1783.—"The office given to a young man going to India is of trifling consequence. But he that goes out an insignificant boy, in a few years returns a great Nabob. Mr. Hastings says he has two hundred and fifty of that kind of raw material, who expect to be speedily manufactured into the merchantlike quality I mention."—Burke, Speech on Fox's E.I. Bill, in Works and Corr., ed. 1852, iii. 506.
1787.—"The speakers for him (Hastings) were Burgess, who has completely done for himself in one day; Nichols, a lawyer; Mr. Vansittart, a nabob; Alderman Le Mesurier, a smuggler from Jersey; ... and Dempster, who is one of the good-natured candid men who connect themselves with every bad man they can find."—Ld. Minto, in Life, &c., i. 126.
1848.—"'Isn't he very rich?' said Rebecca.
"'They say all Indian Nabobs are enormously rich.'"—Vanity Fair, ed. 1867, i. 17.
1872.—"Ce train de vie facile ... suffit à me faire décerner ... le surnom de Nabob par les bourgeois et les visiteurs de la petite ville."—Rev. des Deux Mondes, xcviii. 938.
1874.—"At that time (c. 1830) the Royal Society was very differently composed from what it is now. Any wealthy or well-known person, any M.P. ... or East Indian Nabob, who wished to have F.R.S. added to his name, was sure to obtain admittance."—Geikie, Life of Murchison, i. 197.
1878.—"... A Tunis?—interrompit le duc.... Alors pourquoi ce nom de Nabab?—Bah! les Parisiens n'y regardent pas de si près. Pour eux tout riche étranger est un Nabab, n'importe d'où il vienne."—Le Nabab, par Alph. Daudet, ch. i.
It is purism quite erroneously applied when we find Nabob in this sense miswritten Nawab; thus:
1878.—"These were days when India, little known still in the land that rules it, was less known than it had been in the previous generation, which had seen Warren Hastings impeached, and burghs[[186]] bought and sold by Anglo-Indian Nawabs."—Smith's Life of Dr John Wilson, 30.
But there is no question of purism in the following delicious passage: