Page:A history of the military transactions of the British nation in Indostan.djvu/365

 Nabob, if he should employ the English troops at Cossimbuzar to protect them, and was equally unwilling to advise Roydoolub's family to remove without this aid, lest the women should be stopped, and the insult produce a fray between their retinues, and the troops by which they were beset; but the repeated requests of Clive at length prevailed on the Nabob to permit their departure, and they set out for Calcutta on the 12th, escorted by a guard of English soldiers. The next night but one the city was alarmed by a new tumult.

On the 4th of September in this year, began the Moharram, or first month of the Mahomedan year, of which the first ten days are especially consecrated to devotion. The palaces of the Nabob and his son Meerum stood on the western bank of the Cossimbuzar river, but at some distance from each other. On the night of the 13th of September, which was the 9th of the Moharram, the Nabob went to his sons in a boat, and observed the shore crowded with a much greater number of people than usual. Returning in his palankin, he stopped to pay his devotions at the principal mosque of the city, and had previously ordered his general, Coja Haddee, to station a sufficient number of troops to keep off the populace; but, on entering the enclosure of the mosque, found it filled and surrounded by Sepoys, amongst whom were several Jemautdars belonging to Coja Haddee, who, instead of the usual respect, kept their seats within, whilst their soldiery thronged tumultuously about the Nabob, and prevented his passage. He, nevertheless, suspecting no danger, was endeavouring to get through them, until one of the spies, who, as usual, attended his person, returned out of the crowd, and told him, that Coja Haddee had armed all his own troops with some bad intention; on which the Nabob waited until all his own retinue had gathered about him, and in the mean time many more were coming from the palaces. The Jemautdars of Coja Haddee then rose and went away hastily, and their soldiers likewise dispersed.

The next morning a Jemautdar of another division of the army informed the Nabob that Coja Haddee had armed his soldiery, and assembled them at the pavilion, with the intention of killing him in the tumult of a fray, which, in the night, might appear accidental,