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call of empire Call of Empire From the Highlands to Hindostan alexander charles baillie McGill- Queen’s University Press Montreal & Kingston London Chicago • • © Alexander Charles Baillie 2017 ISBN 978-0-7735-5124-4 (cloth) ISBN 978-0-7735-5206-7 (ePDF) ISBN 978-0-7735-5207-4 (ePub) Legal deposit fourth quarter 2017 Bibliothèque nationale du Québec Printed in Canada on acid-free paper that is 100% ancient forest free (100% post-consumer recycled), processed chlorine free McGill-Queen’s University Press acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund for our publishing activities. Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Baillie, Alexander Charles, 1939–, author Call of empire: from the Highlands to Hindostan / Alexander Charles Baillie. Includes bibliographical references and index. Issued in print and electronic formats. ISBN 978-0-7735-5124-4 (cloth). – ISBN 978-0-7735-5206-7 (ePDF). – ISBN 978-0-7735-5207-4 (ePub) 1. East India Company. 2. Baillie family. 3. British – India – History – 18th century. 4. British – India – History – 19th century. 5. Great Britain – Colonies – India – History – 19th century. 6. Great Britain – Colonies – India – History – 18th century. 7. India – Economic conditions – 18th century. 8. India – Economic conditions – 19th century. 9. India – Ethnic relations – History – 18th century. 10. India – Ethnic relations – History – 19th century. 11. India – History, Military – 18th century. 12. India – History, Military – 19th century. I. Title. DS463.B35 2017 954.02'9 C2017-904054-5 C2017-904055-3 This book was typeset by Marquis Interscript in 10.5 / 13 Sabon. For my grandchildren Contents Preface ix Maps, Illustrations, and Family Trees xiii, 201 1 Culloden’s Children 3 2 No Great Mischief 18 3 Eastward Ho! 31 4 Baillie-ki-Paltan 47 5 Brothers in Arms 68 6 Affairs of the Heart 83 7 A Council of Incompetents 106 8 Command at Pondicherry 138 9 Disaster 154 10 Imprisonment and Death at Seringapatam 176 11 Homeward Bound 211 12 Brain Fever in Baghdad 229 13 Estrangement 251 14 John of Leys and the Acquisition of Bundelcund 264 15 Margaret and the Anglo-Indian Elmores 288 16 The Resident at Lucknow 300 17 Dismissal 313 18 Retribution 334 viii Contents 19 Dissolution 350 Epilogue 361 Colonial and Current Place Names 367 Cast of Supporting Characters 369 Glossary of Anglo-Indian and Scottish Terms 409 Notes 413 Bibliography 443 Index 451 Preface By some act of serendipity, a chest that had lain in oblivion for almost a century and a half in the Inverness Library appeared at the Highland Archive Centre in 2002. The staff of the centre had yet to examine, in any detail, the contents of the chest when my son Jonathan, who was com- pleting his doctorate at Imperial College, London, wandered onto the premises to enquire as to the existence of any materials on the Baillies of Leys or Dunain. Fiona MacLeod, the senior archivist, recalled that a recently received chest contained Baillie correspondence and directed Jonathan to it. Since we were reasonably familiar with our family history as a result of my uncle Donald Baillie’s extensive genealogical research, Jonathan approached the ancient chest with keen anticipation. Nor was he disappointed. The letters were indeed those of five generations of our Dunain and Leys ancestors. Moreover, the chest contained in excess of two thousand letters and a good many of them were written to or from various family members in India. Excited by the promise of this treasure trove, Jonathan and I lost no time in engaging a local researcher, Sandra Bardwell, to summarize and classify the correspondence. The sheer number of letters meant that her task would be long and laborious. Upon completion of the project in 2003, Sandra stoked our mounting enthusiasm by reporting that, in her opinion, the contents of the chest dating from 1720 to 1869 constituted the most comprehensive collection of Highland correspondence from that era. This discovery, together with a considerable collection of family letters and other material in the National Archives of Scotland, the University of Cambridge, and the Oriental and India Office Collection of the British Library, was the genesis of my determination to document the lives of my