Calcutta from falling into the hands of the enemy. Application for aid was therefore made to the Dutch and French authorities, but from neither was any obtained.
The answer of the Dutch was an unqualified refusal; while the French, less dogged but more insolent, offered to join the English, if the latter would quit Calcutta and remove their garrison and effects to the French settlement of Chandernagore.
In the meantime the Soubahdar was advancing, and the celerity of his movements relieved the English from the perplexities of long suspense. Within a very few days after the fall of Cossimbazar became known, the enemy's guns were heard at Calcutta. The usual method of calming the angry feelings of Eastern princes was resorted to: a sum of money was tendered in purchase of the Soubahdar's absence, but refused. Some show of resistance followed; but there was little more than show.
The means of defence were indeed small; but had they been greater, they would probably have been vain, there being no one competent to direct them effectually. Some of the military officers, and among them those of the highest rank, are represented as notoriously incompetent, and their deficiencies were not counterbalanced by the wisdom or vigour of the civil authorities. It is a small reproach to the civil and commercial servants of the Company that they were generally deficient in military knowledge and skill; but many of them seemed to have been no less deficient in energy, presence of mind, and a regard to the most obvious demands of duty.
The natural result of such a state of affairs was, that, while the thunder of the enemy roared without, insubordination, division, and distraction were aiding him within. All authority seemed to have been at an end. "From the time," says an eye-witness, "that we were confined to the defence of the fort itself, nothing was to be seen but disorder, riot, and confusion. Everybody was officious
