Yet the liberality of the British exceeded the most sanguine hopes of that prince; and " his expres"sions of joy and gratitude on the occasion," as Lord Clive himself relates, "were many and warm.' To this gift, however, were annexed the conditions, which the Vizier willingly accepted, that he should pay the Company fifty lacks of rupees for the expenses of the war; and that they should have the privilege of trading, duty free, throughout his dominions. The excepted districts of Corah and Allahabad were allotted to the Emperor, the fort of Allahabad being assigned for his residence; and this fort was, at his own solicitation, garrisoned by a detachment from the troops of the Company. It was farther stipulated that, out of the revenues of the three provinces, His Majesty should annually receive a stipend, in the nature of a tribute, amounting to twenty-six lacks of rupees, or about three hundred thousand pounds. In return for these cessions, the Emperor, besides a confirmation of the territorial acquisitions which the Company had made, either under the subahdarry of Bengal, or on the coast, conferred on them two important favours. In the first place, he invested them irrevocably with the Dewannee of the three provinces, Bengal, Behar, and Orissa. By the constitution of the Mogul government, the collection and disbursement of the provincial revenues, together with the administration of civil justice, were entrusted to officers bearing the appellation of Dewans and ap

pointed immediately from Delhi. Those officers, however, held their stations only during pleasure, and were, in their financial capacity, merely stewards, the balance left in their hands, after the discharge of the public expenses, being regularly remitted to the Emperor. The grant of the Dewannee to the Company had these peculiar qualities, that it was perpetual, and that it made them masters of the whole provincial revenue, subject only to the payment of certain specific sums. Those sums consisted in the tribute already mentioned, secured to the Mogul; and in the additional stipend of 53,86,132 rupees, or about six hundred thousand pounds, assigned to the Nabob of Bengal; a sum, which somewhat exceeded the clear revenue possessed by former Nabobs. The second grant on the part of Shah Aulum, was that of the five northern circars. These districts, however, appertained to the subahdar of the Decan, and the proprietary right over them could scarcely be considered as transferred to the Company until the consent of that prince should have been obtained; a matter, which was reserved for subsequent negociation.

The grant of the Dewannee, by adding, to the military supremacy which the Company had before possessed in Bengal, all the functions of the domestic administration, excepting, indeed, that of criminal judicature, rendered them nearly the vir tual sovereigns of the realm. It was not, however, in the judgment of Clive, the true policy of

the Company fully to exert the power, or affect the consequence, with which they were now endowed. In the discharge of the Dewannee functions, he recommended the exclusive employment of native ministers, as the mode of procedure at once the least expensive and least invidious in the eyes both of the inhabitants and of other European nations. This plan, as will hereafter appear, was not fully justified by the event. Yet it was founded on reasons of great apparent strength, and, probably, might, at all events, have been necessary as an arrangement preparatory to some more finished system. It may be worthy of mention that, according to the computation of Clive, the annual gain of the Company, after the acquisition of the Dewannee, from all their territorial possessions in Bengal, was, after a due deduction for the public expenses, to be one hundred and twenty two lacks of rupees, or £1,650,000.

In order to complete the view of the acquisi-. tions made by the Company in consequence of the negotiations which have been described, it will be proper to state, with more distinctness than has yet been done, the object and nature of the cessions in the Decan.

The five northern circars had, in 1754, been granted by Salabut Jung, the subahdar of the Decan, to the French, then his allies. That people being afterwards, by the superiority of the English arms, compelled to quit their acquisition,

it ostensibly reverted to the subahdar, but with so little real submission on the part of the local zemindars, that Nizam Ali Khan, the brother and successor of Salabut Jung, could maintain his authority over the country only by force, and, for this purpose, had recourse, year after year, to the assistance of the English troops. In 1760, and the two following years, Nizam Ali, or, as he is commonly called, the Nizam, pressingly proffered to the Madras government the possession of the circars, soliciting, in return, the co-operation of their arms with his own, against the Mahrattas and Hyder Ali; the zemindars, at the same time, greatly desired this arrangement; but, the government of Madras being unable to spare the forces which the Nizam required, the proposed agreement did not take place. After the pacification, however, of 1763, a resumption of the districts in question by the French being apprehended, the government renewed their negotiations on the subject with the Nizam, who now greatly raised his terms, and withstood the repeated and augmented offers of the English. It was in this state of things that Lord Clive, deeming the exclusion of the French, at any rate, an object of the utmost moment, obtained from the Mogul the proprietary grant of the disputed territory. Yet this grant was received only as an insurance against the worst, and, therefore, was not proclaimed to the Nizam, from whom it still remain

ed to procure the cession of the territory by nego tiation.*

In point of fact, the cession was made in the succeeding year, that of 1766; four of the cir cars being surrendered immediately, and the fifth, called the Guntoor circar, which was held by a brother of the Nizam, in reversion; and the Company undertaking that they would pay a rent of nine lacks of rupees, or about £110,000, and would, besides, furnish the Nizam with the service of a body of troops, whenever it might be required for the maintenance of his Highness's government. These terms were less favourable for the British, than those which the prince had himself, at a former period, proposed, and even pressed; yet were they not obtained until both the friendship of the subahdar, and the good offices of his ministers, had been conciliated by means of large presents. From that circumstance, coupled with the intrigues consequent among the ministers, the whole negotiation has been stigmatized, and by persons not, in general, unfavourably disposed towards the Company, as a compound of " treachery, chicane, and bribery.”+ Whether the servants of the Company acted, on the occasion, altogether correctly, is, certainly, a matter of serious doubt; but considerations high

* Short History of the East-India Company, 1793, chap. xv. -Correspondence of the Madras Government.

+ Short History of the East-India Company.