Page:A history of the military transactions of the British nation in Indostan.djvu/199

Book VII. of the neighbouring districts. Here intelligence was obtained, that the several chiefs in this part of Behar had enlisted forces to assist Ramnarain; and spies reported that they had left Mr. Law's party at Benarez, which is by the road at least 140 miles beyond Chuprah, and that they were supplied there by Bulwansing, the Rajah of the district, who was dependant on Sujah Dowlah the subah of Oude. Farther pursuit was evidently vain, but certain of producing immediate hostilities with Sujah Dowlah, whose territory commenceth at the river Dewah, which disembogues into the Ganges 18 miles to the west of Chuprah. The Major, therefore, resolved to wait here for farther orders, and on the 12th received a letter from Colonel Clive, instructing him, as a scheme of Meer Jaffier's, to return to Patna, and endeavour, in concert with Mahmud Amy Cawn, to wrest the government from Ramnarain. The troops, leaving the baggage to follow, embarked early the next morning; and such is the strength of the stream at this season of the year, that they arrived at Patna by noon, although the distance along the course of the river is 44 miles. It appeared to the Major that the only means of executing his instructions would be to assault the citadel, in which Ramnarain always resided, and at this time only with 2000 men; but Mahmud Amy represented that there force was not sufficient to invest it so closely as to prevent Ramnarain from escaping by some of the secret passages, and proposed to defer the attempt until he himself should be joined by 1500 of Ramnarain's troops, whom he had engaged to desert.

But by this time Ramnarain had taken the alarm, probably by information from his friends at Muxadavad of the orders sent to Major Coote and Mahmud Amy, which, confirmed by the hasty return of the detachment from Chuprah, frightened him so much, that he now spared no attentions to the Major, and received his visit with much affectation of complacence. Two days after, the Major received a letter from Meer Jaffier, fraught with suspicions that Mahmud Amy had borne false witness against Ramnarain, as a pretext for levying forces, with the intention of seizing the government for himself. Enough has not been discovered of the secrets