[5] She was at Murshidabad when Siraj-ud-
daula marched from that place at the head of the army that took and
plundered Calcutta, and caused so many Europeans to perish in the
Black Hole; and she was herself saved from becoming a member of his
seraglio, or perishing with the lest, by the circumstance of her
being far gone in her pregnancy, which caused her to be made over to
a Dutch factory.[6]
She had been a very beautiful woman, and had been several times
married; the pictures of all her husbands being hung round her noble
drawing-room in Calcutta, covered during the day with crimson cloth
to save them from the dust, and uncovered at night only on particular
occasions. One evening Mrs. Crommelin, a friend of mine, pointing to
one of them, asked the old lady his name. 'Really, I cannot at this
moment tell you, my dear; my memory is very bad,' (striking her
forehead with her right hand, as she leaned with her left arm in Mrs.
Crommelin's,) 'but I shall recollect in a few minutes.' The old
lady's last husband was a clergyman, Mr. Johnstone, whom she found
too gay, and persuaded to go home upon an annuity of eight hundred a
year, which she settled upon him for life.
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