June ye 1st.
Oh, my dearest friend, Mr Dash and the Captain were right in their prophecies of the behaviour of the Presidency. Sure the wretch Surajah Dowlah must be rejoicing beyond measure over the terror his name inspires in European breasts! But why should the Council have begun by taking part with his rivals, insulting his messengers, and withholding the customary presents made to a new Soubah, if all they designed was to fall on their knees in the most pitiful submission as soon as he moves his army a step in their direction? I can’t write coldly, my dear. I feel the humiliation of the factory so keenly that my pen digs holes in the paper, and I wish it were a sword, and I a man to fight Surajah Dowlah with it. This day there came letters from Cossimbuzar to the Council, Mr Watts writing that yesterday week one of the Nabob’s captains, a Jemindar named Aume-beg,[02] encamped against the Cossimbuzar factory with a considerable force, which was strengthened later by more troops and two elephants. Prevented from forcing the gate by the coolness of the sergeant on guard, who fetched out his men and bade ’em fix their bayonets, the Moors called a parley, of which Mr Watts took advantage to get in provisions and water and load the great guns of the place. Nothing coming of the first parley, the factory continued to be besieged, and on the 28th of May Dr Forth was sent out, who had attended Ally Verdy Cawn in his last illness, accompanied with a mounsee,[03] or Persian secretary, to endeavour to arrive at an accommodation, and ’tis the demands then made upon him that Mr Watts has forwarded by special messenger. The chief of these is for the demolition of our new works at Baugbuzar, and of Mr Kelsall’s summer-house, which last they take for a fortress because, while the land lay waste, a parcel of shells was proved there from time to time. Mr Watts advises the granting of these demands and the appeasing of the Nabob by means of a genteel present, considering that, like his grandfather, who extorted from us in the course of his reign near 100,000l. in all, Surajah Dowlah designs to stop all our business until his rapacity be satisfied.
My Amelia will have learnt from my letters so much of the character of the wise and valiant persons who are our governors that she won’t need to be told what was the immediate impulse of their hearts on reading this alarming news. But for the sake, I suppose, of setting themselves right in their own eyes, what do Mr President and his friends, Mess. Manningham and Frankland, do? They call together the five captains of the Company’s forces here (Captain Colquhoun, of course, being one) and ask them very seriously whether they believe it possible, with a hundred men from the Calcutta garrison, to attempt the relief of Cossimbuzar against the Nabob’s army of 12,000 trained soldiers, supported by a train of artillery! You won’t wonder that the poor men declared the notion to be an extravagant one, but they added that the force at Cossimbuzar was sufficient, and the factory strong enough, to beat off the enemy if wisely handled. But the humane gentlemen to whom our destinies in this country are committed did not offer to repeat this hard saying to Mr Watts. In their care for the lives of our people at Cossimbuzar, they sent for presentation to the Nabob an arasdass,[04] or humble petition, couched in the most submissive terms imaginable, and yielding all he might choose to ask, while they promised prodigious rewards to the cossids[05] or messengers if it should reach Muxadavad in thirty-six hours. At the same time they gave orders for the destruction of poor Mr Kelsall’s pavilion and of the draw-bridge and outworks at Perrins Redoubt, and this is going on as I write. O’ my conscience, Amelia, if my pen were the sword I spoke of just now, and in a manly hand, it would not be against the Nabob I would turn it, but upon his honour the President and his two like-minded advisers.
And how, think you, my dear, are all our minds occupied in this moment of humiliation and disgrace? (Though indeed the three gentlemen at the head of affairs are in high spirits, regarding themselves, so it seems, as the saviours of their countrymen, and looking askance only upon the dejection and uneasiness of such persons as Mr Holwell and Captain Colquhoun.) Why, Amelia, with a play, which the young gentlemen are so good as to promise us a fortnight or so hence! The Play-house en’t generally in use but in the cold weather; but now the work on the defences is stopped (and indeed it’s well the Nabob is so merciful as not to demand the levelling of the walls of the Fort itself, for I think the Council would have pleasured him), and there’s nothing for the officers to do (for there’s but little drill at any time, and to begin it now might anger the Soubah), while the writers are idle for the general stoppage of business, even Captain Colquhoun says ’tis a good thing for the lads to have something to do that may keep ’em out of mischief. They had designed to present to us “Venice Preserved,” since Ensign Bellamy owns to a particular ambition to essay the part of Belvidera; but on its being pointed out that the season was too hot and the times too grave for tragedy, they were obliging enough to substitute a comedy, “The Conscious Lovers,” which I am very curious to see, as the work of one of the writers of my dear ‘Spectators.’ The first performance is promised before the rains, which are expected to begin somewhere about the 15th (fancy, my dear, a rainy season, such as Robinson Crusoe experienced!), and I suppose ’twill give us something to talk about when we are all forced to stay indoors.
June ye 7th.
I am writing in the morning, between breakfast and tiffing, to tell my Amelia of the extraordinary events that have, I trust, served to rid me of one at least of my persistent persecutors, though at a grievous cost, I fear, to my papa and to this place. Throughout the whole of Saturday, the day before yesterday, Mrs Freyne was vapourish and difficult to please—not spending the better part of her time in her own closet as usual, but wandering from room to room, taking up and casting down again now this piece of employment and now t’other, and crowning her uncertain behaviour by despatching a messenger to say she would not be present at Mrs Mackett’s rout, just when it was time to start. My papa and I were playing chess on the varanda when she joined us, still in her undress.
“You’ll be late, madam,” says Mr Freyne.
“Oh, I sent a chitt to say I’m not coming,” said she, approaching us to look at the board. “There’s a move I want you to show me, sir—that which you was discussing t’other night with the Captain.”
“When I’ve had my revenge on Miss, you’ll find me at your service, madam.”
“But sure you’re finished with your game already, Mr Freyne.”