Page:A history of the military transactions of the British nation in Indostan.djvu/151

Book VII. bastions, and inspired his own activity and courage into all who served under him. The immediate reduction of the fort was owing to the ships, and of them, only to the two in which the two Admirals hoisted their flags, whose fire did as much execution in three hours, as the batteries on shore would have done in several days; during which the whole of the Nabob's army might have arrived, when the siege must have been raised: otherwise the troops alone were sufficient to accomplish the success.

At the same time that the Nabob heard of the surrender of Chandernagore, he received more positive, but still false, intelligence from Patna, that the army, of Pitans, against whom he had asked the assistance of the English troops, were in full march to invade the province of Behar, and that they had engaged Balagerow, the general of the Morattoes, to invade Bengal. Frightened by this intelligence he wrote letters of congratulation to Admiral Watson and Colonel Clive, expressing the strongest desire to remain in friendship and alliance with them, and offered the territory of Chandernagore to the English on the same terms as it had been held by the French Company; but he ordered the division of his army, which had marched with Roydulub, to continue at Plassy on the Island of Cossimbuzar, 30 miles to the South of Muxadavad. This guard did not accord with his professions; and it was determined to try the sincerity of them by requesting him to give up all the other French factories and subjects remaining in his dominions. Nothing could be more repugnant to his intentions; for he had ordered his officers to protect the soldiers of chandernagore, who had left the fort during the attack; and by this assistance they had escaped an English detachment sent in pursuit of them, and were arrived safe at Cossimbuzar: however, he answered Colonel Clive with much civility, though with inconsistent excuses; alleging, that as a prince he could not persecute the distressed, and as a feudatory of the great Mogul he could not contribute to the destruction of Europeans, who were established in the province by the permission of so many Emperors; as if the same reasons ought not to have prevented him