Page:A history of the military transactions of the British nation in Indostan.djvu/367

 turbance. A few days after, the Nabob was informed that Mr. Watts and Mr. Scrafton were not likely to come to him, on which he delivered a copy of the letter imputed to Roydoolub; and, although he had before said it had been intercepted, he now confessed that his son Meerum had obtained it from Coja Haddee, on a promise of reconciliation. The letter "exhorts Coja Haddee to carry the affair in which he is engaged into immediate execution. Roydoolub will be with him in time; has written to Meer Alii to supply the expences; has half engaged Seid Cossim Ally Khan, and leaves it to the discretion of Coja Haddee to bring him over entirely; will assuredly comply with what was agreed upon between himself and Coja Haddee; has gained the concurrence of Colonel Clive by the means of Mr. Watts and Mr. Scrafton, and has taken the discharge of the tuncaws, and the arrears of the Nabob's army upon himself." The caution of Roydoolub during the confederacy against Surajah Dowlah, in which he never ventured to write, or even to send a message, rendered it scarcely probable that he should thus throw himself into the power of Coja Haddee, on pretences he knew to be fictitious; and it was still more absurd to suppose, that, living in Calcutta without means of escape, he should dare so heinous a falsity against Clive, whose severity he had learned to dread as much as he respected his protection. Clive regarded the letter as a forgery of the Nabob's and his son in order to exasperate him against Roydoolub, whom, if he should not punish more severely, they expected at least he would turn out of Calcutta, when they might plunder him, without controul, of his wealth, as the ransom of his life. But on the other hand it appeared strange that they should produce a letter, which, if not true, might be easily disproved by a strict examination of Coja Haddee on the whole series of his connexion with Roydoolub. Their permission of Coja Haddee's departure was already a strong indication of their apprehension of this test, and a few days after came news, that he and several of his followers had been killed in a fray with the troops stationed at Rajahmahal, under the command of Daud Khan, who was the Nabob's brother. His head was