Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 08.djvu/215

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Caillin
211
Caillin

ferred to as having arrived in India from Europe with a detachment of 247 British soldiers in 1753, and having shortly afterwards taken part in an engagement with the French in the neighbourhood of Trichinopoly. From that time until 1775, when he retired from the service and returned to England, Caillaud was a prominent actor in the struggle which ended in the establishment of the British power in India. He was a man of undaunted courage and of great readiness of resource. In 1758, just before the second and unsuccessful siege of Madras by the French, Caillaud was sent to Tanjore to procure military assistance from the Rájá of Tanjore. He made his way by sea to Tranquebar in an open masúla boat, accompanied by only six native boatmen, and after having encountered a gale on his voyage, and been stranded during a whole night in the immediate vicinity of a fort held by the French, he succeeded in reaching Tanjore, and with difficulty obtained the troops for which he had been sent. With these he tendered effective service to the besieged garrison by disturbing the enemy's communications with Pondicherry. In 1759 Caillaud held for a time the command of the company's troops in Madras, and in the same year he was appointed, on the recommendation of Clive, to command the troops in Bengal. In the following year he was actively employed in repelling an invasion of Behar by the eldest son of the emperor of Delhi. In 1763 he obtained the rank of brigadier-general, and in 1766 he was sent to take possession of the northern Sirkárs, which had been ceded to the company by the emperor. In the performance of this duty he met with very slight opposition; but, owing to the attitude assumed by Nizam Ali, the subahdar of the Dekhan, who, considering that he had a claim upon the Sirkárs, threatened an invasion of the company's territories in the south, Caillaud was deputed by the Madras authorities to Hyderabad, where he concluded a treaty binding the company to pay an annual tribute to the subahdar for the Sirkárs. Caillaud on his retirement from the service in 1775 was granted a pension by the company. He passed the remainder of his life as a country gentleman in Oxfordshire, where he died in 1810.

[Orme's History of the Military Transactions of the British Nation in Hindostan from the year 1745 (4th edition, Madras, 1861); Philippart's East India Military Calendar (1824); Mill's History of British India, vol. iii. (1840).]

CAILLIN (fl. 560), Irish saint, son of Niata, was descended from Rudraighe, whose grandson, Fergus Mac Roigh, flourished at the beginning of the christian era. His mother was Deighe, granddaughter of Dubhthach, chief poet of King Laogaire in the time of St. Patrick. The authority for the history of St. Caillin is the ancient ‘Book of Fenagh,’ a series of poetical rhapsodies, written about 1400, a copy of which with a connecting narrative in prose was made in 1516. This was published in 1875 by Mr. D. H. Kelly, with the competent aid of Mr. W. M. Hennessy, and from an examination of it it appears that the transcriber of the sixteenth century added a good deal which he thought likely to increase the veneration for his saint. But fortunately many of these interpolations are of so extravagant a character that there is no difficulty in distinguishing them.

Disregarding the fables, which even in 1690 were complained of by readers, we may gather the following facts of St. Caillin's history from this curious repertory of ancient traditions: ‘The descendants of Medbh and Fergus, viz. the children of Conmac, Ciar, and Corc, grew and multiplied throughout Ireland. The children of Conmac especially were in Connaught.’ Those were the Conmaicne of Dunmor, kinsmen of Caillin's. Resolved to remedy the congestion of the population by killing each other, the Conmaicne would no doubt have carried out their plan but for the interference of St. Caillin. By the advice of an angel they sent messengers to him at Rome, whither he had gone for his education. Caillin came first to the place where his own kinsmen, the Conmaicne, were, ‘to prohibit their fratricide and enmity.’ ‘My advice to you,’ said the saint, ‘is that you remain on the lands on which you at present are. I will go moreover to seek possessions and land for you as it may be pleasing to God.’ St. Caillin then left Dunmor, where this conversation seems to have been held, and went to Cruachanaoi in the county of Roscommon, thence to Ardcarna, near Boyle, where his friend Bishop Beoaedh lived. Passing on to the east, he crossed the Shannon, and obtained land at Moynishe in the county of Leitrim, and finally reached Dunbaile in Magh Rein, afterwards and still known as Fidnacha or Fenagh, so called from the wooded character of the country. In all these places, which are included in the counties of Roscommon, Mayo, Leitrim, and Longford, the Conmaicne afterwards had settlements.

When he arrived at Dunbaile, then the residence of Fergna, king of Breifney, he endeavoured to persuade the king to become a christian, but without success; the king ordered his son Aedhdubh to expel St. Caillin and his party. The prince accordingly proceeded to obey the order; but when he ‘found