Note 02 — Chapter X · IN WHICH THE FLOOD BEGINS TO RISE.

Oh, my dearest friend, Mr Dash and the Captain were right in their prophecies of the behaviour of the Presidency. Sure the wretch Surajah Dowlah must be rejoicing beyond measure over the terror his name inspires in European breasts! But why should the Council have begun by taking part with his rivals, insulting his messengers, and withholding the customary presents made to a new Soubah, if all they designed was to fall on their knees in the most pitiful submission as soon as he moves his army a step in their direction? I can’t write coldly, my dear. I feel the humiliation of the factory so keenly that my pen digs holes in the paper, and I wish it were a sword, and I a man to fight Surajah Dowlah with it. This day there came letters from Cossimbuzar to the Council, Mr Watts writing that yesterday week one of the Nabob’s captains, a Jemindar named Aume-beg,[02] encamped against the Cossimbuzar factory with a considerable force, which was strengthened later by more troops and two elephants. Prevented from forcing the gate by the coolness of the sergeant on guard, who fetched out his men and bade ’em fix their bayonets, the Moors called a parley, of which Mr Watts took advantage to get in provisions and water and load the great guns of the place. Nothing coming of the first parley, the factory continued to be besieged, and on the 28th of May Dr Forth was sent out, who had attended Ally Verdy Cawn in his last illness, accompanied with a mounsee,[03] or Persian secretary, to endeavour to arrive at an accommodation, and ’tis the demands then made upon him that Mr Watts has forwarded by special messenger. The chief of these is for the demolition of our new works at Baugbuzar, and of Mr Kelsall’s summer-house, which last they take for a fortress because, while the land lay waste, a parcel of shells was proved there from time to time. Mr Watts advises the granting of these demands and the appeasing of the Nabob by means of a genteel present, considering that, like his grandfather, who extorted from us in the course of his reign near 100,000l. in all, Surajah Dowlah designs to stop all our business until his rapacity be satisfied.