Page:A history of the military transactions of the British nation in Indostan, Volume 1.djvu/58

50 applied to Morari-row, the Morattoe governor of Tritchinopoly, who did not hesitate to declare openly against him. The English at Madrass were requested to protect the son and family of Subder-ally, together with their wealth, notwithstanding any menaces which they might receive from Mortiz-ally; who did not fail to demand this prey, and had the vexation to find it placed out of his reach. Several of the principal officers of the army, won by the friends of Subder-ally's family, engaged to effect a general revolt. On a sudden the army demanded immediate payment of the whole of their arrears, which at Velore they had agreed to receive at distant periods, and surrounding the palace in tumult, accompanied their demands with threats.

Mortiz-ally had not courage to stand this storm; but immediately determined to place himself out of the reach of danger. Women of rank in Indostan never appear in public; and travel in covered carriages, which are very rarely stopped or examined even in times of suspicion. He therefore disguised himself in a woman's dress, quitted Arcot in the night, in a covered Pallankin, accompanied by several female attendants, and in this equipage gained his fort of Velore without interruption. As soon as his flight was discovered, the army proclaimed Seid Mahomed Khan, the son of Subder-ally, an infant who resided in Madrass with his mother. The government of the province was entrusted to a Duan chosen by the friends of the family, and the young Nabob and his mother were removed from Madrass to Vandiwash, the fort of Tuckia-saheb, who had married one of the sisters of Subder-ally.

These revolutions in the Carnatic happened at a time when Nizam-al-muluck, having no longer any thing to apprehend from the politics of the court of Delhi, where he had obtained for his son Ghazi-o'din Khan the post of captain general of the Mogul's armies, was preparing to visit the Carnatic. He left Gol-Kondah in the beginning of the year 1743, and arrived at Arcot in the month of March following. His army is said to have consisted of 80,000 horse and 200,000 foot. Their numbers, and the reputation of their