'History of the Indian Navy. (1613-1863).' [‎218] (237/622)

218
HISTORY OF THE INDIAN NAVY.
Commodore, with his broad pennant on board the 4 Hastings/
Commander Ethersey being Assistant-Superintendent, and
Captain Lynch officiated as Master-Attendant in place of the
veteran Captain Ross.
During Commodore Hawkins' brief tenure of office* the
Indian Navy added to the laurels already gained, per mare et
tervam, by a fresh display of its discipline and readiness to
respond to the call of duty. The Service played a not unim
portant part at the famous siege of Mooltan in 1848-49, and
the occasion is of further interest, as the first instance of a
purely naval force being engaged in military operations at a
distance of seven hundred miles from the sea. During the first
siege, Lieutenant Willmott Christopher, who, as Assistant-
Superintendent of the Indus flotilla, had been engaged in
transporting men, guns, and stores, to Mooltan, took advantage
of this opportunity to indulge his love of adventure and un
bounded energy, and joined the hastily raised levies of the
late Sir Herbert Edwardes, when his intimate knowledge of
Mooltan and its neighbourhood was of essential service to that
officer. General Whish, with the right column, encamped
before Mooltan on the 18th of August, the left column joining
headquarters on the following day; and, on the arrival of the
heavy guns, on the 4th of September, his force consisted of
two hundred and nine officers and seven thousand six hundred
and thirty-two men, with thirty-two pieces of siege ordnance
and tw T elve field-pieces. There were, besides, the native regular
and irregular levies of General Van Cortlandt and Lieutenant
Edwardes, and the contingents of the Nawab An honorific title; an official acting as a provincial deputy ruler in South Asia; or a significant Muslim landowner in nineteenth century India. of Bhawulpore,
under Lieutenant Lake ,t and of Shere Singh, amounting, in
the aggregate, to fourteen thousand three hundred and twenty-
seven infantry, eight thousand four hundred and seventeen
cavalr}^, with forty-five guns and four mortars. Opposed to
these, Moolraj had, at this time, under his orders in Mooltan,
according to Edwardes, from whose work, " A Year on the
Punjaub Frontier," w 7 e have derived these estimates, ten thou
sand men, of whom about twelve hundred were cavalry.
Lieutenant Christopher accompanied Edwardes' force, and
when, on the morniDg of the 1st of September, the latter moved
from Sooraj Khoond to join General Whish's army encamped a
Seetul-ke-maree, six miles distant. Lieutenant Christopher was
of great service during the first day's fighting before Mooltan,
where he was destined so shortly to lay down his u e.
Edwardes says :—" Another volunteer went with me into t e
* During the administration of Commodore Hawkins, took place the
launch in Bombay Dockyard, on the 11th of November, 1848, of the ea , -u.
of eighty guns, for H .M .'s navy. This noble line-of-battle ship, which was
of teak, cost £70,000, and had been eight years in construction.
f The late Major-Greneral Edward Lake, R .E., C .S.I.