Page:A Comprehensive History of India Vol 1.djvu/620

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JlLST(JJiV 01-' INDIA.

[Hook J II.

A.D. i;.'.!. maiutiiiiied, and which fbniied one of the l^riglitest features in IiIk own distin- guished career. He admits that the concoction of the fictitious treaty "must have been repugnant to the feelings even of tho.se who deemed thems<.'lv<,'S compelled by duty to have recourse to such an artifice, " and that the affect- ^"tT ''**i *" ^"o termination of Omichund's life "must make an impression upon every well- (lecoptioii of constituted mind;" but still insists that, "while we give a tear to weak and

Omichund.

suffering humanity, we mast do justice to those who deemed themselves com- ])elled by circumstances, and by the situation in which they were placed, to repress all private feeling, and even to incur oVjloquy, in the perfonuance of their public duty." The select committee are thus represented, by a very- extra- ordinary flight of imagination, as actuated by the highest and purest motives, and submitting with rare disinterestedness to a kind of martyrdom, in order to secure a great public benefit not otherwise attainable. Was it really so? When the transaction is bared of all the extraneous matter with which Sir John Mal- colm has encumbered it, it will be seen that the only thing at stake was a sum of money. Twenty lacs of rupees promised by an article in the fictitious treats- satisfied Omichund, and induced him to remain true to his fellow-consjjirators. The same sum inserted in the genuine treaty would of course have had the very saine effect ; and therefore the only question to be answered is, Whether, in order to save a sum of £200,000 to the treasmy of the Nabob of Bengal, the represen- tatives of the Company and of British honour in India were compelled t^j commit fraud and forgery? It would be an insult to the understanding of the reader to argue such a question, instead of leaving him to follow the natuial impulse of his own mind by answering it in the negative. siir.ijah We must now follow Surajah Dowlali in his flight. His women, "with the

flight'and fifty laden elephants, were captured the very day after their departure, at Bog- capture. wangola, a town on the right bank of the Ganges, about twelve miles north- east of Moorshedabf.d. Pursuers were also upon the track of the nabob, but his swift boat had enabled lim to out-distance them, and, but for a strange fatality which attended his movements and defeated his plans, he seemed about to escape. Before setting out to encounter Clive he had sent a pressing in-itation to M. Law, who had immediately set out with his body of Frenchmen, and was within a few hours' march of Rajamahal, when, hearing of the disaster at Plasse}', he deemed it prudent to stop, and wait for fiu-ther intelligence. Had he proceeded he would almost to a certainty have joined the nabob and saved him, as there would have been little difficult}^ in defeating fm*ther pursuit, and reaching Patna. This was Surajah Dowlah's original intention, as he Imd reason to believe that the governor of Behar residing there remained faithful amid the general defection, and would give him an asylum. He had accordingly shaped his flight in this dii'ection, and arrived without interniption at Rajamahal. Here the boatmen, worn out with their excessive exertions, were pei'mitted to pass the night in the boat, while the nabob and liis two attendants sought