Page:A history of the military transactions of the British nation in Indostan.djvu/25

Book VI they ought the more readily to comply with his demands. Having removed the seat of government from Dacca to Muxadavad, in the center of the province, he was better enabled to take cognizance of their affairs; and to discover pretexts and means of distressing them, without openly violating the privileges which they had obtained from Aurengzebe and Azim-al-Shan. Every year of his administration was marked by extraordinary and increasing extortions, not only from the Europeans, but from all ranks of people in the province: at the same time he was as much dreaded for his abilities as detested for his iniquities: and the presidency of Calcutta, not seeing any better resource, proposed in the year 1713, to the company in England, that an embassy of complaint, supported by a valuable present, should be sent to the great Mogul at Delhi; to which the company readily acquiesced, directing the presidencies of Bombay and Madrass to join their grievances in the same petition with those of Bengal. The nomination of the embassadors was left to Mr. Hedges the governor of Calcutta, who chose John Surman and Edward Stephenson, two of the ablest factors in the service there: joining to them an Armenian, named Serhaud, who had for many years been the principal merchant in the settlement. It does not appear, that the presidency had any other lights to direct their proceedings and expectations at Delhi, excepting such as they received from this Armenian, who had never been there; but who was very solicitous to be admitted into this honourable commission, in hopes of getting a great deal of money by the goods he should carry free of charges in the train of the embassy. The presents designed for the Mogul and his officers consisted of curious glass ware, clockwork, toys, brocades, and the finest manufactures of woollen cloths and silks, valued altogether at 30,000 pounds; which Serhaud, in his letters to Delhi, magnified to 100,000, and gave such a description of the rarities which were coming, that the mogul Furrukshir ordered the embassy to be escorted by the governors of the provinces through whose territories it might pass. The train proceeded on the Ganges from Calcutta to Patna, the capital