Page:History of Bengali Literature in the Nineteenth Century.djvu/35

 INTRODUCTORY RETROSPECT 11 and consolidate its military power; but it was not till the grant of the Dewani in 1765 that it began to obtain a complete control over finance, over the administration of civil justice, and over the entire ২ ভুলব military defence of the country, DewSni. The accession to the Dewani, which, however, was declined by the Directors on a former occasion, imposed upon the British traders the duties of administration. They began to exercise every prerogative of the sovereign save that of erminal justice.' But even then, though real masters of the country, they preferred to wear the mask of double government. By this device, to all the abuses of the ancient system of government were superadded all the evils of a new system of divided authority. The যা people grew uncertain as to where ment. his obedience was due.2, The Nawab, though theoretically left in his full glory as subahdar, was, in the language of Clive, ’ and was deprived of every “a shadow ” and “ a name,’ independent military and financial support of his executive. The Hon’ble Company, on the other hand, though actual sovereigns, pretended to be nothing more than mere passive receivers of profits and revenues, and the shadow of the Nawab was a convenient covering for all their acts of exaction and oppression. The country was placed under extensive misrule. The individual British adventurer, in the service of the Company, brought up, since the days of Clive, in the tradition of aggression, dethronement, spolia- tion, and extortion, considered high-handed proceedings as his time-honoured privilege, grown eut of the anomalous way in which the British power came into being. These a ' Field, Regulations of the Bengal Code, Introd., p. 4.
 * Verelst, op. cit. App. p. 122.