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He also advised him to leave the field himself, and to retire to Moorshedabad, leaving it to his generals to annihilate the English, should they venture to attack them. Suraja Dowlah, at no time capable of thinking for himself, and now bewildered by the death of the general he knew to be faithful to him, and by his doubts as to the fidelity of the others, fell into the snare.
Watts, the agent of the Company at their factory at Cossimbazar; and sent his son Kissendas, with a large retinue, his family and treasures, to Calcutta. "Two or three days after his accession, Suraja Dowlah despatched a letter to Mr. Drake, our governor, ordering him to surrender Kissendas and the treasures immediately.
We have just gone on as for many years previously, as a purely trading company. "At his death, he was succeeded in the government by Suraja Dowlah, his grandson. I suppose, in all India, there is no prince with a worse reputation than this young scoundrel has already gained for himself, for profligacy and cruelty.
What may be their earliest history it is impossible to state. All that is positively known of them is that they once formed two of the three eyes of the god Siva, and that they were abstracted from the head of the idol during the loot of the Hindu temples after Clive's defeat of Suraja Dowlah, in 1757.
The fact that he had been deceived, by the forged treaty, was abruptly and brutally communicated to him; and the blow broke his heart. He shortly afterwards became insane, and died before eighteen months were over. Suraja Dowlah fled to Moorshedabad, where the remnants of his army followed him. At first, the nabob endeavoured to secure their fidelity by issuing a considerable amount of pay.
As the cavalry swept up, a flash of fire ran from a thousand muskets, from the top of the embankments; while each of the field guns sent its load of grapeshot, through the embrasures, into the throng of horsemen. The effect was decisive. The cavalry recoiled before the terrible fire, and rode back, with their brave leader mortally wounded. This blow was fatal to the fortunes of Suraja Dowlah.
Scarcely were all the fugitives within, and the gates closed, when the guns of Suraja Dowlah opened upon the fort; and his infantry, taking possession of the houses around it, began a galling musketry fire upon the ramparts.
The notorious "Black Hole," in which the Rajah Suraja Dowla cast 150 of the principal prisoners when he obtained possession of Calcutta in 1756, is at present changed into a warehouse. At the entrance stands an obelisk fifty feet high, and on it are inscribed the names of his victims. The Botanical Garden lies five miles distant from the town.
At one moment he talks of sending messengers to Suraja Dowlah, to offer to pay any sum he may demand, in order to induce him to retire; the next he talks of defending the fort to the last. We can get him to give no orders, to decide on nothing, and the other officials are equally impotent and imbecile." On the 18th, the army of the nabob approached.
His son, however, Mirav, a youth of about the same age as the deposed nabob, insisted that it was folly to show mercy; as Meer Jaffier would never be safe, so long as Suraja Dowlah remained alive; and his father, at last, assigned the captive to his keeping, knowing well what the result would be. In the night, Suraja Dowlah was murdered.
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