Page:A history of the military transactions of the British nation in Indostan.djvu/89

Book VI. Bengal, as the rapacious ministers of Surajah Dowlah might have made him believe; more especially since the Nabob Allaverdy never accused the English of such illicit practices. The other article signed by Mr. Watts, concerning the protection given to the subjects of the Nabob, was likewise insisted on; although for fifteen years before Kissendass, the government had never claimed any persons who took up their residence in Calcutta. However, these reflections carrying against no one in particular, it was boldly asserted, that the protection of Kissendass, which certainly did contribute to the Nabob's resentment, had been purchased by large bribes: but this accusation was absurd, because they must have come through his host Omichund, whom the presidency regarded as the first, though latent cause of all their calamities, and punished accordingly. It was likewise asserted, that the governor, Mr. Drake, had written an insolent letter to the Nabob, in answer to his order for demolishing the fortifications; and that he sent a message of defiance to him by the spy who brought the letter concerning Kissendass: reports, for which no evidence was produced.

There is sufficient testimony to believe that the sagacity of Allaverdy, reflecting on the fates of Nazirjing and Chundersaheb, the subsequent war in Coromandel, and the late reduction of Angria, and comparing these military exploits of the French and English with the former humility of their condition in the Mogul's dominions, should have advised his young successor, Surajah Dowlah, to watch the military measures of all the European settlements in Bengal, and to suffer no increase in their garrisons, nor addition in their fortifications, and to crush immediately whichsoever of them should manifest any symptom of defiance, or confidence in their own strength; but at the same time to give every encouragement to their commercial views, not only as an essential benefit to the province, but likewise as the best security of their dependance on his government. This admitted, the disorderly brain of Surajah Dowlah, his excessive cowardice, his tyrannical ideas, and the instigations of his minions, representing Calcutta as one of the richest cities in the world, sufficiently account for his incapacity to distinguish the necessary season of carrying the advice of his predecessor into execution, and for his inflexible perseverance in a resolution