Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 20.djvu/417

Rh 399 also he made surveys of the coast about Cape Calymere, and of the Paumben Passage. Shortly afterwards, having gone to Calcutta, he found in Captain Tinker, the officer commanding the king's squadron there, a gentleman with whom he had been slightly acquainted in the navy. There was evidently something very engaging in Reimell's manner, aspect, and character, for others as well as Captain Tinker immediately endeavoured to interest in his fortunes the governor of the presidency. This was Henry Vansittart, the successor of Clive, and father of Nicolas Vansittart, who was so long chancellor of the exchequer (1812- 1823), and died Lord Bexley. The result was the appointment of Kennell as surveyor of the E. I. Company's dominions in Bengal, "before," as he writes, " I was scarcely apprised of the matter." A few days later he received a commission ' ' for practitioner engineer in the citadel erecting at Calcutta near Fort William" the fortress, in fact, now so well known by the latter name. Rennell, in a letter announcing his appointment, calls it that of " surveyor-general," but this term is not used in the official record, dated April 9, 1764. J The date of his commission in the corps of engineers, as ensign (or "practitioner engineer," as the junior rank was termed), is the same. The corps of Bengal Engineers, which after a creditable existence of just about a century was amalgamated with the Royal Engineers in 1862, was then in its infancy. Only four officers appear as having had commissions earlier than James Kennell, though the subsequent introduction of several officers with higher rank eventually placed more than this number over his head. Practically, though he was sometimes engaged in works of con- struction or demolition, 2 Rennell's-work as a surveyor occupied the whole of his Indian service, which extended to thirteen years only. In the course of this employment he reduced to order and substantial accuracy the map of Bengal, and accumulated a great part of the material which he afterwards utilized in the determina- tion of all the important points embraced in the first approxi- mately correct map of India. His merits were highly appreciated, and his rise was rapid. In January 1767 his position was raised to that of surveyor-general, and at the same time he was promoted to captain. In their letter to the court of directors, reporting this promotion, the council at Fort William say : " Ve have appointed Captain Rennell, a young man of distinguished merit in this branch, surveyor-general, and directed him to form one general chart from those already made, and such as are now on hand, as they can be-collected in. This, though attended with great labour, does not prevent his prosecuting his own surveys, the fatigue of which, with the desperate wounds he has lately received in one of them, have already left him but a shattered constitution." 3 This passage refers to a memorable passage in Rennell's career, which had nearly proved its tragical termination. Bengal proper was in those early days of the Company's administration very far from being the tranquil country that we have known it for so many years (except indeed (luring its partial share in the agitations of 1857, from the mutiny of several regiments within its bound- aries). And it was about a year before the promotion just mentioned that Rennell, on one of his surveying campaigns in northern Bengal, met with the adventure in question. The districts in that quarter (Purniah, Dinajpur, Rangpur, &c. ) were at that time habitually ravaged by bodies of marauders, who had their headquarters in the forest-tracts at the foot of the Himalayas, and beyond British jurisdiction. From these forests they used to issue annually in large bands, plundering and levying exactions far and wide, and returning to their jungle-asylum when threatened with pursuit. A few years before (1763) a large body of them had plundered the city of Dacca. They professed to belong to a religious fraternity and were commonly known as the Sanydsis, a name under which they are frequently mentioned in the corre- spondence of Warren Hastings, sometimes as Fakirs. The affair took place in the semi-independent state of Kuch Behar, near the border of Bhutan. Hearing that a party of native soldiers had been sent to put down one of those bands, which had just taken and plundered the capital of the state, Rennell hastened to join the detachment with his own small escort, and came up with it just after the banditti had received a beating. The next day (21st February 1766) was spent in pursuit of the enemy, and in the afternoon Rennell and two other officers, who had gone forward to reconnoitre, found themselves in presence of a large body of the Sanyusis. Their small escort of native horse rode off, and the officers were surrounded. Rcnnell's Armenian assistant was killed, his engineer subaltern fought his way clear with a slight wound, a Extract from Beni 3 al P^lic Consultations of that date (Records in India Office). " Mr Hugh Cameron, who was employed on this establishment as surveyor of the new lands, being deceased 16th ultimo, it is agreed to appoint Mr Jumes Renall (sic) in his room, who is recommended to us as a capable person, id by specimens of some surveys made by him which the President now lays before the Board, promises to be a very useful servant." One of his exceptional employments (July 1768) was the demolition of for- mcations round Chandernagore, which the French had commenced "expressly tin contrary to the treaty of Paris." 3 Printed in Long's Extracts. 1869). pressly from the Fort William Records, p. 487 (Calcutta, Rennell himself retreated fighting to the detachment, and was put in a palankin, covered with sabre-wounds. One blow had cut into his right shoulder blade and through several ribs ; his left arm was severely cut in three places, and he had other wounds besides. For surgical help he had to be sent to Dacca, 300 miles off, in an open boat, which he had to direct himself, as he lay on his face, whilst the natives applied onions as a cataplasm to his shoulder. He was long given up, but, under the tender care of his friend Dr Russell, he recovered, though his health was long affected by the loss of blood and severity of the injuries. On two later occasions Rennell's letters speak of his being attacked or waylaid whilst on survey, in one case by irregulars in the employment of the "jemitdars," i.e., "zemindars," in districts remote from Calcutta, and on another occasion by the " Bootese," or Bhutias, as we now call them. In a letter dated 30th October 1770 he says in his brief way : "I must not forget to tell you that about a month ago a large leopard jumped at me, and I was fortunate enough to kill him by thrusting my bayonet down his throat. Five of. my men were wounded by him, lour of them very danger- ously. You see I am a lucky fellow at all times." We gather from this passage that it was common in those days for officers to carry bayonets, a circumstance which is also set forth in one of the best known portraits of General Wolfe. Shortly after this last adventure Rennell was allowed to carry out, with a force under his command, a project that he had formed for the suppression of the banditti in the north. Writing on the 3d March 1771, he speaks of having returned successful from this expedition, after marching 320 miles in fifteen days, which he justly observes was "pretty good travelling in that climate, especially for soldiers." This did not, however, put an end to the Sanyasis, for they are spoken of by Hastings as still a pest in 1773 and 1774. Rennell's usual residence was at Dacca, though his visits to Calcutta were at least annual. On one of these he married (October 15, 1772) Miss Jane Thackeray, one of the sixteen children of Archdeacon Thackeray, who had been headmaster of Harrow from 1746 to his death in 1760, and who has been called by Dr Butler the "second founder" of the school. 4 Among Dr "Thackeray's descendants are to be counted many distinguished Anglo-Indians ; and William Makepeace Thackeray of the Civil Service, the grandfather of the great writer who has made that combination of names familiar and illustrious, was a friend of Rennell's and the brother of his wife. Indian careers were not in those days generally prolonged. Fortunes were reaped more rapidly than in later years, and death likewise mowed with swifter strokes. In the list of Bengal engineers there are thirteen, including Rennell, who received com- missions prior to 1770, the earliest in 1761. Of these thirteen, before 1780, six were dead, four had resigned, one had been dis- missed, and two only in the year named remained in the service. Rennell's health had been remarkably good up to his encounter with the Sanyasis, but from that time it became permanently deteriorated, and in 1777 he resigned, having attained the rank of major two years earlier (January 1775). In those days no regular pension-system existed ; but, when permission for Rennell's retire- ment was given, in December 1776, by the governor and council, it was accompanied by the grant of a pension of 500 > rupees a month from the Calcutta treasury, till the court's pleasure should be known. In passing this resolution the board remark that they " think fit to adopt this mode as most satisfactory to Major Rennell, whose fortune will not permit him to leave India without some certainty of support in the decline of life." 8 It is impossible, in reading this last phrase, to withhold a smile at the proverbial longevity of pensioners, when we remember that the illustrious subject of the resolution drew the allowance for fifty-three years after his retirement. The court of directors, after his arrival in England, conferred a pension of 600 a year in lieu of the Calcutta one. Major Rennell and his wife, with a daughter born at St Helena during a stoppage on the way home, reached England, 12th February 1778. For the rest of his long life he lived in London, and for much the greater part of the 'time in Nassau Street (formerly called Suffolk Street) near the Middlesex Hospital, a quarter then inhabited by gentlefolks, though now quite deserted by fashion. When applying in 1776 for permission to retire, Rennell had written "I desire not to eat the bread of idleness, but rather to make myself as useful as possible, even after my return to England," and went on to submit a scheme for the utilization of the large mass of geographical material laid up and perishing in the India House. 6 He cannot have been long in England before he buckled to this task. He is said to have been offered employment of a considerable character and to have declined it. Of this we know no more ; but apparently he had laid out his own course of life, in devoting him- 4 Rennell, in announcing his marriage to Mr Burrington, speaks of his wife as the "daughter of the late Mr Thackeray who kept Harrow School." s MS. Records in the India Office. s India Office Records.