order to pay him their homages. He shows himself also at noon, to see the fightings of wild beasts; and at evening he appears at a window, from whence he sees the sun set. With that luminary he retires, amidst the noise of a great number of drums and the acclamations of his people. None are permitted to enter the palace but the Princes and great officers of State; who shew so great veneration for him that it is impossible to approach the most sacred things with more profound respect. They accompany all their discourse with. continual reverences; they prostrate themselves before him at taking leave; they put their hands on their eyes, then on their breast, and lastly on the earth, to testify they are only dust and ashes in respect to him. They wish him all manner of prosperity as they retire, and go backward till they are out of sight.

When he marches at the head of his army, or takes the diversion of hunting, he is attended by above ten thousand men. About one hundred elephants, covered with housings of scarlet velvet and brocade, march at the head of this little army each carries two men, one of whom governs the animal, by touching his forehead with an iron hook, the other holding a large banner of silk embroidered with gold and silver; the first eight carry each a kettle-drum. In the middle of this troop the monarch rides, sometimes mounted on a fine Persian horse, sometimes in a chariot drawn by two white oxen, whose large spreading horns are adorned with gold, and sometimes in a palanquin supported by men. The Princes and great officers compose his retinue, and have five or six hundred elephants, camels or chariots following them, loaded with baggage.

The royal palace at Dehlie is said to be four leagues in circumference, and fortified on every side. After passing several courts and streets, separated by different gates, we at last arrive at the apartments of the Mogul, which are in the center of the building. In the first salloon is a balustrade of silver, where the officers of the guard are posted; nor are any except the great lords of the Court permitted to enter farther, without orders. This leads into the chamber of ceremony, where there is another balustrade of gold, inclosing the throne of massy gold, and profusely enriched with diamonds, pearls and other precious stones. None but the King's sons are permitted to enter this balustrade, or to fan themselves, in order to cool the air and drive away the flies.

The Empire of the Great Mogul is divided into forty provinces, all which, except two, have titles of kingdoms, and their names generally derived from that of the capital.

But, amongst this great number of provinces, some do not depend entirely on the Great Mogul, but whose inhabitants form small separate States, living under Princes whom they call Rajas or Nawabs, or under a sort of republican government. But all are vassals or tributaries to the Great Mogul though they do not always think themselves under an obligation of consulting him every time they make war against a neighbouring State, or any European Settlement that may happen to be in their Province.

(Printed by S. C. Hill, Bengal in 1756–7, iii. 98.)

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CHAPTER II

THE EAST INDIA COMPANY AS KING-MAKER

Power without Responsibility

1756-1765

BETWEEN 1750 and 1760 the East India Company, without desiring or intending any such result, found itself in the position of the controlling power in two important regions of India, the Carnatic (which is the coast-land of the south-east) and Bengal, the fertile and populous delta of the Ganges. This unexpected result came about through the interventions of the Company in Indian politics and war; but these interventions were in both cases forced upon the Company, not spontaneously undertaken. In the Carnatic, intervention was dictated by the necessity of self-defence against the bold schemes of the French under Dupleix, who threatened to obtain such a hold over the native powers as would enable him to make the British position untenable. In Bengal it was the result of an attack by the young Nawab Siraj-uddaula, who was alarmed by the progress of European power in the south, and determined to destroy it in Bengal before it became too dangerous. The result in each case was that the British, hitherto inclined to regard the native powers with a good deal of fear, found that with small forces, under such competent leadership as that of Clive, they could always get the better of the huge, unorganised and often disloyal armies of the Indian princes. They used their victories to place on the thrones of these provinces rulers who would be favourable to their interests, and who, in fact, were forced to recognise that their very existence was at the

mercy of the Company. Mahomed Ali in the Carnatic, from 1753, Mir Jafar in Bengal, from 1757, knew themselves to be in this position in 1760 Mir Jafar, being found unsatisfactory, had to evacuate the throne to make way for another nominee of the Company, Mir Kasim; and when in 1763 Mir Kasim showed himself too independent, he in his turn had to disappear.

It is only the action of the Company in Bengal that is illustrated in this chapter; partly because to deal adequately with the Carnatic would involve a full treatment of the struggle with the French from 1744 to 1763, for which we have not space; partly because the position of dominion achieved in Bengal was much more complete than in the Carnatic, and formed the real base for the subsequent expansion of the British power; mainly because the treaties and contemporary narratives relating to Bengal provide the clearest illustration of the way in which the trading Company gradually developed into a territorial power. The Carnatic story can perhaps best be studied in Orme's great History of the Military Transactions of the British Nation in Indostan.

The Bengal story begins with the alarm caused among the English at Calcutta by the hostility of the young Nawab Siraj-uddaula, who succeeded to the rule of Bengal in April 1756. These fears are expressed in Holwell's dispatch (No. 4). Then follows Siraj-uddaula's attack upon Calcutta and the tragedy of the Black Hole, as recorded by the French Governor of Chandernagore (No. 5), who was a hostile witness, and by Holwell, who was one of the few survivors of the Black Hole (No. 6). Holwell's vivid and famous narrative of the Black Hole is omitted from considerations of space, but is easily accessible in many forms-e.g. in Mr. S. C. Hill's Bengal in 1756-7, a useful collection of documents, which contains many independent accounts of the episode. After the fall of Calcutta a force under Clive, brought from Madras, compelled Sirajuddaula to sign a treaty promising redress and giving more favourable terms to English trade (No. 7). Siraj-uddaula's failure to fulfil this treaty, and his generally hostile attitude,

led to the opening of intrigues with his dissatisfied ministers, and finally to the campaign of Plassey. These events are described in dispatches from the Secret Committee at Calcutta (No. 8) and from Clive himself (No. 9).

The victory of Plassey was followed by the enthronement of Mir Jafar, Paymaster of the defeated Nawab; who then gave effect to a treaty of permanent alliance with the Company which he had previously signed (No. 11), and distributed vast presents to its principal servants (Nos. 12, 13).

Neither the Directors in England nor their representatives in India dreamed, even after Plassey, that they had laid the foundations of a great territorial empire, nor did they feel any responsibility for the government of the huge area which had now passed under their control. Clive, indeed, with the boldness characteristic of him, realised that direct British rule must be the outcome of the new situation, and in 1759 wrote to the great Pitt urging that the Crown should assume responsibility (No. 14). But no one was yet ready for such a step. In the eyes of almost everybody, all that had happened was that a favourable Nawab had been substituted for an unfavourable one. The Directors rejoiced in the prospect of a monopoly of export trade, their servants in the chances of immense private profits, but nobody thought of interfering in, or taking responsibility for, the conduct of a government. This was still, as before, in the hands of the Nawab and his officers.

But the position in which the English agents found themselves was such as to present terrible temptations to men whose sole purpose in India was the making of profits, who were paid absurdly small salaries, and who now found that the whole trade and population of a huge province lay at their mercy. They had before 1757 been in the habit of engaging in local trade through their banyans or native agents, and there had been many complaints of their misuse of the dastaks, or free passes, which had been allowed since 1717 for goods belonging to the Company and intended for export. These dastaks had never been intended to cover local trade, but