“What!” I said. “Do you think the Nabob intends anything against us?”
“No, I don’t say that,” Mr. Holwell answered. “The present Nabob, Allaverdy Khan, has always been our good friend. But he is old and sick, and his nephew, who is likely to succeed him, is a dangerous young man, puffed up with pride and conceit. If he should come to the throne he is only too likely to find some pretext for harassing the Company.”
To these forebodings I paid but little attention at the time, though I was soon to learn that they were not idle fears. Mr. Holwell, after having ascertained that I was acquainted with the Gentoo language, offered to procure me employment under the Company in one of their counting-houses, as interpreter, which offer I gladly accepted for the time. I was to receive a salary of 200 rupees by the month, in addition to which Mr. Holwell undertook to procure me a dustuck from the Governor, enabling any merchandise I chose to trade in to pass through the province of Bengal free of taxes or duties to the Nabob’s government.
I soon found out that this privilege of trading on their own account proved, together with the presents they received from native merchants who did business with the Company, the most valuable part of the livelihood of the Company’s servants. Their salaries were so wretchedly small as to be insufficient for the necessities of life in this climate, where the poorest European is obliged to keep half a dozen black servants in his pay. For my part, I did not embark in trade myself, having no capital, but I accepted the offer of a Gentoo merchant to lend him the use of my dustuck to cover his goods, for which he paid me handsomely.
These Gentoos, as they are called in that part of India, are the original natives of the country, who follow the idolatrous religion taught by their Bramins, practising human sacrifices and other rites too vile for description. Over them the Moors have established their empire by force, but being a military race, incapable of business, they commit the details of their government to certain of the Gentoos, who collect their revenues, and amass great fortunes. They are very dishonest scoundrels, as I discovered, and at first, finding me new to the Company’s business, I have no doubt they overreached me. At the same time I received many handsome gratifications from them, so that I came to consider myself ill-used when I did not pocket a hundred or two rupees over a transaction involving some thousands. But in the course of a few weeks, as I began to understand the trade better, and to cut down their exorbitant demands, these men marvellously abated their complaisance. Some of them, even, who had professed to know no English, suddenly showed themselves to be conversant with it, and chose to conduct their negotiations with some other servant of the Company.
During this time I was lodged, upon Mr. Holwell’s recommendation, in the house of a respectable, God-fearing widow, Mrs. Bligh, whose son had recently gone up country to our factory at Cossimbuzar. Every day I attended at the counting-house, where I was placed under the orders of the Honourable Robert Byng, brother of the ill-fated admiral of the same name, and who managed the business of the Company’s investment in rice, one of the principal branches of their trade. The Gentoo merchants came to us there to make contracts for the provision of such quantities as we required, after which they travelled about Bengal, purchasing the crops, and sending the grain down the river in barges, to be shipped at Calcutta for England.
Another staple of the Company’s commerce, and the most valuable of all, is silk. The Bengalee Indians are renowned for this manufacture, yet they have no regular places set apart for it, but in their villages scattered up and down the country, every man works for himself in his own hut, doing no more—such is the natural laziness of this people—than just sufficient to support him. The merchants are consequently obliged to travel about from place to place, collecting the stuff, which they do chiefly at the country fairs, where the peasantry assemble once a year, bringing their work to be disposed of. It is these customs of the people which have made it necessary for us to set up an establishment in their country, like the Dutch at Chinsurah and the French at Chander Nugger; for unless there were some English on the spot to collect this merchandise and have it ready against the arrival of the Company’s fleet, the ships would often return empty, or be obliged to pay extravagant prices to the native monopolists of the trade.
While I was thus employed in the daytime, I seldom allowed an evening to pass without visiting Marian at her father’s house. Here I was most kindly received, and for a time my hopes ran high. But, I cannot tell how it was, I began presently to discover a change in Marian for which I could not account. While her friendship towards me was in no way lessened, but if possible increased, I gradually became aware that I did not possess her entire confidence. She would sometimes look up disturbed, I had nearly said frightened, at my entrance. At other times when we were in the midst of conversation her attention seemed to wander, and her expression became troubled, as if she had some secret anxiety preying on her mind. I cannot say how unhappy I was made by these symptoms, though I was far indeed from guessing at their cause.
Suddenly, in the midst of these private disquietudes, an event happened which cast a shadow over the whole community of Calcutta. Intelligence arrived that Allaverdy Khan was dead, and his nephew Surajah Dowlah proclaimed Nabob of Bengal.