Page:A history of the military transactions of the British nation in Indostan.djvu/173

Book VII. miles to the north of Hughley. Mr. Watts, immediately on his arrival, sent back one of his own messengers, who chanced to be in the camp, to Muxadavad, with intelligence of his own safety, and of the approach of the army. The Armenian Petrus, with the messenger from Meer Jaffier arrived the same day. The Tartar, with the grooms, soon found a boat in which they embarked, and holding the hordes with the bridles, lengthened, swam them all safely across the river; they joined the army the day after Mr. Watts.

Intelligence of their flight was carried to the Nabob early in the morning after their departure, just as he was about to commence hostilities against Meer Jaffier. The information overwhelmed him with astonishment and terror; for it convinced him at once of what he had hitherto disbelieved, that the English were confederated with Jaffier: and seeing now the whole extent of his danger, magnified by his own timidity, he determined, if possible, to separate their union; and immediately revoking the orders to attack Jaffier, he employed emissaries to treat with him. At the same time several of the Nabob's officers, on whose friendship Jaffier relied, were exhorting him to a reconciliation; to which he seemingly agreed, but, either through suspicion or scorn, refused to visit the Nabob. Such an objection at any other season would have excluded all further intercourse; but the Nabob, relinquishing his state, went to the palace of Jaffier with a retinue not sufficient to give umbrage. This visit produced an agreement, sanctified, as usual, by mutual oaths on the Koran. Jaffier promised neither to join or give assistance to the English in the impending contest; the Nabob to permit him as soon as peace should be restored, to retire unmolested out of the province with his family and treasures. This interview was on the 15th, and precarious as the reconciliation was, it elated the Nabob so much, that he immediately wrote in terms of defiance to colonel Clive, although he had not received the manifesto fraught with accusations, which Clive had dispatched to him on leaving Chandernagore. "He reproached the English, in the sharpest invectives, with the flight of Mr. Watts. Suspicion," he said, "that some trick was intended, had been the real cause which had induced