of this detail differ. One says it was
stormed on the 21st, but if so the French would have been more on
their guard, and would surely have strengthened the second battery
in front of the Fort.]

[Footnote 51: Lime plaster made extremely hard.]

[Footnote 52: The Emperor at Delhi, who was supposed to be about to
invade Bengal.]

[Footnote 53: Orme MSS. O.V. 32, p. 11.]

[Footnote 54: Orme MSS. O.V. 32, p. 10.]

[Footnote 55: Sergeant Nover was pardoned in consideration of
previous good conduct. _Letter from Clive to Colonel Adlercron,
March_ 29, 1757.]

[Footnote 56: Captain Speke was seriously and his son mortally
wounded in the attack on Chandernagore.]

[Footnote 57: I cannot identify this name in the Capitulation
Returns. Possibly he was killed.]

[Footnote 58: Surgeon Ives says the booty taken was valued at
L130,000.]

[Footnote 59: Orme MSS. India X., p. 2390. Letter of 30th March,
1757.]

[Footnote 60: _Firman_, or Imperial Charter.]

[Footnote 61: The Mogul, Emperor, or King of Delhi, to whom the
Bengal Nawabs were nominally tributary.]

[Footnote 62: Orme MSS. India XI. pp. 2766-7, No. 111.]

[Footnote 63: Ibid., p. 2768, No. 112.]

[Footnote 64: Memoirs of Lally. London, 1766.]

[Illustration: MUXADABAD, OR MURSHIDABAD. (_After Rennell_.)]

CHAPTER III

M. LAW, CHIEF OF COSSIMBAZAR

A few miles out of Murshidabad, capital of the Nawabs of Bengal
since 1704, when Murshid Kuli Khan transferred his residence from
Dacca to the ancient town of Muxadabad and renamed it after himself,
lay a group of European Factories in the village or suburb of
Cossimbazar.[65] Of these, one only, the English, was fortified; the
others, i.e. the French and Dutch, were merely large houses lying in
enclosures, the walls of which might keep out cattle and wild
animals and even thieves, but were useless as fortifications. In
1756 the Chief of the English Factory, as we have already seen, was
the Worshipful Mr. William Watts; the Dutch factory was under M.
Vernet,[66] and the French under M. Jean Law. The last mentioned was
the elder son of William Law, brother of John Law the financier,
who settled in France, and placed his sons in the French service.
French writers[67] on genealogy have hopelessly mixed up
the two brothers, Jean and Jacques Francois. Both came to
India, both distinguished themselves, both rose to the rank of
colonel, one by his services to the French East India Company, and
one by