Page:History of the French in India.djvu/497

 RESOLVES TO ATTACK CHANDRA NAT! A R. 471 ratification at that city. The Calcutta Government, he argued, was an independent Presidency. For it to agree to a treaty with a dependent settlement was to 1757. agree to a treaty liable to be upset. He therefore refused to sign. Clive placed before him the only other alternative, that of attacking Chandranagar. This, however, he refused to attempt without the consent of the Subadar. But it was written that Chandranagar was to fall. The very next day a messenger reached the Subadar with the news that Ahmad Shah Abdali had taken Delhi. Seeing in his own mind the Affghans marching upon Bengal, the terrified Subadar at once wrote to Clive offering him 100,000 rupees a month if he would march to his assistance. Two days later a boat from Hijli arrived off Calcutta with the intelligence that three English ships of war with three companies of infantry and one of artillery were at its mouth, and that another, the " Cumberland," was off Baleswar. These two items of intelligence removed any apprehension that Clive might have had regarding an attack from the Subadar's army ; they appeared likewise to silence the scruples of Watson.* Was it considered that in giving them this increased force, and in paralysing for the time the movements of the Subadar, the voice of Providence had spoken out too clearly to be misunderstood I Meanwhile, Renault, having heard from his agents the acceptance of the terms of the treaty, had regarded the matter as settled, and had ceased to disquiet him- self as to the possible movements of the English. His surprise then may be imagined when his deputies, re- turning, brought him, instead of a signed treaty, the his final acquiescence on a letter from bidding him to attack Chandranagar. the Subadar, abounding in Oriental whilst it revealed to bim the real imagery, and which was interpreted mind of the Subadar, did not stop as a permission to act as he chose. his preparations. But the receipt of a letter the next
 * We are aware that Watson based day from the Subadar, positively for-