CHAP. 5. BOOK IV Governor and Council, after "consulting the Nabob, to form a proper and equitable plan for carrying on the inland trade." 1765. The presents which, since their acquiring an ascendency in the government, their servants had been in the habit of receiving, sometimes to a very large amount, from the Nabobs and other chiefs of the country, were another subject which now engaged the serious attention of the Company. The practice which prevails in all rude governments of accompanying any application to a man in power with a gratification to some of his ruling passions, most frequently to the steadiest of all his passions, his avarice or rapacity, has always remarkably distinguished the governments in the East, and hardly any to so extraordinary a degree as the governments of the very rude people of India. When the English suddenly acquired their extraordinary power in Bengal, the current of presents, so well accustomed to take its course in the channel drawn by hope and fear, flowed very naturally, and very copiously, into the lap of the strangers. A person in India, who had favours to ask, or evil to deprecate, could not easily believe, till acceptance of his present, that the great man to whom he addressed himself was not his foe. Besides the sums, which we may suppose it to have been in the power of the receivers to conceal, and of the amount of which it is not easy to form a conjecture, the following were detected and disclosed by the Committee of the House of Commons, in 1773. BOOK IV 1765. "Account of such Sums as have been proved or CHAP. 5. acknowledged before the Committee to have been distributed by the Princes and other Natives of Bengal, from the Year 1757 to the Year 1766, both inclusive; distinguishing the principal Times of the said Distributions, and specifying the Sums received by each Person respectively. "It appears, by the Extract in the Appendix, No. 102, from the evidence given on the trial of Ram Churn before the Governor and Council in 1761, by Roy Dulip, who had the principal management in the distribution of the treasures of the deceased Nabob Serajah Dowla, upon the accession of Jaffier Ally Cawn-that Roy Dulip then received as a present from Colonel Clive one lack 25,000 rupees, being five per cent. on 25 lacks. It does not appear that this evidence was taken on oath." This as noticed by Sir J. Malcolm, Life of Clive, ii. 187, is incorrect. The Jaghir was not granted till the end of 1759, two years after Mir Jaffiel had been seated on the throne.-W. "It appears Colonel Munro accepted a jaghire from the King, of 12,500l. a-year, which he delivered to the Nabob Meer Jaffier, the circumstances of which are stated in the Journals of last year, 825." BOOK IV СНАР. 5. 1765. "These sums appear by evidence to have been received by the parties; but the Committee think proper to state, That Mohammed Reza Cawn intended a present of one lack of rupees to each of the four deputies sent to treat with Nudjum al Dowla upon his father's death; viz. Messieurs Johnstone, Leycester, Senior, and Middleton; but Mr. Middleton and Mr. Leycester affirm that they never accepted theirs, and Mr. Johnstone appears to have tendered his back to Mohammed Reza Cawn, who would not accept them. These bills (except Mr. Senior's, for 50,000 rupees) appear to have been afterwards laid before the Select Committee, and no further evidence has been produced to your Committee concerning them. Mr. Senior received 50,000 rupees of his, and it is stated against him in this account." |