"
X. That a further order was given, that every servant of the Rajah's
should be disarmed, and a certain number only left to attend him under a
strict watch. In a quarter of an hour after this conversation, two
companies of grenadier sepoys were sent to the Rajah's palace by the
said Hastings; and the Rajah, being dismayed by this unexpected and
unprovoked treatment, wrote two short letters or petitions to the said
Hastings, under the greatest apparent dejection at the outrage and
dishonor he had suffered in the eyes of his subjects, (all imprisonment
of persons of rank being held in that country as a mark of indelible
infamy, and he also, in all probability, considering his imprisonment as
a prelude to the taking away his life,) and in the first of the said
petitions he did express himself in this manner: "Whatever may be your
pleasure, do it with your own hands; I am your slave. What occasion can
there be for a guard?" And in the other: "My honor was bestowed upon me
by your Highness. It depends on you alone to take away or not to take
away the country out of my hands.
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