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.”

We learn from the correspondence between Mr. Scrafton and Clive, that Drake, the cowardly Governor of Calcutta, very naturally could not understand what was meant by this claim to the honours of war.[163]

“My guns were conducted by land by a small detachment, the command of which I gave to M. Chevalier, and we embarked on some small boats belonging to the Raja, in which we had hardly room to move.

“I was not yet at the end of my troubles, for on the 3rd of March, after dinner, as I was getting back into my boat, one of the boatmen, wishing to put down a gun, managed to let it off, and sent a bullet through my left shoulder.  It passed through the clavicle between the sinew and the bone.  Luckily the blow was broken by a button which the bullet first struck; still it passed almost completely through the shoulder and lodged under the skin, which had to be opened behind the shoulder to extract it and also the wad.  However unfortunate this wound was, I ought to be very thankful to God that it was so safely directed, and for the further good fortune of finding with one of my people sufficient ointment for the surgeon, who was quite destitute of all necessaries, to dress my shoulder until the ninth day after, when we arrived at Murshidabad.[164] This wound caused me much suffering for the first few days, but, thanks to the Lord, in thirty-two or thirty-three days it was quite healed and without any bad effects.

“We rested ourselves from our fatigue till the 20th at my friend’s house, when, with his concurrence and in response to their offers, I went to the Dutch gentlemen at Cossimbazar, where M. Vernet, their chief and an old friend of mine, received us with the greatest kindness.  It is from their Settlement that I write to thee, my dear wife.  Until the ships sail for England I shall continue to write daily, and tell thee everything that is of interest.[165]