Page:A history of the military transactions of the British nation in Indostan, Volume 1.djvu/61

Book I. III success, or perhaps ill conduct, preventing him from being able to pay the usual revenues of his government to the throne, he quitted it privately and went to Amedabad. Here Gazi-o'din Khan, the Soubah of the southern provinces, gave him a post of considerable trust and profit in the city of Surat, whilst his friends at Delhi took care to prevent further enquiries concerning him, by reporting him dead. After the death of Gazi-o'din Khan, father of Nizam-al-muluck, An'war-odean went to pay his court to Nizanial-muluck, who had succeeded to the Soubahship of the southern provinces, and was by him appointed Nabob of the Yalore and Rajamundrum countries, which he governed from the year 1725 to 1741. When Nizam-almuluck was preparing to visit the Carnatic, An'warodean attended his court, and was left by him in one of the principal stations in the city and territory of Gol-Kondah; and a very few days after the death of Coja Abdulla, Nizam-al-muluck appointed him to administer the government of the Carnatic, in which choice he seems to have been influenced by his opinion of the necessity of placing a province, in which he suspected commotions, under the direction of a brave and experienced soldier; such was An'war-odean. There is no country in which the titles of descent are less instrumental to the fortunes of men than they are in Indostan; none but those of the n>val blood are considered as hereditary nobility; to all others, the exclusion is so absolute, that a new act from the sovereign is necessary to ennoble even the son of the Grand Vizir of the empire. The field of fortune is open to every man who has courage enough to make use of his sword, or to whom nature has given superior talents of mind. Hence it happens, that half the grandees of Indostan have arrived to the highest employments in the empire from conditions not less humble than that of An'war-odean Khan; against whose accession to the Nabobship of the Carnatic, the people had taken an aversion, from causes independent of his personal character.

During the SO years which preceded the visitation of Nizam-almuluck, the Carnatic had been governed by the same family, in a,