Page:A history of the military transactions of the British nation in Indostan.djvu/189

Book VII. rupees he expected should have been paid to him, and he left to enjoy them in oblivion and contempt.

On the 2d of July, two days after the conference at the Seats, news came to the city that Surajah Dowlah was taken, and the report excited murmurs amongst a great party of the army encamped around. The rowers of his boat, fatigued with excessive toil, stopped in the night at Rajah Mahal, and the Nabob, with his concubine, took shelter in a deserted garden; where he was discovered at break of day by a man of mean condition, whose ears he had caused to be cut off, when at this place about thirteen months before he took the fatal and furious resolution of returning from his intended expedition against Purneah, to the destruction of Calcutta. The injured man revealed him to the brother of Meer Jaffier, residing in the town, and he to the soldiers who were seeking him. They hurried him back to Muxadavad with the eager diligence of men who knew the value of their prize; and to recommend themselves still more to their employers, treated him with every kind of insolence and indignity compatible with the preservation of his life. In this manner they brought him, about midnight, as a common felon, into the presence of Meer Jaffier, in the very palace which a few days before had been the seat of his own residence and despotic authority. It is said that Jaffier seemed to be moved with compassion; and well he might, for he owed all his former fortunes to the generosity and favour of Allaverdy, who died in firm reliance, that Jaffier would repay his bounties by attachment and fidelity to this his darling adoption; who, himself, to Jaffier at least, was no criminal. Surajah Dowlah prostrated himself, and with excessive tremor and tears implored for life alone. But Meerum, the son of Jaffier, a youth not seventeen, fierce, barbarous, and in his nature cruel as Surajah Dowlah himself, insisted on instant death, Jaffier ordered the prisoner to be removed, and the soldiers who had taken led him into a distant chamber, one of the vilest of the palace, which they guarded in expectation of farther orders. Most of the principal men in the government were at this time in the palace, some to testify their respects, others to transact the affairs of