tain Paton in the morning, or known to the minister, or other
respectable servants of the State, all holding out temptation to
pillage. Acts of plunder and ill-treatment to unoffending and
respectable persons in the city were every moment reported, and six
or eight houses had been already pillaged, and attempts had been made
on others by small parties, who were every moment increasing in
numbers and ferocity.

Several parties of the King's troops had openly deserted their posts
and joined the pretender's followers in the baraduree, and dense
masses of armed men were crowding in upon the British troops, whose
officer became anxious, and urged the Resident to action, lest they
should no longer have room to use their arms. At one time these armed
crowds got within two yards of the British front; and on Colonel
Monteath's telling them to retire a few paces and leave him a clear
front, they did so in a sullen and insolent manner, and one of them
actually attempted to seize one of the sipahees by his whiskers, and
an affray was with difficulty prevented.

Mostufa Khan, Kundaharee, who had command of a regiment of a thousand
horse in the late King's service, was with many others commanded by
the Begum to attend the young King on the throne; and he did so some
time after Brigadier Johnstone reached the garden, in front of the
baraduree, though he knew that Nuseer-od Dowlah had been declared the
rightful heir to the throne, and was actually in the palace. He said
that "he was the servant of the throne; that the young King was
actually seated upon it, and that he would support him there, happen
what might." He presented his offerings of gold to the young King,
and was forthwith appointed to supersede all the other wakeels in the
Begum's negotiations with the Resident. He merely repeated what the
other wakeels had said, urging the Resident to go up to the Begum,
since she could not come down to him. The Resident repeated to him
what he had told the Begum herself, and taking out his watch, told
him that unless his orders were obeyed in less than one-quarter of an
hour, the guns should open upon the throne-room; that when once they
opened, neither she nor her followers could expect favour, or even
mercy; and unless he, Mostapha Khan, separated himself from her
party, he should be hung as a traitor if taken alive.

Owing to the height of some houses and walls about the left part of
the position of the British troops, the guns coul