his local officers might at any moment be instructed to take
vengeance on Englishmen found defenceless up country. On the 23rd of
March, Messrs. Sumner and Waller wrote from Dacca that Jusserat Khan
had refused to restore the Factory cannon, and to pass their goods
without a new _parwana_[125] from Murshidabad. It was therefore
still very doubtful whether he would assist the English or the
French at Dacca, and though the English obtained the _parwana_ they
wanted early in May, on the 9th the Council at Calcutta sent them
orders to do the best they could for their own security, and
informed them they had sent an armed sloop to Luckipore to cover
their retreat. They immediately sent down all the goods they could,
but as matters became quieter again they soon resumed business, and
appear to have had no further trouble.

It may be imagined that M. Courtin and his friends, knowing that the
English had demanded the surrender of the French Factories, had a
very uncomfortable experience all this time.[126] Unfortunately no
Records of the French Factories in Bengal are now to be found, and I
had despaired of obtaining any information about the expulsion from
Dacca, when, in the Bibliotheque Nationale at Paris, I came on a MS.
entitled, "_Copy of a letter from M. Courtin from India, written to
his wife, in which are given in detail the different affairs which
he had with the Moors from the 22nd of June, 1757, the day of his
evacuation of Dacca, to the 9th of March, 1758_."[127]

M. Courtin had married a Madame Direy, widow of a French Company's
servant, and the letter shows she was fortunately in France at the
time of her husband's troubles. As was natural, but inconveniently
enough for us, Courtin does not think it necessary to trouble her
with unintelligible and unpronounceable Indian names. Where
possible, I shall fill them in from the English Records, otherwise I
shall interrupt the course of the letter as little as possible. It
runs as follows:--

"Calcapur,[128] April 20, 1758.

"Word must have reached thee in France of the loss of
Chandernagore, which was taken from us by the English on
the 23rd of March, 1757, after eleven days' siege. I was
then at Dacca, and expecting every day to see M.
Chevalier return from his journey to the King of Assam.
Judge, my dear wife, of the chagrin and embarrassment into
which I was thrown by this deplorable event. The English
had had no idea of attacking Chanderna