musnud, and pledged his word to support him. Immediately after the Rajah's death, Doorjun Saul, cousin to Bulwunt Singh, having gained over part of the Bhurtpore troops, murdered the uncle and guardian of the young Rajah, and seized the person of the helpless boy. Sir David Ochterlony thereupon assembled troops and a battering-train, and put them in motion for Bhurtpore; issuing at the same time a proclamation to the Jaut people of the Bhurtpore country, in which he called upon them to rise in defence of their lawful Rajah; and told them that the British troops were advancing to rescue Bulwunt Singh.
Lord Amherst and the Supreme Council, however, disapproved of all that Sir David Ochterlony had done, and sent him peremptory orders to recall the troops that were marching on Bhurtpore. Sir David was also commanded to withdraw his proclamation to the Jauts, and to tell them that an inquiry would be instituted by the British Government into the transactions which had taken place in Bhurtpore. It was clearly manifest that Lord Amherst and the Council wished to avoid any final arrangement of the Bhurtpore question, and preferred putting up with temporary inconvenience to the rushing into a new campaign at an unpropitious season of the year, and at a time when so large a portion of the attention and resources of Government were demanded by the war on the Irawaddi.[1]
But the veteran Ochterlony was too brave a soldier to be startled by the strength of Bhurtpore, or by any other obstacle, and much too high-minded a man to undo what he had conscientiously done, or willingly to abandon the boy after promising his dying father that he would protect him. Sir David tendered his resignation, declaring that he should be guilty of falsehood if he acknowledged any conviction of having acted incorrectly or with impropriety. Lord Amherst accepted the tendered resignation: Sir David retired to Meerut, with a mortified
- ↑ Macfarlane's "British India."
