Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 49.djvu/404

 addressed to the nizam without effect. Rumbold added another, with the same want of result. On the outbreak of hostilities between England and France, he gave orders to arrest Europeans approaching the circar, and posted a corps of observation on the frontier. He also, under orders from home, detached Colonel (afterwards Sir Hector) Munro [q. v.] to attack Pondicherry, and Colonel Braithwaite to reduce Mahé on the Malabar coast. Pondicherry capitulated on 17 Oct. 1778. The directors voted Rumbold their thanks, and the crown conferred a baronetcy on him (23 March 1779). Mahé surrendered on 19 March 1779. On 7 Feb. 1779 Basalut Jung leased the Guntur circar to the company, and shortly afterwards he dismissed Lally's contingent and received a British force in its place. This arrangement had been authorised in general terms by the governor-general (Warren Hastings), who had left its completion entirely in Rumbold's hands. The treaty by which it was carried into effect was submitted neither to him nor to the nizam. The circar was shortly afterwards subleased to the nabob of Arcot. The cession of the circar gave offence not only to the nizam but to Haidar Ali. The former took Lally's contingent into his pay, the latter menaced Basalut Jung's capital, Adoni; and Rumbold, in the course of the summer of 1779, attempted to pass troops to his relief through a part of Haidar's dominions. Haidar's troops were on the alert, and the detachment was compelled to retreat.

Suspecting Haidar of hostile designs, Rumbold wrote to Hastings, confessing his apprehensions and asking for men and money. Hastings made light of his fears, declined to furnish the desired aid, and, believing a French invasion of the Bombay presidency to be imminent, recommended that Colonel Braithwaite's force should be detached to the support of Colonel Goddard at Surat. Rumbold gave the necessary orders, but Braithwaite found himself unable to move. In the course of the summer Rumbold sent Hollond, a political officer, to Haiderabad to explain to the nizam the arrangement with Basalut Jung, and to bring him, if possible, to remit the tribute in whole or in part, and dismiss Lally's contingent. As no quid pro quo was offered for these concessions, the mission wore the appearance of a studied affront. The nizam showed great irritation, and was already talking of the size of his army, when Hastings, to whom Hollond had communicated the tenor of his instructions, terminated the negotiation by a peremptory despatch. About the same time Rumbold sounded Haidar's intentions through the medium of the Danish missionary, Christian Frederick Swartz, and obtained a written response in which vague expressions of friendship were mingled with severe reflections on the course of British policy since 1752. This letter was written in August, and it is probable that Haidar had then concerted with the Mahratta powers the plan of combined action against the British which was put in execution in the following year. At any rate, Rumbold was cognisant of the existence of the confederacy in January 1780, when he detached a considerable force to the support of Goddard at Surat. He then reinforced the circars, began to concentrate the detachments scattered about the presidency, ordered a new levy of sepoys, and recalled those quartered in Tellicherry. Having made these dispositions, he wrote to the directors (21 Jan.) announcing his resignation on the score of ill-health. On 6 April he sailed for England. In the following July Haidar and his allies invaded the Carnatic. The nizam of the Deccan remained neutral. On his return to England, Rumbold was held responsible for the invasion of the Carnatic and dismissed the service of the company by the court of directors. They also filed a bill against him in chancery, but abandoned it on the institution of a parliamentary inquiry. Rumbold himself had been returned (14 April 1781) for Yarmouth, Isle of Wight. Parliament eventually proceeded against him by bill of pains and penalties, at the same time restraining him from leaving the kingdom, and requiring him to make discovery of his property. The restraining bill passed both houses in June 1782. The bill of pains and penalties, saved from lapse by a continuing act, passed its second reading in the commons on 23 Jan. 1783, and was then talked out. Contemporary scandal said that the prosecution languished owing to the good offices of Richard Rigby [q. v.], the parliamentary wirepuller, whose nephew, Colonel Hale Rigby, had married Rumbold's daughter Frances, and whom Rumbold was supposed to have aided in his pecuniary embarrassments (, Hist. Memoirs, ed. Wheatley, ii. 380). Rumbold's defence was conducted with great ability by George Hardinge [q. v.] The charges against him were in substance that his dealings with the zemindars of the circars were oppressive and corrupt; that his dealings with the nabob of Arcot were corrupt; that, by the reduction of Pondicherry and Mahé, the occupation of the Guntur circar, the subsequent brush with Haidar's troops, and the affair of the tribute, he had so irri-