A single battle, fought on the afternoon of the 23rd of September 1803, forever changed the course of the history of India, and led to British rule for a period of 144 years….
The Patriarch, a story full of action and intrigue, is about the heroic actions of a native Indian youth who attracts the unwanted attention of a British General, and is forcibly conscripted into the British East India Company ranks, as a spy; and reveals why a purely mercantilist sea-faring nation sailed half across the world to conquer India, and how it managed to engineer the conquest of an empire 20 times its size, in just a few years, with a minimum of resources in men and material.
History tells us that the late Eighteenth Century was a humbling time for King George. Following the loss of its Colonies in America, and under pressure in Continental Europe from Napoleon Bonaparte, the British Prime Minister Pitt hatched a plot to venture forth. With the connivance of the Duke of York, Pitt's government used the private East India Company and the then little known Wellesley family as the instrument. The objective was to drive the French out of India and to deprive Napoleon access to its wealth. Rumors of the gold, silver, and precious stones, in Baroda, Hyderabad, and Mysore, having reached Europe, hordes of Arab Mercenaries and European soldiers-of-fortune were flocking to India to serve the various Rajahs.
To succeed in this daring venture against great odds Arthur, the youngest member of the Wellesley clan, recruits a youth barely seventeen years of age. By a stroke of good fortune he discovers that this youth is the oldest son of the House of Shah; a family of traders with two enviable assets - alliances with the ruling Rajahs that held sway over the Maratha Kingdoms that the British wished to usurp, and control over a disciplined crew of goondas (bandits) skilled in guerilla warfare and able to flit in and out of an enemy camp unnoticed; essential traits in subversion and espionage. Soon after arriving in India as the British Viceroy, Richard Wellesley, Lord Mornington, decides to go for the jugular by adopting a strategy of "Divide, Usurp, and Conquer". His target is the various Maratha Kingdoms which controlled over 65% of the Empire that was India. He delivers an ultimatum to Maharajah Scindia – War or Peace? The wily king delivers his response subliminally through the Dance of Shiva, held in a great Durbar at the foot of Gwalior Fort, to Colonel Collins, the British emissary; a message that only this youth could interpret.
The story is an epic action adventure. It begins with the Duke of Wellington reminiscing at Apsley House in London; quickly moves on to a pigeon carrying an ominous message over 400 miles to its home in Surat demanding a "life for a life"; an execution of two Pindari bandits in a marketplace; and a jailbreak of a prince under sentence of death in a Fort in Nagpur, 400 miles East of Surat. It culminates in the Battle of Assaye, the greatest battle that Wellington ever fought, against an enemy five times his size and a battle in which he escapes death miraculously by a hair’s breath, not once but twice, saved by the timely action of a youth; a battle far greater than the Battle of Waterloo.
.
The reader is guided by a Map of India, a Calendar of Events, and Sage Quotes from across the Centuries, each quote having relevance within the story, from "the moving finger having writ" by Omar Khayyam in the 12th Century, to "there is a tide in the affairs of men" by Shakespeare in his play Caesar in the 17th Century. A dozen years later Wellesley goes on to battle in Waterloo and become the Duke of Wellington. The youth follows his Karma to found the House of Shah, the first Merchant Banking House in India.
The Patriarch, a story full of action and intrigue, is about the heroic actions of a native Indian youth who attracts the unwanted attention of a British General, and is forcibly conscripted into the British East India Company ranks, as a spy; and reveals why a purely mercantilist sea-faring nation sailed half across the world to conquer India, and how it managed to engineer the conquest of an empire 20 times its size, in just a few years, with a minimum of resources in men and material.
History tells us that the late Eighteenth Century was a humbling time for King George. Following the loss of its Colonies in America, and under pressure in Continental Europe from Napoleon Bonaparte, the British Prime Minister Pitt hatched a plot to venture forth. With the connivance of the Duke of York, Pitt's government used the private East India Company and the then little known Wellesley family as the instrument. The objective was to drive the French out of India and to deprive Napoleon access to its wealth. Rumors of the gold, silver, and precious stones, in Baroda, Hyderabad, and Mysore, having reached Europe, hordes of Arab Mercenaries and European soldiers-of-fortune were flocking to India to serve the various Rajahs.
To succeed in this daring venture against great odds Arthur, the youngest member of the Wellesley clan, recruits a youth barely seventeen years of age. By a stroke of good fortune he discovers that this youth is the oldest son of the House of Shah; a family of traders with two enviable assets - alliances with the ruling Rajahs that held sway over the Maratha Kingdoms that the British wished to usurp, and control over a disciplined crew of goondas (bandits) skilled in guerilla warfare and able to flit in and out of an enemy camp unnoticed; essential traits in subversion and espionage. Soon after arriving in India as the British Viceroy, Richard Wellesley, Lord Mornington, decides to go for the jugular by adopting a strategy of "Divide, Usurp, and Conquer". His target is the various Maratha Kingdoms which controlled over 65% of the Empire that was India. He delivers an ultimatum to Maharajah Scindia – War or Peace? The wily king delivers his response subliminally through the Dance of Shiva, held in a great Durbar at the foot of Gwalior Fort, to Colonel Collins, the British emissary; a message that only this youth could interpret.
The story is an epic action adventure. It begins with the Duke of Wellington reminiscing at Apsley House in London; quickly moves on to a pigeon carrying an ominous message over 400 miles to its home in Surat demanding a "life for a life"; an execution of two Pindari bandits in a marketplace; and a jailbreak of a prince under sentence of death in a Fort in Nagpur, 400 miles East of Surat. It culminates in the Battle of Assaye, the greatest battle that Wellington ever fought, against an enemy five times his size and a battle in which he escapes death miraculously by a hair’s breath, not once but twice, saved by the timely action of a youth; a battle far greater than the Battle of Waterloo.
.
The reader is guided by a Map of India, a Calendar of Events, and Sage Quotes from across the Centuries, each quote having relevance within the story, from "the moving finger having writ" by Omar Khayyam in the 12th Century, to "there is a tide in the affairs of men" by Shakespeare in his play Caesar in the 17th Century. A dozen years later Wellesley goes on to battle in Waterloo and become the Duke of Wellington. The youth follows his Karma to found the House of Shah, the first Merchant Banking House in India.
