Page:A Comprehensive History of India Vol 1.djvu/692

 058 ULSTUKY OF INDIA. [Book ill.

A.D. 1759. tion" — he hastened on for Patna, which was now actually besieged and in immi- nent danger of being taken, llaninarain at first endeavoured to make friends of both parties, and actually paid a visit to the shazadas camp, apparently for the

Theshaza- puroose of asccrtaininf; what terms he could obtain from him. Uitimattjly,

lia'a attempt.

on Patna. liowcvcr. On ascertaining that Clive had taken the field, he had no doubt that he would prove victor, and therefore bestirred himself to do away with the suspicions raised by his previous tampering with the enemy. His defence was valiant, and repeated assaults were successfully repulsed, though two l^astions were at one time carried. The result, however, was still doubtful, when the appearance of a detachment which Clive had sent forward under Ensign Matthews threw the besiegers into despair, and they abandoned the siege with the utmost precipitation. The confederates who had joined the shazada had been using him merely as an in.strument to accomplish their own ends. The Nabob of Oude, in })articular, though he had been the chief instigator to the invasion, only turned it to account by seizing upon Allahabad while the governor was ab.sent, and then, to shake himself free of all responsibility, would not even allow the shazada to seek an asylum in his territories. The unhappy prince, thus almo.st deserted by his followers, proposed to throw himself on Briti.sh protection ; but Clive, who saw how dangerous a guest he might prove, refused to receive him. As a mere act of humanity, however, he sent him a sum of money to relieve his present necessities.

ciive's The nabob's joy at this deliverance was great in proportion to his fears, and

he manifested his obligation to Clive by a grant which was equal in value to all that he had previously bestowed upon him, and which was destined to become the subject of much unpleasant discussion. Shortly after Clive obtained his dignities from Delhi, he wrote to Juggut Seit, to say " that the nabob had made him an omrah of the empire without a jaghire." The answer was, that 'the nabob never granted jaghires in Bengal; that Orissa was too poor, but that he might have one in Behar." Nothing more appears to have been done in the matter till the expulsion of the shazada, when the nabob, either recollecting Clive's application or having been reminded of it, declared his intention to use every means in his power to obtain an order from Dellii for a jaghire, because, as Mr. Hastings expresses it in a letter to CUve, he was " ashamed that you should do so much for him without the prospect of reaping any advantage to j'ourself by it." On a subsequent occasion, when Mr. Sykes was acting temporarily for Mr. Hastings at Moorshedabad, the nabob returned to the subject, and, after observing that "he had frequently had it in his thoughts but never entered seriously upon it till now," stated that Juggut Seit had fallen upon a method of obviating all difficulties by giving for the jaghire " the quit-rent arising from the lands ceded to the Company to the southward of Calcutta." This, he thought, "would inteifere the least with his government, and stood the clearest in relation to the Company's affairs."