. Holwell. This intelligence was brought
us about supper time, and an officer shortly after attended, to make
the selection of those who were to be continued in captivity.

Not apprehending that any importance could be attached to me, I rose
joyfully to go out with those who were being dismissed, when, to my
surprise, the officer told me in their language, very sharply, to keep
my place.

"But why do you seek to detain this young man?" inquired Mr. Holwell.
"He is not a person of any consequence among us."

The Moor shook his head.

"This youth is to be kept in the Nabob's hands because he is a friend
of Sabat Jung's," he answered.

It may be imagined how mortified I was to find my boasting of the
friendship of Colonel Clive thus turned against me. There was no help
for it, however. With a heavy heart we saw our fellow-prisoners
depart, some of them to examine their houses in Calcutta, others to
take refuge with the English fleet, which about this time dropped
down the river to Fulta, where it lay.

I heard afterwards that when the refugees arrived on board, and told
the woeful tale of what had followed on the capture of Fort William,
Mr. Drake and those with him bitterly repented of their cowardice and
desertion. Messengers, that is to say, Indian spies, had already been
despatched by land to Madras, the voyage thither being impossible at
this time on account of the prevalent monsoon. Others were now sent
after them, with letters recounting the whole of these transactions,
and urgently entreating the Madras council to despatch succour at the
earliest possible moment.

In the meanwhile, to pass over the next few days, Surajah Dowlah,
finding no further mischief to execute in Calcutta, after he had
plundered all the principal merchants, placed a force there under
the command of an officer named Monichund, and marched back to
Moorshedabad, carrying me in his train. My fellow prisoners,
consisting of Mr. Holwell and two other gentlemen, named Walcot and
Court (for poor Mr. Byng had been among those who perished in that
cell of death), were despatched separately in irons, by a boat up the
river.

If I had been traversing this strange, and in many parts beautiful,
country under other circumstances I might have found much to interest
me. But being, as I was, still weak and wretched from the effects of
the night passed in the Black Hole, and, moreover, very anxious and
troubled in mind about the fate of Marian (besi