my reach, to kill as many people
as I could, and to die on my guns when I had used up all
my ammunition; that this was also the intention of my companions,
who preferred to die thus, like brave men, rather than
to be exposed to the ignominies and indignities that we should
undergo if we allowed ourselves to be made prisoners by the
people of Kasim All Khan. The timid Raja, threatened by
both parties, found himself in the utmost embarrassment, for
Sheikh Faiz Ulla, at the gates of his town, put, as it were,
his country under contribution, and demanded from him,
with all imaginable insolence, that he should deliver us up
to him, a thing which the Raja found difficult to do.

"Some days passed in this way, during which we had
frequent alarms, but the letters I received from Murshidabad
filled every one with perplexity. The English sent me
people on their own account. One of my private friends,[161]
whom I had been so fortunate as to oblige on a similar
occasion, wrote me not to trouble myself about my boats or
my effects, but to come at once to him, and he would see
that they restored or paid for my property, and that they
gave me all that I might need. The orders received by
Sheikh Faiz Ulla and the Raja at the same time, ordered the
one to leave me in peace and the other to furnish me with
everything I wanted. This put my mind in a condition of
serenity to which it had long been a stranger, and threw my
enemies into much confusion. They proposed that I should
resume possession of my boats. I knew, with absolute
certainty, that they had been half looted, still I accepted
them on condition they were brought to Dinajpur. They
did not wish, to do this; but next morning after reflection
they consented, when, in my turn, I declined, and asked only
for provisions and other things necessary for my journey.
This they had the harshness to refuse, doubtless because they
thought that I, being destitute of everything, would have to
go down by whatever route they pleased. I would not
trust them in anything, fearing treachery.

"At last, without linen, without clothes, except what we
had on our bodies, on the 1st of March, the seventeenth day
after our retreat[162] we set out with our arms and our two
Swedish guns to go to Murshidabad to the English, from
whom I had demanded the honours of war.