Law does not say much about the hardships of his flight; but Eyre Coote, who commanded the detachment which followed him, had the utmost difficulty in persuading his men to advance, and wrote to Clive that he had never known soldiers exposed to greater hardships. At Patna Eyre Coote seized the French Factory, where the Chief, M. de la Bretesche, was lying ill. The military and other Company's servants had gone on with Law, leaving in charge a person variously called M. Innocent and Innocent Jesus. He was not a Frenchman, but nevertheless he was sent down to Calcutta. From Patna Eyre Coote got as far as Chupra, only to find Law safe beyond the frontier at Ghazipur, and nothing left for him to do but to return.
From now on to January, 1761, Law was out of the reach of the English, living precariously on supplies sent from Bussy in the south, from his wife at Chinsurah, and from a secret store which M. de la Bretesche had established at Patna unknown to the English, and upon loans raised from wealthy natives, such as the Raja of Bettiah. He believed all along that the French would soon make an effort to invade Bengal, where there was a large native party in their favour, and where he could assist them by creating a diversion in the north. I shall touch on his adventures very briefly.
His first halt was at Benares, which he reached on the 2nd of August, and where the Raja Bulwant Singh tried to wheedle and frighten him into surrendering his guns. He escaped out of his hands by sheer bluff, and went on to Chunargarh, where he received letters from Suja-ud-daula, Nawab of Oudh, a friend of Siraj-ud-daula's, whom he hoped to persuade into invading Bengal. On the 3rd of September he reached Allahabad, and here left his troop under the command of M. le Comte de Carryon, whilst he went on to Lucknow, the capital of Oudh.
It is only at this moment that Law bethinks him of describing his troop. It consisted of 175 Europeans and 100 sepoys drilled in European fashion. The officers were D'Hurvilliers, le Comte de Carryon (who had brought a detachment from Dacca before Law left Cossimbazar), Ensign Brayer (who had commanded the military at Patna), Ensign Jobard (who had escaped from Chandernagore), and Ensign Martin de la Case. He also entertained as officers MM. Debellême (Captain of a French East Indiaman), Boissemont, and La Ville Martère, Company's servants (these three had all escaped from Chandernagore), Dangereux and Dubois (Company's servants stationed at Cossimbazar), Beinges (a Company's servant stationed at Patna), and two private gentlemen, Kerdizien and Gourbin. Besides these, MM. Anquetil du Perron,[[105]] La Rue, Desjoux, Villequain, Desbrosses, and Calvé, served as volunteers. His chaplain was the Reverend Father Onofre, and he had two surgeons, Dubois and Le Page. The last two were probably the surgeons of Cossimbazar and Patna. He had also with him M. Lenoir, second of Patna, whose acquaintance with the language and the people was invaluable. Law seems to have been always able to recruit his sepoys, but he had no great opinion of them.
"In fact it may be said that the sepoy is a singular
animal, especially until he has had time to acquire a
proper sense of discipline. As soon as he has received his
red jacket and his gun he thinks he is a different man. He
looks upon himself as a European, and having a very high
estimation of this qualification, he thinks he has the right to
despise all the country people, whom he treats as Kaffirs
and wretched negroes, though he is often just as black as they
are. In every place I have been I have remarked that the
inhabitants have less fear of the European soldier, who in
his disorderly behaviour sometimes shows an amount of
generosity which they would expect in vain from a sepoy."
Law has left the following description of Lucknow:—
"Lucknow, capital of the Subah[[106]] so called, is 160 miles
north of Allahabad, on the other side of the Ganges, and
about 44 miles from that river. The country is beautiful
and of great fertility, but what can one expect from the best
land without cultivation? It was particularly the fate of
this province and of a large portion of Oudh to have been
exhausted by the wars of Mansur Ali Khan.[[107]] That prince
at his death left the Treasury empty and a quantity of
debts. Suja-ud-daula, his successor, thought he could
satisfy his creditors, all of them officers of the army, by
giving them orders upon several of the large estates. This
method was too slow for these military gentlemen. In a
short time every officer had become the Farmer,[[108]] or rather the
Tyrant, of the villages abandoned to him. Forcible executions
quickly reimbursed him to an extent greater than his claim,
but the country suffered. The ill-used inhabitants left it,
and the land remained uncultivated. This might have
been repaired. The good order established by Suja-ud-daula
commenced to bring the inhabitants back when an
evil, against which human prudence was powerless, achieved
their total destruction. For two whole years clouds of
locusts traversed the country regularly with the Monsoon,[[109]]
and reduced the hopes of the cultivator to nothing. When
two days from Lucknow, we ourselves saw the ravages committed
by this insect. It was perfect weather; suddenly we
saw the sky overcast; a darkness like that of a total eclipse
spread itself abroad and lasted a good hour. In less than no
time we saw the trees under which we were camped stripped
of their leaves. The next day as we journeyed we saw that
the same devastation had been produced for a distance of ten
miles. The grass on the roads and every green thing in the
fields were eaten away down to the roots. This recurrent
plague had driven away the inhabitants, even those who had
survived the exactions of the military. Towns and villages
were abandoned; the small number of people who remained—I
am speaking without exaggeration—only served to
augment the horror of this solitude. We saw nothing but
spectres.
"The state of the people of Lucknow city, the residence
of the Nawab, was hardly better. The evil was perhaps less
evident owing to the variety of objects, but from what one
could see from time to time nature did not suffer less. The
environs of the palace were covered with poor sick people
lying in the middle of the roads, so that it was impossible
for the Nawab to go out without causing his elephant to
tread on the bodies of several of them, except when he had
the patience to wait and have them cleared out of the way—an
act which would not accord with Oriental ideas of
grandeur. In spite of this there were few accidents. The
animal used to guide its footsteps so as to show it was
more friendly to human beings than men themselves
were."
At Lucknow Suja-ud-daula greeted him with a sympathetic interest, which Law quaintly likens to that shown by Dido for Aeneas, but money was not forthcoming, and Law soon found that Suja-ud-daula was not on sufficiently good terms with the Mogul's[[110]] Vizir[[111]] at Delhi to risk an attack on Bengal. On the 18th of October he returned to Allahabad, with the intention of going to Delhi to see what he could do with the Vizir, but as it might have been dangerous to disclose his object, he pretended he was going to march south to Bussy in the Deccan, and obtained a passport from the Maratha general, Holkar. This took some time, and it was not till March, 1758, that he started for Delhi. He reached Farukhabad without difficulty, and on the 21st entered the country of the Jats. On the evening of the 23rd a barber, who came into their camp, warned the French they would be attacked. The next day the Jats, to the number of 20,000, attacked them on the march. The fight lasted the whole day, and the French fired 6000 musket shots and 800 cannon. The cannon-balls were made of clay moulded round a pebble, and were found sufficiently effective in the level country.
Soon after they arrived at Delhi, only to find the Marathas masters of the situation and in actual possession of the person of the Shahzada, or Crown Prince.[[112]] The Prince was friendly, gave Law money, and eagerly welcomed the idea of attacking Bengal, but he was himself practically a prisoner. The Vizir, too, could do nothing, and would give no money. The Marathas amused him with promises, and tried to trap him into fighting their battles. No one seemed to know anything about what had happened in Bengal. He spoke to several of the chief men about the English.
"I felt sure that, after the Revolution in Bengal, they
would be the only subject of conversation in the capital. The
Revolution had made much noise, but it was ascribed entirely
to the Seths and to Rai Durlabh Ram. Clive's name was
well known. He was, they said, a great captain whom the
Seths had brought from very far at a great expense, to
deliver Bengal from the tyranny of Siraj-ud-daula, as Salabat
Jang had engaged M. Bussy to keep the Marathas in
order. Many of the principal persons even asked me what
country he came from. Others, mixing up all Europeans
together, thought that I was a deputy from Clive. It was
useless for me to say we were enemies, that it was the
English who had done everything in Bengal, that it was
they who governed and not Jafar Ali Khan, who was only
Nawab in name. No one would believe me. In fact, how
could one persuade people who had never seen a race of
men different from their own, that a body of two or three
thousand Europeans at the most was able to dictate the law
in a country as large as Bengal?"