Clive left Chandernagore on June thirteenth, his guns, stores and
European soldiers being towed up the river in two hundred boats, the
Sepoys marching along the highway parallel with the right bank. Palti and
Katwa were successively occupied by his advance guard under Eyre Coote.
But a terrible rain storm on the eighteenth delayed his march, and next
day he received from Mir Jafar a letter that gave him no little
uneasiness.
Mir Jafar announced that he had pretended to patch up his quarrel with
the Nawab and sworn to be loyal to him; but he added that the measures
arranged with Clive were still to be carried out. This strange message
suggested that Mir Jafar was playing off one against the other, or at
best sitting on the fence until he was sure of the victor. It was serious
enough to give pause to Clive. He was one hundred and fifty miles from
his base at Calcutta; before him was an unfordable river watched by a
vast hostile force. If Mir Jafar should elect to remain faithful to his
master the English army would in all likelihood be annihilated. In these
circumstances Clive wrote to the Committee of Council in Calcutta that he
would not cross the river until he was definitely assured that Mir Jafar
would join him.
His decision seemed to be justified next day when he received a letter
from Mr. Watts at Khulna. On the day he left Murshidabad, said Mr. Watts,
Mir Jafar had denounced him as a spy and sworn to repel any attempt of
the English to cross the river.
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