Shortly afterward his regiment was ordered home; and as he had married a woman of the country, he volunteered into another corps. He was now at the depôt, waiting orders to march to join his new regiment. It is to Poonamallee that all draughts of fresh British troops are marched when they disembark at Madras. Here also they wait till detachments are ordered to proceed to their several stations in the peninsula. Many wives, widows, and children, of European soldiers, are located here. The population, who required instruction in the English language, were therefore numerous; but the poor man who sustained the office of chaplain was incapacitated for such work as they needed. The soldier came to me on this account, having walked the distance, thirteen miles, to solicit a visit, and one or more sermons. started that evening, and found him returned to the station and busy making arrangements, having obtained a barrack-room, fitted it up, and warned the people. My congregation was large and attentive. Once and again did I meet with them, and found many of them in a state of sad and ruinous ignorance. None of the officers attached to the depôt took a personal interest in the spiritual concerns of the people; but, though Galliolike, they did not object or throw impediments in my way, rather, with courteousness, did they exercise toward me true Indian hospitality-spreading for me a bed and their board. The fortadjutant, who had great influence, here and at I Tripassore, gave me all his aid to secure my personal comfort and acceptance with the poor people at both stations. Vegetation is peculiarly luxuriant around this station, and the soil is extensively brought under cultivation for native agriculture; the paddy, or rice fields bear an abundant crop, and the husbandmen have full protection and a ready market. Five or six permanent staff appointments only are held by European officers: the society is therefore small, but the distance from contiguous stations, and the fresh arrivals from Europe, afford variety and recreation. Poonamallee is more oppressively hot than Madras, being so much farther removed from the benefit of the sea breezes. Tripassore has been the scene of sanguinary strife in the early period of British conquest in India. In 1781 it was occupied by the troops of Hyder Ali, and reduced by an English force. Scarcely had they taken possession of the fort when Hyder appeared before it and gave battle on the neighbouring plain to his English adversaries. Six hundred men of the Company's troops, and many officers of distinction, were slain on the field, and the fortress of Tripassore was a shelter for the residue of their army, till Hyder retired to the Mysore territory. Thirty years afterwards it was occupied as the cadets' quarters, where they were initiated into the art and discipline of war. The fort is now dismantled, the walls and fosse are no longer means of defence, and the collector of Arcot, who sometimes comes into the district, has a circular bungalow erected on the last remnant of the fort walls. About one hundred and thirty invalided soldiers from British regiments reside within the bounds of the fort; most, if not all, married to native or country-born women. No functionary higher than a non-commissioned officer resides among them, and they are visited monthly by the district paymaster, from whom their pension or allowances are regularly received. There is no municipal, and hardly any military authority, or restraint; and, while every man may do what is pleasing in his own eyes, certain mercenary adventurers have frequently introduced to the pensioners a supply of adulterated spirits, the profuse drinking of which has been marked by cases of frantic and fatal madness. For two or three nights, at this time, the dissipation and violence of the hardened drunkard are unbridled and fearful. It would appear as if their former employers, on whose pensioned bounty they now live, desired their death rather than a comfortable old age. On one of my visits to Tripassore an old Irish trooper spoke some plain but forcible truth to me: “I have sarved my king and the Honourable (Company) as a dragoon for twenty-seven years, and now I am cast off just as if I were an ould troop-horse- the Company cares nothing for my sowl." A more general and equally unpromising description of the state of the people was sent to me by a pensioned serjeant of her Majesty's 34th regiment : "The Lord has manifested," he says, "his just displeasure of our abominations. Three men have died in nine days. The first had been drinking nearly three months, and died suddenly on the first instant; another died almost as suddenly on the fifth; and there were scarcely sober men (enough) to carry either of them to the grave: the third died on the ninth. The first I understand did not believe the immortality of the soul. May this awaken your pity and zeal to relieve us: don't be discouraged. I trust the Lord has still some souls in Tripassore." Where the poor outcasts had not sunk into the debasing practices of inebriation, the sordid vice of covetousness evinced its presence and power by the most usurious and extortionate proceedings. They had no chaplain, no missionary, no teacher. I was, I believe, the first person who had brought to bear on their condition any systematic or combined efforts for their improvement. The serjeant, to whom I have referred, speaks of himself in another letter: "To my shame, I must acknowledge, that my backslidings have been many and grievous. I had altogether given myself up for lost. I was afraid to pray. I considered it only presumption. For a considerable time my outward walk appeared as consistent as usual: mark the hypocrisy of my wretched heart! At length the lust that was rankling within burst out like a flame of fire; and, for about thirteen months, I was the slave of every filthy appetite and brutish lust. But still I had no rest. O what ways and methods have I taken to drown the voice of conscience! At length a man came to me, a stranger, and says, 'What a shame it is that there is not a vestige of religion in this place! In the name of God, let a few of us endeavour to form a prayer-meeting.' It immediately struck me this was a message from God, and that if I refused it, it would probably be the last offer of mercy. Since that (time) I have been enabled, through grace, to cry for the blood of sprinkling to be applied to my guilty conscience. The guilt and terror I have felt is beyond description. But at length, I trust, through grace, I have obtained mercy. O, this is such a wonder! I can hardly believe what I feel. Sometimes I have such a sense of the Saviour's love on my heart, that I cannot help but praise him. Then, again, I am tempted to think it is all delusion, but this I know is the device of Satan. I have proof against it; because sin not only is a terror to me, but I really hate it, and I loathe myself on account of it. I love those that bear the image of the Saviour, and long to be holy as he is holy. I long to have done with a sinful body and a sinful world. But I desire to wait his will; and I trust he will give me grace to struggle against flesh and sin." It was pleasing to discover the fruits of Canaan thus unobtrusively flourishing in such a wilderness ; surely personal religion is sustained by a divine, though invisible power, -proving that it is not of the will of the flesh, of the will of man, or of blood, but of God. I had sincere pleasure in my earliest |