Page:A Comprehensive History of India Vol 1.djvu/570

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o.'K) ' JJJSTOl'tV or INDIA. fHooK III.

A.D 17.16. their roofs, a terrace resembling ramparts. These, however, were complett^ly overlooked from without by Vjuildings at the di.starice of only 100 yanJfl. The

Mr Watts cannoii were still more defective than the works, most of them b -ing honey-

by tiio combed, and the ammunition was sufficient for^only GOO charges. The nab^jb, immediately on arriving, sent a mes.sage for Mi-. W'^atts, who oVjeyed, after obtaining assurance of personal protection. He was received with insfjlena; and invectives, and ordered to sign a j)aper, importing that the pr&sidency of Calcutta should, within fifteen days, level any new works they had raised, deliver up all government tenants under their protection, and refund whatever the revenue might have lost by the granting of dustuks or pas.sports of trade to parties not entitled to them. Mr. Watts, alarmed for his life, signed the paper, and the two other members of the council being sent for, imitated his example. No terms of capitulation were made, and a party of the nabob's

• troops took possession of the place without opposition. Their orders were to

seal up what effects they found ; but they disobeyed, and stole the greater, part. The soldiers in the factory, after enduring three days of such contumely, that the ensign in command of them went mad and shot himself, were imprisoned at Moorshedabad. One of the members of council, and the junior servants of the factory, were allowed to retire to the Dutch and French factories; but Mr. Watts ^d the other member, instead of being sent, as they expected, to communicate the nabob's resolves to the presidency, were detained in the camp, and told that they were to accompany the nabob himself to Calcutta. This was the first intimation they received of his determination to attack it.

Dilatory The extreme violence and injustice exhibited by the nabob at the very outset

prepara- o %i

tioiisofthe must havc made it almost palpable to the minds of the presidency that nothing less than the complete destruction of the settlement was aimed at ; and yet, in the vafei hope of deprecating his wrath, before the final step was taken, letters were daily despatched to Mr. Watts, instructing him to express their readiness to demolish everything that could be considered a recent addition to their forti- fications. The letters were probably intercepted by the nabob, as they never reached Mr. Watts ; but the presidency, while writing them, could not well act at variance with the offer they contained, and thus nearly three weeks passed away without any preparation against the coming danger. Had a proper use been made of this intervening period, by applying for reinforcements to the other presidencies, and making the most of the means of defence at their disposal, the governor and council might have set the nabob at defiance, and given the first example of what a mere handful of our countrjTnen can achieve, when true heroism inspires them, against mjTiads of native Indians. Unfortunately neither the Eiu"opean soldiers nor civilians in Bengal were, at that period, ani- mated by that spirit which in our own times has been so illustriously displaced. Wlien, at length, the struggle arrived they were far less di.sposed to face it than to flee from it.