imperative for the cessation of private trade. He chose, notwithstanding, to disregard those orders, and to stultify his own previous professions, for the advantage of those about him.

In May 1766, the Nawab Nudjum-ul-Dowla died, and was succeeded by his younger brother, Syef-ul-Dowla. A new treaty between him and the Company was made, which ratified that first made with his father, and also that made with his brother the year before. The viceregal guards had been kept up at a cost of eighteen lacs a year,1 but overtures were made for their disbanding, in order that their pay might be saved, and their duty performed by the Company's sepoy battalions. The occasion was thought propitious for effecting this further change; and in the new treaty, the fixed sum for Nizamut expenses was reduced from fifty-three to forty-one lacs. The credit which the Governor took to himself for this piece of economy was not readily acknowledged at home. The Directors wrote, "As the reduction of the stipend to the Nawab arises from striking off the pay of an unnecessary number of his sepoys, and does not affect the allowance for support of his dignity in the Government, we approve what you have done in it; but we direct you never to reduce the stipend lower, being extremely desirous that he should have sufficient to support his public character, and appear respectable to his subjects and to foreigners."

2

1 Long's Records, vol. i. p. 419. Despatch from the Directors, 16th March 1768.

E

CHAPTER VI.

PLIGHT OF THE PEOPLE.

1767-1770.

"English historians, treating of Indian history as a series of struggles about the Company's charter, enlivened with startling military exploits, have naturally little to say regarding an occurrence which involved neither a battle nor a parliamentary debate. Mill, with all his accuracy and minuteness, can barely spare five lines for the subject. But the disaster which, from this distance, floats as a faint speck on the horizon of our rule, stands out in the contemporary records in appalling proportions. It forms, indeed, the key to the history of Bengal during the succeeding forty years."

-DR HUNTER.1

THE second administration of Clive, who was sent from England to consolidate the acquisitions somewhat awkwardly achieved by Vansittart and his Council, lasted about two years. After that, Verelst and Cartier filled successively the office of President of Bengal, and being calm, unambitious men, few events of historical importance occurred. It were perhaps more accurate to say, that few striking or sudden changes took place in the supreme relations of the State during that period. For events of historical importance are of two kinds, the silent and the noisy; and all things considered, the silent are of much more consequence than those whose taking place clamours for observation. In Bengal, a great event or coming forth into light of a new fact on the scroll of human destiny noiselessly revealed itself; no less a fact than that of an

1 Annals of Rural Bengal.

attempted Government by two separate and unlike powers —the one native, and hitherto paramount; the other alien, and hitherto tributary, but fast becoming irresistible and dominant. All the old respect and native predilection looked after the waning lustre of the Soubahdar's court; all the hope of profit and the fear of oppression looked towards the Presidency. The feelings of the community were instinctively devoted still to native rites, usages, and laws; their apprehensions were daily riveted more inquiringly upon the strange and unintelligible commands of Calcutta. How the pretensions of superior force came by degrees to be submitted to as irreversible, how acquiescence in the course of years grew into a sullen habit of obedience, it would take long to tell.

External force has sometimes been hailed as a deliverance from petty tyranny and internecine feuds; and when separate chieftainships and principalities have been swept away, the lot of the community at large has been benefited by the change. This has only been, however, where local rights, the securities of property, and the immunities of personal freedom have been maintained or strengthened. Instances are not wanting of substantial benefits having been at first conferred by a high-handed exercise of alien authority, which by degrees came to be recognised by their recipients as more than counterbalancing the affront to native pride involved in the manner of the gift. But such instances are rare, and there is, perhaps, not one in which such gratitude has ever been felt, or has ever been fairly earned, in which the irresistible power of the intruder has attempted to uproot the customary laws of the country regarding the administration of justice or the possession of land. By violent mutations of the royal power, the happiness of the many does not always suffer-not immediately or

perceptibly, at least. Government is much more palpable, and to the community is much more influential, in the performance of its daily administrative duties than in its intercourse with foreign states, or in its internal exercise of what may be termed national functions. It is true that a gradual and exact subordination of powers to the supreme authority is indispensable; and that such as the one is, such the subordinate many are ever likely to be. But it usually takes time to discern this. Practically, the conviction can only be realised by habit and reflection. Instances there may have been where the subtlety and care and wisdom of an alien Government have introduced improvements and reformations appealing to the sense, if unable to engage the affections, of the people; and however shortlived and unstable such advantages may be, we can imagine men so sick and weary of domestic misrule as to hail with reckless but real joy the questionable aid of foreign interposition.

In the story of Asiatic conquest, we have, however, no task of nice discrimination to perform. Not only was the sovereign authority of each state subverted, but the subordinate, and perhaps more important, institutions of law, property, and taxation, were subverted also. To understand, clearly, the causes which precipitated these social and municipal changes, it is necessary to recall the condition of the Company's affairs in England, and the action of Parliament respecting them. The acquisition of the Dewanny caused the Company's stock to rise considerably; and in a Court of Proprietors a resolution was carried by a large majority declaring that the dividend should be in future 10 instead. of 6 per cent. Government cast wistful eyes upon the splendid progress making by the Company in revenues, which no longer could be in any sense classed under the head of commercial profits. The Duke of Grafton had, on

2

quitting office, told the Chairman and Deputy Chairman that the time was come when our dealings with the rulers and traders of the East must be taken in hand by Parliament as a national concern. But his Grace had not time to develop whatever ideas might have been put into his head upon the subject; and when Chatham for the second time became First Minister,' one of the great measures of reform which he hoped to carry was that respecting India. At his instance, Alderman Beckford, whose character for mercantile knowledge and probity stood high, moved in the House of Commons for a committee to inquire into the state and condition of the East India Company. The motion was resisted by those-and they were many-who directly or indirectly were interested in its management being left uncontrolled; but 129 votes against 76 were told in its favour. A fortnight later the House ordered that copies of all treaties with native powers between 1756 and 1766, both years inclusive, as well as of all correspondence relating thereto, and an account of the state of the Company's territorial revenues, should be laid before them. It was understood that this step was but preliminary to the development of a comprehensive plan regulating our course and conduct in the East, and for turning into the imperial treasury the streams of affluence theretofore engrossed by individual or joint-stock enterprise. The committee of inquiry did not go to business until the end of March 1767; and it had made little progress when a General Court of Proprietors, on the 6th May, in a paroxysm of cupidity, voted that the dividend on their stock should be raised to 12 per cent. This was too much for even the most languid parliamentary conscience; and on the following day the House of Commons called in threatening terms 1 30th July 1766.

2 25th November 1766.