1765.

BOOK IV. Committee expresses our sentiments of what has been obtained by way of donations; and to that we must add, that we think the vast fortunes acquired in the inland trade have been obtained by a scene of the most tyrannic and oppressive conduct that ever was known in any age or country." "*

The orders of the Court of

covenants for

of presents,

regarded.

The letters from the Court of Directors, commanding the immediate and Directors for total abandonment of the inland trade and the execution of the new covenants abolishing the inland trade, against the receipt of presents, had arrived on the 24th of January, 1765, preand executing vious to the formation of the treaty with Nujeem ad Dowla. Yet so far was the rejection the inland trade from being abandoned, that the unlimited exercise of it, free had been dis- from all duties except two and a half per cent. upon the article of salt; and along with that unlimited exercise, the prohibition, or what amounted to the prohibition, of all other traders; the exaction of oppressive duties, from which the English were exempt; had been inserted, as leading articles, in the treaty. Again, as to what regarded the covenants; not only had presents upon the accession of Nujeem ad Dowla been received, with unabated alacrity, in defiance of them; but they remained unexecuted to that very hour. The Committee of the House of Commons could not discover from the records that the Governor had so much as brought them under the consultation of the Council Board; and it is certain that no notice whatsoever had been communicated to the other servants of the Company, that any such engagements were required.

Presents received from

Mahomed

Reza Khan.

The execution of the covenants, as a very easy and simple transaction, was one of the earliest of the measures of the Committee. They were signed, first by the Members of the Council, and the servants on the spot; and afterwards transmitted to the armies and factories, where they were immediately executed by every body; with one remarkable exception. General Carnac, when they arrived, distributed them to his officers, among whom the signature met with no evasion. But General Carnac himself, on the pretence that they were dated several months previous to the time at which intimation of them was conveyed to him, forbore privately to execute his own. A few weeks afterwards, upon his return to Calcutta, he signed it, indeed, without any scruple; but, in the interval, he had received a present of two lacs of rupees from the reduced and impoverished Emperor.

The Nabob, Nujeem ad Dowla, hastened to Calcutta, upon the arrival of Clive; and being exceedingly displeased with the restraints imposed upon him, presented a letter of complaints. Mahomed Reza Khan, whose appointment to

* Report, ut supra, Appendix, No. 74.

1765.

the office of Naib Subah was the most offensive to the Nabob of all the hard CHAP. VII. conditions to which he had been compelled to submit, had given presents on account of his elevation to the amount of nearly twenty lacs of rupees. There was nothing in this unusual or surprising; but the Nabob, who was eager to obtain the ground of an accusation against a man whose person and office were alike odious to him, complained of it as a dilapidation of his treasury. The servants of the Company, among whom the principal part of the money was distributed, were those who had the most strongly contested the authority of Clive's Committee; and they seem to have excited, by that opposition, à very warm resentment. The accusation was treated as a matter of great and serious importance. Some of the native officers engaged in the negotiation of the presents, though required only for the purpose of evidence, were put under arrest. A formal investigation was instituted. It was alleged that threats had been used to extort the gifts: And the Committee pronounced certain facts to be proved; but in their great forbearance reserved the decision to the Court of Directors. The servants, whose conduct was arraigned, solemnly denied the charge of using terror or force; and it is true that their declaration was opposed by only the testimony of a few natives, whose veracity is always questionable when they have the smallest interest to depart from the truth: who in the present case were not examined upon oath; were deeply interested in finding an apology for their own conduct, and had an exquisite feeling of the sentiments which prevailed towards the persons whom they accused in the breasts of those who now wielded the sceptre. There seems not, in reality, to have been any difference in the applications for presents on this and on former occasions, except perhaps in some little ceremoniousness of manner. A significant expression escapes from Verelst, who was an actor in the scene; "Mahomed Reza Khan," he says, "affirms that these sums were not voluntarily given. This the English gentlemen deny. Perhaps the reader, who considers the increased power of the English, may regard this as a verbal dispute."*

country.

On the 25th of June Lord Clive departed from Calcutta, on a progress up Clive's prothe country, for the purpose of forming a new arrangement with the Nabob for gress up the the government of the provinces, and of concluding a treaty of peace with Suja Dowla the Vizir.

* Verelst's View of the English Government in Bengal, p. 50. For the sums received, and the rate they bore to the sums received by the managers of the preceding revolutions, see the preceding table, p. 218.

BOOK IV.

1765. New terms

imposed on the nominal Nabob.

The first negotiation was of easy management. Whatever the Committee were pleased to command, Nujeem ad Dowla was constrained to obey. The whole of the power reserved to the Nabob, and lodged with the Naib Subah, was too great, they said, to be deposited in a single hand; they resolved, therefore, to associate the Raja Dooloob Ram, and Juggut Seet, the Hindu banker, with Mahomed Reza Khan, in the superintendance of the Nabob's affairs. To preserve concord among these colleagues, it was determined to employ the vigilant control of a servant of the Company, resident upon the spot. The Nabob was also now required to resign the whole of the revenues, and to make over the management of the Subahdaree, with every advantage arising from it, to the Company; by whom an annual pension of fifty lacs of rupees, subject to the management of their three nominees, were to be allowed to himself. The final arrangement of these terms was notified to the Committee on the 28th of July, by a letter dispatched from Moorshedabad, whence, a few days before, Clive had proceeded on his journey.

The army had prosecuted the advantages gained over the Vizir; and at this time had penetrated far into the territories of Oude. The arrangement, however, which had been concluded with the Emperor, and in conformity with which the English were to receive the Gauzeepore country for themselves, and to bestow the dominions of Suja Dowla on the Emperor, had been severely condemned by the Court of Directors. They denounced it, not only as a violation of their repeated instructions and commands not to extend the dominions of the Company; but as in itself an impolitic engagement; full of burden, but State of affairs destitute of profit.* Lord Clive, and, what is the same thing, Lord Clive's Company and Committee, professed a deep conviction of the wisdom of that policy (the limitation of dominion) which the Directors prescribed; † declaring, "that an influence maintained by force of arms was destructive of that commercial spirit which the servants of the Company ought to promote; oppressive to the country, and ruinous to the Company; whose military expenses had hitherto ren

between the

the Vizir.

* See the Letters to Bengal, dated 24th Dec. 1765, and 19th Feb. 1766, in the Appendix to the Third Report.

+ Clive, in his letter to the Directors, dated 30th Sept. 1765, says, "My resolution was, and my hopes will always be, to confine our assistance, our conquest, and our possessions, to Bengal, Bahar, and Orixa: To go further is, in my opinion, a scheme so extravagantly ambitious and absurd, that no governor and council in their senses can ever adopt it, unless the whole scheme of the Company's interest be first entirely new modelled."

dered fruitless their extraordinary success, and even the cession of rich pro- CHAP. VII. vinces."*

After the battle of Buxar, the Vizir, who no longer considered his own dominions secure, had sent his women and treasures to Bareily, the strong fort of a Rohilla chief; and, having gained as much time as possible by negotiations with the English, endeavoured to obtain assistance from Ghazee ad dien Khan, from the Rohilla chiefs, and a body of Mahrattas, who were at that time under Mulhar Row, in the vicinity of Gualior. The Mahrattas, and Ghazee ad dien Khan with a handful of followers, the miserable remains of his former power, had, in reality, joined him. But the Rohillas had amused him with only deceitful promises: And he had been abandoned even by Sumroo; who, with a body of about 300 Europeans of various nations, and a few thousand Sepoys, was negotiating for service with the Jaats.

The English had detached two battalions of Sepoys, which took possession of Lucknow, the capital of Oude, and made an attempt upon the fortress of Chunar, the strength of which enabled the garrison to make a successful resistance; when the preparations of Suja Dowla induced Sir Robert Fletcher, on whom, till the arrival of Carnac, after the departure of Sir Hector Munro, the command of the troops had devolved, to endeavour to anticipate that Nabob by taking the important fortress of Allahabad. Nujeef Khan, as a partisan of the Emperor, had joined the English with his followers from Bundelcund, and being well acquainted with the fortress, pointed out the weakest part. It was speedily breached; and the garrison, too irresolute to brave a storm, immediately surrendered. Soon after this event General Carnac arrived, and took the command of the army. The situation of the enemy, which rendered their designs uncertain, puzzled, for a time, the General; who over-estimated their strength, and was afraid of leaving the frontiers exposed. Having received undoubted intelligence that the enemy had begun to march on the Corah road; and suspecting that an attack was designed upon Sir Robert Fletcher, who commanded a separate corps in the same direction; he made some forced marches to effect a junction with that commander; and, having joined him, advanced with united forces towards the enemy. On the 3d of May a battle was fought in the neighbourhood of Corah; or rather a skirmish, for, by the absence of the Rohillas, and the weakness of Ghazee ad dien Khan, the force of the Vizir was inconsider

* Instructions from the Select Committee to the President, dated 21st June, 1765; and their Letter to General Carnac, dated 1st July.

1765.

1765.

Book IV. able, and he was still intimidated by remembrance of Buxar. The Mahrattas, on whom he chiefly depended, were soon dispersed by the English artillery. The Vizir separated from them; and they retired with precipitation towards the Jumna. Observing the English to remit the pursuit in order to watch the Vizir, who made no attempt to join his allies, they ventured a second effort to enter Corah. To stop their incursions the General resolved to drive them beyond the Jumna; crossed that river on the 22d; dislodged them from their post on the opposite side; and obliged them to retire to the hills.

Pressed by the English

on the gene

The Vizir impelled, on the one side by the desperate state of his affairs, on army, the Vizir the other by hopes of moderate treatment from the English, resolved to throw throws himself himself entirely upon their generosity, by placing his person in their hands. On rosity of the the 19th of May General Carnac received, written partly by the Nabob with English. his own hand, a letter, in which he informed that officer that he was on his way to meet him. The General received him with the highest marks of distinction; and all parties recommended a delicate and liberal treatment. The final settlement of the terms of pacification was reserved for the presence of Clive. As it was unanimously agreed, that it would cost the Company more to defend the country of the Vizir, than it would yield in revenue; that Suja Dowla was more capable of defending it than the Emperor to whom it had been formerly Is restored to promised, or than any other chief who could be set up; and that in the hands of the Vizir it might form a barrier against the Mahrattas and Afghauns; it was determined to restore to him the whole of his dominions, with the exception of Allahabad and Corah, which were to be reserved to the Emperor.

all his domi

nions, excepting Corah and Allahabad.

Protection afforded to

When the first conference was held with the Vizir on the 2d of August, he strongly expressed his gratitude for the extent of dominion which his conquerors were willing to restore; and readily agreed to the payment of fifty lacks of rupees demanded in compensation for the expenses of the war: But, when it was proposed to him to permit the English to trade, free from duties, and erect factories in his dominions, he represented so earnestly the abuses which, under the name of trade, the Company's servants and their agents had perpetrated in the provinces of Bengal, Bahar, and Orissa; and expressed with so much vehemence his apprehension of disputes, and the impossibility they would create of long preserving the blessings of peace, that Clive agreed, in the terms of the treaty, to omit the very names of trade and factories.

The Raja Bulwant Sing, who held, as dependencies of the Subah of Oude, Bulwant Sing, the Zemindarees of Benares and Gauzeepore, had joined the English and renRaja of Be- dered important service, in the late wars against the Vizir. It was, therefore,

nares.