Page:Sir Thomas Munro and the British Settlement of the Madras Presidency.djvu/27

Rh tween the two and completely routed Baillie's detachment at Perambákam on September 10, 1780.

During the remainder of the war with Haidar and the French, Munro was actively employed, and in the Appendix will be found a ' Memorandum of his Services,' in which he gives a summary of his career in the army and while in civil employ. Throughout the war with Haidar, and subsequently during the wars with Tipú and with the Maráthás, Munro wrote long letters or journals to his father and to some of his friends, describing very fully the several campaigns and giving accounts of the battles and various military operations in which he was engaged. These letters not only possess the advantage of being written by an eye-witness, and at the time or immediately after the events, but are remarkable for the masterly criticism of the conduct of the several generals, as well as for the literary ability displayed by the writer.

The following is an extract from a journal which he kept in 1781-1782, and despatched to his father in October, 1782. It was written chiefly by night, 'when,' he says, 'I was almost as much plagued by swarms of troublesome insects flying about the candle and getting into my hair and eyes and under my shirt-collar as I would have been by the enemy.'

'The newspapers say that a Committee of the House of Commons is appointed to enquire into the causes of Haidar Alí's irruption, and the extent of that calamity. It has extended so far that there is not a human