rest were exceedingly wroth to see themselves not profiting by the negotiation, and losing the trade, or likely to be excluded from it; and they were the more so, because, as we have it upon our journals, during all that time the trade of the negotiators was not proscribed, but a purwannah was issued by Cossim Ali Khân, that the trade of his friends Mr. Vansittart and Mr. Hastings should not be subject to the general regulations. This filled the whole settlement with ill blood; but in the regulation itself (I put the motive and the secret history out of the case) undoubtedly Mr. Hastings and Mr. Vansittart were on the right side. They had shown to a demonstration the mischief of this trade. However, as the other party were strong, and did not readily let go their hold of this great advantage, first, dissensions, murmurs, various kinds of complaints, and ill blood arose. Cossim Ali was driven to the wall; and having at the same time made what he thought good preparations, a war broke out at last. And how did it break out? This Cossim Ali Khân signalized his first acts of hostility by an atrocity committed against the faith of treaties, against the rules of war, against every principle of honor. This intended murderer of his father-in-law, whom Mr. Hastings had assisted to raise to the throne of Bengal, well knowing his character and his disposition, and well knowing what such a man was capable of doing,—this man massacred the English wherever he met them. There were two hundred, or thereabouts, of the Company's servants, or their dependants, slaughtered at Patna with every circumstance of the most abominable cruelty. Their limbs were cut to pieces. The tyrant whom Mr. Hastings
set up cut and hacked the limbs of British subjects in the most cruel and perfidious manner, threw them into wells, and polluted the waters of the country with British blood. Immediately war is declared against him in form. That war sets the whole country in a blaze; and then other parties begin to appear upon the scene, whose transactions you will find yourselves deeply concerned in hereafter.
As soon as war was declared against Cossim, it was necessary to resolve to put up another Nabob, and to have another revolution: and where do they resort, but to the man whom, for his alleged tyranny, for his incapacity, for the numberless iniquities he was said to have committed, and for his total unfitness and disinclination to all the duties of government, they had dethroned? This very man they take up again, to place on the throne from which they had about two years before removed him, and for the effecting of which they had committed so many iniquities. Even this revolution was not made without being paid for. According to the usual order of procession, in which the youngest walk first, first comes the Company; and the Company had secured to it in perpetuity those provinces which Cossim Ali Khân had ceded, as it was thought, rather in the way of mortgage than anything else. Then, under the name of compensation for sufferings to the people concerned in the trade, and in the name of donation to an army and a navy which had little to do in this affair, they tax him—what sum do you think? They tax that empty and undone treasury of that miserable and undone country 500,000l. for a private emolument to themselves,—for the compensation for this iniquitous trade,—for the compen
sation for abuses of which he was neither the author nor the abettor, they tax this miserable prince 500,000l. That sum was given to individuals. Now comes the Company at home, which, on hearing this news, was all inflamed. The Directors were on fire. They were shocked at it, and particularly at this donation to the army and navy. They resolved they would give it no countenance and support. In the mean time the gentlemen did not trouble their heads upon that subject, but meant to exact and get their 500,000l. as they could.
Here was a third revolution, bought at this amazing sum, and this poor, miserable prince first dragged from Moorshedabad to Calcutta, then dragged back from Calcutta to Moorshedabad, the sport of fortune and the plaything of avarice. This poor man is again set up, but is left with no authority: his troops limited,—his person, everything about him, in a manner subjugated,—a British Resident the master of his court: he is set up as a pageant on this throne, with no other authority but what would be sufficient to give a countenance to presents, gifts, and donations. That authority was always left, when all the rest was taken away. One would have thought that this revolution might have satisfied these gentlemen, and that the money gained by it would have been sufficient. No. The partisans of Cossim Ali wanted another revolution. The partisans of the other side wished to have something more done in the present. They now began to think that to depose Cossim instantly, and to sell him to another, was too much at one time,—especially as Cossim Ali was a man of vigor and resolution, carrying on a fierce war against them. But what do you think they did? They began to see, from the
example of Cossim Ali, that the lieutenancy, the ministry of the king, was a good thing to be sold, and the sale of that might turn out as good a thing as the sale of the prince.
For this office there were two rival candidates, persons of great consideration, in Bengal: one, a principal Mahomedan, called Mahomed Reza Khân, a man of high authority, great piety in his own religion, great learning in the law, of the very first class of Mahomedan nobility; but at the same time, on all these accounts, he was abhorred and dreaded by the Nabob, who necessarily feared that a man of Mahomed Reza Khân's description would be considered as better entitled and fitter for his seat, as Nabob of the provinces. To balance him, there was another man, known by the name of the Great Rajah Nundcomar. This man was accounted the highest of his caste, and held the same rank among the Gentoos that Mahomed Reza Khân obtained among the Mahomedans. The prince on the throne had no jealousy of Nundcomar, because he knew, that, as a Gentoo, he could not aspire to the office of Subahdar. For that reason he was firmly attached to him; he might depend completely on his services; he was his against Mahomed Reza Khân, and against the whole world. There was, however, a flaw in the Nabob's title, which it was necessary should be hid. And perhaps it lay against Mahomed Reza Khân as well as him. But it was a source of apprehension to the Nabob, and contributed to make him wish to keep all Mahomedan influence at a distance. For he was a Syed, that is to say, a descendant of Mahomet, and as such, though of the only acknowledged nobility among Mussulmen, would be by that circumstance
excluded, by the known laws of the Mogul empire, from being Subahdar in any of the Mogul provinces, in case the revival of the constitution of that empire should ever again take place.
An auction was now opened before the English Council at Calcutta. Mahomed Reza Khân bid largely; Nundcomar bid largely. The circumstances of these two rivals at the Nabob court were equally favorable to the pretensions of each. But the preponderating merits of Mahomed Reza Khân, arising from the subjection in which he was likely to keep the Nabob, and make him fitter for the purpose of continued exactions, induced the Council to take his money, which amounted to about 220,000l. Be the sum paid what it may, it was certainly a large one; in consequence of which the Council attempted to invest Mahomed Reza Khân with the office of Naib Subah, or Deputy Viceroy. As to Nundcomar, they fell upon him with a vengeful fury. He fought his battle as well as he could; he opposed bribe to bribe, eagle to eagle; but at length he was driven to the wall. Some received his money, but did him no service in return; others, more conscientious, refused to receive it; and in this battle of bribes he was vanquished. A deputation was sent from Calcutta to the miserable Nabob, to tear Nundcomar, his only support, from his side, and to put the object of all his terrors, Mahomed Reza Khân, in his place.
Thus began a new division that split the Presidency into violent factions; but the faction which adhered to Nundcomar was undoubtedly the weakest. That most miserable of men, Mir Jaffier Ali Khân, clinging, as to the last pillar, to Nundcomar, trembling at Mahomed Reza Khân, died in the struggle,