Note 27 — DEATH OF THOMAS HAMILTON, ESQ.
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The particulars of Shah-Shoojah's fate, which were unknown when we last referred to the subject, have been since ascertained. After the retreat of the English from Cabul, he remained for some time secluded in the Bala-Hissar, observing great caution in his intercourse with the insurgent leaders; but he was at length prevailed upon, by assurances of loyalty and fidelity, (about the middle of April,) to quit the fortress, in order to head an army against Jellalabad. He had only proceeded, however, a short distance from the city, when his litter was fired upon by a party of musketeers placed in ambush by a Doorauni chief named Soojah-ed-Dowlah; and the king was shot dead on the spot. Such was the ultimate fate of a prince, the vicissitudes of whose life almost exceed the fictions of romance, and who possessed talents sufficient, in more tranquil times, to have given éclat to his reign. During his exile at Loodiana, he composed in Persian a curious narrative of his past adventures, a version of part of which appears in the 30th volume of the Asiatic Journal.