Page:Sir Thomas Munro and the British Settlement of the Madras Presidency.djvu/37

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the battle he observes, ' There seemed no connexion in our movements ; every one was at a loss what to do, and nothing saved our army from a total defeat but the French being, like ourselves, without a general.' News of the peace in Europe, after the treaty of Versailles, led to a cessation of hostilities with the French ^ ; and the war in the Karnatik was brought to a close by the treaty with Tipu in March, 1784.

The next few years of Munro's service were un- eventful. He, however^ saw a good deal of the Madras Presidency, being quartered successively in Madura, Tanjore, Fort St. George, Kasimkota near Vizaga- patam, and at Vellore. During these years Munro spent his leisure in the study of Hindustani and Persian and the literature of those languages. Of Persian he seems to have been a great reader; and a letter of his to a fiiend in Glasgow about the beginning of 1787 contains not only some interesting criticisms on Persian writers, but a translation of the story of Shy lock, which he says he found in a Persian manuscript. This translation was published a few years after in Malone's edition of Shakespeare in the notes to the Merchant of Feiiice, with the remark that ' in a Persian manuscript in the possession of Ensign Thomas Munro of the first battalion of Sepoys, now at

^ * The suspension of arms was most unfortunate for the French. The army of Stuart before Cuddalore represented the last hope of the English in Southern India. An attack of the French in force could scarcely have failed to annihilate it. With its desti-uction Madras and all Southern India would have passed over to the French.' Malleson's Final French Struggles in India, p. 74.