198 WITH GENERAL LAKE'S ARMY. 
their camp equipage, kc, which, on the order for marching being 
received, they were obliged again to provide at a most ruinous 
expense. 
August 16. — ^At three o'clock I was up and dressed, and soon 
afterwards set off with the General. It was totally dark, and the 
road being over fields, we made the mussalchees precede us till we 
came up with the ammunition waggons, when prudence made us 
extinguish the lights. The road was covered with carts, bullocks, 
and troops, but the darkness prevented me from examining an Indian 
army on its march. It seems to differ from an European one, only, 
in being more confused. We got to the ground taken up by the tents 
about a mile beyond Secundepore, after a ride of nine miles. The 
day was sultry, but in the evening the sky was overcast, and it 
rained a little. As his Excellency determined to continue his march 
the next day, I took my leave of him in the evening, w^hen, in a long 
and interesting conversation, he expressed to me the anxiety that 
he felt for the success of the present contest. He said, that Lord 
Wellesley's conduct towards him had ever been noble and gene- 
rous. That from his first arrival in India, they had ever been on 
terms of friendship, and reciprocal good will, unclouded by any 
mean jealousy: that his Excellency had now completed his kind- 
ness, by vesting in him an unlimited power, both of drawing on the 
different treasuries, and making treaties with the native princes : 
that, consequently, he considered himself alone as answerable for 
the result ; which however he hoped and trusted would be such as 
to justify the confidence, which the noble Marquis had, on this occa- 
sion, been pleased to place in him. These praises of the Governor- 
General were most gratifying to my feelings, and convinced me that 
