits of "Skinner's Horse " ; a body of irregular cavalry which on parade exhibited the wonders of the circus, and in actual service combined the phy- sical power and endurance of the ancient soldier with the chival- rous or reckless dash of knights-errant. Their leader, and it may be said their creator, was born in 1778; he was the. son of a sub- altern officer, by the daughter of a Rajepoot zemindar. The pre- judices against a half-caste, not yet extinot, closed the door against young Skinner's prospects in the regular army. He was appren- ticed to a printer, and ran away. He was then transferred to his sister's husband, a lawyer, and by him set to copy papers,—an em- ployment as little to his taste as the labours of the press. A mili- tary friend of his father gave him a letter to the French adventurer General De Boig,ne, then in command of a Mahratta army, which in fact he had formed. This was in 1796, and from that time till 1803 young Skinner served with the Mahrattas, who were engaged in continual warfare with each other, with various Native powers with the Affghans, and with the troops purporting; to fight for the Great Mogul; contentions that gave the coup-de-grice to the empire of the house of Timour, and prepared the way for the con- quest of the country by the Company.

On the breaking out of Lord Wellesley's war against the Mali- rattas, two British subjects in their service solicited a discharge, as declining to serve against their countrymen; • a demand which occasioned the angry dismissal of all their British officers, whether English or country-born. Skinner was among the number of those ordered to quit the Mahratta territory, though in point of fact he was Indian in all his ideas and sympathies. Accident intro- duced him to Lord Lake ; by whom he was patronized and em- ployed, and under whom he raised his celebrated body of horse for the Company's service though in reality it consisted of men that

he had trained in the service, wars.

The disadvantage of his birth pursued Skinner nearly through life. On the triumph of the British arms his force was greatly re- duced: some of his officers retired on jagheers (a species of feudal grant on the produce of a district) much greater than their com- mander's allowance. He was deprived of a jagheer which Lord Lake had given him, because, being a "British subject," he could not "be permitted to hold land" ; and Lake died before he could get Skinner any redress from the home authorities, which he had intended to do. Having distinguished himself as usual in the wars under Lord Minto, his friends tried to obtain for him the deco- ration of the Bath : but such a thing was impossible, Skinner not holding a commission in the King's Army. The following letter from Colonel Worsely, formerly on Lake's staff, exhibits in a quiet way the solemn immutability of the Red Tapists.

"My dear Skinner—You will hear of the honour lately conferred on the Indian army by the Prince Regent, in allowing the officers to participate in the Order of the Bath. Having had an opportunity of seeino. the Earl of Buckinghamshire, by whom the measure was brought abouCI observed to him that if honorary members could be allowed on our side of the water, as had done with regard to German and other foreign officers in his Ma- jesty's service, that Captain Skinner, who commands a corps of irregular horse, possessed very distinguished claims to such notice.

* Military Memoir of Lieutenant-Colonel James Skinner, C.B., for many years a distinguished officer commanding a corps of Irregular Cavalry in the service of the II.E.I.C. Interspersed with Notices of several of the principal Personages who distinguished themselves in the service of the Native Powers of India. By J. Baillie Fraser, Esq., Author of "Travels in Khorassan, Mesopotamia, and Kour- distan," 8:.c. In two volumes. Published by Smith and Elder.

" His Lordship replied with readiness, that he had often heard of Skinner's emps ; but as he feared you did not hold any commission from his Majesty, he was sorry no such extension of the measure could be adopted. I replied, you certainly had no commission from his Majesty, though you were now serving the Honourable Company. He then said the thing was impossible. " Never mind, my friend ; these things are only feathers, and, at all events, no longer tickle us when once we pass the heyday of life, and exchange the tulwar for the zeemeendary karkhanah : and at any rate you may confidently indulge the reflection, that you have fully deserved this honour, though your nusseeb has not commanded or obtained it. I must now conclude. Believe

rue, yours very sincerely, (Signed) H. WOESELY." "Isle of Wight, 15th February 1815."

A good many years after this, the commandership of the Bath was given to Skinner ; it would appear, by the active interference of George the Fourth. His Majesty, however, had not acumen enough to see that exceptional merit should be an exception to a rule ; so he gave him a Colonel's commission. Skinner's circum- stances also improved as his fame continued to increase, and his last years were passed in comfort and content. He died in 1841, and was finally buried in a church at Delhi, which he had himself built ; for he was naturally pious, although his theology was scant and his toleration unorthodox.

Tames Skinner lived through eventful times, his life touching upon two wide extremes. His youth was passed in a state of social anarchy to which history has nothing equal, unless it be the death-throes of the Roman and Byzantine empires. A war of plunder and devastation, without a definite object beyond the per- sonal aggrandizement of ambitious chiefs and bold or scheming adventurers, was the normal state of the country. Every Euro- pean who possessed a strong constitution and a knowledge of drill was certain of employment : if he brought any higher military- ca- pacity he was sure of distinction and wealth ; there seemed even a chance of rule. Any native who was a "proper fellow of his hands," and possessor of a sword or a spear, might join a camp as a foot soldier ; if he could muster equipments and a horse, he was a man at arms ; with any following, he was at once a captain of ten or of hundreds, with the prospect of becoming a leader, and, like a captain of condottieri, selling himself to the best bidder. Within less than twenty years, Skinner saw the chiefs who had produced this state of things shorn of their power and reduced to order ; and the armies of banditti that their downfall produced (from their dis- banded followers) hunted from the earth. Years before his death, he witnessed more than the whole of the mighty empire of Au- rungzebe reduced to an administration as regular as that of Europe under the Romans.

In personal character, Skinner seems to have combined the soft- ness and submission of his mother and the chivalrous sense of honour of the Rajepoot race with the European energy and endur- ance of his father. Trained under the circumstances we have in- timated, it is not probable that his moral sense would have stood the test of a rigid professor of ethics ; but there seems to have been a patriarchal simplicity in his mind : he favourably, impressed the Englishmen he came in contact with, many of them persons of rank and acumen; and he had more than the soldier of fortune's sense of honour—when he took service under Lake, he expressly stipulated that he should not be employed against his old master Scindiah. He had no objection, however, to the maxim that all is fair in war, no scruple in imposing upon the enemy by any trick or fib, and no objection to help himself in a scramble.

Skinner did not attain his distinction by mere stratagems, but by daring deeds, and by inspiring his men to follow his example. The following is one instance of what he did in the Mahratta service, and what he suffered. He had been endeavouring to retreat with a small force in presence of a Native army.

"The two battalions of the enemy that were near me had been joined by the Rajah himself, with about a thousand horse, who charged nie seve- ral times as I commenced to retreat. I repulsed them, but with the loss of one gun, which broke down, and of my own horse mortally wounded, though it still kept on; but the remainder of their battalions now coming fast up, I found further progress impossible, and drew up in a fine plain to receive them. Here I made a short speech to the men : I told them we were trying to avoid a thing which none could escape—that was death ; that come it would; and as such was the case, it became us to meet it and die like soldiers.

" Thus resolved, we allowed the enemy to conic within fifty yards, when we gave them a volley and charged. Those in our front gave way, and we captured their guns. As those on the flanks, however, now galled us with their cannon, I threw myself into a square, and sought to gain the ravines, now only about half a cOs from us. But fate had decided against us. They pressed us so close on all sides that my men began to lose their coolness ; we I were charged too, and lost three more of our guns. Still with the one left I I kept moving on, and got clear of the enemy's infantry, who had got a little , sickened, and showed less disposition to chase ; but the cavalry kept on charging, and my men giving up very fast.

"I still had some three hundred good soldiers and my gun left ; but a party of horse pressed us so hard that I moved out with one hundred men and stopped them : but when I looked back I found only ten had followed mac; the rest had turned back and joined the gun. As I was going to follow them, a horseman galloped up, matchlock in hand, and shot me through the groin. I fell, and became insensible immediately ; and after my fall the poor re- mains of my brave but unfortunate fellows met the same fate. I do not be- lieve that fifty men out of the thousand escaped from the field untouched.

"It was about three in the afternoon when I fell, and I did not regain my senses till sunrise next morning. When I came to myself, I soon re- membered what had happened, for several other wounded soldiers were lying near me : may pantaloons were the only rag that had been left me, and I crawled under a bush to shelter myself from the sun. Two more of my bat- talion crept near me ; the one a soobahdar that had his leg shot off below the knee, the other a jemadar had a spear-wound through his body. We were now dying of thirst, but not a soul was to be seen; and in this state we remained the whole day, praying for death ; but, alas ! night came on, but neither death nor assistance. The moon was full and clear, and about mid- night it was very cold. So dreadful did this night appear to me that I swore, if I survived, to have nothing more to do with soldiering : the wound- ed on all sides crying out for water, the jackalls tearing the dead, and coming ilearer and nearer to see if we were ready for them ; we only kept them off by throwing stones and making noises. Thus passed this long and horrible night. " Next morning we spied a man and an chi woman, who came to us with a basket and a pot of water ; and to every wounded man she gave a piece of joaree bread from the basket and a drink from her water-pot. To us she gave the same ; and I thanked Heaven and her. But the soobalular was a high caste Rajepoot; and as this woman was a Chumar, (or of the lowest caste,) he would receive neither water nor bread from her. I tried to per- suade him to take it, that he might live ; but he said, that in our state? with but a few hours more to linger, what was a little more or less suffering to us? why should he give up his faith for such an object? No; he preferred to die unpolluted.

" I asked the woman where she lived ; and she ,,ave me the name of her village, which was about two cOs from Tonke and a cos and a half from where we lay. About three in the afternoon, a chieftain of the Ooneant Rajah's, with a hundred horsemen and coolees and Welders, arrived on the ground, with orders to bury the dead and to send the wounded into camp. The poor soobahdar now got water, of which he was in the utmost need—in- deed nearly dead for want of it. When we were brought to camp, we found a large two-poled tent pitched, in which all the wounded of my battalion were collected ; and, to the best of my recollection, they amounted now to three hundred men. No sooner was I brought in than they all called out, Ah, here is our dear captain !' and some offered me bread and some water,. or what they had. The chieftain had wrapped me in a large chudder (sheet), when he took me up; and right glad was I to find so many of may brave fel- lows near me."

Accustomed as Skinner had been to deeds of gallantry, the steady valour of the British surprised him when he first witnessed it.

"On our second visit to Lord Lake, I was offered the command of two thousand horse ; but I refused it, declaring that I never would fight against Sindea. On the 4th of September 1803, Lord Lake assaulted the fort with five hundred Europeans of the Seventy-sixth, and two and a half battalions of Sepoys. They started from camp about two hours before daybreak, and reached the place a little before dawn. A picquet of fifty men with a six-pounder had been stationed by Bajee Rao about fifty yards from the fort; at whom this handful of heroes ran like lions. The piequets immediately ran away to the wicket and got in. The assaulting party attempted to get in along with them, but were shut out. Instead, however, of retreating, these brave fellows stood upon the goonjus for a full hour, under one of the heaviest fires of musketry and great guns I have seen, and only at sunrise did they fall back about a hundred yards; on which the brave Lord Lake, who was standing near Perron's house at one of his batteries, called out, They run !' They were rallied, however, by some of their gallant officers, and in going back they carried with them the Mahratta gun. I was close by Lord Lake, and saw and heard everything that passed. The God of hea- ven certainly looked down upon these noble fellows, for with two shots they blew open half the gate, and giving three shouts they rushed in. The ltaje- poets stood their ground like brave soldiers; and from the first to the second gate the fight was desperately maintained on both sides, and the carnage very great. "As soon as he heard the shout, the countenance of Lord Lake changed from anxiety to joy, and he called out with the greatest delight, "The fort is ours !' and turning to me, asked me what I thought of European fighting ? I replied, that no forts in Hindostan could stand against him. Then spur- rill". his horse, he galloped to the gate. But when he saw his heroes lying thick there the tears cams to his eyes. 'It is the fate of good soldiers,' he said ; and turning round, he galloped back to the camp and gave up the fort to plunder. I must here declare, that the courage displayed by the Seventy- sixth surpassed all I had ever seen, and every idea I had formed of sol- diering."

Mr. Millie Fraser was a personal friend and correspondent of Skinner. His brother William Fraser was a Major in the corps, and' so dearly regarded by "old Sekunder " that he expressed a wish to be buried by him ; which was done. He has of course had ae- cess to the family papers, as well as an autobiography which. Skinner amused his latter years in drawing up. The work is scarcely equal to the subject or the author's means, owing to a mistaken mix- ture of history and biography. It was desirable that the reader should have a distinct idea of the chiefs, the events, and above all the state of society, among which Skinner's early career was passed. This, however, should have been struck off in a broad and graphic style ; instead of which, there is an historical narrative curt as regards the subject yet over-detailed as regards the scale. The consequence is, that the history is not very clear, and it continu- ally interrupts the biography ; while notices of the more remark- able adventurers who figured at that period in the Native armies have a similar effect, though curious in themselves. Neither is the biography so striking as it ought to have been. Skinner's narrative often does not do justice to himself, and anecdotes of the " Horse " if not of the man are unnoticed, which must be fami- liar to persons less acquainted with the subject than the biogra- pher.