Page:A history of the military transactions of the British nation in Indostan, Volume 1.djvu/54

46 richest fief subject to the Nabobship of Arcot. and by the treasures which Mortiz-ally inherited from his father, as also by a very parsimonious management of the revenues of his government, he was become the richest man in the province. Having married the sister of Subder-ally, and being likewise nearly related to him by birth, he thought that these titles of kindred, joined to the reception which he gave to the Nabob and his court, would excuse him from the necessity of furnishing what remained due of his proportion of the general assessment; but the Nabob, who knew the Morattoes were not to be disappointed with impunity, and who was as unwilling as Mortiz-ally to disburse his private treasures until the last extremity, determined to oblige him to furnish his contingent with the same punctuality as the other governors of the province. Many of these were attentive to the conduct of the governor of Velore, and were ready to withhold their proportions of the assessment as soon as they should find a respectable leader to set the example, and to support them in the consequences of refusing to obey the Nabob's orders; they therefore confederated with Mortiz-ally, and represented to him that Nizam-al-muluck, the Soubah of the southern provinces, would behold with satisfaction even the most desperate measure which might be taken by the officers of the Carnatic, against a prince who paid so little deference to his authority.

Mortiz-ally, born cruel and treacherous, had no restraints in his composition to stop his hand from the perpetration of any crime by which his avarice, ambition, or revenge could be gratified: he was indeed by many suspected of being uncommonly deficient in personal courage, but this persuasion seems to have taken its rise from the suspicious habits of his domestic life; since he never moved, even in his own palace, without being surrounded by guards, nor ever ventured to taste any thing that was not brought to him in a vessel to which his wife had affixed her seal. The Nabob therefore held the pusillanimous character of his brother-in-law in the greatest contempt, and apprehended no danger from a man who lived in perpetual apprehensions of poison from his own family and domestics. Mortiz-ally still continued to evade the payment of his arrears of the assessment; and the