A History of Assam c14.121

c14.121

Chandrakānt escaped once more across the border. The Burmese commander sent an insolent message to the British Officer commanding at Goālpāra warning him that, if protection were afforded to the fugitive, a Burmese army of 18,000 men, commanded by forty Rajas, would invade the Company’s territories and arrest him wherever he might be found. This demonstration was answered by the despatch to the frontier of additional troops from Dacca, and by the intimation that any advance on the part of the Burmese would be at their certain peril. At the same time orders were sent to David Scott, the Magistrate of Rangpur, that, should Chandrakānt, or any of his party, appear in that district, they were to be disarmed and removed to a safe distance from the border. These orders do not seem to have been very effective, as soon afterwards the officer in charge of the district reported that he had been unable to ascertain whether Chandrakānt had actually taken shelter there or not. His ignorance was apparently due to the corruption of his native subordinates, who had been heavily bribed. Even the British Officer commanding at Goālpāra had been offered a sum of twenty-one thousand rupees as an inducement to him to permit of the raising of troops in that district.