Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 27.djvu/20

 Mahratta war. After a detention from illness he assumed the command at Hyderabad on 10 Nov. 1817, and on 21 Dec., with a loss on the British side of eight hundred killed and wounded, signally defeated the combined Mahratta forces, under the nominal command of the youthful Mulhar Rao Holkar, before Mahidpore. The surrender by the Mahrattas of certain border fortresses followed. The division under Hislop's personal command arrived before the fort of Talner, the governor of which, a Mahratta of rank, after a parley, refused to obey the order to surrender. By Hislop's order he was hanged as a rebel, and the garrison of three hundred men put to the sword. When the chief objects of the campaign had been accomplished, the army of the Deccan was broken up at Aurungabad in March 1818, and Hislop returned to his command at Fort St. George, which he held until 1820. Explanations of his severities at Talner had been called for by Lord Moira, the governor-general [see ], and the home government, and the House of Commons, in voting thanks to the army of the Deccan, specifically excepted Hislop in consequence. Hislop alleged the contumacy of the garrison to be due to treachery on the part of the Arab soldiery. Blacker, the historian of the war, supposes them to have been apprehensive of foul play; Prinsep believes that the officers sent to parley did not make themselves intelligible, which is probable. The Duke of Wellington defended Hislop in the House of Lords on the ground of his previous high character. The explanations eventually sent home were never made public, and the subject dropped. The conflicting claims of the Bengal and Madras armies to the spoils known as the Deccan prize became a celebrated case. Portions of this valuable booty were acquired by the enterprise of small independent detachments, in some cases after the army had been broken up. Much the largest portion was captured by the army of the Deccan. The whole booty, from all sources, thrown together under the name of the Deccan prize-money, was admitted to have vested in the crown by virtue of the royal prerogative, and was claimed by Hislop and his army as actual captors. The privy council, after hearing counsel, decided that the Bengal army under the Marquis of Hastings, though at a great distance from the scene of capture, were co-operating by their presence in the field, and by keeping native powers in check, and ultimately declared the Bengal troops constructive captors, entitled to share equably with the troops under Hislop's command. The Duke of Wellington remarked that the sole satisfaction he felt at the decision was that had the sum thus put into the pockets of the army fallen to Sir Thomas Hislop's share it would have vanished in Mexican bonds or Columbian securities, like Hislop's private fortune (Wellington Despatches, Correspondence, &c. iv. 133).

Hislop was made K.C.B. in 1814, and G.C.B. in 1818. He was colonel in succession of the late 8th West India regiment, the old 96th, disbanded as 95th in 1818, and the 48th foot, and was many years equerry to the late Duke of Cambridge. In 1822 Hislop received an ‘honourable augmentation’ to his arms in recognition of his distinguished services in India. Hislop died at Charlton, Kent, 3 May 1843, aged 78. He married 30 Oct. 1823, Emma, daughter of the Right Hon. Hugh Elliot, governor of Madras, by whom he had one daughter.

[Nav. and Mil. Gazette, 6 May 1843, p. 276; Mill's Hist. of India, with marginal references there given; Memorial of Sir Thomas Hislop, commander-in-chief at Fort St. George, and commanding the army of the Deccan, &c., see under ‘Hislop’ in Brit. Mus. Cat. Printed Books; Gent. Mag. 1843, ii. 317–19.]  HITCHAM, ROBERT (1572?–1636), serjeant-at-law, was born at Levington, Suffolk, about 1572. He was educated at the free school at Ipswich and at Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, and was a barrister of Gray's Inn. In 1597 he represented West Looe in parliament, Lynn in Norfolk in 1614, and Orford in Suffolk in 1625. In 1603 he was made attorney-general to Anne of Denmark, the queen consort, with a patent of precedence next after king's counsel, and was knighted. He was made a serjeant-at-law 25 June 1614, and king's serjeant 4 Jan. 1616. On 15 Aug. 1636 he died, and was buried at Framlingham, where he was lord of the manor. He had often acted, says his epitaph, as a judge of assize. There was a portrait of him in Serjeants' Inn Hall down to the dissolution of the inn. He left large funds to pious uses, especially to Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, and to the foundation of a school at Framlingham.

[Loder's Hist. of Framlingham, ed. J. Hawes; Fuller's Worthies, ii. 346; Willis's Not. Parl. iii. 138, 171, 204, 214; Bond's East and West Looe, p. 238; Dugdale's Chron. Ser. p. 105; Wynne's Serjeants, pp. 57–8; Woolrych's Eminent Serjeants.]  HITCHCOCK, RICHARD (1825–1856), Irish archæologist, son of Rodney Hitchcock of Spring Vale, co. Cork, Ireland, was born at Blennerville, near Tralee, co. Kerry, in March 1825. Early in life he devoted himself to the study of archæology, especially of