Page:A history of the military transactions of the British nation in Indostan.djvu/280

274 The troops with Clive arrived at Muxadavad on the 25th of November. Meerum, dreading his resentment for the murder of the infant Mirza Mundee, had released the brother and nephew of Ramramsing from their imprisonment before his arrival, and received Ramramsing himself, whom Clive introduced to him, with much courtesy; to Clive he demeaned himself with every simulation of humility. Roydoolub, when pressed by Clive to march with him, continued his pretext of sickness, adding the better plea of the public business, which required his presence for some days longer in the city; but his apprehensions of the Nabob and Meerum were at this time encreased by new suspicions, which they pretended to entertain of him.

Mirza Sallee, the renter of the province of Orixa to the Morratoe Janogee, having been deficient in his payments and accounts, came to Muxadavad a little before the death of Surajah Dowlah, to whom he proposed some project for restoring that province to the government of Bengal. A Morratoe named Subut then obtained the government from Janogee, and he likewise had lately been at Muxadavad, where he contracted a connexion, supposed to be more intimate than it was, with Roydoolub: he was at this time at Jonagee's court, but sent forward his agent, named Chemnesaw, to manage, until he himself should come. Chemnesaw arrived at Cutteck in the beginning of November, and received the visit of the English resident there with much insolence, and his attendants talked publicly that a body of six thousand Morratoes were coming with Subut himself, who intended to march into Midnapore, and demand of Meer Jaffier the cession of all that country to the south of the river Piply, which anciently used to be rated as a part of Orixa. These discourses induced the English resident, and gave pretence to the friends of Meer Sallee, to represent Subut and Roydoolub as engaged with one another, Roydoolub to give the Morratoe the country he wanted, and the Morratoe to assist Roydoolub in time of need against Meer Jaffier: Meerum pretended to believe the plot; but Clive gave no credit to the imputation, and seeing that Roydoolub's mistrust of the Nabob was the principal cause of his unwillingness