The first affair in which Mr. Hastings became engaged was of a very delicate nature. Roy Dullub's family were refused leave to follow him to Calcutta, where he had remained after the Nabob left it. Mr. Hastings had hesitated how to act on this occasion, conceiving that the removal of his family, and their property, could not be effected with the same just pretence for interference as that which had obtained for Roy Dullub himself liberty to leave Moorshedabad.
Clive, in answer to this and other letters upon the same subject, observes, "Your apprehension of matters coming to extremities in case a guard be sent to bring away Roy Dullub's family is founded on reason. I never intended you should use force, but merely furnish them with a party of sepoys to escort them down to Calcutta. You are not acquainted with the connections between Roy Dullub and the English, and that they are bound not only to protect him but his family also. You may remonstrate with decency, as often as opportunity offers, that it is unjust to keep the mother and daughter from him. As for his brothers, it is not worth interfering about them. In short, I would have you act upon all occasions so as to avoid coming to extremities, and at the same time show as much spirit and resolution as will convince the durbar that we always have it in our power to make ourselves respected."
The determined conduct of Clive alarmed the Nabob into an abandonment of the plunder of Roy Dullub's family, who were afterwards allowed to join him; but Cajah Haddee and Cossim Ali Khan, two Mahommedan leaders, who were supposed to be attached to the ex-minister, were dismissed, and afterwards cut off. They were charged with real or pretended plots against the Nabob's life[228]; and, in the hope of inducing the English government to abandon the protection of Roy Dullub, Meer Jaffier informed Mr. Hastings that Clive and that minister were both said to have written to Cajah Haddee, to encourage him to the act of assassination. He also stated, that he had intercepted a letter from Roy Dullub to Cajah Haddee, to the following purport:—"That he had sent him a lac of rupees by Meer Allee, to forward the design then in hand; and advised him to take the present occasion to put it into execution; that both Mr. Watts and Mr. Scrafton had consented to the enterprise; and that he (Roy Dullub) had engaged to be responsible for your tunkaws."[229]
Clive appears to have been little pleased with the degree of attention paid by Mr. Hastings to this intrigue. "You have not yet[230]," he observes in reply, "been long enough at the durbar to make yourself acquainted with the dark designs of these Mussulmen. The moment I perused your letter I could perceive a design in the Nabob, and those about him, against Roy Dullub; and you may be sure what is alleged against him, and of his letter to Cajah Haddee, is a forgery from beginning to end. Roy Dullub is not such a fool as to give any thing under his own hand; his cautious behaviour, previous to the affair of Plassey, is a convincing proof of it. Besides, let his inclinations be what they will, he knows my attachment to the Nabob to be so firmly fixed, that he would never dare to intrigue against him, well knowing his life and fortune are in my power. How easy is it to counterfeit hands and seals in this country; and the Moors, in general, are villains enough to undertake any thing which may benefit themselves at another's expense. In short, the whole of the scheme is to exasperate me so much against Roy Dullub that the Nabob may have the plucking of all his money. The withdrawing of our protection from a man to whom it has been once promised would entail disgrace and infamy on the English nation.
"I cannot avoid entertaining the strongest resentment against the Nabob, if what you write about Cajah Haddee be true. The man who dared to accuse me of entering into schemes of assassination ought to have been punished upon the spot. After the treatment he received at Calcutta, he must have known that the English are endowed with sentiments of conscience and honour, which the Moors are strangers to; and I must desire you will inform him, that if he gives ear to such things as these, there will soon be an end to all confidence and friendship between us."
The future inquiries of Mr. Hastings left no doubt that the letter said to be from Roy Dullub to Cajah Haddee was a fabrication[231] contrived to injure that person with the English, and to afford a pretext for plundering or destroying all at Moorshedabad who were connected with, or attached to, the ex-minister.