Chapter III · M. LAW, CHIEF OF COSSIMBAZAR (continued 2)
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Gholam Husain Khan says the victory was decided by the English; the following quotation from Major Carnac's Letter to the Select Committee at Calcutta, dated the 17th of January, 1761, shows how the courage of the British forces saved them from a great disaster.
"It gives me particular pleasure to inform you that we have not lost a man in the action, but a few of the Nawab's troops who had got up near our rear suffered considerably from the explosion of one of the French tumbrils. It seems the enemy had lain a train to it in hopes of it's catching while our Europeans were storming the battery, but fortunately we were advanced two or three hundred yards in the pursuit before it had effect, and the whole shock was sustained by the foremost of the Nawab's troops who were blown up to the number of near four hundred, whereof seventy or eighty died on the spot."[120]
Law continues:—
"The next morning, as the English army started in pursuit of the Emperor Shah Alam, Major Carnac, from whom, I must mention in passing, I received all possible marks of attention and politeness, sent me to Patna, where in the English Chief, Mr. McGwire, I found an old friend, who treated me as I should certainly have treated him in like circumstances. I was in need of everything, and he let me want for nothing."
Thus ended Law's attempt to maintain the French party in Bengal. All hopes of a French attack in force on Calcutta had long since disappeared, and, under the circumstances, his capture was fortunate for himself and his comrades. Most of the latter were gradually picked up by the English. Law was sent to Calcutta, and left Bengal in 1762. He was now only forty-two years of age. On his arrival in France he found his services much appreciated by his countrymen, and was made a Chevalier of the Royal and Military Order of St. Louis, and a Colonel of Infantry. Later on he was appointed Commissary for the King, Commandant of the French Nation in the East Indies, and Governor of Pondicherry. Law's account of his adventures was commenced at Paris in 1763.[121] There exist letters written by him to the historian Robert Orme, dated as late as 1785, which show the strong interest he always retained in the affairs of Bengal, where with adequate resources he might have played a much more distinguished part.
We have seen a town besieged by a foreign army; we have seen the Court of a great Prince distracted by internal dissensions and trembling at the approach of a too-powerful enemy, and now we shall pass to the quiet retreats of rural Bengal, which even their remoteness could not save from some share in the troubles of the time. In those days, even more than at present, the rivers were the great highways of the country, but it needs personal acquaintance with them to enable us to realize the effect they produce upon the mind of a European. As a rule comparatively shallow, in the dry weather they pursue a narrow winding course in the middle of a sandy waste, but in the Rains they fill their beds from side to side, overtop the banks, and make the country for miles around a series of great lakes, studded with heavily wooded islands. Amidst these one can wander for days hardly seeing a single human being, and hearing nothing but the rushing of the current and the weird cries of water-birds; at other times the prow of one's boat will suddenly push itself through overhanging branches into the very midst of a populous village. At first all is strange and beautiful, but after a short time the feeling grows that every scene is a repetition; the banks, the trees, the villages, seem as if we have been looking at them for a thousand years, and the monotony presses wearily on mind and heart. It was in a country of this kind that Courtin and his little band of Frenchmen and natives evaded capture for nearly nine months, and it adds to our admiration for his character to see how his French gaiety of heart unites with his tenderness for his absent wife, not only to conceal the deadly monotony of his life in the river districts during the Rains, and the depressing and disheartening effect of the noxious climate in which he and his companions had to dwell, but also to make light of the imminent danger in which he stood from the unscrupulous human enemies by whom he was surrounded.
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