Note 07 — Chapter XV · WHICH RECOUNTS THE TRIALS OF A DEVOUT LOVER.

But once again, to my sober history. During the latter part of January, after my last letter was wrote, the Nabob amused himself and us with sending an Armenian named Coja Petruce[07] backwards and forwards with feigned offers of peace, while the entire time he was advancing steadily with his army, burning, as he approached our bounds, the villages which acknowledged our authority, and at last passing our furthest outpost. Finding a parcel of louchees plundering within our boundary, the officer in command at Perins Redoubt stopped them with a sally, but the head of the Moorish army coming up, began to entrench themselves on t’other side of the rivulet. Colonel Clive, marching out from Cossipore with a considerable force, treated them to a slight cannonade, but returning at night to his camp, the main body came up and established themselves before morning, the Soubah sending word from Nabob-gunge, a hamlet about six miles off, that he desired deputies from the English to attend him and treat of peace. Mess. Walsh and Scrafton were the gentlemen chosen for this perilous office, and setting out in good time reached Nabob-gunge only to find the Nabob departed, discovering, moreover, that the perfidious prince had crossed Dum Dumma Bridge, and was actually encamped in Omichund’s garden, within the circuit of the Morattoe-ditch. Our envoys, introduced by Rungeet Roy to the duan Roydoolub, were treated with great indignity, their persons being searched before they were admitted to the durbar, where they found Surajah Dowlah surrounded with a host of attendants, all huge and ferocious in appearance, and dressed out with thick stuffed clothes and prodigious turbands, in order to strike terror into the gentlemen. These, however, retained sufficient spirit to protest against the usage they had received, when the Nabob at once cut short their complaint by referring them back to Roydoolub. On returning to the tent assigned them, the deputies were warned by Omichund that the Soubah aimed only at keeping them in play until his cannon were come up, and with much presence of mind the two gentlemen, putting out their lights, as though they were about to wait on Roydoolub, went instead along the high road inside the Ditch until they came safely to Perins, and so to Colonel Clive’s camp. Since no one could now entertain a doubt as to the hostile intentions of the Nabob, an action was determined upon, the Colonel’s plans being precipitated by the desertion of all our servants and cooleys to the enemy, rendering it alarmingly difficult to obtain provisions.