Page:A history of the military transactions of the British nation in Indostan, Volume 1.djvu/266

258 rupees. They protested that they had no view in taking the money, but to keep their troops from starving, who had scarcely received any pay from the Nabob for nine months; and as a proof that they had no intention of assisting the Mysorean in his designs, they said, that not one of them had removed his wife and family out of the city. Captain Dalton made them few reproaches, but ordered them to march with their troops the next morning to join the Nabob's army at Trivadi. The regent finding this scheme frustrated, hired two fellows to shoot captain Dalton as he walked on the ramparts, who luckily receiving intelligence of their design a few hours before they intended to put it in execution, sent a detachment, which took them prisoners in the house where they had concealed themselves with their arms. One was sullen, and said little, but the other confessed the whole, and declared, that three more were engaged in the plot, who had undertaken to watch the gate of the palace, and shoot Kiroodin Khan, the Nabob's brother-in-law, when he should come out on the tumult which the death of the English commander would naturally occasion; but these, on seeing the soldiers mrach to the house, had made their escape. The regent, when reproached for this treachery, denied that he had any knowledge of it. He employed, however, Morari-row to solicit the pardon of the assassins; and the friendship of the Morattoe being at this time thought very valuable, Kiroodin Khan granted his request, but did not reprieve the men before they had gone through the ceremony of being fastened to the muzzles of two field pieces in sight of the whole garrison drawn up under arms. Five days after two other Mysoreans came to another Jemautdar, who commanded 180 Sepoys at one of the gates of the city, and attempted to seduce him; but this officer, an old and faithful servant of the company, secured the fellows, and carried them to captain Dalton. The articles signed by the regent were found on them, which leaving no room for equivocation, they confessed the act, and were the next morning blown from the muzzles of two field pieces. This execution struck such a terror, that the regent could not get any more of his own people to undertake such commissions; and having remained quiet for some days, he at length pitched upon one Clement Poverio, a Neapolitan,