y Arab has a pride and heart of his own that never forsakes
him as long as he has legs to stand on. They are naturally brave and
possess the greatest coolness and quickness of sight: hardy and fierce
through habit, and bred to the use of the matchlock from their boyhood:
and they attain a precision and skill in the use of it that would
almost exceed belief, bringing down or wounding the smallest object
at a considerable distance, and not unfrequently birds with a single
bullet. They are generally armed with a matchlock, a couple of swords,
with three or four small daggers stuck in front of their belts, and
a shield. On common occasions of attack and defence they fire but
one bullet, but when hard pressed at the breach they drop in two,
three, and four at a time, from their mouths, always carrying in
them from eight to ten bullets, which are of a small size. We may
calculate the whole number of Arabs in the service of the Peshwa
and the Berar Raja at 6000 men, a loose and undisciplined body,
but every man of them a tough and hardy soldier. It was to the Arabs
alone those Provinces looked, and placed their dependence on. Their
own troops fled and abandoned them, seldom or never daring to meet
our smallest detachment. Nothing can exceed the horror and atarm with
which some of our native troops view the Arab. At Nagpur in November
1817 the Arabs alone attacked us on the defence and reduced us to the
last extremity, when we were saved by Captain Fitzgerald's charge. The
Arabs attacked us at Koregaon and would have certainly destroyed us had
not the Peshwa withdrawn his troops on General Smith's approach. The
Arabs kept General Doveton at bay with his whole army at Nagpur for
several days, repulsing our attack at the breach, and they gained
their fullest terms. The Arabs worsted us for a month at Malegaon
and saved their credit. They terrified the Surat authorities by their
fame alone. They gained their terms of money from Sir John Malcolm at
Asirgarh. They maintained to the last for their prince their post at
Alamner and nobly refused to be bought over there. They attacked us
bravely, but unfortunately at Talner. They attacked Captain Spark's
detachment on the defence and destroyed it. They attacked a battalion
of the 14th Madras Infantry with 26-pounders and compelled them to
seek shelter in a village; and they gave us a furious wind-up at
Asirgarh. Yet the whole of these Arabs were not 6000."

There is no doubt that the Ar