30 SOCIAL SCIENTIST
22 Sarkar, Military History, op. cit, p. 153.
23 Gangaram, an eighteenth century Bengali poet, calls him as Chedan Haji. E.C. Dimock and P.C. Gupta ed. and tr.. The Maharashtra Parana, Honolulu, IQfi^ p 42
24 Letter from Mr. Vernet and Council, Cossimbazar, to the Dutch Director and Council, Hugh, dated 23rd March 1757 in S.C. Hill ed. Bengal in 1756-57, vol. II, op.cit, p. 426.
24a Also by that time flint-lock guns were introduced. In 1763, the army of Mirjafar was provided with 333 flint-locks by the Company. The Calendar of Persian Correspondence , Calcutta 1914, vol.11. Letter No. 1973, ».260. Fullarton mentions that two battalions of Sommers' force at Azimabad had European arms (flint-locks) and the rest one had match-locks. W.K. Firmingered., The Diaries ofThree Surgeons ofPatna, 1763, Calcutta, 1909, p. 45. Later while in Oudh, Mir Qasim ordered Sommers to return the flint-locks which the latter refused. The Mutaqherin, Vol. II, op.cit., p. 545. In 1786, Raymonds spoke highly of the gunsmiths of Mungher who made superb flint-locks, even by contemporary European standard. The Mutaqherin, Vol. II, op. cit., p. 421.
25 R.B. Barnett, North India Between Empires, London 1980, p. 77.
26 Bidwell, op. cit, pp. 11-13, for Law, see, S.C. Hill, Three Frenchmen in Bengal, London, 1903, pp. 113-131. Passim.
27 Barnett, op.cit., p. 79, p. 106, pp. 110-111.
28 For detailed treatment of this resistance, see Suprakash Roy, Bharater Krisakvidroha 0 Ganatantrik Sangram, Calcutta, 1980, (3rd ed.), pp. 29-50, Suranjan Chatterjee, 'New Reflections on the Sannyasi, Fakir and Peasant War', Economic and Political Weekly, (Review Number) 28 January 1984.
29 These arguments are based on the following works : C. Oman, A History of the Art of War in the Middle Ages, pp. 434-436. Montgomery, ofAlamein, A History of Warfare, London 1968, pp. 183-232. Passim, G. Trease, The Condottieri, London, 1970. K. Marx, "Armv" inMarx-Engels Collected Works, Moscow 1982, pp. 105-111, F. Engels, "Infantry", mibid., pp. 350-359. V.G. Kiernan, "Foreign M« rcenaries and Absolute monarchy", in T. Aston ed.. Crisis in Europe, London, 1966. P. Anderson, Lineages of the Absolutist State, London, 1974, pp. 29-30.
30 Raymonds note, The Mutaqherin, Vol. II, p. 422.
31 They were Gurghin Khan, The Commander-in-Chief, Sommers (Somroo) and Marcar. Besides these were Bahadur Ali Khan and Muhammad Taki Khan. The bitter resopnse of the traditional cavalry leaders to that change can be found in Ghulam'Husain's furious tirade against Gurghin Khan, the propagator of the new system in Mir Qasim's army, which misled Bankimchandra, in his novel Chandrasekhar.
32 W. Irvine, The Army, op.cit., p. 11.
33 For the presence of mercenaries in Cooch Behar, Assam, Bijni and Bhutan respectively, see Amanat Ullah Ahmad, Kooch Beharer Itihas, Kooch Behar, 1936, pp. 205, 208-9, 317-327. Passim;
S.N. Sened.,PracmBangalaPatraSamkalan, Calcutta, 1942, Letter Nos. 13, 31 &63, pp. 10-17,39-40, 73 and also introduction, p. 60, S.K. Bhuyan ed. and tr., Tunkhugia Buranji, pp. 135-141, passim. S.K. Bhuyan, Anglo-Assamese Relations. Gauhati, 1949, pp. 277-2^, passim. Their presence in Oudh after 1765 and probably in the Army of Hindustan under De Boigne has been treated earlier. There were other types of employment for the mercenaries such as that in 1769, when one Udipuri Gosain was granted a dastak to travel from Murshidabad to Orissa with an escort numbered 50 Sawars and 2000 Barqandazes. Calendar of Persian Correspondence. Calcutta 1914, vol. II, Letter No. 1666, 4th November 1769, p 425.