Page:History of the French in India.djvu/352

 328 THE STRUGGLES OF DUPLE1X WITH ADVERSITY. chap. ally. For this purpose he entered into negotiations with j Manakji, general of the army of the Raja of Tanjur. 1752. This chieftain readily accepted the terms offered, and having received a stipulated sum of money in advance, with the promise of more to follow, having likewise sworn solemnly to protect the life of the fugitive Nawwab, Manakji, on the night of June 11, sent an officer with a palanquin to escort him to his camp. No sooner, how- ever, had the unfortunate man arrived there, than he was violently seized, loaded with irons, and placed under a guard. The next morning a conference was held to determine his fate, at which Major Lawrence was present. There can be no doubt whatever that a firm persistence on the part of that officer, more especially on the second day, — after the English had become, by the surrender of Law, absolute masters of the situation, — would have saved the life of Chanda Sahib. Major Lawrence himself asserts that, in the course of the debate as to the manner in which Chanda Sahib should be disposed of, he himself was at first silent, but subsequently proposed that he should be made over to the English. This, however, was objected to, and no resolution was arrived at. The second day after however, when Manakji inquired from him whether he seriously desired to have charge of the prisoner, the English commandant passed upon him virtual sentence of death, by declaring that he did not wish to interfere further in the dispute regarding his disposal.* A few hours later Chanda Sahib was stabbed term, — of the English commander to Chanda Sahib, writes thus : — " Ter- the fate of Chanda Sahib has been rified at the commotions which very gently treated by most English would inevitably follow if he gave historians. The statement however the preference to any one of the of Orme, biased as that writer is competitors, he (Manakji) saw no against the French, shows how com- method of finishing the contest, but pletely it was in the power of Major by putting an end to the life of his Lawrence to have saved Chanda prisoner ; however, as the Major Sahib, had he chosen to stretch forth (Lawrence) had expressed a desire his hand. Orme, after alluding to that the English might have him in the contest between Muhammad Ali, theirpossession, hethoughtit necessary the Maisurians, and the Marathas to "know whether they seriously ex-
 * This indifference,— to use a light for the possession of the person of