Page:A history of the military transactions of the British nation in Indostan.djvu/27

Book VI of the Rajpoot nation; which interrupted all other business, and obliged the embassadors to wait six months before they could gain permission to present their petition.

It was delivered in the month of January of the next year 1716 and contained a variety of requests; "That the cargoes of English ships, which might be wrecked on the Mogul's coast, should not in future be plundered: that a stipulated sum, paid annually to the government of Surat, should exempt the English trade at that port from the Mogul's duties and from the visitations of his officers, who had continually extorted more than they were authorized to demand: that the rupees coined in the mints of Bombay and Madrass should pass in the receipt of the Mogul's revenue: that three villages, contiguous to Madrass, which had formerly been granted, and were afterwards taken back by the government of Arcot, might be restored to the company in perpetuity, subject to the payment of the former fine: that the island of Diu near the port of Masulipatnam might be given to the company, paying for it an annual rent of 7000 pagodas."

In behalf of the presidency of Calcutta, the petition represented all the impositions of the Nabob of Bengal, and proposed, "that they should be obviated by positive orders, that all persons, whether Europeans or natives, who might be indebted or accountable to the company, should be delivered up to the presidency at Calcutta on the first demand: that the officers of the mint at Muxadavad should at all times, when required, allow three days in the week for the coinage of the company's money: and that a passport, or dustuck signed by the president of Calcutta, should exempt the goods it specified from being visited or stopped by the officers of the Bengal government on any pretence whatsoever;" and in order to maintain these excellent privileges, if granted, even in defiance of the Nabob himself, it was requested, "that the English might purchase the lordship of thirty-seven towns, with the same immunities as Azim-al-Shan had permitted them to buy Calcutta, Soota-nutty, and Govindpore."