Page:A history of the military transactions of the British nation in Indostan, Volume 1.djvu/254

246 dispition; for it was his resentment more than the regent's that he dreaded; and immediately made him a present of a draught on his treasury for 50,000 rupees, promising much more if he would reconcile matters, and divert the regent from insisting on the letter of the treaty. This the other assured him he would do, though nothing was farther from his intentions. He was in reality the most improper person that could have been chosen to adjust the difference. His views were, first by ingratiating himself with the Nabob, to persuade him to admit a large body of Morattoes into the city as the best means of deceiving the regent into a belief that he really intended to give it up according to his promise; and these military umpires would have been instructed to seize on any opportunity that might offer of seducing or overpowering the rest of the garrison; and if this iniquitous scheme succeeded, he intended to keep possession of the city, which he had formerly governed, for himself. If there should be no opening for this plan, he determined to protract the dispute as long as possible by negociations, during which he was sure of being kept in pay by the Mysorean, and did not doubt of having the address to get considerable presents from the Nabob. When this double dealing should be exhausted, he purposed to make the Mysorean declare war, knowing that he had too great an opinion of the Morattoes to carry it on without continuing them in his service.

The apprehensions of an immediate rupture obliged the English troops, who had proceeded on the 16th of June as far as Utatoor, to return on the 18th to Tritchinopoly; for the Mysorean had even threatened to attack the Nabob, if he offered to march out of the city in order to join his European allies, as he had promised. Their appearance, more than their remonstrances, produced an accommodation for the present. The Nabob made over to the regent the revenues of the island of Seringham, and of several other districts, impowering him to collect them himself; promised again to deliver up Tritchinopoly at the end of two months; and in the mean time agreed to receive 700 men, provided they were not Morattoes, into the city. On these conditions the Mysorean agreed to assist him with all his force to reduce the Arcot province. Neither side gave any credit to the other, but both expected advantages by gaining