On entering the Palace we passed, before reaching the Durbar, through three great courts, each filled with a multitude of soldiers and attendants, and so came into a pretty flower-garden, planted with two rows of trees, and having channels of water running between the borders. At the end of this garden was a terrass, where the Durbar was held, and at the foot of the steps we were constrained to leave our shoes, and to make a salute in the Moorish style, by lifting our hands to our heads from the ground. On the terrass was a sort of square porch, open in front to the garden and on one side to the river, where the roof was supported on pillars hung with flowered muslin, which was caught up with cords and tassels of gold and silver. On the other two sides the walls were covered with shining white chunam, and ornamented with small niches, very regularly placed, while the floor was laid with fine mats, and on the wide sopha[15] was spread a carpet of three thicknesses of muslin. In the midst of this sopha sat the Nabob, his elbow resting on a cushion of brocade. He is a person of middle height, very black for a Moor, his eyes lively and piercing, and his countenance bearing an air of frankness. On his head was a little cap, his vest was of flowered muslin, and his Moorish trowsers of cloth of silver. On his left hand sat his brother Merzee Mundee[16] cross-legged on the carpet, and on his right, but at a greater distance, Roydoolub, Meer Mudden, and five or six others of his great men, the one nearest to him being a person of a dark and forbidding countenance, who pleased me even less when he smiled, which he did whenever the Nabob turned towards him, than when he wore a serious air. All this I had leisure to observe while the Nabob seated Mr Watts on his right hand, with me beyond him, and exchanged with him many compliments in the Persic language, addressing him as his dear friend Watch Siab, without having recourse to the interpreters who stood behind.
Oh, madam, you can’t fancy the sentiments that possessed me as I looked upon the man to whose tyrannic fury and insatiable avarice I owe it that my dear Miss Freyne has been torn from her paternal abode and is at this moment a prisoner among these pagans! As I regarded him the impulse seized me to spring upon him and threaten him with instant death unless he restored me my beloved; but even as I laid my hand on my sword I remembered that he might conceivably know nothing of the matter, and that such an outburst might warn the true criminal if he were present. I endeavoured to turn my glance from the Prince to the officers and guards that stood on either side, but he remarked the motion of my eyes, and said something to Mr Watts with a laugh.
“His Highness desires to be informed whether you’re always so serious of aspect, Mr Fraser,” says Mr Watts, giving me a private sign to make some civil reply, but this was beyond my power. I could only utter a confused word or two, but my chief was more ready than I. “I’ll tell him that you belong to a nation that was never known to smile,” he said, and spoke in Persic to the Nabob. While all the assembly was laughing to see me put out of countenance, the person that sat next me, and whose countenance I distrusted, leaned forward and said something smiling.
“Meer Sinzaun says that you come like a thunderstorm,” says Mr Watts to me. “He felt cold as soon as he caught sight of your gloomy countenance.”
“Pray tell him that thunderstorms bring worse things with ’em than cold, sir,” said I, wondering no longer at the dislike I had felt.
“Are you mad?” says Mr Watts, hastily. “Sinzaun is aiming to make his Highness believe you possess an evil eye.” Turning to the Nabob, he told him, as I learned afterwards, that though I bore a surly air I was well versed in military affairs.
“Aye,” says the Prince, “I would I had a regiment of men of his nation. If they were all as tall and as sour-looking as he, they would frighten away the Pitans by their looks alone,” and every one laughed at his jest. Shortly afterwards the officers of the guard appeared before the terrass to make salam, as they call it, each man at the head of his company, and after this Mr Watts took his leave, the Nabob bidding him farewell in the most obliging manner, but Meer Sinzaun testified by his looks the same dislike for me that I had conceived for him.
April ye 30th.
Alas, madam! I have still no news to give you of our adored Miss Freyne. It appears almost incredible that the minute enquiries and researches of Mirza Shaw should not have produced the slightest result, but so far he can tell me nothing, though once or twice of late I have observed about him an air of mystery that has made my heart leap with groundless joy. My sole comfort is that Meer Sinzaun has again been absent from the city, as we are assured in a sufficiently strange manner. Colonel Clive having demanded of the Nabob to give up Mr Laws and the fugitives from Chandernagore, the Prince sent them away as though to go to Patna, telling the Colonel that he had banished them from his dominions, but despatching to them secret instructions, as we learn, to proceed no further than Rajamahol.[17] They passed through Muxidavad in military array, as we ourselves beheld, having with them no less than thirty small carriages and four elephants, and Sinzaun questionless accompanied them, since we hear from Coja Wasseed that he saw him pass through Ballisore, taking with him a present of an elephant and divers jewels from the Nabob for Mr Bussey.
You’ll guess, madam, that this evasion points to a change in the Prince’s attitude towards us; and indeed the retreat of the Pitans from Delly, coupled with the Colonel’s demand for leave to attack the Sydabad factory, placed us for a time in the most imminent danger, which may be said still to continue. Finding himself no longer in need of our protection, the Nabob took occasion, on hearing that Colonel Clive had despatched a force in pursuit of Mr Laws, to give way to the most violent transports of rage, in which he drove our vacqueel with ignominy from his presence, and threatened Mr Watts with death either by beheading or impaling, unless we made peace with the French or withdrew immediately to Calcutta. Mr Watts met these menaces with the greatest calmness and resolution, refusing both of the Nabob’s conditions, and obtaining leave from the Presidency to send down the treasure and effects of the agency to Calcutta in view of a fresh outbreak of war, since the Soubah has ordered Roydoolub and his troops to advance to Palassy,[18] which is on the way to Calcutta from here. Considering that a rupture was now inevitable, the Colonel sent Captain Grant with forty Europeans and some Tellinghys to Cossimbuzar, with several boat-loads of ammunition concealed under rice, but these were stopped and turned back at Cutwah without being able to reach us. In this melancholy and mortifying situation Mr Watts has displayed the utmost resolution and intrepidity, attending every day at the Durbar (for when he did not appear there the Nabob sent for him to come), and supporting the insults of the ungracious tyrant with all the temper and calmness imaginable, although they have preyed so sadly upon his mind that he could not have persisted in his task but for the consolation imparted by the kind letters of Colonel Clive and the Admiral. These gentlemen have themselves suffered under the waywardness of the Soubah, Colonel Clive receiving from him in one day as many as ten letters, wrote in the most opposite styles, the whole of which he has answered suitably to their contents, and with all the punctuality and complaisance in the world. At last the Nabob, perceiving, apparently, that he was alienating those who might be of service to him, changed his behaviour suddenly, and sending for our vacqueel, presented him with a serpau, summoning Mr Watts also to his presence and caressing him, seeming to consider that this condescension should atone in full for all his insulting behaviour.