Note 79 — FOOTNOTES: CHAPTER 9 CHAP. X.

When Clive wrote to M. Bisdom to warn him against the danger to be feared from the advance of the Nabob's army, he offered protection, in his own house, to Mrs. Bisdom, and any ladies she might bring with her. I extract the following remarks on this subject from a very minute official account of the whole transaction:—"This kind proposal of Colonel Clive was accepted in the manner it deserved; and M. Bisdom's sensible and polite answer manifests his having a suitable sense of the favour, and, at the same time, expresses what was very true, that though, from the rank he held, his name had been very freely used throughout the whole of this transaction, yet his sentiments never went along with it, but that he had always retained that respect for the English nation, and that affection for his friends at Calcutta, which a long acquaintance, and the exchange of reciprocal good offices, had rendered equally sincere on both sides."