These letters were collected and reproduced by Dougan Arthur Robert Elliott (1919-1994), who wrote the introductory material. Dougan Elliott was the grandson of the letter-writer's nephew Charles Pearson Elliott (1833-1876). I'm grateful to Charles Baron for sending this work my way. There are, it must be said, some inaccuracies in Dougan Elliott's introductory material. For one thing it is completely untrue that John Dougan 'owned the island of Tortola'!

[THIS PAGE IS A WORK IN PROGRESS. CURRENTLY ONLY THE INTRODUCTION IS TRANSCRIBED]

Introduction

These are the letters of Frederick Dougan, aged about twenty who is suddenly pitched into a strange world. The words and phrases used, his reaction to events and his mixture of childishness and resourcefulness, sentiment and callousness, are difficult to understand today by a reader whether Indian or British unless two things are taken into account:-

1. The conditions at the time of the world in which he lived.
2. The type of upbringing that he had.

He was born into a turbulent period of history. It was at a time when old established ideas were changing, often violently, to new ones - ideas that seemed strange and dangerous 200 years ago and today are considered normal.

Within living memory was the American War of Independance, leading to the birth of the USA and a population pushing westwards and taking over the old Spanish colonies in their progress.

This was followed by the French revolution, the rise of the Emperor Napoleon and his fall at the battle of Waterloo.

A movement to halt the trade in slaves between Africa and the American continent was gaining force and had it's champion in WILLIAM WILBERFORCE. John Dougan (Frederick's father) who had been a sugar planter in the West Indies was one of his most active supporters. He became nearly bankrupt as a result of voluntarily releasing his own slaves before 1807 when the British Government banned slavery and compensated the owners. John Dougan missed out.

There had been 150 years of intermittent war between England and France which had overspilled onto the Indian sub-continent. They fought each other for bases from which to trade. They each enlisted the help of rival Indian princes. Napoleon even had a conspiracy with Czar Alexander of Russia. In 1807 at Tilsit they agreed on a joint invasion of India via Afghanistan. Among their problems were Ranjit Singh who sat in control of the Punjab with the best trained army in India after the Indian Army of 'John Company' and the tribes of Afghanistan that had to be considered.

In 1817 it had taken 120,000 men of the Indian Army (both Indian and British troops) to finally subdue the Pindaris who, with various supporters, had been terrorising and laying waste to the villages of Central India.

The last of the Mahratta wars had faded to an end, there had been war with Nepal and war with Burma was yet to come.

Five years after he arrived, Frederick was present at the storming of the previously impregnable fortress of BHARTPUR which, when finally taken by Lord COMBERMERE the Commander in Chief, went up in an explosion that echoed round India for many years. In 1827 he was made ADC to Lord COMBERMERE. In 1829 he died.

He came from a good family, moderately well off, until his father lost his money, and had a strong religious background which comes out in his letters. There is a hint of grave respectability about his upbringing. It is likely that Frederick had seldom left the area of his home town and never left England before. It is highly unlikely that he had ever seen anyone of a different colour from himself and his knowledge of India would have been gathered from travellers tales.

It can be easily understood how his first letters bear all the marks of homesickness. It would seem that at first he did not like India and liked his brother officers even less. They probably thought him a very odd character.

D.A.R.E. December 1985
San Jose, Aimeria, Spain

The History of the Letters

None of the original letters are known to exist. They were transcribed by one of his sisters (MARY) in 1825 into a notebook of which this is a complete copy. The last one she recorded was dated August 1823, leaving many blank pages, from which it can be assumed that she finished all she intended or was able to do.

She married eight years later and in 1852 her husband took his family to AUSTRALIA. There her daughter married a CHARLES STRICKLAND MACKIE and emigrated from AUSTRALIA first to NEW ZEALAND and finally back to ENGLAND at the end of the last century. At some point in his travels, MACKIE came into possession of the transcript of his wife's uncle's letters from SIR CLAUDE MAXWELL MACDONALD, the grandson of FREDERICK DOUGAN through the latter's daughter. SIR CLAUDE was at some period the British ambassador to JAPAN. MACKIE made an attempt to print the transcript 'in a fitting manner for the time'. This apparently unfinished attempt was made in 1912, with no known copies and are now bound under separate cover.

Sometime between 1912 and 1928 both the notebook and the attempt at printing came into the possession of my late father WILLIAM ROBERT ELLIOTT in BELGIUM, who was the grandson of another sister of FREDERICK (EMILY). At my late father's death in 1945, they were among his papers. The notebook has travelled a long way to Southern SPAIN, taking 180 years to appear over a photocopier, and this book finishing back in INDIA. The routing of the letters back to their source of origin and the time taken would be likely to cause comment from any commander today.

An insoluble mystery lies in the last few pages in an unknown hand, containing instructions to someone that certain matters were 'not to be typed'. This last part seems to have been written about 100 years ago. Why the instructions?

The Connection between Captain Frederick Dougan, 3rd Bengal Cavalry, and the Elliotts of Larriston

Out of about 15 LARRISTON ELLIOTTS who served in INDIA, either in Civil or Military, 4 out of 5 Heads of the branch so served in practically unbroken line of descent from 1797 to 1947 - exactly 150 years. First of these was CHARLES ELLIOTT FRS, HEIC's BCS from 1797. British Resident in DELHI (Emperor AKBAR SHAH II) and Agent for the Governor General in the Western Provinces. By his wife,ALICIA BOILEAU, he had 3 sons 2 of whom were in the HEIC.

The eldest son Rev. CHARLES BOILEAU ELLIOTT MA,FRS,FRGS, JP,(1803-1875) (later Rector of Tattingstone) Married --- (1831) EMILY.

By EMILY DOUGAN, sister of FREDERICK he had 7 children the eldest son being CHARLES PEARSON ELLIOTT HEIC (BCS) and later ICS (1833-1876).

CHARLES PEARSON ELLIOTT married HANNAH FRANCES LISTER of SALEBY Lincs: and had 3 sons and 2 daughters. None of the sons entered Indian service and the youngest WILLIAM ROBERT ELLIOTT MA outlived his brothers. He married GWENDOLINE ALICE SEMPKINS, by whom he had one daughter and one son, who is the present head of the LARRISTON branch, MAJOR DOUGAN ELLIOTT MC.Royal Signals. The latter was attached to INDIAN SIGNALS up to the time of Independance. Towards the end he was a company commander under (now) Lt Gen RAJ BATRA PVSM.OBE.

JOHN DOUGAN was a planter and owned the island of TORTOLA in the WEST INDIES. He had twelve children by his wife CLARISSA SQUIRE, of whome FREDERICK was the eldest son. Most of these letters were written to either his parents or sisters after he set sail for INDIA.

NAMES OF CHILDREN	APPROXIMATE AGE IN 1821
FREDERICK	19 or 20
Angela	19 or 20
Ellen	(About) 18
Mary	(About) 17
EMILY	16
Clara	(About) 13
John	11
Anna	(About) 8
Laura	(About) 7
Charles	6
Rosalie	(About) 5
George	3