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David Ochterlony


Sir David Ochterlony, first and last Baronet of Pitforthy, first Baronet of Ochterlony GCB (12 February 1758 – 15 July 1825) was a Massachusetts-born general of the East India Company in British India. He held the powerful post of British Resident to the Mughal court at Delhi.

David Ochterlony was born in Boston, Massachusetts, and attended the Dummer Charity School (now known as The Governor's Academy) in nearby Byfield, Massachusetts. In 1777, he went as a cadet to India, where he served under Lord Lake in the battles of Koil, Aligarh and Delhi, and was appointed resident at Delhi in 1803. In 1804, having been promoted to the rank of major-general, he defended the city with a very inadequate force against an attack by Yashwantrao Holkar. On the outbreak of the Anglo-Nepalese War (1814–15) he was given the command of one of four converging columns, and his services were rewarded with a baronetcy created on 7 March 1816. Subsequently he was promoted to the command of the main force in its advance on Kathmandu, and outmanoeuvring the Gurkhas by a flank march at the Kourea Ghat Pass, brought the war to a successful conclusion and obtained the signature of the Treaty of Sugauli (1816), which dictated the subsequent relations of the British with Nepal. For this success Ochterlony was created Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath, the first time that honour had been conferred on an officer of the British military in India.


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