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 584- HLSTOliN UK INDIA [Book III.

A.D. 1757. been already hinted, a third treaty, of a very .singular description. It was, in fact, a duplicate of the public treaty, with one very important difierencc It contained an article giving twenty la&s of rupees U> Omiciiund. Externally this dupliciite had all the aj)[)earance of an original, and was sliown a-s such t(^

Deception Omichund, to satisfv liim that his intere.sts had not been neglected. Tiie |»re-

omiuiiun.i. paration of this duplicate was the plan which Clive had devised. To distinguish it from the other, which alone was to receive effect as the genuine treaty, it was written on red paper, but all the signatures were genuine, with a single exception. Admiral Watson refased to put his name to a document which Iih knew was only to be used for the pui-Y)0se of peq^etrating a fraud. The honour- able feelings which dictated this refusal mijjht have made the select committee pause ; but having gone so far they were not now to be deteired by ordinary obstacles, and the admiral's signature was forged.

The deception practised on Omichund by the substitution of a false for a genuine treaty was completely successful. Though him.self full of wiles, he wa-> so firm a believer in English honour, that we have .seen him vouching for it to Surajah Dowlah with a solemn oath. How, then, could he suspect that the representatives of the Company had combined to cheat a Hindoo Vjy pahning upon him a document which they knew to be tainted both with fraud and for- gery? He went accordingly to the Seats in the full belief that no individual had a more direct interest than himself in the an-angemenis about to be made for the payment of the sums stipulated in the treaty. While seated aloof he was probably too distant to catch the purport of the proceedings. After the treaties were read, examined, and acknowledged, a long discussion took place, the result of which was, that only one-half of the stipulated sums should be paid immediately — two- thirds in coin, and a third in plate, jewels, and effects, at a valuation; and that the other half should be paid in three years, by equal annual instalments. The conclusion cannot be better told than in the words of Orme: ' — " The conference being ended, Clive and Scrafton went towards Omi- chund, who Avas waiting in full assurance of hearing the glad tidings of his good fortune; when Clive said, ' It is notv time to undeceive Omichund;' on wdiioh Scrafton said to him in the Indostan language, ' OmichiCnd, the red paper is a trick ; you are to have nothing.' These words oveq^owered him like a blast of

Its effects, sulphur; he sank back, fainting, and would have fallen to the gi'ound had not one of his attendants caught him in his arms, and carried him to his palanquin, in which they conveyed him to his house, where he remained many houi"s in stupid melancholy, and began to show some s^miptoms of insanity. Some days after he visited Colonel Clive. who addsed him to make a pilgrimage to some pagoda, which he accordingly did soon after to a famous one near Maulda. He went and I'eturned insane, his mind every day more and more approaching to idiotism ; and, contrary to the usual manners of old age in Indostan, still more to the

' Oniie's Military Transactions, vol. ii. page 182.