Opium

a juice, partly of the resinous, partly of the gummy kind. It is brought from Natolia, Egypt, and the East Indies, produced from the white garden poppy, with which the fields of Asia are in many places sown. The first effect of opium is making the person who takes it cheerful; it removes melancholy, and di ipates the dread of danger. The Turks always take it when they are going to battle: it afterwards quiets the spirits, eases pain, and disposes to sleep. A remarkable instance of the powerful influence of opium over the natives of the East is related by Mr. Orme, in his history of the Carnatic, page 270. His words are: the enemy remained quietly until noon, when having sufficiently intoxicated themselves with opium, they began to swarm out in great numbers; but the field pieces (which were served by Europe ans) kept them for some time at a distance, every shot doing execution. During the cannonade a party of the nabob’s sepoys cro ed the river, and taking po e ion of a small choultry, (an open house for the accommodation of travellers, so called in India) at a little distance to the right of the other, began to fire from this untenable post, upon which a body of 300 marattah horse galloped up to attack them; but before they arrived the sepoys took flight; several of them were cut to pieces, and the rest re-cro ing the river ran into the city: the marattahs encouraged by this succe , (and still flushed with the opium) now galloped up towards the entrenchment of the great choultry, where they were suffered to come so near, that several of them made use of their sabres acro the parapet before the troops within gave fire, which then began, and seconded by that of the four pieces of cannon on the other side of the river, killed and wounded a great number of men and horses, and obliged the enemy to retire in confusion; in this instant an officer unadvisedly took the resolution of quitting his post, and pa ed the river, in order to give captain Dalton, (who commanded the detachment) some information concerning the artillery; some of the soldiers seeing this, imagined that he went away through fear, and concluding, that things were worse than appeared to them, followed his example and ran out of the entrenchment; which the rest perceiving, a panic seized the whole, and they left the post with the greatest precipitation, notwithstanding they had the minute before given three huzzas, on the retreat of the marattahs: a body of 3000 mysore horse, who were drawn up on the bank, immediately galloped into the bed of the river, and charging the fugitives with fury, cut down the whole party excepting 15 men: flushed with this succe , they made a push at captain Dalton’s division on the other side. All these motions succeeded one another so rapidly, that he had hardly time to put his men on their guard; more especially as many of them had caught the panic, from having been spectators of the ma acre of their comrades; however, some of the bravest hearkening to his exhortations, stood firm by the artillery: their behaviour encouraged the sepoys, who made a strong fire from behind the low wall in their front, which accompanied by the grape shot of the four field pieces, soon abated the ardor of the enemy, and obliged them to retreat, leaving some horses, whose riders fell within 20 yards of the muzzles of the guns: captain Dalton then advanced a little way into the bed of the river, where he remained until he had collected the dead and the wounded. Not a man who escaped could give any reason why he quitted his post, all of them acknow leg ing that at the time when they took flight, only one man in the intrenchment was wounded, and that they had nine barrels of ammunition.