On the 14th of January, scouts brought word of the approach of the English. The Emperor consulted Law, who advised a retreat, but he was not deficient in courage, and determined to fight. The next day was fought the battle of Suan.[[115]]
"At the dawn of day we heard that the enemy were on
the march, and that they would quickly appear. No disposition
of our army had yet been made by Kamgar Khan,
who, in fact, troubled himself very little about the matter.
It was at first decided to re-enter the camp, so I put my
men as much as possible under shelter behind a bank, along
which I placed my guns in what I thought the most useful
positions. About 6 or 7 o'clock the enemy were seen
advancing in good order, crossing a canal[[116]] full of mud and
water, the passage of which might have been easily contested
had we been ready soon enough; but everything was neglected.
For some time we thought the enemy were going
to encamp by the canal, but, seeing that they were still
advancing, the order was given to go and meet them. The
whole army was quickly out of the camp, divided into
several bodies of cavalry, at the head of which were, on their
elephants, the Emperor, the Generalissimo Kamgar Khan,
and other principal chiefs. Scarcely were we out of the camp
when we were halted to await the enemy, everything in the
greatest confusion; one could see no distinction between
right, left, and centre, nothing that had the appearance of
an army intending to attack or even to defend itself.
"An aide-de-camp brought me an order to march ahead
with all my troop, and to place myself in a position which
he pointed out, a good cannon-shot away. Abandoned to
ourselves we should have been exposed to all the fire of the
English, artillery and even to be outflanked by the enemy
and captured at the first attack. We advanced a few paces
in obedience to the order, but, seeing no one move to support
us, I suspected they wanted to get rid of us. I therefore
brought back my men to where I had first placed them, on
a line about 200 paces in front of the army.
"The enemy advanced steadily. The English at their
head with all their artillery were already within range of
our guns. They quickly placed their pieces in two batteries
to the right and left, and kept up a very lively cross fire.
In a very short time, having killed many men, elephants,
and horses—amongst others one of mine—they caused the
whole of the Prince's army to turn tail. Kamgar Khan, at
their head, fled as fast as he could, without leaving a single
person to support us. The enemy's fire, opposed to which
ours was but feeble, continued steadily. We were forced to
retire, and did so in good order, having had some soldiers
and sepoys killed and one gun dismounted, which we left on
the field of battle. We regained the village, which sheltered
us for a time. The enemy started in pursuit. Unluckily,
as we issued from the village, our guns traversing a hollow
road, we were stopped by ditches and channels full of mud,
in which the guns stuck fast. As I was trying to disengage
them the English reached us, and surrounded us so as to
cut off all retreat. Then I surrendered with 3 or 4 officers
and about 40 soldiers who were with me, and the guns. It
was about 4 o'clock in the afternoon of the 15th of January,
1761, a moment whose malign influence it was as it were
impossible to resist, since it was that of the surrender of
Pondicherry,[[117]] a place 300 leagues away from us."
Gholam Husain Khan has left a graphic description of this incident.
"Monsieur Law, with the small force and the artillery
which he could muster, bravely fought the English themselves,
and for some time he made a shift to withstand their
superiority. Their auxiliaries consisted of large bodies of
natives, commanded by Ramnarain and Raj Balav, but the
engagement was decided by the English, who fell with so
much effect upon the enemy that their onset could not be
withstood by either the Emperor or Kamgar Khan. The
latter, finding he could not resist, turned about and fled.
The Emperor, obliged to follow him, quitted the field of
battle, and the handful of troops that followed M. Law,
discouraged by this flight and tired of the wandering life
which they had hitherto led in his service, turned about
likewise and followed the Emperor. M. Law, finding himself
abandoned and alone, resolved not to turn his back. He
bestrode one of his guns and remained firm in that posture,
waiting the moment for his death. This being reported to
Major Carnac, he detached himself from his main body with
Captain Knox and some other officers, and he advanced to
the man on the gun, without taking with him either a guard
or any Telingas[[118]] at all. Being arrived near, this troop
alighted from their horses, and, pulling their caps from their
heads, they swept the air with them, as if to make him a
salam; and this salute being returned by M. Law in the
same manner, some parley followed in their own language.
The Major, after paying high encomiums to M. Law for his
perseverance, conduct, and bravery, added these words: 'You
have done everything that could be expected from a brave
man; and your name shall be undoubtedly transmitted to
posterity by the pen of history; now loosen your sword from
your loins, come amongst us, and abandon all thoughts of
contending with the English.' The other answered that, if
they would accept of his surrendering himself just as he was
he had no objection, but that as to surrendering himself with
the disgrace of being without his sword, it was a shame he
would never submit to, and that they might take his life if
they were not satisfied with that condition. The English
commanders, admiring his firmness, consented to his surrendering
himself in the manner he wished; after which
the Major, with his officers, shook hands with him in their
European manner, and every sentiment of enmity was instantly
dismissed on both sides. At the same time that
commander sent for his own palky, made him sit in it, and
he was sent to the camp. M. Law, unwilling to see or to be
seen, in that condition, shut up the curtains of the palky for
fear of being recognized by any of his friends at camp, but
yet some of his acquaintances, hearing of his having arrived,
went to him; these were Mir Abdulla and Mustapha Ali
Khan. The Major, who had excused him from appearing in
public, informed them that they could not see him for some
days, as he was too much vexed to receive any company.
Ahmed Khan Koreishi, who was an impertinent talker,
having come to look at him, thought to pay his court to
the English by joking on this man's defeat—a behaviour that
has nothing strange [in it] if we consider the times in which
we live and the company he was accustomed to frequent; and
it was in that notion of his, doubtless, that with much pertness
of voice and air he asked him this question: 'And Bibi
Lass,[[119]] where is she?' The Major and the officers present,
shocked at the impropriety of the question, reprimanded him
with a severe look and very severe expressions. 'This man,'
they said, 'has fought bravely, and deserves the attention
of all brave men; the impertinences which you have been
offering him may be customary amongst your friends and
your nation, but cannot be suffered in ours, who has it for
a standing rule never to offer an injury to a vanquished foe.'
Ahmed Khan, checked by this reprimand, held his tongue,
and did not answer a word. He tarried about one hour
more in his visit, and then went away much abashed; and
although he was a commander of importance, and one to
whom much honour had always been paid, no one did speak
to him any more, or made a show of standing up at his
departure. This reprimand did much honour to the English;
and it must be acknowledged, to the honour of those
strangers, that as their conduct in war and battle is worthy
of admiration, so, on the other hand, nothing is more modest
and more becoming than their behaviour to an enemy,
whether in the heat of action or in the pride of success and
victory. These people seem to act entirely according to the
rules observed by our ancient commanders and our men of
genius."
Gholam Husain Khan says the victory was decided by the English; the following quotation from Major Carnac's Letter to the Select Committee at Calcutta, dated the 17th of January, 1761, shows how the courage of the British forces saved them from a great disaster.
"It gives me particular pleasure to inform you that we
have not lost a man in the action, but a few of the Nawab's
troops who had got up near our rear suffered considerably
from the explosion of one of the French tumbrils. It seems
the enemy had lain a train to it in hopes of it's catching
while our Europeans were storming the battery, but fortunately
we were advanced two or three hundred yards in
the pursuit before it had effect, and the whole shock was
sustained by the foremost of the Nawab's troops who were
blown up to the number of near four hundred, whereof
seventy or eighty died on the spot."[[120]]
Law continues:—
"The next morning, as the English army started in
pursuit of the Emperor Shah Alam, Major Carnac, from
whom, I must mention in passing, I received all possible
marks of attention and politeness, sent me to Patna, where
in the English Chief, Mr. McGwire, I found an old friend,
who treated me as I should certainly have treated him in
like circumstances. I was in need of everything, and he let
me want for nothing."
Thus ended Law's attempt to maintain the French party in Bengal. All hopes of a French attack in force on Calcutta had long since disappeared, and, under the circumstances, his capture was fortunate for himself and his comrades. Most of the latter were gradually picked up by the English. Law was sent to Calcutta, and left Bengal in 1762. He was now only forty-two years of age. On his arrival in France he found his services much appreciated by his countrymen, and was made a Chevalier of the Royal and Military Order of St. Louis, and a Colonel of Infantry. Later on he was appointed Commissary for the King, Commandant of the French Nation in the East Indies, and Governor of Pondicherry. Law's account of his adventures was commenced at Paris in 1763.[[121]] There exist letters written by him to the historian Robert Orme, dated as late as 1785, which show the strong interest he always retained in the affairs of Bengal, where with adequate resources he might have played a much more distinguished part.
We have seen a town besieged by a foreign army; we have seen the Court of a great Prince distracted by internal dissensions and trembling at the approach of a too-powerful enemy, and now we shall pass to the quiet retreats of rural Bengal, which even their remoteness could not save from some share in the troubles of the time. In those days, even more than at present, the rivers were the great highways of the country, but it needs personal acquaintance with them to enable us to realize the effect they produce upon the mind of a European. As a rule comparatively shallow, in the dry weather they pursue a narrow winding course in the middle of a sandy waste, but in the Rains they fill their beds from side to side, overtop the banks, and make the country for miles around a series of great lakes, studded with heavily wooded islands. Amidst these one can wander for days hardly seeing a single human being, and hearing nothing but the rushing of the current and the weird cries of water-birds; at other times the prow of one's boat will suddenly push itself through overhanging branches into the very midst of a populous village. At first all is strange and beautiful, but after a short time the feeling grows that every scene is a repetition; the banks, the trees, the villages, seem as if we have been looking at them for a thousand years, and the monotony presses wearily on mind and heart. It was in a country of this kind that Courtin and his little band of Frenchmen and natives evaded capture for nearly nine months, and it adds to our admiration for his character to see how his French gaiety of heart unites with his tenderness for his absent wife, not only to conceal the deadly monotony of his life in the river districts during the Rains, and the depressing and disheartening effect of the noxious climate in which he and his companions had to dwell, but also to make light of the imminent danger in which he stood from the unscrupulous human enemies by whom he was surrounded.