Page:A history of the military transactions of the British nation in Indostan.djvu/201

Book VII. of Sujah Dowlah, would be submissive until he was better prepared to assert independence. Before this conference Meer Jaffier had determined to recall the detachment; but Major Coote did not receive the orders to return until the beginning of September, and in the interval the troops remained, uninterrupted by any alarms, in the company's factory adjoining to the city. All proceeded in the boats, which left Patna on the 7th of September, and arrived in seven days at Muxadavad, although the distance is 300 miles. The confederacies of ambition are as liable to be broken by success as disappointment. Meer Jaffier had many relations; and not only they, but all others who were his adherents or dependants before his accession to the Nabobship, thought they had the best right to partake of the change of his fortunes; and those, who without previous connexion had acquiesced to the revolution, thought their title better. Rut the donations to the English had exhausted the treasury, and none of the officers of the government could be removed without infringing the declarations by which Jaffier had obtained the general submission to his sovereignty, and which Clive had ratified. Some money had been distributed amongst the army of the government, but much less than they expected; and their discontent acquired presumption by the complaints of the whole populace of Muxadavad, who had beheld with detestation the gold and silver of the capital ostentatiously carried away by foreigners. A large sum still remained due of the first half of the treaty-monies, and the term of the first payment of the second half was approaching, for it fell in October; and the committee at Muxadavad were continually, pressing the treasury for the balance already due. There is no prince in Indostan, who does not try every means to avoid the payment of money, stipulated at a distant period; and Meer Jaffier imagined his liberalities to individuals, who were the heads of the English nation, would relax their strictness in the public terms. But Colonel Clive had neither asked nor stipulated for the presents he tad received; and having refused every other offer from the various interests which composed the government, thought their