Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 5.djvu/350

336 one thousand pounds; Clive two hundred and thirty-four thousand pounds; Watts one hundred and seventeen thousand pounds; and the rest of the council, Becher, Marringham, Walsh, Lushington, &c., from sixty thousand pounds down to five thousand pounds each. The army and navy had upwards of six hundred thousand pounds. For the elevation of Meer Cossim, the sums paid to Vausittart, Summer, Holwell, and the rest of the council, including the honorarium to colonel Cailland and major Yorke, were two hundred thousand two hundred and sixty-nine pounds; for restoring Meer Jaffier again, as we shall see, two million one hundred and fifty thousand pounds!



And for similar work with other princes, from 1757 to 1766, the total received by the English officers, civil and military, exclusive of Clive's jaghire, worth thirty thousand pounds a-year, was five million nine hundred and forty thousand four hundred and ninety-eight pounds!

Such were the secret springs which moved our many infamous proceedings in the early acquisition of territory in India. But on this occasion, though Vansittart had pocketed this large bribe from Meer Cossim, the council in Calcutta, who got nothing, voted the terms most dishonourable, and sent a fresh deputation to Cossim at Monghir. This deputation was headed by Mr. Amyott; but as it went to undo what Vansittart had just done, Cossim, who saw no end of exactions, and no security in treating with the English, caused his troops to fall on the unfortunate deputation as they passed through Moorshedabad, and they were all cut to pieces. Here was an end to all agreement with this impracticable man, the council immediately decreed the deposition of Meer Cossim, and the restoration of the more pliant puppet, Meer Jaffier.

The English took the field in the summer of 1763 against Meer Cossim with six hundred Europeans and one thousand two hundred Sepoys. Major Adams, the commander of this force, was vigorously resisted by Meer Cossim, but drove him from Moorshedabad, gained a decided victory over him on the plains of Geriah, and, after a siege of nine days, reduced Monghir. Reduced to his last place of strength in Patna, and feeling that he must yield that, Meer Cossim determined to give one parting example of his ferocity to his former patrons, as, under their protection, he had given many to his own subjects. He had taken prisoners the English belonging to the factory at Patna, amounting to one hundred and fifty individuals. These he caused to be massacred by a renegade Frenchman in his service, named Sombre, but called by the Indians Sumroo. On the 5th of October, after taking away their knives and forks, and