CHAP. 8.

had resumed, upon the departure of Bussy, the BOOK IV commanding station which he formerly occupied, made no delay in employing all his advantages to 1765. effect the dethronement of his feeble-minded brother. On the 18th of July, 1761, he committed the Subahdar to a prison; and invested himself with the full powers and insignia of the government.

The treaty, by the provisions of which the pretensions of England and France were at this time adjusted, affords a singular illustration of the obvious and neglected truth, that the knowledge requisite for good government in India cannot be possessed by rulers sitting and deliberating in Europe. By the treaty of Paris, concluded on the 10th of February, 1763, Salabut Jung was acknowledged as lawful Subahdar of the Deccan, after he had been nearly two years dethroned, and another reigning in his stead. This instrument indeed, which recognised Salabut Jung as a great sovereign, was the immediate cause of his death; for Nizam Ali, who had been withheld by dread of the restoration of the French power in India, no sooner received intelligence of the treaty of Paris, by which the French resigned the Carnatic, and appeared to abandon the contest, than he felt himself delivered from all restraint, and ordered his brother to be murdered in September, 1763.

With little concern about Bassalut Jung, who nevertheless was elder brother of Nizam Ali, that usurper, at once a regicide and fratricide, now grasped, without a rival, the power of Subahdar of the Deccan. The personal title or name of himself and his father have by the English been converted

СНАР. 8.

BOOK IV into the appellative of his sovereignty; and it is under the title of the Nizam, that the Subahdar of 1765. the Deccan is commonly known.

In the beginning of the year 1765, the English and Mohammed Ali their Nabob were summoned to action, by the irruption of Nizam Ali into the Carnatic. With a great army, which seemed to have no object in view but plunder and destruction, he laid waste the open country with a ferocity, even greater than the usual barbarity of Indian warfare. The troops of the English and Nabob were put in motion from Arcot, under the command of Colonel Campbell, and came in sight of the enemy at the Pagoda of Tripeti. The Nizam felt no desire to fight: His army was reduced to great distress for provisions and water: He decamped accordingly on a sudden, and marching forty miles in one day evacuated the Carnatic by way of Colastri and Nelore.

It was at this time that Lord Clive, on his passage from Europe to Bengal, arrived at Madras. The ascendency of the English over the Mogul, the unfortunate and nominal Emperor Shah Aulum, rendered it extremely easy to procure from him those imperial grants which, however little rerespected by the sword, still gave the appearance of legal right to territorial possession within the ancient limits of the Mogul empire. A firmaun was solicited and obtained for the maritime districts, known by the title of the Northern Circars. Like the rest of India this tract was held by renters, responsible for a certain portion of revenue. Of these some were of recent appointment; others were

CHAP. 8.

1765.

the ancient Rajas and Polygars of the country; BOOK IV a set of men who were often found to be the most convenient renters, and who, on the regular payment of the expected revenue, were seldom displaced. The country fell within the government of the Subahdar of the Deccan, and was managed by a deputy or commissioner of his appointment. After the English, however, had expelled from it the French, the authority of the Subahdar had been rather nominal than real. The English held possession of their factories and forts; the Rajas and Polygars assumed a species of independence; Salabut Jung had offered it to Mohammed Ali at the time of his quarrel with Bussy at Hyderabad; and Nizam Ali himself had proposed to surrender it to the English, on the condition of military assistance against Hyder Ali and the Mahrattas. The advantage of possessing the whole line of coast which joined the English territories in the Carnatic to those in Bengal, suggested to Clive the importance of obtaining it on permanent terms.' A firmaun was accordingly received from the Emperor, by which, as far as the formality of his sanction could extend, the Northern Circars were freed from their dependence upon the Subahdar of the Deccan, and bestowed upon the English. Nor was this the only diminution which the nominal empire of the Nizam sustained; for another firmaun was procured from the Emperor, by which the Carnatic itself was rendered independent of his authority; and bestowed,

The acquisition of the Northern Circars did not give the English the whole of the Sea-coast: the province of Orissa held by the Mahrattas separated them from Bengal.-W.

CHAP. 8.

BOOK IV holding immediately of the Emperor, upon the Nabob Mohammed Ali, together with the new titles 1766. of Walla Jah, Ummir ul Hind, which he ever afterwards used.1

To take possession of the Circars, on its new and independent footing, General Calliaud marched with the troops of the Carnatic, and on the part of the Rajas and Polygars found little opposition to subdue. The Nizam, or Subahdar, was at that time engaged in the country of Barad, making head against the Mahrattas. But he no sooner heard of the operations of the English, than he proceeded with great expedition to Hyderabad; and to avenge himself for the usurpation, as it appeared to him, of an important part of his dominions, made preparations for the invasion of the Carnatic. The Presidency, whom their pecuniary weakness rendered timid, were alarmed at the prospect of a war with

It is stated that Clive even entertained the project of obtaining for Mohammed Ali the firmaun of Subahdar of the Deccan; but that the Nabob, who it is true was worn out with the struggle which he had already sustained, who now panted for ease and enjoyment, and whose qualities Clive estimated at more than their actual value (in his correspondence with the Directors he represents his word as more trustworthy than that of any Mohammedan whom he had ever known. Reports of Committee, 1772), shrunk from the prospect of the arduous enterprise, and declared that "the Deccan was too great for him to desire to have the charge of its government." Letter from the Nabob to Clive in 1765, MS. quoted (p. 150) by the author of the History and Management of the East India Company. It is also affirmed, perhaps on better grounds (Observations by the President and Council, on Sir John Lindsay's Letter of the 22nd of June, 1771; Papers in Rous's Appendix, p. 371) that the Nabob used his endeavours to obtain the exertion of the English power to procure him this high elevation; but met not with a corresponding disposition in the servants of the Company. The point is not of sufficient importance to require that we should spend any time in endeavouring to ascertain whether the one allegation or the other is the truth.-M. It is wholly incredible that Mohammed Ali would have refused the Subahdari of the Deccan, if he had had a reasonable prospect of obtaining it.-W.

CHAP. 8.

1767.

the Subahdar; and sent orders to Calliaud to hasten BOOKIV to Hyderabad with full powers to negotiate a peace. A treaty was concluded on the 12th of November, 1766, by which the Company agreed to pay to the Nizam an annual tribute of five lacks of rupees for the three circars of Rajamundry, Ellore, and Mustephanagur; and for those of Siccacole (Chicacole) and Murtezanagur, two lacks each, as soon as they were definitively placed in their hands. Murtezanagur, commonly called Guntoor, had been assigned as a jaghire to Bassalut Jung; and the Company were pleased to suspend their occupation of it, so long as Bassalut Jung should live, or so long as he should remain a faithful subject to Nizam Ali. They further engaged to hold a body of troops in readiness," to settle in every thing right and proper, the affairs of his Highness's government."

And

they gave him a present of five lacks of rupees, which the Nabob was ordered to find money to pay.1

This treaty has been severely condemned. But the Presidency were not mistaken in regard to their own pecuniary difficulties, though they probably over-estimated the power of the Nizam, whose unpaid and mutinous troops the money which he received by the treaty scarcely enabled him for a short time to appease. The most imprudent article of the agreement was that which stipulated for the Nizam the assistance of English troops; because this had an evident tendency to embroil, and in the event did actually embroil them, with other powers.

1 Second Report of the Committee of Secrecy in 1781, p. 22; Hist. and Management, p. 151; Collection of Treaties, p. 364.