this, however, as it may, Meer Causim, fearful of the issue, effected his escape to Rohilla, and for the present all communication between the Vizier and the Company was broken off.

By this time the answer to Major Munro's despatch had arrived, and a definitive treaty with the Emperor was drawn up and ratified. It secured the possession of Gauzeepore, and the rest of the territories of the Rajah of Benares to the Company, who, on their part, engaged to conquer for the Emperor, Allahabad and the other dominions of Shujah Dowla; while the Emperor undertook at some subsequent period to refund the expenses of the war out of the royal revenues. The troops were immediately put in motion, but ere they had effected any important purpose, fresh revolutions occurred in Bengal, which led to a total change of purpose. Meer Jaffier, who, on the retreat of the confederates from Buxar, had returned, at the earnest request of the English, to Calcutta, was seized with a dangerous distemper. In spite of his weak state, he was daily harassed by the members of Council for fresh advances of money, the public requiring him to pay, in addition to former obligations, five lacs of rupees monthly during the continuance of the war, and individuals swelling their claims to the enormous amount of fifty-three lacs. "All delicacy," says Mr. Scrafton,

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was

laid aside in the manner in which payment was obtained for this sum, of which seven-eighths were for losses sustained, or said to be sustained, in an illicit monopoly of the necessaries of life, carried on against the orders of the Company, and to the utter ruin of many thousands of the India

merchants." "The Company," at the same time, became, according to Clive," possessed of one half of the Nabob's revenues. He was allowed to collect the other half himself, but, in fact, he was no more than a banker for the Company's servants, who would draw upon him as often and to as great an amount as they pleased." Nor was the evil permitted to end even here. The English pertinaciously asserting their right to carry on trade free of all imposts, at once impoverished the revenue, and put an entire stop to the industry of the subject. The wretched Nabob felt all this acutely; it heightened the virulence of the malady under which he laboured, and in the month of January, having with difficulty removed from Calcutta to Moorshedabad, he gave up the ghost.

A power of choice amid various courses was now submitted to the government of Calcutta. They might restore to the Emperor the sovereign authority over Bengal, Bahar, and Orissa, or leave him to exercise his legitimate privilege by appointing a Soubahdar; they might assume the Soubahdarry to themselves, in compliance with an offer repeatedly made, and recently renewed by Shah Alum through Major Munro; or they might set up a Soubahdar of their own, retaining the substance of power, while they entrusted the shadow and the labour to another. They preferred the last-mentioned plan, partly because they were as yet unwilling to stand forward as sovereigns of any portion of India, partly because they individually anticipated a rich harvest of gifts on the occasion. All things fell out as they could have desired. Instead of advancing to the

musnud the grandson of Meer Jaffier, the son of Meeram, a child six years old, they proclaimed Nujub ad Dowla, a son of the late Nabob, and a young man of twenty years of age, Soubahdar, whom they bound down by treaty to a line of conduct which rendered him a mere tool in their hands. The new Nabob was to support only so many troops as were necessary for the parade of government, the distribution of justice, and the business of the collections. The military defence of the country thus devolved entirely upon the English, while they took care to control its civil administration also, by nominating the minister, by name Reza Khan, through whom all affairs of justice and revenue should be managed. The other conditions of the treaty were almost to a letter the same with those which they had contracted with the old Nabob. Not only the revenues of Burdwan, Mednapore, and Chittagong, were made over to the Company, but a monthly payment of five lacs was secured during the war, whilst a further promise was exacted, that so much of it as might to them seem necessary should be continued after the war had ended. Nor were these most impudent of all negociators neglectful of the important privilege of free trade. That was secured, in its most extended sense, to every servant of the Company; nay, it was explicitly provided, that not an accountant of revenue should be appointed throughout the country, except with the sanction of the English authorities.

These measures passed the Council during the temporary government of Mr. Spencer, who, as senior member, succeeded to the Presidency on the

resignation of Mr. Vansittart. In the meanwhile, the Court of Directors, who had long acted as mere spectators of the proceedings of their servants, began to feel that the moment had arrived when some interference on their part was necessary. Endless recriminations had been poured in upon them, the parties mutually accusing one another of insubordination and disaffection, while the intelligence that war with Meer Causim was inevitable, and that a number of their functionaries had been slain, added strength to the alarm which such a state of things excited. After a good deal of hesitation, they determined to send out a new governor, with powers sufficiently extensive to redress all existing grievances; and though Clive, now advanced to the peerage, was no favourite among them, (for which, indeed, his independent and, perhaps, domineering disposition may fairly account,) they could pitch upon no man better qualified to discharge so important a trust. He was, in consequence, nominated to fill the joint offices of Governor and Commander-in-chief of the Company's civil and military establishments in Bengal, and on the 4th of June, 1764, after being permitted to choose his own councillors, set sail for Calcutta.

CHAPTER VIII.

Affairs of the Carnatic-Peace with France-Treaty of Paris-Return of Clive to Calcutta-Appointment of a Select Committee-Reforms-Grant of the Dewannee obtained-Clive resigns the Government-Succeeded by Mr. Verelst-He quits India― Legislative proceedings at home.

BEFORE entering upon a narrative of the second administration of Lord Clive, it will be necessary to revert, in few words, to the state of affairs in the Carnatic.

By the total expulsion of the French, consequent upon the fall of Pondicherry, the English found themselves placed in a situation to which they had never, in their most sanguine moments, ventured to look forward. With a Nabob, who owed his elevation entirely to their exertions, in possession of the nominal sovereignty of the Carnatic, they felt that all power was in reality vested in their hands, and they soon began to convince Mahomed Ali that they were not disposed to regard that circumstance as barren of substantial advantages. They not only made large demands upon his exchequer, under the pretext of expenses incurred during the war, but they solicited from him a jaghire; that is to say, the revenues arising from certain tracts of country, free of all charges on the part of government. To the first proposition the Nabob assented, as far as his means