Three Frenchmen in Bengal Part 9

[Footnote 87: "In India it is thought disrespectful to tell a great man distinctly the evil which is said of him. If an inferior knows that designs are formed against the life of his superior, he must use circ.u.mlocutions, and suggest the subject in vague terms and speak in enigmas. It is for the great man to divine what is meant.

If he has not the wit, so much the worse for him. As a foreigner, I was naturally more bold and said what I thought to Siraj-ud-daula.

Coja Wajid did not hesitate to blame me, so that for a long time I did not know what to think of him. This man finally fell a victim to his diplomacies, perhaps also to his imprudences. One gets tired of continual diplomacy, and what is good in the beginning of a business becomes in the end imprudence." _Law_.]

[Footnote 88: "Witness the letter written to the English Admiral Watson, by which it is pretended the Nawab authorized him to undertake the siege of Chandernagore. The English memoir" (by _Luke Scrafton_) "confesses it was a surprise, and that the Secretary must have been bribed to write it in a way suitable to the views of Mr.

Watts. The Nawab never read the letters which he ordered to be written; besides, the Moors never sign their names; the envelope being closed and well fastened, the Secretary asks the Nawab for his seal, and seals it in his presence. Often there is a counterfeit seal." _Law_. From this it may be seen that the Nawab could always a.s.sert that his Secretary had exceeded his instructions, whilst it was open to his correspondent to a.s.sert the contrary.]

[Footnote 89: The clerks.]

[Footnote 90: "This was the boaster Rai Durlabh Ram, who had already received much from me, but all the treasures of the Universe could not have freed him from the fear he felt at having to fight the English. He had with him as his second in command a good officer, Mir Madan, the only man I counted upon." _Law_.]

[Footnote 91: Referring to Clive's letter of the 7th of March, saying he wished to attack Chandernagore, but would await the Nawab's orders at that place.]

[Footnote 92: By "agent" Law must mean simply an agent in the plot.]

[Footnote 93: Scrafton, in his "Reflections" (_pp. 40 and 50_), says, Siraj-ud-daula indulged in all sorts of debauchery; but his grandfather, in his last illness, made him swear on the Koran to give up drinking. He kept his oath, but probably his mind was affected by his previous excesses.]

[Footnote 94: Arzbegi, i.e. the officer who receives pet.i.tions.]

[Footnote 95: A preparation of betel-nut (areca-nut) is used by the natives of Hindustan as a digestive. When offered to a guest, it is a sign of welcome or dismissal. When sent by a messenger, it is an a.s.surance of friendship and safe conduct.]

[Footnote 96: The Governor of Patna was Raja Ramnarain, a Hindu, with the rank of Naib only. It was considered unsafe to entrust so important a post to a Muhammadan, or an officer with the rank of Nawab.]

[Footnote 97: Orme MSS. India XI., p. 2779, No. 120.]

[Footnote 98: Ibid., India IX., p. 2294.]

[Footnote 99: Letter from Renault to Dupleix. Dated Chandernagore, Sept. 4, 1757.]

[Footnote 100: Broome (p. 154) gives his name as Mir Daood.]

[Footnote 101: The Council signed the Treaty with Mir Jafar on the 19th of May, but Mr. Watts's first intimation of his readiness to join the English is, I believe, in a letter dated the 26th of April.

Mir Jafar signed the Treaty early in June.]

[Footnote 102: So Suja-ud-daula, Nawab of Oudh, plundered the Nawab Mir Kasim, when the English drove him from Bengal in 1763.]

[Footnote 103: Broome (p. 154) says "a fakier, named Dana Shah, whose nose and ears he had ordered to be cut off thirteen months before, when on his march against the Nawaub of Purneah."]

[Footnote 104: Orme MSS., India Office, and Clive correspondence at Walcot, vol. iv.]

[Footnote 105: The celebrated traveller. He quickly quarrelled with and left them.]

[Footnote 106: Province.]

[Footnote 107: Nawab of Oudh and father of Suja-ud-daula.]

[Footnote 108: I.e. the receiver of the rent or revenue.]

[Footnote 109: The regular winds of the various seasons are called monsoons, and are named after the point of the compa.s.s from which they blow.]

[Footnote 110: Alamgir II.]

[Footnote 111: Imad-ul-mulk, Ghazi-ud-din Khan.]

[Footnote 112: Ali Gauhar, born 1728. On the death of his father, November 29, 1759, he a.s.sumed the name or t.i.tle of Shah Alam.]

[Footnote 113: The old English Factory at Patna was re-opened by Mr.

Pearkes, in July, 1757. See his letters to Council, dated 12th and 14th July, 1757.]

[Footnote 114: Kasim Ali had a much better army than any of his predecessors. Though it was not trained in the European manner, several of the chief officers were Armenians, who effected great reforms in discipline. Three years later it made a really good fight against the English.]

[Footnote 115: The battle is generally known as that of Gaya, but was fought at Suan. The site is marked in Rennell's map of South Bihar. It lies about six miles west of the town of Bihar, on the river Banowra.]

[Footnote 116: The Banowra River.]

[Footnote 117: The French capital on the Madras coast. Surrendered to Eyre Coote.]

[Footnote 118: Sepoys, so called from the Telingana district in Madras, where they were first recruited.]

[Footnote 119: Mrs. Law. _Bibi_ is the equivalent of mistress or lady. _La.s.s_ was the native version of Law. Mrs. Law's maiden name was Jeanne Carvalho.]

[Footnote 120: Bengal Select Com. Consultations, 28th January, 1761.]

[Footnote 121: "A part of these Memoirs was written at Paris in 1703, and part at sea in 1764, during my second voyage to India, but several of the notes were added later." _Law_.]

CHAPTER IV

M. COURTIN, CHIEF OF DACCA

Jacques Ignace, son of Francois Courtin, Chevalier, Seigneur de Nanteuil, and of Catherine Colin, is, I believe, the correct designation of the gentleman who appears in all the records of the French and English East India Companies as M. Courtin, Chief of the French Factory at Dacca.

In June 1756, when Siraj-ud-daula marched on Calcutta, he sent word to his representative, the Nawab Jusserat Khan at Dacca, to seize the English Factory, and make prisoners of the Company's servants and soldiers. The English Factory on the site of the present Government College, was--

"little better than a common house, surrounded with a thin brick wall, one half of it not above nine foot high." The garrison consisted "of a lieutenant" (Lieutenant John Cudmore), "4 serjeants, 3 corporals, and 19 European soldiers, besides 34 black Christians[122] and 60 _Buxerries_."[123]

[Ill.u.s.tration: DACCA, OR JEHANGIR NAGAR. (_After Rennell_.)]

On the 27th of June Jusserat Khan sent on the Nawab's order by the English _wakil_, or agent, to Mr. Becher, the English Chief, and informed him of the capture of Fort William and the flight of Mr.

Drake. Thinking this was merely a trick to frighten them into surrender, the Dacca Council requested Mr. Scrafton, third in Council, to write to M. Courtin, chief of the French Factory, for information. In reply M. Courtin sent them a number of letters which he had received from Chandernagore, confirming the bad news from Calcutta. Taking into consideration the unfortified condition of the Factory, and that Dacca was only four days by river from Murshidabad whilst it was fourteen from Calcutta, it seemed idle to hope to defend it even when a.s.sistance could be expected from the latter place, and, now that it was certain that Calcutta itself had fallen, any attempt at defence appeared rather "an act of rashness than of bravery." It was therefore resolved to obtain the best terms they could through the French.

The next day M. Fleurin, second of the French Factory--M.

Courtin[124] was not well acquainted with the English language--came to inform them that the Nawab of Dacca agreed that the ladies and gentlemen should be allowed to retire to the French Factory on M.

Courtin giving his word that they would there await the orders of Siraj-ud-daula as to their future fate. The soldiers were to lay down their arms, and be prisoners to the Nawab. This amicable arrangement was entirely due to M. Courtin's good offices, and he was much congratulated on the tact he had shown in preventing the Nawab from using violent measures, as he seemed inclined to do at first. As the Nawab would not allow the English to take away any of their property, except the clothes they were wearing, they were entirely dependent upon the French for everything, and were treated with the greatest kindness. The Council wrote:--

"The French have behaved with the greatest humanity to such as have taken refuge at their Factory, and the tenour of their conduct everywhere to us on this melancholy occasion has been such as to merit the grateful acknowledgment of our nation."