--but he was even a drunkard,
a vice forbidden by the Alcoran and foreign to the manners of
Indostan. To his great-uncle, the late Nabob, who doted on him to
distraction, he had shown, it was said, the basest ingratitude,
insolently taking advantage of the old man's affection to accomplish
his crimes and murders with impunity, and, if restrained in any of
his desires, to withdraw from the Court and threaten rebellion,
knowing that his uncle would yield anything rather than endure the
absence of his darling. At the present moment, it was affirmed, he had
quarrelled with and set aside all the wisest and principal men in his
dominions, and was governed by minions of his own, buffoons and such
creatures, sprung from the lowest class and promoted to high stations
as a reward for their participation in his guilty orgies. Such was the
young man, incapable of reason or mercy, and passing from one
transport of passion to another, who was now in full march with all
his force against Calcutta, having sworn to exterminate the English
from Bengal.

Immediately I found there was talk of resistance and fighting, I went
to Mr. Byng and begged to be allowed to serve with the garrison. This
offer he thankfully accepted, and in the course of a day or two every
other Englishman in the town either volunteered or was pressed into
the same service. Our regular garrison consisted of only two hundred
European troops, to which were added some Topasses, a mixed breed of
Indians and Portuguese, very suitable to be used as mercenaries, and
about a thousand of the black natives armed as buxerries, or matchlock
men. Out of regard to my having been the first to volunteer and to my
former service on board a man-of-war, I was presently appointed a
sergeant, and put in charge of a party of twelve men, assigned to the
defence of the rope-walk which joins the main east road from the fort
to the Morattoe ditch.

Besides this ditch, begun to be dug many years before at a time when
the Morattoe armies were invading Bengal, and never finished, there
was no fortification of any kind round the town; so that barricades
had now to be thrown up, and guns planted in the streets at whatever
points seemed most favourable for intercepting the advance of the
enemy. The plan of defence, so far as any plan was adhered to in the
confusion and panic which prevailed, was to defend these outposts as
long as possible, then to retire into Fort William itself and stand a
sieg