Page:A history of the military transactions of the British nation in Indostan.djvu/42

36 was agreed that the conference should be held in a tent pitched in an open plain, at an equal distance between the two camps; and that each of the chiefs should be accompanied by fifteen officers on horseback, and the same number of unarmed servants on foot, who were to take care of their horses; but the care of providing the tent was left to Allaverdy, who had seduced Beschir Pondit into this negligence, by offering to send his wife, during the conference, to visit the wife of the Morattoe. At the appointed hour the two chiefs advanced to the tent, each of them having selected for his retinue the principal and bravest officers in his army; and with Allaverdy were is favourites, Mustapha Khan and Meer Jaffier: at the same time was discovered moving to the right a long train of covered pallankeens, which were supposed to be the retinue of his wife going to the Morattoe camp. The two companies met, and entered the tent with much ceremony. What followed is variously told; the prevailing report was, that the conference lasted an hour, which seems impossible; for on a signal, 50 armed men rushed from behind the sides of the tent, which had been pitched with a double lining in order to conceal them; and, joining the officers who accompanied Allaverdy, began the work of assassination. Baschir Pondit with all his attendants, and three or four of Allaverdy's,were killed; but Allaverdy himself did not unsheath his sword. The annals of Indostan scarcely afford an example of such treacherous atrocity, and none in which persons of such distinction were the actors. As soon as the massacre was finished, a signal was thrown out, on which the army of Bengal advanced against the Morattoe camp, and were joined in the way by Allaverdy, and his officers from the tent, who led them to the attack. The Morattoes fled on every side in confusion; but reassembled again to the westward, and renewed the war with redoubled devastations and barbarity. Practice and encouragement at length brought the Nabob's cavalry to fight the enemy in their own way, and every day produced a combat or skirmish in some part or other of the country. This irregular war continued three months, when the Morattoes, finding their