Page:A history of the military transactions of the British nation in Indostan, Volume 1.djvu/339

Book V. Hyderabad, had failed in the payment of their revenues to the treasury; and when the French officers, as he expected, complained loudly of their own distresses, he told him that he knew no other method of satisfying their demands, unless by sending them to collect the revenues of the Soubah from those who withheld them: this proposal they very readily accepted, expecting, from the custom of Indostan, that they should receive considerable presents, besides the sums which they were charged to levy. Still it would have been difficult to have obtained Sallabadjing's consent for their departure, had not their own misconduct convinced him that it was necessary for the peace of the city; where, since Mr. Bussy's departure, the discipline to which he had accustomed them was so much relaxed, that they daily committed disorders, for which, the persons aggrieved, were continually demanding justice at the gates of the palace. As soon as the Duan had thus removed and separated the greatest part of the French troops, into several different parts of the country, he invented some pretext to persuade Sallabadjing, that it was necessary he should return without delay to Aurengabad; and even prevailed upon him, to permit no more than a small detachment of their Europeans and Sepoys to accompany him. He then instructed the governor of Golcondah, to furnish no pay to those who remained in the city, and to distress them by every other means, excepting open hostilities; and the same orders were given in the countries, to which the several detachments had been sent to collect their arrears. This treatment, so different from what the French had hitherto received, he thought would lead them, of their own accord, to ask their dismission from a service, in which they should find that nothing more was to be got. Accordingly the soldiers and Sepoys disappointed of their pay, began to clamour and desert; but the French officers stood firm to their duty, and contributed their own money to appease their troops. This resource, however, was very inadequate to the necessity, and the danger encreasing every day, they wrote to Mr, Bussy, that his immediate return to Hyderabad, was the only means, left to save the national affairs in the Decan. Mr. Bussy, not being yet recovered