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country against future irruptions, and as they are no longer to be employed in the collections, the people will be freed from the oppressions of our own plunderers.—Hastings to Tosias Du Pre—9th March 1773.
We have lately been much troubled here by hordes of desperate adventurers called Sannyasis, who have overrun the Province in great numbers and committed great depredations. The particulars of these disturbances and of our endeavours to repel them you will find in our general letters and consultations, which will acquit the Government of any degree of blame from such a calamity. At this time we have five battalions of sepoys in pursuit of them, and I have still hopes of exacting ample vengeance for the mischief they have done us, as they have no advantage over us but in the speed with which they fly from us. A minute relation of these adventures cannot amuse you, nor indeed are they of great moment, for which reason give me leave to drop the subject, and lead you to one in which you cannot but be more interested &c.Hastings to Purling dated 31st March 1773—Para 4. Gleig's Memoirs of Hastings—294Vol. 1.
In my last I mentioned that we had every reason to suppose the Sannyasi Fakirs had entirely evacuated the Company's Possessions. Such were the advices I then received and their usual progress made this highly probable. But it seems they were either disappointed in crossing the Burrampulra river, or they changed their intention, and returned in several bands of about 2000 or 3000 each, appearing unexpectedly in different
