to provide myself with a parwana, or passport, signed by Siraj-ud-daula, allowing me to go where I pleased.  That Prince had recalled M. Law to him, but too late, for I felt certain he could not rejoin him in time to save him or to check the progress of his enemies.  I was in a hurry therefore to go and help to save him if that were possible, taking care, however, to choose a route by which I could escape if, as I thought probable, he should have succumbed beforehand to the efforts of the English, and the treason of his subjects.

“It was then the 22nd of June when I started with about 35 boats,[129] MM.  Chevalier, Brayer [possibly a relation of the M. Brayer who commanded at Patna], Gourlade, the surgeon, and an Augustine Father, Chaplain of the Factory, 8 European soldiers, of whom several were old and past service, 17 topass gunners, 4 or 5 of the Company’s servants, and about 25 or 30 peons.[130] There, my dear wife, is the troop with which thou seest me start upon my adventures.[131] To these, however, should be added my Christian clerks, my domestics, and even my cook, all of whom I dressed and armed as soldiers to assist me in what I expected to be a losing game, and which, in fact, had results the most disastrous in the world for my personal interests.

“It was not till seven or eight days after I had set out with this fine troop that I learned there had been a battle at Plassey between the English and the Nawab, in which the latter had been defeated and forced to flee, and that Jafar Ali Khan, his maternal uncle,[132] had been enthroned in his place.  This report, though likely enough as far as I could judge, did not come from a source so trustworthy that I could rely on it with entire faith.  Accordingly I did not yet abandon the route which I had proposed to myself; in fact, I followed it for some days more, and almost as far as the mouth of the Patna River.[133] There I learned, beyond possibility of doubt, that Siraj-ud-daula had been captured, conducted to Murshidabad, and there massacred; that he had just missed being rejoined by M. Law, who was coming to meet him, and could easily have done so if he had followed the instructions given him and had been willing to march only three hours longer; and that the English had sent a body of troops towards Patna to capture or destroy M. Law if possible.”

We have seen in a previous chapter the real reasons why Law was unable to rejoin Siraj-ud-daula in time for the battle.

  “I now saw that a junction with him had become impossible,
  unless I determined to run the most evident risk of
  losing my liberty and all I had.”

It appears that Courtin had the Company’s effects, as well as his own private property and that of his companions, on board his little fleet.