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Major-General Sir Arthur Wellesley and Diomed
In the Background, the town of Seringapatame, Capital of Mysore, Central India
Colonel Wesley and the 33.Foot arrived in India at an important moment. The great administration of Cornwallis had been followed by Shore and Hobart at iterim, useful but less perspicatious men. Now it would be Richard Lord Mornington who would occupy the Palace of fort.William as new Governour-General - Richard, Arthur's eldest brother, a brilliant scholar and tried administrator and a most difficult and ambitious man, who was never in the best of terms with the younger man.
Within two months of Wesley's landing in Calcutta, the young colonel was tasked by General St.Leger to provide a project for establishing light artillery within the British Forces on the subcontinent. He was also nominated to the command of an expedition against Spanish-Manila. Although his troups embarked in August, they were recalled already in September without having seen action. The 33.Regiment and its Colonel were then assigned to the Madras Presidency and Lord Hobart. The coast must have been to him a new country and even as other men's eyes were turned upon Mysore and the threat of an interuption of Thipoo Sultan's Forces - trained by French advisors - into the Carnatic, he found time to acquaint himself with the topography of his future theatre of war. At that time he also went into the Baramahal, were he discovered that fine road of Colonel Read's through this savage region by Ryacotta to the outlet on the Bangalore side.