Page:A history of the military transactions of the British nation in Indostan, Volume 1.djvu/36

28 to coerce the Rajahs; the same force divided under several distinct commanders would have been ineffectual. Hence it was necessary to give a large tract of country to the government of a single officer, or to relinquish the design of extending the dominion.

THIS officer, now well known in Europe by the title of Nabob, was made subject to the controul of others who resided in the province with him, and over whom he had no authority. The sovereign reserved to himself the power of life and death. Civil causes were reserved to the Cadi, and the revenues and expences of the province were subject to the examination of the Duan, who managed the customs and took possession for the emperor of the estates of the feudatories who died. The Great Mogul gave the government of the strongest holds in the province to governors who were in nothing subject to the Nabob. He was called to court, kept there, or translated into another government, whenever the ministry thought these changes necessary; and there was a time when they were so frequent, that a new Nabob left Delhi riding contrary to the usual manner with his back turned to the head of his elephant, and gave for a reason, "That he was looking out for his successor."

THE divisions of the royal family gave the Nabobs of provinces distant from the capital, opportunities of acquiring a stability in their governments, and the court was now content to receive a stipulated sum, in lieu of the real revenues of the province, in which the Nabob, became little less than absolute, and had nothing to fear but an army from Delhi, which was always coming, and never came. But even before they arrived at this state of independence, we find them exercising the cruel caprices of despotism on wretches too weak to raise their complaints to the throne. Mandleslow tells a story of a Nabob who cut off the heads of a set of dancing girls, that is, of a company of very handsome women, because they did not come to his palace on the first summons. In Tavernier we see a man, who miuders his wife, four children, and thirteen slaves, and is left unpunished, because he is the person on whom the Nabob relied for the cure of a distemper